Alya
5 months ago.
Pain was a fickle thing. It had a way of burrowing under your skin, of making a home in your bones, of carving its name into the deepest parts of you until you didn't know where it ended and you began. I had spent years enduring it, training with it, letting it shape me into something sharper, deadlier. The taste of copper flooded my mouth as my head snapped sideways, another brutal blow landing across my jaw. A choked sound escaped me as blood sprayed onto the cold, unforgiving concrete. The pain splintered through my skull like a hammer against glass, my vision blurring at the edges.
"Get up."
The voice that cracked through the thick, pulsing haze in my head. Sharp. Unforgiving. Impatient.
"Up," he ordered, his voice cutting through the ringing in my ears.
I coughed, the taste of iron thick on my tongue as I blinked rapidly, trying to clear my vision. I barely had the strength to tilt my head up, but I knew he was there standing on the balcony above, watching. Always watching.
Even through the dizzying pain, I could make out the irritation in his stance, the way his fingers curled against the railing, his sharp eyes boring into me like I was a waste of space. And maybe, at this moment, I was.
I had failed. Again.
Three times in one week.
That was a record for me. In twelve years of training under his command, I had never lost this many consecutive fights. My body ached, not just from the brutal impacts but from the weight of disappointment.
Why?
Why couldn't I get it right? Why was I slipping? Why couldn't I do what I was made to do?
I clenched my jaw, the sting of failure sharper than the pain in my ribs. My fingers curled into the blood-speckled floor as I forced my battered body to move.
Breathe. Push through. Again.
I dragged myself up onto unsteady feet, muscles trembling with exhaustion. My breathing was uneven, shallow, but I managed to slip into the familiar stance, the same one I had been drilled on since childhood.
Above me, he said nothing.
He didn't need to. His silence was heavier than his words could ever be.
I didn't dare look at him. Instead, my gaze locked onto the smirking face standing across from me.
Hule.
If I hated anything more than losing, it was him.
Hule stood there effortlessly, rolling his shoulders, wiping my blood off on his shirt like it was an afterthought. Golden boy. The top of our class. The one who had been praised since we were kids, the one who could do no wrong. He was everything I should have been.
His stance mirrored mine, but I knew better than to think this was an even match. Hule was ruthless, fast, and calculated. And unlike me, he never failed.
I gritted my teeth, already anticipating his move.
Hule never played defense. He was always on the attack, relentless and overwhelming, like a storm crashing through everything in its path. And I was just a drowning body in its wake.
He lunged. I saw the movement before it happened, the slight shift in his weight, the twitch of his fingers, the subtle giveaway. Uppercut.
I twisted at the last second, narrowly avoiding the impact. But Hule was fast. And he knew I'd dodge. Which is why I barely had time to register the sickening force of his fist slamming into my abdomen. My breath ripped from my lungs as I folded in on myself, knees hitting the ground.
Shit.
A fresh wave of nausea rolled over me, my body screaming in protest, but the only sound I heard was his voice.
"I said up."
I barely managed to lift my gaze, my vision hazy and darkening at the edges. His figure loomed above on the balcony, an unmoving shadow against the dim lighting. The world around me was spinning, my limbs sluggish, my heartbeat a slow, pounding drum in my ears.
He was waiting. Expecting.
But I couldn't move. My limbs refused. My vision swam. The pain, the exhaustion, the sheer weight of it all pressed down on me, dragging me into nothingness. Darkness crashed down like a tidal wave, pulling me under before I could fight back.