Ford
PAIN MAKES ME FEEL HUMAN.
Pain is something I cherish and savour, whether it is being inflicted upon myself or someone else. Pain comes in the form of actions or words or emotions. Every lick of ire and agony at my nerves jolts me, making me feel alive and I almost groan at the delirious sensations. It reminds me that in some regards, I'm just like everyone else, but when reality smacks back in, I'm brutally more aware of just how different I am.
My lip is stinging where I know blood will be oozing from the wound. The pain isn't incentivising me to continue; as someone used to pain it's akin to a mere tickle for me. What makes me send a sharp uppercut to the six-foot guy in front of me—only an inch or two shorter than me—to elicit a sickening jerk and stumble backwards from him isn't the tickle dancing on my lip.
It's the fact that I have a three hundred grand bet riding on my win in this light heavyweight boxing match. That's usually my go-to wager.
It's rare I ever fucking lose.
We're in our seventh round of three minutes, surely approaching the round termination soon. Roughly halfway. He—whatever the fuck his name is—is beginning to flag, his movements limp and sluggish. His punches don't pack much heat behind them. His stamina has an abundance of space for improvement, but that is where I shine through. While I managed to get in some furtive and hard-hitting hooks earlier, meanwhile he'd been too busy protecting his face and he'd tried to swing between my defences. Luckily for me my reflexes are a hell of a lot better than his.
As I know he'll manage to garner some strength for the eighth round during our imminently approaching one-minute break, I stray from head shots and slip in some sneaky liver punches, knowing just where to hit on my opponent.
The crowd is deafeningly silent. Although I know they'll be hollering words of encouragement and motivation, I block them out. Most of the crowd forms part of Red Alert and needs me to win in order to continue the legacy and notoriety I've constructed in the past few years. But of course, you get the odd non-member paying their extortionate admission fee for a prestigious taste of what life could be like. For how the other half live. They're forced to sign a pretty fucking tight NDA of what happens inside this stadium, and if they break it?
Trust me, they'd rather be dead.
"Keep your cool," my boxing coach, Renner, had instructed before the match as a constant reminder. "Anger makes your punches sloppy and you lose your technique."
He is also an active member of Red Alert, of course.
Red Alert is like a cult that festers and thrives in Westville. About a hundred years ago it was formed by a small group of men wanting to make some illegitimate money quickly. They went abroad and networked connections, instigating illicit business deals and sordid promises. Back in Westville, they started selecting women that took their fancy and exploited their attraction to them. They indulged them by taking them abroad to the same place with their illegal connections and sold them via human trafficking in exchange for excessive amounts of money.
That legacy has continued to now, but as I am now part of the next generation, our schemes have differed. Red Alert has broadened to the police department, the highest businessmen, doctors working at West Hospital and even private investigators, to name a few. Usually those who are not born into Red Alert are approached for their remarkable and notorious expertise in their professional fields, and though their children are not born into Red Alert, their wives/husbands are linked to the legacy. Drugs and weaponry are large factors in modern day Red Alert's business activities (human trafficking is more of a special occasion commemorated with lavish galas) as they are manufactured and sold across state-wide mental asylums, hospitals and to addicts.
