Writer’s Note: A while ago now, I wrote a novella. It was something that I had always wanted to do, and something that you’d probably be likely to spot on a really geeky bucket list. For as long as I can remember, I have always loved writing. Back on my Pentium 256 (or whatever the hell it was), I would sit for hours and type and type and type. There have been many failed projects that I have undertaken, some I finished (ask me about my screenplay that’s collecting dust) and others I didn’t (like a weird serial-killer fiction piece).
I guess the biggest thing for me with this novella was finally being able to actually finish something and publish it. Wow, that was like nothing else in the world. Although it was self-published, and not overly successful, last year I released “Keyboard Warrior.” It was supposed to be the first of a three-part series (yeah, the other two parts will come one day).
I am releasing the novella in its entirety over the course of a few days. I guess, for me, it’s less about trying to make money out of this, and more about sharing a passion. So, read. Share. Enjoy.
It was too much effort to even sit up. It felt like he had gone ten rounds with a heavyweight. His back ached, his head throbbed and his arms felt as if they were concrete. As the minutes passed, reality began to sink in. Dave reached up to the buzzer above his bed and pressed it.
It didn’t take long for a nurse to barge her way in. Dave could see the look of concern on her face the second she got through the door.
Was I really in that bad shape?
“Is everything okay?” the nurse asked as she stepped closer to the bed.
“Yeah. I think I am fine,” Dave replied. “Did I come in with a bag?”
He tried his hardest to get comfortable without moving too much.
“You came in with nothing, but the EMT’s found your spare set of clothes,” she replied.
She could see the look of disappointment on his face right away. It must be heartbreaking to have to be the bearer of bad news for a lot of your working life. Dave coughed and held his ribs as he did. Anything that would usually be a simple everyday task made him hurt. He shuffled up in the bed and tried to smile.
“I guess being alive with nothing is better than being dead with everything,” Dave whispered.
The nurse smiled and looked over the monitors.
“Just buzz someone if you need anything,” she said as she walked out. The next few hours, as long as they felt, were exactly what Dave needed for reflection. He went over the possibilities in his head over and over again.
A concussion in a three-round war could have wiped my memory?
That wasn’t possible. The fights were only scheduled for two rounds.
Maybe I fainted because of the weight cut and hit my head?
A long shot at best. The weight cut was nowhere near what he had done before.
Maybe I was knocked out in the first round?
There was no evidence of tape on Dave’s hands. He was beginning to realise that all of these scenarios were not possible. Looking at his fists, Dave came to the realisation that he wasn’t actually in a fight. Well, a fair one anyway…
The door of his room opened slowly and two men wearing suits came in. Dave had seen enough TV shows. It was obvious these men were detectives. They looked pretty clean cut, their dark brown suits were pristine and they both had standard 9mm service pistols fastened to their waists. One detective was bald, he stood around six-foot tall. The second was much shorter and had spiky brown hair along with a neatly trimmed goatee. Dave couldn’t see any badges, but he knew what they were doing there.
The detective on the right held a notepad. The one on the left just stood there looking at Dave and proceeded to introduce himself.
“I am Detective Mawson, and this is Detective Reid. We need to ask you a few questions, Dave,” he said in a monotone voice.
“I don’t remember anything,” Dave interrupted.
“I can appreciate that, but we are trying to piece this together,” Reid explained.
“What do you want to know?” Dave asked as he tried to move himself into an upright position.
“We have reason to believe that you were a victim of a scam organized by a group of people we have been tracking for about six months,” Reid stated.
“A scam?” Dave replied.
“They look for people through internet chat rooms and forums, and they lure them to a location to rob them,” Reid continued.
Dave’s face said exactly what he was thinking: “the penny had dropped.” No wonder he wasn’t on the tryout list online. No wonder he wasn’t allowed to bring a corner. No wonder there was nobody around at the building.
“Fighters aren’t thugs,” Dave shot back.
“These guys aren’t involved with martial arts at all, Dave. They are con artists,” Reid replied.
How stupid could he have really been? Dave got caught up in what was happening through the internet when he should have just asked Christian to get him a shot at the trials. He went off on his own. Now, here he was, in a hospital bed, paying the price. Dave shifted around in his bed again. He tried to get out of the bed, but he was still in too much pain.
How much longer will this last?
“Do you know how many people there were?” Mawson asked.
Dave just sat there and stared blankly. “I don’t remember a thing,” he replied. “I got there, I walked through the building and then I ended up here. That is all I can recall.”
The detectives made eye contact. They had a look on their faces that said they didn’t exactly believe what Dave was saying. Reid nodded his head to Mawson and began to walk away.
“If you can remember anything, please call us,” Mawson chimed in.
He followed Reid’s lead, and the detectives left the room. Dave once again tried to lift himself from the hospital bed, but still couldn’t bring himself to do it. His head hit the pillow as he lay there staring at the ceiling.
“Why didn’t I just ask Christian?” he said to himself.
It was the same question over and over again, really. Why did he allow himself to be put in this kind of position? The desire of being in the spotlight had blinded him. It all seemed too obvious. Every time he tried to piece together what had happened, it all stemmed back to one thing.
The internet had put him in this situation.
It was getting to the point where he was trying his hardest to hold back the tears. It was very similar to how Dave had felt when he and Jamie parted ways.
Dave felt as if he failed. He had done everything that he thought was right, then it all backfired. If she were around, he probably wouldn’t be in this situation, she would have told him not to worry about it. If she were around she would have made sure that he didn’t become obsessed with what was happening online. If she were around, she could have saved him.
He could have died.
His child could have been without a father.
That is what Jamie wanted anyway, but not like that.
Taking a deep breath, Dave struggled as he moved around in his bed. His unwillingness to give up paid off. Dave was now able to sit upright on the side of the bed. He started to breathe heavily.
His head was spinning. It was almost as if he had a hangover. His head was throbbing, his eyes were heavy and all of his joints ached. He hadn’t felt like this in years. Dave braced himself and eventually pushed himself off the bed to a standing position.
The pain was still pretty bad, but he had to work through it. Nicely folded on a chair to the left of his bed was the spare set of clothes he had taken to the trials. It didn’t seem quite right that they came out of the whole situation without any damage, but at this stage Dave didn’t care. He just wanted to get out of the hospital. Dave hobbled over to the chair and grabbed the clothes. That was all that he had left.
Limping towards the bathroom, he opened the door and tried to get changed as quickly as possible. It wasn’t happening too quickly, though. It was obvious that Dave was still in an immense amount of pain.
Dave tossed the hospital gown to the corner of the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror. The blood had dried and could be seen around his hairline. His eyes were puffy and his jaw was swollen. He didn’t quite look like the picture of health that he once was.
Dave turned the taps on and splashed some water over his face. It did little good. The blood remained where it was and the swelling just began to shimmer under the fluorescent lights.
I can’t sit around here.
Dave opened the door and left the room. Walking through the hospital, he started to think about where he had been before the attack. The walls looked so familiar and nothing like anything he had ever seen before at a trial.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
The word just kept echoing through his head. How many bits of his life was his obsession really going to cost him? It seemed so obvious. Reflecting now, it just didn’t make sense. The hallway that he was following came to an end. Dave had two choices – a staircase and the elevators. He looked at the staircase, then made his way towards the elevator. Dave pressed the button and leaned on the wall. His breathing was heavy. He had not walked that far and yet he was already out of breath.
Ding. The elevator doors opened up. After letting a young lady exit, Dave stepped in. He pressed the button for the ground floor and the doors were just about to close when a foot got in the way. Dave looked up, and in stepped a doctor.
He was tall, dark and handsome.
Now that’s one hell of a clichéd combination. The identification pass that hung around his neck read “Doctor Henry Grant.” He was the kind of doctor that you would expect to see on a daytime television drama. His short brown hair went almost perfectly with his olive skin and dark brown eyes and just made the whole picture work. This doctor hadn’t been involved at all during Dave’s medical proceedings, but Dave had seen him before. He is often a cageside physician for events that take place in the region. He looked young, but as Dave knew with his own profession, age and experience are two very different animals. Dr. Grant stood in the doorway of the elevator and looked at Dave, who was still doing his absolute best to avoid eye contact.
“You know, this isn’t the best idea,” Dr. Grant said as he stepped into the elevator.
“I am not going to sit in there and feel sorry for myself,” Dave replied sharply, all the while still ensuring that his eyes did not meet those of the doctor. Dave continued to lean on the wall of the elevator. He didn’t want to move, but at the same time he wanted to get the hell out of there.
“You need to rest. This isn’t a recovery session after a fight, Dave. This is serious. You were assaulted and nearly lost your life.” The doctor stepped closer, trying to look at Dave, who was still peering down at the floor.
“Look, I don’t need to talk to anyone. I don’t need to lie in a bed and have people tell me I am doing better. I want to go home, have a shower and then keep on doing what I do,” Dave shot back.
“Just so you know, I am going to put a recommendation to the athletic commission that you be suspended from competition for at least six months,” Dr. Grant said with a sigh as he turned to leave the elevator.
Dave couldn’t believe what he had heard. He looked up for the first time since the doctor had entered the elevator and pushed himself off the wall.
“I need this,” Dave growled as he stepped closer to Grant.
“You were assaulted. You have head trauma, memory loss and quite possibly a serious concussion. I can’t let you fight, and if that’s what will get through to you, then that’s what is going to happen.” The doctor wasn’t backing down as Dave came closer still.
“This is all I know, and you aren’t taking it away from me,” Dave whispered as he reached over to press the “G” button on the elevator.
“There is more to life than fighting, Dave,” Dr. Grant replied as he finally stepped completely out of the elevator.
“Not for me,” Dave countered as the doors closed. It was a quick trip to the ground floor, where the doors opened. Brushing past a group of people he started down the one way corridor. He passed the ground floor waiting room and couldn’t bear to look at the faces of the people waiting to be seen.
Everyone looks so depressed.
It was only a short walk to the front doors, but it took him a little longer than what it usually would. He hobbled past the reception desk and could feel the stares as he made his way to the freedom of the front doors. Dave was sweating from under his arms and his breathing continued to get heavier and heavier. His head was swelling and his vision started to blur.
Perhaps he should have listened to the doctor’s orders.
The automatic doors opened as Dave stepped towards them. It was so humid outside, and the sweating was now not only coming from his upper body but also from around his forehead. The beads of sweat ran down his face. As gathered in the corner of his mouth, Dave could taste the blood.
The sunlight was bright. It made Dave dizzier than before. He looked around and saw a wooden bench to the right of the doors. Limping over to it was a chore on its own, but finally he was able to sit down. Dave put his head back and closed his eyes. The sun was hot. He could feel it burning his skin, but he didn’t care. All he could think about was what had happened to him.
The same thing just kept repeating itself in his mind. It wasn’t the fault of the internet, he had become a victim. There was still so much that social media could do for his career and for his livelihood. It wasn’t his fault that he was taken advantage of.
Was it?
The thoughts started to get deeper. He could visualize himself in the centre of a cage. He was in the middle of a fight and things were going his way. The crowd was cheering. The place was electric.
“Dave! Dave! Dave!”
That is all that he could hear. It sounded like his corner. He turned around to look, and there was Dr. Grant yelling and pointing towards Dave’s opponent. He turned back and was met by an enormous uppercut.
An almighty twitch followed as Dave opened his eyes quickly to find himself still on the bench. Right in front of him was the doctor, down on one knee. He had his hand on Dave’s leg, shaking it and repeating Dave’s name over and over again. Rolled up in his other hand was a piece of paper.
“You need to get back into a bed, Dave,” Dr. Grant instructed.
Dave was still not aware of what was going on. He looked down at the doctor and pushed the hand away.
“I’m fine,” he replied as he tried to get up.
“You just passed out on a bench as soon as you walked out the doors. You aren’t fine and you need to come with me, or you need to sign a release,” the doctor replied, his frustration apparent in his tone.
Dave didn’t have a lot of interest in taking the doctor’s advice. He pulled himself up from the bench, grabbed the pen out of the doctor’s top pocket, took the rolled-up piece of paper out of the doctor’s hands and signed it. “Thanks Doc, I can take care of myself.”
He started to make his way towards the bus stop, which was in his view. He left Dr. Grant there in front of the hospital. In reality, Dave didn’t have to listen to the doctor, and there wasn’t anything the physician could do to prevent Dave from leaving. Limping down the walkway, Dave still couldn’t take his mind off his throbbing head. The bus stop was only about one hundred metres away, but once again it was taking some time for him to get to his intended destination.
He could see the bus getting closer. His desperate hobbling soon turned to a fast-paced walk. Dave started to wave his arms at the bus in an almost desperate motion. He wasn’t a public-transport aficionado and wasn’t entirely sure of the timetables or what buses were going to go end up where, but he did know that to get away from the hospital he was going to have to get on that bus.
It pulled up slowly, and Dave leaned over to catch his breath. As the doors swung open, a couple of passengers stepped off. Dave reached toward his back pocket and realised that this was going to prove difficult.
He had no wallet.
He had no money with him at all.
He looked up at the bus driver, who could obviously see that Dave had been in some kind of trouble. The bruises on his face and the way that he was limping were pretty good indications that things weren’t exactly going his way. The driver smiled and motioned for Dave to step on the bus.
“My shout,” he said as Dave made his way up the stairs.
“Thanks,” Dave replied.
It wasn’t something that Dave would ever do. He wouldn’t take charity. That was something that he got from his mother early on in life. Their situation growing up was less than desirable, but she never took a handout. She worked hard for her money. In this scenario, though, Dave didn’t have much of a choice. His mother would have told him to walk, but Dave just wanted to get home. He just wanted this whole thing to be over.
Making his way to the middle of the bus, Dave took a seat. He leaned up against the window as the bumpy ride home began. Dave wanted to break down in tears. The frustration of what had happened was all starting to become too overwhelming.
That’d be a sight, wouldn’t it?
If he could remember each detail vividly, it probably wouldn’t be so bad. But the biggest thing that was eating away at him was that he didn’t know what happened or why it had happened to him. It only took a few seconds for Dave to start thinking about the forums again.
That was what put him in this situation, but all he could think about was getting home and logging on. He wasn’t even concerned with finding who had done this to him, really. All he wanted to do was go back to where he was safe. There was so much opportunity passing him by, but in his mind the sport thrived online and his seclusion from social media was starting to make him even more irrelevant.
It had only been one day.
His eyes started to become heavy once again, and it didn’t take long for him to fall asleep inside the bus. Most people would be worried about awaking to a fellow passenger helping themselves to their wallet, but Dave didn’t have that problem. Besides, he literally had nothing. The throbbing of his head had subsided, the pain in his ribs had almost just disappeared and the sleep was helping.
“Excuse me!” a voice echoed. It was far away but managed to cut through Dave’s sleep.
Dave started to come to. He looked up, towards the front of the bus, to see the driver out of his seat and beginning to walk down the aisle.
“We are at the end of the route,” the driver continued.
After looking around the bus in an attempt to get his bearings, Dave realised that he was the only one left. The sun was starting to set and he had no idea where he was.
“Where are we?” Dave asked as he reached up to the seat to pull himself up.
“At the depot,” the driver replied.
Dave shook his head and started to hobble down the aisle again. It would take a few days for him to be able to return to training, that was for sure. He made his way past the driver and looked out the window to see all the buses parked side by side. This wasn’t going to be a very fun trip home. The depot was at least a one-hour walk away from his house.
After getting down the stairs of the bus, Dave started to walk through the depot. He could hear the driver shutting the bus door behind him, the slamming of the door against the bus echoed throughout the empty depot. It was late in the afternoon, but the whole area was quiet, almost peaceful. After getting to the dual gates at the front of the depot, Dave started off down the highway. There wasn’t much room to walk, so he was forced to stay along the shoulder of the road.
With each step he took he felt himself getting more and more tired. He hadn’t had a decent sleep since the “accident,” and although it was only around twenty-four hours ago, it was starting to take its toll on Dave. As he continued to walk down the highway, almost by instinct he would try to reach into his pocket for his phone.
It was driving him crazy that he was out of touch with the world that he had become so familiar with. It had now gotten to the point that it was making him pick up his pace. That one-hour walk was something that Dave just couldn’t handle. With each minute he was away from Twitter, a perceived opportunity was passing. He could have been called for a fight offer. He could have been contacted to take a last-minute fight on a high-profile show.
The thought never really occurred to Dave that perhaps he should have worked harder for his opportunities, that he should have done things the way that Christian was forced to so many years ago. The days of hard work had long passed in Dave’s mind. It was all about the “then and now,” and it was all about how you portrayed yourself in the media. The fans want to see you, and the promoters want a return on their investment.
The way that Dave saw it, the internet had perfected the sport. There was so much opportunity and there wasn’t as much hard work to do. For others, though, it was a hard life. If you wanted to focus on perfecting your craft and be seen on talent alone, there was a long road ahead. With each new talented fighter on the circuit, there were already three others in front of him trying to make a living. Gone were the days of mixed martial arts being the lone wolf of the sports pack. No longer did fighters have to use agents and managers to get their fights seen by scouts. Now, everything was available at the click of a mouse.
However, many, including Christian, believed the internet had destroyed the sport.
Just like it had done to Dave’s mind.
The hour-long walk actually turned out to be around two hours. It was hard enough to walk that route when healthy. In Dave’s condition, it just made things all the more harder.
It was dark and the moonlight was all that was keeping Dave going. He knew he had to get home to get on the forums again and, perhaps, to rest, if the opportunity presented itself.
Maybe those priorities were a little out of kilter.
The long walk home came to an end as Dave turned the final corner. He started to walk towards his house, a look of complete exhaustion on his face. Once he walked through the gate, he made his way to the front door, stopped and rested his head on it. He sighed as the realisation hit him that his keys were in his gym bag.
Softly, he banged his head on the door and began to hobble around to the back of the house. As he made his way through the bushes along his house, he tried one of the windows—dead-bolted shut. He sighed and continued until he was in his backyard. Dave hadn’t really had the chance to get much of his yard work done in, well, forever. The grass was overgrown and the weeds throughout the area looked like they were from some kind of failed science experiment. He forced his way through the shrubs and to the back door.
Luckily—or what really could have been unluckily, if an opportunistic thief was in the neighbourhood—the back door was left unlocked. A smile came to Dave’s face as he pushed the door open. Finally, he was home, where he felt most comfortable. As he walked through his laundry room, he kicked off his shoes and took off his sweaty shirt. He was on a mission to get to the bedroom. Most people in this kind of situation would probably go for a nice shower and then a big dose of sleep, but Dave had other things on his mind.
He leaped onto his bed and fired up his laptop. The pain that he had been feeling just moments ago had subsided now. He tapped his fingers on the base of keyboard impatiently as he watched the Windows logo flash up on the screen.
“Come on,” he said to himself as he stared at the logo. The computer eventually booted up, and it took Dave all of about three seconds to open an internet browser. His heart was racing much like it had when he was heading to what he thought was the Florida Fighting Alliance trials. The ProFighting.com webpage loaded up straight away. Dave ignored the headlines. His eyes went straight to the forums.
He sat there for hours.
There was only about forty-eight hours’ worth of content he hadn’t read, but for Dave it was like he had been out of the loop for months. He made post after post in thread after thread. He was in his own place. He was happy again. As stupid as it sounded, this was the best healing that could have been administered to him. It was certainly nothing that the doctor would have ever prescribed.
The clock by his bedside ticked over to 3:17 A.M. After trawling through twelve pages worth of posts, Dave’s eyes were beginning to feel heavy again. He looked at the clock, yawned and shut the lid of his laptop. He sat back in his bed and his head hit the pillow. It would have been smart for him to just close his eyes and rest, but so many things kept running through his mind.
How long will it take to be a true star?
When will I fight next?
How can I get people to notice me?
When will I get more Twitter followers?
I wonder how Jamie is..?