Back to the Arena

“And one hundred!”

Val finally finished her hundredth lap around her neighborhood. She got back to the gym from her morning run, sweating and huffing profusely. In her arms, she carried groceries she had bought from the local CyMart. It was the cheapest stuff she could find.

“Bread,” she called out. “Bought some stuff for breakfast.” It was awfully quiet though. “Bread?” No answer. “Bread!”

Was he hiding somewhere? Inside the walls? Under the table? There was nowhere to hide here. It was a gym. It was wide open. With the shoddy renovation she’d done, the place was severely lacking in everything. Especially the furniture.

But then where was he? Was he kidnapped? No. Calm it, Val. He had a tendency to run around, didn’t he? Maybe he was sleeping?

She ran over to the backroom to check.

No Bread.

Calm down, she told herself. Don’t freak out. He was probably just out on an adventure or something. No, but if he was, he would’ve told her before he’d left.

This wasn’t normal.

She made her way out to the front to check if there were any signs of struggling. Or maybe even just specks of blood.

No, everything looked normal.

She peered over at the roofs of neighboring buildings.

Nothing. No signs of movement.

What the fuck? He wasn’t inside. He wasn’t outside. He wasn’t watching the sun or the stars. There where? Where was he? Was he in the backyard? She knew he liked looking at flowers. Maybe next to Coach?

She sprinted to the backyard. 

“Bread?” she called out, but there was still no answer. Where the hell… And then she saw something. Hanging off Coach’s headstone—

A brand new pair of boxing gloves.

“Bread…?” She knelt down. There was also a fresh pair of hand wraps. He had promised to get her gloves. She remembered him mentioning it… But where was he? Did he…

No…

“You couldn’t just stay?” She dropped down next to Coach. Something warm and wet rolled down her cheeks. “You just had to go too?” She pulled the gloves close and held them tightly to her chest. “Without even saying goodbye…”

Someone called her name.

“Coach?” She looked up. Nobody was there. Just her hallucinations…

She got up and took a deep breath.

“Okay, fine.” She wiped the tears away. At this rate, she was going to go insane. All this negativity was eating her brains out. “I’ll show you. I’ll win!” Her heart started to thump with vigor. “So you guys better be watching!”

This was just the beginning.