Bring the Next One

THE BELL.

‘IT’S OVER, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. VASQUEZ TAKES THE WIN TO BECOME A HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION OF THE WORLD.’

He lay on the canvas, staring at the white towel his coach had thrown toward him. A knockout in the fourth round. An embarrassment. His face was submerged in the crimson pool of his own blood, the bright, sharp metallic smell filling his nostrils. Teammates and assistants rushed over, pulling him onto the stool. The physician shouted his name loudly, competing with the roar of the arena — the buzzing crowd congratulating the champion. The real winner.

“Alex, Alex? You with us.”

A nod. “Yes.”

He stared at his hands. The wrapped tapes were stained with red. Not his blood — Vasquez’s. The blood of a winner. The blood that didn’t matter.

“Look at the light, Alex. Please.”

He knew the drill. Concussion protocol. He’d done this a dozen times. Eye tracking. Pupil response. Neck mobility. Numbness in the extremities.

“Follow my finger with your eyes. Keep your head still.”

He obeyed, but his gaze drifted past the physician’s hand to the hallway. His coach stood there, ignoring the chaos — the roaring crowd, the family members pushing through security, the reporters shouting questions. The coach’s expression said everything, he already knew:

You weren’t good enough. You gave up.

“I lost.” The words came out under his breath, quiet enough that no one around him could hear, but loud enough to cement failure into his mind.

“He seems fine,” the physician said. “Help him get to the locker room.”

He placed a hand on Alex’s shoulder, offering a warm smile. “You did well, kid. You’ll be back in no time.”

The words meant nothing.

Team representatives slung his arms over their shoulders and guided him out of the ring.

The applause wasn’t for him. The speech wasn’t his. As they carried him down the aisle, he glanced back at his corner. Empty. Only family members stood there. Everyone else had already moved on.

Vasquez’s voice echoed through the speakers:

“I want to take this moment to thank each and every one of my supporters for staying with me, for believing in me until the very end.”

Alex wondered: if he were standing there, would his fans stayed? Or would they have become Vasquez’s?

There was no way to know.

The locker room smelled like copper and sweat. He sat on the bench, staring at his hands. They were shaking. Pulsating. He didn’t want to unwrap the tapes — not yet. The adrenaline crash hit hard, throwing his body into a cold, trembling state. It felt like ants were crawling under his skin, tearing his flesh apart and tickling him to death at the same time. His jaw hung slack, drool pooling at the corner of his mouth despite the harsh lesson it received. The mirror across from him reflected a face he didn’t recognise. Swollen. Purple. His left eye was nearly shut, his lip split open, bruises masking what had been a youthful face just hours before. His nose sat crooked, a dark trail of dried blood running from nostril to lip.

The damage didn’t scare him.

The look in his eyes did.

No fire. No resemblance to the winner he’d seen in the same mirror a week ago. No resemblance to the man who pushed himself to the edge every single time. Fear crept in. The trembling intensified. The ants beneath the skin stopped tickling and started biting.

Behind him, the door swung open.

The coach stepped in. Face blank.

“Why are you trembling?”

Alex looked up but said nothing.

“What, you gonna start crying now?”

He didn’t know what the coach wanted to hear. So he stared at his reflection. Defeated.

The coach sighed. Dropped a towel at Alex’s feet.

“Go home. Get yourself together. Don’t come back to my gym until you’re ready to die for this.”

The coach turned and left. His heavy footsteps echoed down the corridor. Alex waited until the sound faded to pick up his phone. He knew what he’d find. Still, some part of him hoped for the opposite.

FROM CHAMP TO CHUMP: A paper champion who finally met a real man.

“Well, Jaret, he had the skills, but what was that fight? No fire whatsoever. It’s like they paid him to lose.”

“I’m not so sure about the skills part, Andrew. How many shots did he actually land?”

THE PRESSURE CRACKED ALEXANDER VYTKO: A BUSINESSMAN, NOT A KILLER?

“Bro, the guy’s been posting so many IG videos for nothing. Most overrated modern boxer.”

“Why do people keep saying he underperformed. He performed exactly how we expected lol.”

The phone’s glow was the only light left in the locker room. He scrolled deeper, digging himself further into the hole — hoping to see one positive comment. The calls kept flooding in — ten from his mother, five from his friend, three from his girlfriend. He didn’t want to talk. Even if he did answer, what would he say? He’d only be able to recite the quotes he’d been reading for the past hour.

Paper champion.

No fire whatsoever.

A businessman, not a killer.

The calls kept coming in. Outside, he could still hear the buzz of celebration spilling from the arena. Cheering. Support. All of it should have been his. Only his. The room breathed with him, matching his despair. It inhaled when he did, drawing the public’s verdict. Both held their breath. Neither exhaled.

He turned off his phone. Threw it into the bag. Stood up. Started moving.

The cold air hit him as he stepped outside.

He wasn’t going home.

He pushed the gym’s back door open. Empty. The punching bags hung motionless, staring at him. All the equipment looked like challenges he failed to overcome. Each training tool mocking him, pressing down from above, calling him weak.

A pussy.

But nothing terrified him as much as the ring in the centre. It looked like a beast that had swallowed him whole and left nothing behind. He spotted the jump rope at his feet. Grabbed it. Stood beneath the single bulb overhead — just enough light to see his reflection. He started skipping.

For the first time in weeks, he didn’t put his headphones in. The voices in his head and the whip of a jump rope were enough. Soon, the arena sounds joined in. Crowd roar, the thud of gloves on flesh. Vasquez materialised in front of him. Smiling. Relaxed. He threw his hands out to the sides, loading up for another shot to his body.

A liver shot — second round.

Alex’s stomach curled just like back then, a nausea bloomed in his gut. He clenched his abdominal muscles and jumped faster.

THUNK. THUNK.

Arena’s noise grew louder. His lungs burned, scratching him from inside. His nose alone couldn’t keep up; the mouth took over. The familiar sting spread through chest as the memory played on.

Timeout. Between rounds three and four. That’s when he’d lost it.

A coach patted his back, told him to push harder. Round three had been his best — if he was going to win, that was the moment. He returned to the ring, lungs recovered, Vasquez’s blood still wet on his gloves. Proof he had to keep going. One hand glued to his chin, the other keeping distance, shifting his head — left, right, up. He was inviting Vasquez to make a mistake. Taunting him.

It felt right.

Until Vasquez’s fist connected with his chin. Simple fake to distract the defence, then shot that ended everything. Ten seconds into round four. His limbs went numb, body became too heavy to hold up. His knees forgot their purpose, wobbling, barely supporting his weight. The cramp in present seized his hamstring. A phantom pain from past. A quiet grunt, the new jagged ache increased the tempo.

THUNK. THUNK.

He remembered the rest clearly. The ref counting. A roar of the crowd turned to a gasp, then to a celebration. He’d lain there, unwilling to get up. Or unable. He still wasn’t sure. Coach’s face said it all:

You didn’t even try.

He threw the rope aside and walked to the heavy bag.

THUD. THUD.

Punches landed hard. The dried blood on his tape wraps darkened, fresh blood was seeping through. His knuckles itched as he threw harder with each punch. He wasn’t rehearsing the series of punches like usual; it was a pure ego. Raw power.

Not efficient. But effective.

Left hook. Right hook.

Left hook. Right hook.

The bag swallowed the punches and swung back through the inertia. He met it with his forearm, threw his full weight into it, absorbed the shock through his shoulders. Crack. He ignored it.

THUD.

His body smelled like shit, the gut-level stench of exhaustion, the smell of limits he’d always pushed past:

“I’m not tired. You’re not tired.”

THUD.

Left hook. Right hook.

“Not tired.”

He was panting, breathing turned to ragged gasps. Each punch harder than the last, until he wasn’t breathing. He was screaming.

He faced himself in the mirror. His hands trembled.

“You’re not this weak.” The words forced themselves through the clenched jaw. Teeth ground together out of pure fury.

“You never were.”

“You wouldn’t dare to stop.”

A pressurized hiss.

“You can’t stop.”

He struck the mirror. A scream tore from deep in his chest.

“YOU CAN’T.”

His knuckles buried themselves in the glass. The mirror fractured, the image spreading across his own reflection. Irritated face, raging eyes, and slightly twitchy mouth. He pulls his fist back with the remaining glass. The broken man in the mirror was gone. The weak one had left. A terrifying smile spread across his face. He’d woken the killer.

He lay on the bench. Gripped the bar grip wide. Blood dripped from his knuckles as he unracked it.

One.

Two.

Slow controlled motions. Blood rushed to his face. Veins bulged in his neck.

Three.

Four.

A twinge in his shoulder.

“Two more.”

Hand started twitching. Grip loosened.

Five.

A roar left him. Short. Violent. Spit flew from his mouth.

Six.

He racked it. The sweet sound of steel on steel.

Squat rack. The barbell rested on his shoulders. His legs erupted in a needle-like sensation, as if each muscle fiber was stabbed from within.

“I will prove them. All of them.”

He took a deep breath, felt it expand down into his pelvis. The pressure built in his quads and glutes. They are screaming for mercy. He didn’t give one.

Another rep.

Another rep.

The knees hesitated, but obeyed the brain’s command — up and down, up and down. He racked the weight and dropped to the floor. He began sliding his wrists down his thighs.

A manical grin stretched across his face:

“Again.”

Jump rope back in his wrists. Skipping felt easier now, but the breath still cut him from inside. Each jump, another stab to his lungs.

Blood trailed from his nose. He opened his mouth and licked the results of his effort.

Satisfying.

He felt the skin on his toes peeling, flapping against the floor with each jump. He stopped. Grabbed his foot and tore the dead skin off in one pull. Work’s not done yet.

THUNK. THUNK.

“Harder.”

THUNK.

“HARDER.”

The nausea that had been building for the past hour woke up. A warm, defiant presence in his throat. He clenched his jaw tighter, teeth aching, blocking the uprising.

But his body had other plans.

A hot, sour jet of fluid burst past the clenched teeth, splattering between the feet. A gut-wrenching spasm followed, as he still stood there. He stepped through the vomit. Back to the bag.

Cross. Left hook. Jab

THUD. THUD. THUD. THUD.

Each punch more confident than the last. He liked what he saw in the mirror.

Strike after strike jolted up his arm. A crispy pop echoed when he pulled off the gloves. His fingers weren’t broken. Weren’t sprained. That wasn’t the reason to stop.

Hot, sickening pain coiled up his wrist. Throbbing, pulsating ache. The bulb above him started to flicker. It wasn’t. His vision. Blinking became compulsive.

His body was winning. He was losing.

Again.

The bar was off the rack. The normal stretch in the pectoral turned to burning tension.

“PUSH.”

Body obeyed.

Dopamine flooded him.

He was winning. Winning against himself.

Blood dripped from his nose again. He beat his fist against his chest, roaring:

“I’M HERE.”

One more set. He stared at the squat rack. His legs weren’t carrying him anymore ­­– he was carrying them. Alex limped towards it, each step intentional.

He unracked the weight. His walkout: a three-step stumble, enough for him to descend.

His brain screamed at him to stop.

He didn’t.

The knees started to tremble.

“One more rep.”

Lower back seized ­– catastrophic spasm. He clenched his jaw, hissed through his teeth. Pain radiated up his spine, white-hot and sharp.

“One more.”

The barbell pressed into his elbows. The same elbows that had shaken on the last rep. They bent slightly backwards.

“One more.”

His biceps felt it was splitting apart.

It was.

A wet, ripping sound inside his body. The first time he’d ever heard that.

“One more.”

Vision betrayed him ­– everything blurred. He swayed but held himself upright — refusing to collapse forward or back.

His shoulders cracked. Once. Twice. The only sounds competing with his own grunting.

“ONE MORE.”

His knees buckled inward.

A sudden, violent drop.

The barbell fell.

He followed.

His lungs didn’t find the exhale.

The body. What was left of it — hit the floor.

Heavy.

Wet.

Like meat.

His chest didn’t rise. His eyes stared at the flickering bulb overhead. Unseeing.

He lost.

Again.

The next morning, the assistant found…. him. It?

He stood in the doorway for a long moment, staring. Then he pulled out his phone and called the coach.

“We got a situation.”

Twenty minutes later, the coach walked into the gym, seeing the leftovers of Alex’s body being pinned to the floor. Head tilted to the side, eyes open, staring at nothing. The barbell had rolled into the corner, leaving a faint trail behind.

The coach stared at what was in front of him. Then shook his head. A slow, disapproving movement.

“So…” the assistant shifted his weight from left to right. “What do we do now, coach?”

He ran a hand through his hair. Sighed.

“Bring the next one.”

The assistant nodded.

“And clean it up. We’ve got training in an hour.”

The coach turned and walked out.

Behind him, the assistant picked up the mop.

Started sweeping.