Blood ran down my forehead incessantly. So much so, that I barely noticed how several drops slipped into my eyes, blurring my vision for a few seconds. Seconds I couldn't afford.
The bustle of the audience was deafening, almost terrifying. Every shout, every applause, was a sentence against me. Everyone was there to watch me fall, from the first to the last. No one understood the situation in which he lived. No one knew why I was here.
But that didn't matter now. At this moment, there was only one truth: it was all or nothing.
"Come on, you fucking tadpole... Don't go away and fight!"
The metallic taste of blood filled my mouth. My legs trembled like a banner in the middle of a blizzard. My head was screaming "Kill him!", but my body whispered "Enough... enough is enough."
Who should I listen to? The answer was obvious.
The man in front of me, an ordinary guy with a steely determination, threw himself without thinking about the consequences. He was not a professional, but he did know how to take advantage of the mistakes of those who acted without control.
The blow came faster than I expected. I felt the air cut my cheek before the impact threw me to the ground. The world turned, blurred, full of red lights and screams that mingled in an unbearable hum.
"Get up, you damned child!" someone shouted from the stands.
I gritted my teeth. Not out of pride, but out of rage. Anger at having to keep breathing when everything in me was asking to stop.
I sat up awkwardly. The other guy was smiling, sure of himself. I didn't know I was fighting someone who had nothing left to lose.
I ran to him without thinking. The body moved on its own, driven by fear and tiredness. A failed right hand, a knee to the abdomen, the taste of iron again. Then a blow, dry, accurate.
The man fell.
There was no applause. Only silence.
My fists were shaking, and for a second I thought it was one of satisfaction. But no. It was guilt.
The lights of the cars parked at the exit of the alley cast my shadow on the body of the man lying on the ground. For an instant, it seemed that everything had ended well. Or at least, for tonight.
Then he appeared.
An unmistakable guy, whether it was for his perfectly trimmed goatee or for his rough way of walking. He made his way through the crowd with a naturalness that was scary. People walked away without saying a word.
His direct path to me was enough for everyone to understand who was in charge there.
He stopped in front of me, smiling. A smile so forced that even the devil himself would have shivered.
He held out his hand.
Without thinking twice, I accepted it.
"Well done, boy," he said in a raspy but firm voice. Thanks to this fight, your debt is reduced by a third.
His words were lost in the murmur of the audience. He wasn't able to process them, he didn't even know for sure what he was doing there. Or did I just not care about anything anymore?
"A third," I murmured, almost without realizing it.
The man turned and walked to his car. Just before he got in, he stopped, opened the door, and rested one foot on the frame.
"And remember what happens if you don't show up," he said with a blood-curdling calmness.
Then he closed the door, started the engine, and the roar of the car echoed through the walls of the alley.
I stood there, still, as the taillights disappeared at the end of the street.
The spectators left without looking back, without saying a word. In a matter of minutes, the place was plunged into a deathly silence.
I went to the corner where I had left my clothes and put them on as best I could. The rubbing of the cloth on the wounds drew a groan of pain from me, but I did not stop. I had to get out of there before anyone asked too many questions.
Before leaving the alley, I turned one last time. The man's body was still there, motionless, unconscious. No one seemed to care about him. After all, if someone found a bloodied guy next to a pile of clothes, they'd think it was another drunken fight. Nothing else.
As I left, the wind hit me sideways and almost threw me off balance. My legs were shaking, ready to fail me at any moment, and I couldn't do anything about it.
It was almost funny. The few people who walked down the street looked at me out of the corner of their eyes, with curiosity or fear, but no one said anything. No one asked why a boy covered in blood and with torn clothes wandered alone at midnight.
I walked aimlessly for several minutes, my head down and my hands buried in my pockets. The sound of my footsteps mixed with that of the fine rain that began to fall, forming a monotonous rhythm that kept me conscious.
The neon lights of the closed shops flickered in the distance, distorted by the drops that fell on my eyelashes. In every window I saw my reflection: a boy with a bruised face and a lost look. A stranger.
I crossed a zebra crossing without looking to the sides. At that hour, not even cars bothered to pass through here.
Tiredness accumulated in my bones. Each step hurt more than the last, and the cold got in through the holes in his jacket.
A few streets from home, the silence was almost absolute. All I could hear was the distant hum of a lamppost and the creak of the wet asphalt under my shoes.
For a moment, I wished I would never get there.
But fate is always cruel to cowards.
I turned the last corner and there it was: the old blue door, with the paint peeling and the number half erased. The light from the inner corridor filtered through the frame, warm, weak, familiar.
I felt a lump in my throat.
I took a deep breath and wiped my face with my sleeve, trying to erase the dried blood stains that still remained. I didn't succeed, but at least I fooled myself enough to touch the knob.
The last thing I wanted was for them to see me like this.
I turned the handle carefully, and the door creaked as it opened.
The wet cloth hit the edge of the bucket with a muffled, almost liberating sound. For a moment I stared at the clothes, soaked and stained with dried blood. I wondered if one day I would be able to throw it away without feeling that emptiness in my chest.
I walked to the mirror in the closet and turned on the small lamp on the desk. The yellowish light returned a reflection to me that I did not recognize.
He had a cut on his cheekbone and split lip; the skin on his neck was a purplish hue. I touched the wound with my fingertips. It hurt, but not as much as it should have.
Maybe I was getting used to it by now.
I searched the desk drawer for the first aid kit my mother had bought "just in case." I used it more and more often.
I cleaned my wounds with a cotton ball soaked in alcohol. The stinging made me grit my teeth, but I preferred that kind of pain. He was clean, honest.
When I was done, I sat up on the bed and let my head sink into the pillow. The ceiling of my room was full of small cracks that looked like poorly drawn stars.
"I should shower, even have dinner," I thought, but my body was no longer responding.
Little by little I began to close my eyes, until, after a few minutes, I fell completely asleep.