Can't Stop

You don't want to fight the adrenaline. You don't want to fight the buzz. You don't want to fight anything other then the a-hole in front of you and you're going to keep going until you can't anymore.

Your head slams into the wall behind you, stars bursting in your vision. You don’t have time to recollect your thoughts before a fist comes smashing into the side of your face. You’re given a moment to catch your  breath, spit out the blood. Then a punch to you stomach sends all the air from your lungs and your vision dances in and out.

The crowd around you is mostly cheering, but a good portion of them are booing, as well. You just wish you gave a f**k about them.

With spots in your vision, you get out of the way of another attack. You reel back and throw three swift punches at your opponent, hitting both sides of his face and one directly on his nose. You feel it break when your fist collides, and blood sprays immediately. Your opponent curses wildly, covering his nose and trying to stop the bleeding.

This is where you should stop. This isn’t a really serious fight; you’re behind a bar. He spilled beer on you, and with the day you’ve had, you just weren’t going to deal with that s**t.

But now you’re worked up. You were already pissed the hell off, and you’ve discovered something. Fighting makes you feel better. A lot better.

So you wind up once more and attack his abdomen. The crowd erupts again, and their cheering urges you on. There’s adrenaline in your blood, and it feels good.

You don’t let up, don’t even give the poor guy a chance to breathe. You go until your knuckles are bloody, and you’re not even sure if it’s your own blood or his. It’s probably both, considering you’re vaguely aware that your hands hurt and he looks like a goddamned tomato. But you won’t stop, can’t stop, until a group of guys pull you apart. You struggle, and one of them slugs you across the face and yells at you to calm the hell down.

You glance at the guy you were fighting. He’s basically a bloody pulp on the ground, and most of the remaining crowd is looking at you with wide eyes, open mouths. The guys holding you shake you, shout something. You can’t quite hear what they say; your ears are ringing too badly. But you catch a few words; cops, run, prison.

They let you go and push you towards the other end of the alley, away from the flashing red and blue lights that have suddenly appeared. You run and you run fast.

They don’t catch you, which is surprising enough. But no one there knows your name, since you don’t regularly visit that bar, and you aren’t exactly an outstanding individual. It made enough sense, in theory. So you sit down on an empty wooden crate, next to the dumpster you found. You don’t know for sure where you are, but you decide it doesn’t matter.

You don’t care.

You pull a flask out of your jacket, which has survived the fight, and take a swig. The alcohol burns down your throat, adding to the already strong buzz in your head. Your knuckles still bleed, dropping little red beads onto your pants.

You still don’t care.

You don’t care about anything other than making all the pain go away, all of it. So you empty the flask, then you get up in search of a new bar, of more alcohol. You’ll drink and fight until it’s gone, all gone. You’ll go until they put you in the ground, and if you’re lucky, it’ll be soon.

Because you’re done.