Summerguard

CHAPTER 21: Stage Two

TW: Features violence as it is a recount and replay of what happened in the last chapter. Also a moment of racism.

~PAXTON~

Life comes in many different stages. Humans enjoy categorizing things to better explain and organize what is occurring. Erik Erikson invented what he calls the eight stages of life. And then there are the Categories of Hurricanes. Stages of metamorphosis. Stages of Cancer. I guess what I am trying to get here is if someone were to categorize me in the stages of mourning, it would probably be stage two. However, I don't entirely agree with this assessment and I don't like to be categorized. I'm crushed, going insane with the lack of sleep, exhausted, traumatized, and you bet I am angry. Like dangerously combustible. I am ready to commit murder to the SS Tribe, to those who have spawned from hell. I want to send them back. Possibly missing a few limbs and organs, but who cares?

It's been forty-eight hours since I witnessed my friend get his face shot out and forty-eight hours since I have spoken to anyone. I'm currently at Sensei Ami's dojo brutally pounding and releasing all my emotions into this single sack. Even though I'm not an instructor for this summer, I will be returning back when school begins again and I can put all of the cruelties behind me. But for now, those cruelties are haunting my every vision.

Face! Face! Lungs! Ribs! Ribs! Esophagus!

"I see your face... and I will rip off all your skins till it's just your eyes looking straight into mine." PUNCH!

"You so much as take a single breath, and I will shove mustard down your throat. Not the condiment." JAB! JAB! KICK!

"Someone hand me a lighter and I will watch you burn. Whoever you are, I am your bane. I am your conductor to hell. Choo, Choo." DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE!

"HEY! That's enough! Stop! PAXTON, STOP!"

Sensei Ami body throws me onto the mat and we wrestle for five minutes. I wiggle around in his hold trying to get a clean hit at his face, but his experience allows him to secure me in a gridlocked hold.

"Paxton. Stop fighting me!" he commands, but my eyes are gray with thunder, "Ow. Did you just try to bite me? Paxton, wake up! This isn't you. Stop!"

This isn't you! Shoot. Shoot. Agh. It hurts. Everything hurts.

"Paxton, breathe child."

I shake my head a few times and look all around me. I'm panting heavily on the floor and Sensei Ami is holding me in place. I glance to the side and Bob is flat on the floor. I collapse my forehead on the mat and finally tap out.

"Finally. Don't do that to me, Paxton. I'm an old man," Sensei huffed out, releasing his hold.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know what I was thinking," I apologize, gulping in oxygen.

"It seemed you were doing a lot of it, but none at all. Who hurt you so much? What happened, mi campionem?" he asked, sitting up with concern and exhaustion dripping down his face.

Monsters. Devils. Bastards. Scum.

"I need to go," I lift myself off the ground and sulk towards the locker room.

"To hell you are?! Where will you go? Out in the streets?! Take a good look at yourself, Paxton. You're hurting. You're in pain, but you shouldn't be adding to that pain by hurting yourself and the ones you love," he shouted, gripping my wrist.

I snap myself from his hold and throw him a glare, "Don't you finna speak to me like that. You have no f**** idea what I have been through, what I've done, or what I have lost. Watch yourself, old man. I came here so I can be alone. Not have some lecture from my boss."