James woke up in the darkness. There was pressure on his head and it wasn't the pillow. He was still more asleep than awake, but then he thought: "It's a bag, I have a fucking plastic bag on my head."

  He woke up suddenly, heart in his throat. But convinced, against all hope, that he was wrong, that it must have been a nightmare.

  The world corrected him right away, as it usually did, with a kick. A blow directly to the ribs, leaving him breathless, leaving him writhing like a worm and coughing, unable to control his breathing. Fuck, he couldn't understand it.

  He'd gone to sleep normally and had managed to fall asleep, mainly because he was too tired. He was sure of that part, but how he'd ended up here, like this, he had no fucking idea.

  He didn't even want to know. The only thing that mattered was that he was afraid. He didn't want to die.

  Another kick, and then another, and another. They hadn't even given him time to recover, to try to keep a cool head, try to connect the few dots he had. For starters, the most obvious, there were at least three people, that is, three attackers, enemies.

  He couldn't hear the breathing or footsteps of more than three, but that didn't mean he could rule it out. And this situation must be about the judge thing. They'd tried to screw over the newbie, it hadn't worked, and now they were getting physical.

  Meanwhile, he was alone, without his equipment, hands tied behind his back and with a fucking plastic bag covering his head. He couldn't hear anything. He could barely breathe. He was fucked. Very fucked.

  "It was easier than I thought," one said.

  "Well, what did you think? He's a newbie, fresh out of the oven. It would be embarrassing if it had been difficult for us."

  "Well, if you put it that way, it's true."

  Another kick.

  "Wake up, animal."

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  "You're the animals," James finally spat. "And nothing more than that. Absolutely nothing."

  Another kick, but this time to the chin.

  "You're acting pretty tough, huh? Look, you're a kid and everyone has to make a living, I know. But make it somewhere else. This is a growing business, okay? But there are starting to be more workers than wages, you know? Too much competition. And you don't have to take part in it on a whim. Get lost. Go fuck yourself."

  "Or else what?"

  He soon heard the answer.

  "Or else, we'll beat you up much harder than now. We'll leave you half dead or maybe dead altogether and nobody will give a fuck."

  "Do you do this to all the new ones or what?" he spat again. "Now I understand why this place doesn't progress as fast as it should."

  Someone pressed the bag around his neck.

  James held his breath, or tried to.

  The guy let go very soon after. It wasn't an attempt to murder him. Just sending a message.

  "Who the fuck do you think you are? We could throw you off a fucking cliff right now and nobody would find out. They wouldn't even come looking for your fucking corpse and you wouldn't appear on the news. That thing they say that all publicity is good publicity is a fucking lie, bad publicity is bad period, the only difference is that there are entities that can survive it until people shut the fuck up and others that can't. Tourism is already dazzled. And, like I said, this business is in its infancy. A lot of people with money have every interest in protecting it tooth and nail."

  It hurt, and even more because he was right.

  All that senseless diatribe about business I didn't give a shit about. He didn't understand business. But that thing about nobody bothering to come for his body hurt because, well, it was true. There was nobody in this world who would show up at his funeral out of personal grief. One thing was grief because "what a tragedy, he was so young, nobody should die" and that kind of thing, and another different kind of grief was when you really felt it, in your bones.

  Nobody loved him down to the bones. That's why he was here lying down, wherever this was, serving as a punching bag for a bunch of thugs. Thugs were always everywhere, they could never leave him alone. They insisted and insisted, as if he couldn't break, as if he didn't have rights as a human being. And he was sick of it.

  "Did you get the message, kid?" one of them asked.

  Just imagining him looking down at him made his blood boil.

  "Go to hell, you son of a bitch."

  It wasn't the most sensible thing to respond, but to tell the truth, it didn't matter one bit.

  "Okay. You asked for it."

  The guy stabbed him in the chest and then made him roll. He went through a small slope and then suddenly found himself in free fall. He still couldn't see anything, of course. He had his wrists tied, he couldn't free himself. The only thing he heard, besides, was the roar of the wind in his ears.

  And the splash when his body broke through the water's surface, of course.