by A.L. Bridges
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Something about hearing the high pitched, almost melodic voice that reminded me of the sound that ice crystals make when shattering on a frozen pond, made me open my eyes. Was that Cheza?
“OH, SO NOW YOU CAN TALK!?” Ogre was back to screaming again as he started walking toward Cheza.
‘Cheza. Cheza spoke, and her first word was my name! This must be how a father feels the first time their daughter says daddy!…or not,’ I thought as I realized that now was not the time to be worrying about this.
I watched from the sidelines as I pulled myself to my feet, something besides my consciousness compelling my body to move.
“OF COURSE YOU CAN CRY FOR YOUR BROTHER, BUT YOU CAN’T SPARE ONE LITTLE APOLOGY FOR ME!?”
I charged at Ogre, who was too busy yelling with his back turned to notice my approach. When I was about five feet from him, I jumped and threw an elbow into the back of his head. While I hit the ground, Ogre easily covered the seven feet to the wall, but he managed to get his right hand out in front of him to try and stop himself. The sickening crack of his arm told me that he succeeded… sort of. Ogre was on his knees cradling his arm as I rolled back onto my feet and cleared the short distance between us. After a knee to the side of his head, I followed him to the ground. I kneeled down on his rib cage, restricting the movement and practically choking him while I repeatedly punched him in the face. At some point, Ogre lost consciousness.
I heard a new voice saying “I wouldn’t do that, he might accidentally hit you. Besides, that guy is an asshole and it’s really fine by me if your brother kills him. Everything will turn out fine if he does because I’ve got videograffitical…that’s not right… Videophotographical? No… Geographical! Wait, that isn’t right either… Look, I took a video with my phone of that guy beating the shit of your brother so a self-defense plea would totally pass, especially since the two lackey’s are in the video kicking your brother and they’re the only ones that could stand as possible witnesses, but my video and a testimonial as a character witness would totally trump their testimonials.”
When the new voice said the word videograffitical, I realized that I was consciously moving my body again. I stopped punching Ogre, took my knee off of his chest, and turned on my knees toward the new voice. The blonde guy that the voice belonged to was a little taller than me, but much thinner and without an ounce of muscle on him.
I saw Cheza standing off to my left, closer to my position than she had been. I took stock of the fact that she had splatters of blood on her right cheek and on her clothes. The new guy had been looking up at the sky until he finished his little word game and looked down at Cheza. By the time he finished his rant, I couldn’t decide whether he was a confused dumbass, an inarticulate genius, or something else entirely. Judging by Cheza’s expression, she was having trouble deciding as well.
He finally realized I was looking at him, turned to me, and said, “Hey buddy! How ya doin’?” with his voice rising in pitch at the end of each sentence in a kind of singsong fashion.
“I’m Jason,” he said while holding his right hand out for me to shake it, and then reconsidered when he looked at my bloodied hand.
Well he was polite and offered his name so I pointed to myself and said “Cole,” then pointed at Cheza and said “Rei,” single syllable words being all that I could manage through my strained breathing.
“Alright boys break it… Whoa! What in the hell happened here!? I got reports of a scuffle not a fight club!” said a person off to my left, whom I assumed was a security officer that came around the same corner that Cheza had a few minutes ago. I realized that I could no longer see Cheza and that my vision was blackening rapidly.
“Why hello Officer! Interesting story. You see, this fine chap right here—” Jason started to say, suddenly talking with an Oxford accent. I chuckled slightly at Jason and then heard wind rush past my ears.
“And he’s down,” Jason added, his accent back to its normal American level, but muffled. “He probably needs an ambulance,” Jason continued, sounding like he was in a different room as I heard Cheza scream, “COLE!”
“So does the other guy, but he’s probably a lost cause… don’t worry though! I’ve got videographic evidence that Cole acted in self-defense in case Cole killed him… videographical? Videograffitic? Video—” Jason continued, sounding like an adult from Charlie Brown by the end.
I heard Cheza’s voice clearly as she screamed, “COLE!”
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