The atmosphere was intense, the noise a shimmering crescendo.

Dylan McCabe blinked as blood again began to trickle from the cut above his eye. His trainer smoothed it gently with a towel, before running his finger along its  furrow. “You’ve gotta keep your guard up, Dylan,” he said, motioning with his fists. “If he attacks that cut once more, this fights gonna be over.”

Yet Dylan wasn’t listening. The words simply slipped away and beyond him, becoming distant echo’s in the strained night air. His eyes were fixed upon his opponent, his stare cold and dispassionate. For nine rounds they had plundered each other with all that they had, an endless barrage of bare fists and thrashing limbs. The had each felled and each been felled, tumbled like sunshine at the break of dusk, but both had risen time and time again. And yet, even now, Callum wouldn’t meet his stare. Instead, he simply dropped his gaze towards his feet, down to where the world once lay.

Then came the bell.

Dylan stirred from his daydream, leaping outwards from his lethargy. His feet danced lightly against the canvas, his hands into fists jumping with life. Callum seemed cautious and slow, his feet shuffling back towards his corner, towards safety. His movements were heavy and ponderous, as he circled restlessly in the ring centre, when a sudden burst of forward momentum took Dylan to within an inch of his opponent. A short, sharp jab with the right connected to the side of Callum’s head, snapping his face sideways and his gaze away to the right. With his guard temporarily down, the crowd noise lifted as they longed for the kill. Dylan sensed it himself, the mist before his eyes becoming darker and more ferocious, tainting his target in red. Another right scythed towards Callum, cutting and bruising as it landed against his chin, and then another. Callum, shaken from his balance, scrambled for the safety of the ropes, trying desperately to remain on his feet.

Dylan simply pursued him, his will hungry and his desire strong. A swinging left hook fell from the sky and caught Callum on the cheek, followed quickly by a fierce right that crashed into his unguarded mid drift. Another left, another right, both body shots of such power that the noise of the crowd seemed to pale against the cracking of knuckles against bone.

‘Please stop the fight,’ thought Dylan, the words rolling from the tip if his tongue and falling back into consciousness. ‘Please stop it now.’