THE HIGH TABLE

THE STEPHEN:

The concrete hallway has a smell of old urine, and judging by the stains at the bottom of the walls and on the floor, there wasn’t a bathroom in the place at all. I move forward silently, staying on the shady side of the hallway. The flickering fluorescent lights on the ceiling make the place look even more run-down. Suddenly a grey metal door at the end of the hallway swings open, and a skinhead guy steps out, wearing jeans that were way too tight and a black leather vest. I hide in a recess in the hallway and wait for the man to walk past me. A long silver chain hangs from his belt loop, leading down to his back pocket. The man stops and pulls out his little dick, peeing against the wall. “What a pig,” I think to myself as I creep up behind him. Before he could finish his disgusting job, I slam my elbow into the back of his neck. The man groans, but it is short-lived as I grab him by the back of the head and slam his face into the concrete wall until it turns bright red, his blood mixing with his piss. The man falls face-first to the ground, motionless, as I place my commando boot on the back of his neck and shift my weight until a dry crack echoes through the hallway. Taking the key at the end of the chain, I continued on my way, opening the metal door. “Skin Muscle, your days are numbered,” I think to myself as I realise I have arrived at your carefully concealed hideout.

SKIN MUSCLE:

The heavy metal door flies off its hinges as my massive, scarred frame steps into the dim light of the hideout, a sadistic grin spreading across my face as I look at you. "You think taking out one of my street rats makes you a tough guy, Stephen?" I chuckle, the sound deep and menacing as I crack my knuckles, my boxing stance flawless and terrifyingly steady. "You walked right into the slaughterhouse, kid"

I explode forward with a lethal, professional-grade three-punch combination aimed right at your ribs and jaw. "Let's see how that commando boot helps you when you're choking on your own teeth," I bark, using my massive size to cut off your escape routes and trap you against the cold concrete wall. Before you can even adjust your grip, whipping the silver chain straight at your face. The cold steel links bite deep, shattering across your left eye in a spray of red as you stumble back from the sheer, blinding impact.

THE STEPHEN:

My tactical suit was created for fights like this and is able to absorb and protect most from your furious impacts. My head tilts backward when your punch hits my jaw and eventually I stumble, hitting my back tighter against the concrete wall when the chain makes a nasty cut close to my eye. But I am a trained soldier, elite killer and snap grab of the chain suddenly pulling you closer as I lift my knee up, shoving it into your abs. Still holding the chain in my hand, I wrap it around your neck and spin around pushing your body against the wall. "How the fuck do you know my name?" I spit on your face. "You saw from the CCTV what I did to your bruder, right? That is nothing comparing what I have planned for you". I hit my forehead into your face,

SKIN MUSCLE:

I spit a mouthful of blood right back into your face, a jagged, manic grin splitting my lips even as the chain chokes the breath out of my throat. "How do I know your name? The underworld talks, soldier boy. You think a fancy tactical suit makes you untouchable? It just means you're too soft to take a hit without a cushion". Instead of fighting the chain around my neck, I use your momentum against you. I drive my weight backward, slamming into the concrete wall to crush you beneath my bulk. At the same absolute second, my hands reach up to blind-grab your wrists, twisting your arms and loosen the choke. I rip my head free from the loop, spin inside your guard, and bury a short-range liver shot right below the edge of your armor vest, followed by a kick of my elbow aimed straight for your wounded eye. "Mr. Armour with one eye". I laugh.

THE STEPHEN:

You are faster than I thought; to be that massive guy, I fold and groan in pain, but my body is used to receiving hits like that. "Not so fast, pretty boy!", I hiss as I grab a tight hold of your approaching elbow, bending it away from my face, making it land on my cushioned chest. I place my foot behind your feet and use all my weight to push you backwards trying to make you to lose your balance and fall down as I hit my elbow to the side of your head.

SKIN MUSCLE:

Instead of trying to scramble back up like an amateur, I roll with the momentum of the fall, tucked tight. As you try to press the advantage and loom over me, my boxing instincts trigger. From the flat of my back, I fire a brutal, double-legged kick straight up at your knees, aiming to snap your joints backward under your own tactical weight.

THE STEPHEN:

I feel my knees bending into an unnatural position, but the padding built into the suit prevents them from dislocating. Something happens, though, when I both hear and feel a crack from my suit as its grip loosens around my knees. Your kick has most likely split the Kevlar plates, leaving my knees without technological protection. I stagger in place for a moment, stumbling backward until I regain my balance and spin around, raising my leg to kick. My combat boot hurtles toward your throat. “Goodbye, rubberhead!”

SKIN MUSCLE:

I stumble backward, choking and gasping for air. I swallow the blood pooling in my mouth, a dark, raspy laugh escaping my bruised windpipe. Noticing the split Kevlar plates exposing your bare knees, a sadistic thrill surges through me. I don't give you a second to reset. I drop low, slipping right under your guard and drive a straight punch directly into your unprotected knee joint. I can hear how the bone snaps. CRAAACKKK! s I press inside your reach, I loop my other arm around the back of your leg, lifting and driving forward with all my weight to tear the joint apart and slam you back onto the concrete.

THE STEPHEN:

I hear the loud cracking sound before the pain hits my body paralyzing it completely. The next moment I fall down hitting my ass against the floor as I begin to scream holding my broken kneecap with both of my hand as I eventually fall down on my back. "If you think this will change something you couldnt be more wrong. I will kill you!" I try to roll away from you to get some time to recover.

SKIN MUSCLE:

I tower over you, watching you squirm and roll away like a crushed insect, the agonizing crunch of your kneecap music to my ears. "Kill me? With what, soldier boy? Your harsh words?" Before you can even try to drag yourself another inch, I bring my heavy, steel-toed boot down with merciless force directly onto your shattered knee, pinning you to the floor and grinding my weight into the broken bone.

THE STEPHEN:

A loud cracking sound could be heard if my screams of pain weren't drowning it out, as my kneecap finally snaps and the broken shinbone pierces through my skin. You have a threatening look on your face as if you have something else on your mind. But I am a soldier, a trained soldier, and can deal with the pain. Gritting my teeth, I suddenly fold my body, raising my hands as I clap your ears with my palms, ringing them good. When the shock wave enters into your eardrums, I aim my elbow against your temple. "With my lethal body, dumb!"

SKIN MUSCLE:

The double-palm strike explodes against my ears with a deafening pop, sending a violent shockwave straight through my skull. The world goes black for a fraction of a second. But instead of dropping, the intense, throbbing pain snaps me right back into a primal rage. I shake my head like a rabid dog, spitting a thick glob of blood onto the floor. "Lethal body? You're a corpse already". I drop my weight and fire a vicious, blindingly fast three-punch combination: a heavy left hook to your ribs to force your hands down, a brutal right uppercut aimed to shatter your jaw upward, and a merciless, diving stamp with my heel aimed directly at your exposed knee.

THE STEPHEN:

My tactical suit is designed to absorb the impacts, but it doesn't help with the momentum that bends my body just as I see your uppercut aiming for my jawline. I lift my hand up again and chop it against your forearm, changing the course of your punch that flies next to my head hitting the air. With the same hand I snap grab your other wrist digging my glove-covered fingers around it, trying to twist it when your stomp lands on my broken knee. I release my hold of your wrist and fall down to the ground again. "You wil pay dearly for this", I scream and lift my boot from the ground, kicking you in your knee.

SKIN MUSCLE:

As your boot clips my knee, I grit my teeth against the sharp spike of pain, but my street-fighting instincts kick in instantly. I wrench my wrist violently from your grip, stepping inside your guard and deliver a massive, two-handed shove directly into your chest. My eyes lock onto the glowing status lights and exposed wiring where your Kevlar plates split apart. A high-tech suit, I think, a dark, twisted realization dawning on me. Lithium batteries. If those internal cells rupture, that fancy armor isn't a shield anymore... it's your tomb.

Pinning you down with the full, suffocating weight of my knee on your chest, my eyes scan the damaged tactical suit, zeroing in on the tech-hub. Right there, on the lateral side of your groin, sits the reinforced casing housing the lithium power cells. A twisted, knowing grin splits my bloody face. I know exactly how these high-tech toys work—puncture that casing with a conductor, short the cells, and the chemistry does the rest.

With a brutal, quick motion, I rip the long silver chain from your wrist, wrapping the heavy steel links tightly around my fist until a sharp, jagged metal link projects out like a spike. I raise my arm and drive the improvised metal punch straight through the cracked protective casing and deep into the core of the lithium batteries. The reaction is instantaneous.

A hiss erupts from the puncture. Within seconds, a blinding spark flashes from the puncture, followed by a violent pop as the lithium cells short-circuit and undergo thermal runaway. The suit doesn't just catch fire; it transforms into a localized furnace. And starts right in your groin...

THE STEPHEN:

I smile as I watch you playing with the chain, creating some kind of homemade knuckle brass. You should already know my suit is designed to handle almost any impacts and protect my muscles. I try to move my hips away from you when I see your fist approaching my groin, but your heavy body keeps me pinned tightly against the floor. Next moment your fist lands close to my ball, and just as I thought, the suit is protecting me from getting hurt. I hear a silent cracking sound without knowing what caused that. Then my eyes get wider, and my mouth snaps open for a scream.

Something is burning in my groin, making barbecue with my stones, and the same heat is expanding all over my body. The tactical suit smolders, releasing a strong, acrid smell of a short-circuit fire into the air, a smell that makes me cough as the suit heats up and begins to melt its special rubber-blended Kevlar fabric against my skin. I struggle beneath it until I manage to free my upper body and, in a panic, punch you in the temple until you fall off me. I roll to the side and start tearing the suit off before it’s too late. I get the pants off my legs, and the tactical vest falls off me at the last moment as it bursts into a blue flame. I’m wearing nothing but yellow compression shorts as I try to roll away from you to recover from the shock.

SKIN MUSCLE:

As the tactical vest bursts into a fierce blue chemical flame, illuminating the dark hallway, I slowly push myself back up to my feet. I wipe a mixture of sweat and fresh blood from my eyes, coughing against the suffocating, toxic stench of fried electronics and burnt rubber. I look down at you, sprawled on the floor in nothing but your yellow compression shorts, shivering from shock and the agonizing heat of the burns. The terrifying, armored elite killer is completely gone.

I unbuckle my heavy belt, letting the silver chain clatter to the floor, and kick off my heavy boots. I strip down until I’m wearing nothing but my black boxers and my letaher gloves. "No armor for you, no gear for me"

THE STEPHEN:

Watching you stripping in front of me gives me the time I needed to recover from the original shock. Still coughing a bit due to the toxic gases from the burning suit that is slowly turning into ashes. With a broken knee I cannot get up onto my feet, but that's not a problem really for a professional soldier like me. I line my body with yours and slide my foot between your feet, using it like a lever to try to make you fall to the ground with me. As soon as you stagger, I’ll fold you into a 90-degree angle and slam my powerful fist into that massive bulge between your legs.

SKIN MUSCLE:

Your low-angle lever attack catches my ankle just as I’m moving forward, disrupting my balance. A sharp, breathless gasp escapes my throat as the sheer impact explodes through my lower abdomen. I crash heavily face-first onto the concrete right next to you, clutching my groin. Instead of trying to pull away or stand up, I use my heavy weight to my advantage. I violently roll my entire torso directly on top of your injured legs, purposefully crushing your shattered knee. With my vision still swimming in red, I pin your upper body down with one forearm jammed hard against your throat, choking off.

THE STEPHEN:

Another cracking sound tells me you broke my leg even worse, making the bones shatter inside my skin as I hit my head against the floor. My screams are cut short soon, though, when your forearm jams my throat, almost forcing my Adam's apple to enter into my windpipe. I feel the taste of blood in my mouth when you choke me all the time stronger. Lifting my arms up, balling my hands into fists, I send blows anywhere in your body I can reach, hoping to get you away from the top of me before it's too late.

SKIN MUSCLE:

My focus is entirely locked on finishing this. I lean even more of my massive weight into the forearm pressing against your windpipe. I hold you completely immobilized, watching the last bit of fight drain from your eyes as you gasp for air beneath the suffocating pressure. "Any last words before I put your lights out for good?"

THE STEPHEN:

I keep on sending my fists to your body but each blow is weaker than the previous one. "Fuck you!", I spit my words from my bleeding lips. "Someone will come after me. Your days will be over sooner than you think". I spit on your face again.

SKIN MUSCLE:

The spit mixes with the sweat and blood dripping down my face, but I don’t even blink. I release my grip on your wrists. I shift my weight, pinning your torso down with one heavy knee, and unleash a brutal, non-stop barrage of punches. Left, right, left, right! My gloved fists become a blur of raw, mechanical violence.

My eyes drop down to your groin to the raw, blistered skin where the melting lithium battery of your suit did its worst.I reach down and violently seize your severely burned, heat-damaged groin, squeezing and twisting. I squeeze until the tissue is completely ruined, turning a deep, sickly purple beneath my fist, destroying any function it ever had.

THE STEPHEN:

I cannot even scream anymore. A muffled moan escapes from my lips when the sharpest pain any man can feel hits my body, twice. There is no popping sound, just a mute collapse as my once-powerful testicles turn into useless pulp in my burnt sack. I struggle, convulse under your heavy body that keeps me pinned tightly against the ground. I see you smiling.

SKIN MUSCLE:

I slowly let go, wiping the sweat from my forehead with the back of my bloody, taped glove. I launch a devastating, full-force soccer kick straight into your ribs. The impact is explosive, sending you flying across the narrow hallway.

THE STEPHEN:

Loud cracks are heard in the room when my ribs get snapped, impaling into my lungs. As I land on the floor again, I cough blood, knowing something is badly broken inside me. Crawling slowly away from you towards the door might be my only way to survive.

SKIN MUSCLE:

Walking slowly over to your gasping form, I use one foot to casually flip your broken body onto your back, leaving you staring up at the dim, flickering lights of the ceiling. I lift my right foot, hovering it over you before placing the heavy sole very slowly onto the center of your chest. The pressure is light at first, just enough to pin you down and make your broken ribs creak... music to my ears

SKIN MUSCLE:

I begin to slide the boot upward, moving up the smooth skin of your throat, until the solid steel toe rests squarely over your windpipe, cutting off your shallow gasps for air.

SKIN MUSCLE:

The weapon of my choice looms over your face: a towering, black Dr. Martens 1914 boot, a massive 14-eyelet model laced tightly all the way up to the calf. It is a piece of footwear that has seen years of absolute brutality on the streets. The black leather is heavily worn, deeply creased around the ankles, and scarred with deep scuffs and scrapes from countless curbs, alleyways, and skulls it has collided with. The exposed steel toe is scratched and dented.

Resting right over your nose and mouth, the smell radiating from the boot is overwhelming. It carries the sour of old sweat baked into the heavy leather. The thick, oil-resistant rubber sole is caked with the dark, dried residue of the gutter... old blood from previous victims, dried mud from damp backstreets, and the faint, chemical tang of the industrial solvents and grease from the warehouse floor.

THE STEPHEN:

I close my eyes, waiting for the worst to happen, but you linger as if you are enjoying each second of my terror, of my agony, before doing your last move and ending my life there. And the worst of all is that there is nothing I can do to stop you, nothing I could do to get out of the deadly hold. "You don't have the balls to that!" I whisper.

SKIN MUSCLE:

Instead of answering with words, I slowly begin to shift my center of gravity, transferring more of my massive heavyweight bulk directly onto my right heel. The interaction between the worn, oil-resistant rubber sole of the Dr. Martens and your bare throat make me get a boner. I don’t rush it. The sadism is in the slow control.I begin to gently rock my weight forward and backward, balancing on the ball of my foot, Love to play.

A muffled click sounds from your throat as the cartilage under the boot begins to compress under the increasing force. The thick leather of the 14-eyelet boot creaks loudly with every subtle movement of my calf. I watch your face turn a deep, suffocating purple. Then suddenly I completely lift my boot off your throat.

THE STEPHEN:

I feel the saw-toothed sole of your boot pressing tighter and harder against my throat, which resists as best it can, trying not to collapse. Finally, the inevitable happens. Iopen my eyes wide as you move your boot away . My Adam’s apple sinks into my throat, and my windpipe cracks under the pressure. Warm fluid streams from my eyes, nostrils, and mouth as my windpipe fills with blood, which floods every passage inside my head. I take a breath, and thick blood seeps into my lungs, while my body begins to convulse violently, twitches a few times, and then… then I slide into ythe eternal silence.

SKIN MUSCLE:

I take a deep, heavy breath of the toxic, smoky air and slowly raise my hands. spit a thick glob of saliva and blood directly onto the worn, taped knuckles of my right glove. I use the damp fabric of the glove to slowly and methodically wipe the fresh blood and grime from the scuffed steel toe of my black Dr. Martens. I drag the glove across the thick rubber tread, cleaning off the residue of the struggle until the dull, scratched metal of the toe cap is clear again.

I walk away into the shadows of the corridor, leaving you and the ashes of your high-tech armor and your human pathetic being behind in the dark.

Published: 9 days ago, viewed 56 times.