KAI REBORN (The Seven System)

KAI THE FALLEN 3

kai

My lungs seized completely. No air in. No air out. Just nothing. Pure, absolute nothing.

I tried to gasp, but my throat had closed. My vision tunneled. The crowd's roar became distant, muffled, like I was underwater.

Chen Wei didn't stop.

Punch after punch after punch. My ribs cracked. My face split open. Blood poured from somewhere—everywhere. I couldn't tell anymore.

I hit the canvas hard. The impact jarred something loose in my chest, and I managed one tiny, wheezing breath. Then another.

"Stay down," someone was saying. Ricky? Tony? I couldn't tell.

But I could see.

See Maya, standing there in that goddamn shirt.

See Chen Wei, walking back to her, leaning over the ropes.

See her reach up.

See her kiss him.

Right there. In front of everyone. In front of me, bleeding out on the canvas.

She kissed him.

And he kissed her back, his bloody gloves resting on the ropes, her hands on his face.

The crowd went insane.

Something inside me shattered. Not my ribs—those were already broken. Something deeper. Something that had been holding me together through all of this.

Two years, I thought distantly. For two years,  we were together.

Had it been a lie the whole time? Or had I just become so pathetic that she'd looked elsewhere? When had I stopped being enough?

Chen Wei pulled away from her and turned back to me. His smile was vicious now. Satisfied.

"I told you," he said, standing over me. "I told you that you didn't belong in the ring with me. But you just had to try to impress her, didn't you? Had to play the hero."

He raised his foot. I knew what was coming. A stomp. To my head. To finish this.

I should move. Should roll away. I should do something.

But what was the point?

Mom, I thought. I'm sorry. I tried. I really tried.

Mira's face flashed in my mind. Her tears when the hospital called. Her asking me what we were going to do.

I failed you, I thought. I failed everyone.

Dad's face flickered in my memory—or what I could remember of it after three years. Had he felt this hopeless before he left? Had he laid awake at night, drowning in responsibility, until he couldn't take it anymore and just... ran?

Maybe I'd inherited more from him than I thought. The weakness. The failure.

Chen Wei's foot came down.

But at the last second, Tony shoved him back.

"Fight's over!" Tony yelled. "He's done! It's over!"

"He didn't tap out!" Chen Wei snarled.

"Look at him! He can't continue! I'm calling it!"

The crowd booed. They wanted to see me die. They'd paid for blood, and while they'd gotten plenty of it, they wanted more. They always wanted more.

Chen Wei spat on the canvas near my head, then raised his arms in victory.

The crowd exploded. "CHEN! CHEN! CHEN!"

I lay there, staring at the lights. They were so bright. Too bright. They hurt my eyes.

Everywhere hurt.

Ricky was suddenly there, rolling me onto my side. "Breathe, man. Just breathe. Slow and steady."

I tried. Each breath was agony, but they came. Small and wheezing, but they came.

"We need to get you to a hospital," Ricky said, his voice cracking.

"No," I managed to rasp. "No... hospital. Can't... afford..."

"Kai, you're coughing up blood. Your ribs are definitely broken. You need—"

"No." I grabbed his shirt with whatever strength I had left. "Promise... me."

Danny appeared on my other side, his face pale. "Jesus Christ, Kai. What were you thinking?"

I was thinking I could save my mom, I wanted to say. I was thinking I could be enough for once in my miserable life.

But I didn't say any of that. I just closed my eyes.

"Get him out of here," Tony said quietly. "Back entrance. The crowd's getting rowdy."

They lifted me. Every movement was torture. Through my half-closed eyes, I saw Maya one more time. She was still with Chen Wei, his arm around her shoulders, both of them laughing about something.

She didn't even look my way.

I failed, I thought as they carried me out. I failed Mom. I failed Mira. I failed myself.

The last thing I remember was the cold night air hitting my face as they brought me outside, and thinking that dying might actually be easier than going home to tell Mira I'd gotten two thousand dollars for getting beaten within an inch of my life.

If Old Man Zhang even paid me. Sometimes he didn't, if the fight didn't go the distance.

I failed, I thought again as consciousness started slipping away.

---

INTERLUDE 

The ambulance doors slammed shut.

Ricky and Danny had managed to flag down a passing driver who'd called 911 when he saw Kai's condition. Now they sat in the back, watching the paramedics work.

"Pulse is weak," one paramedic said, checking vitals. "BP dropping. Possible internal bleeding."

"We might not have eight minutes. His oxygen saturation is at 84% and falling."

They put a mask over Kai's face, forcing air into his damaged lungs. His chest barely moved.

Ricky held Kai's hand. "Come on, man. Stay with us."

But Kai didn't respond. His eyes had rolled back.

"He's crashing!" the paramedic shouted. "Starting compressions!"

At City General Hospital, Dr. Sarah was ready when they wheeled him in.

"Male, 24, massive trauma," the nurse reported. "Multiple broken ribs, possible punctured lung, internal bleeding."

They worked fast. Chest tube. IV fluids. Stitches.

"He's coding!" a nurse shouted.

"Crash cart!" Dr. Sarah started compressions. "Come on, kid."

They shocked him once. Twice. Three times.

Nothing.

Four minutes. Five. Six.

"Doctor..."

"Keep going!"

Eight minutes.

The monitor stayed flat.

Dr. Sarah stepped back, pulling off her gloves. Her voice was steady, clinical. "Time of death, 11:47 PM."

The room went silent.

In the hallway, Ricky's knees buckled. Danny caught him.

And then a scream tore through the corridor—raw, animal, broken.

"KAI! NO! KAI!"

Mira  crashed through the double doors, hospital security trying to hold her back. Her school uniform was rumpled, her face streaked with tears.

"KAI That’s my brother! Kai!!" she screamed again, fighting against the hands restraining her. "PLEASE! KAI!"

Ricky turned away, his own face wet. 

Inside Trauma 2, Dr. Sarah looked down at Kai's still body and shook her head.

Another kid. Another senseless death.

She pulled the sheet up over his face.