The Injury
January 10th, 2007

Agonizing.

It's the only word that can describe the depth of the pain that he's experiencing. With his arms folded over his shut brown hued eyes, he grits his teeth together in a vein and useless attempted to block out the pain. Against the cold, steel, and unforgiving table he can feel every ligament and bone floating around in his left knee, screaming out in pain much like a tree does when its roots are ripped out of the ground. Every moment that the beast tore at his knee, doing everything in his power to destroy it, replays in his mind without effort. It's blinding him to the point where he can't think of anything else except for the pain and revenge; feelings that he's never felt before.

Across the room sits a man, behind three inches of glass, in a white coat, a doctor. He glances over the files on his computer, an x-ray of the man's knee, and shakes his head at trying to imagine the pain the man must be going through. On the left hand side of the man's coat, in blue embroidery, it reads Dr. Young. He's been here for a number of years, an ER attendant, and has seen a number of injuries before, but there's something about this particular injury that hurts the doctor the most. He can only imagine the terrorizing pain that the man must be going through. They'd offer him some kind of sedative or morphine, but he refused all drugs. He looks to his right and sitting there is a manila folder with the man's name written across it.

Malachi.

It's the medical file that his company sent over to him so he could do his job. It told him nothing though and as he looks over his computer monitor and out at the patient he doesn't need to know anything else. The idea of surgery to an athlete like this is damaging to the psyche and he wishes that he didn’t have to deliver this kind of news to him. Yet, it's his job. He pulls his chair out and walks over to the phone mounted upon the wall. He dials a few numbers and then puts the receiver to his ear. It only takes a few moments before the other end picks up.

''ello?' the voice on the other end answers.

'Dr. Tran, I've got a patient here who's going to need some surgery. His patella is cracked into three pieces, and I'm certain his ACL needs to be reconstructed,' Dr. Young speaks through the phone, his voice calm and together.

'Okay, I'll schedule an exploratory surgery for him, and we can put some screws in the patella once we see the extent of the damage. From there, we'll assess how we're going to repair the ACL. I'll be down there in a few minutes,' Dr. Tran responds in the same tone as Dr. Young before hanging up the phone. Dr. Young puts the receiver back in its place and walks to the door. He pauses for a brief moment, trying to find the words to comfort the man out there. Truth is that he'll never find them.

He opens the door and walks out. Malachi never hears him enter the room. He doesn’t realize he’s there until he can hear the breathing of the doctor as he stands over him.

'Is there a name I can call you? Other than Malachi?' the doctor asks him, pulling out Malachi's chart, and checking on his vitals. At first, Malachi's silent, the pain too overwhelming at this point. However, it subsides long enough for him to answer.

'Malachi,' he says, stern and strict. The doctor nods his head before deciding to move forward with the damaging information.

'I've got some bad news.'

'I've got some bad news.'

The voice this time doesn't come from a doctor yet the man in charge of PRIME, Blaine Blair. Malachi sits in a leather chair as a mahogany cane rests comfortably against the desk adjacent to him. His eyes glance briefly at Blaine before his eyes dart back to the ground.

'What is it, Blaine?' he asks his creepy boss, no remorse in his voice for the way he's treating Blaine in this moment in time. Blaine seems flustered as he fumbles through a few papers.

'Well, as you know, we've had a high influx of talent come through our doors as of late, and if I could just find this piece of paper,' Blaine begins to ramble on as he continues to look through the stack of papers on his new desk. Yet, he can't find the simple piece of paper he needs to give Malachi and continues to grow disconcerted by the problem.

'Out with it, Blaine, I don't have all day,' Malachi tells Blaine, his eyes finally locked upon Blaine. His mind tries to figure out what it is that Blaine has called him in here for, mere minutes after the ending of another edition of ReVolution. Finally, Blaine finds the piece of paper and puts it on the edge of his desk for Malachi. Immediately, he becomes flummoxed.

'Well, you see, it's becoming increasingly difficult to keep our roster under a certain number of people. I mean, we've got so much great talent now, and you know, well, this isn't going to be easy,' he begins to say, but his throat constricts on him as Malachi's stare worsens. He takes a quick sip out of his mug before getting the courage to tell Malachi the bit of bad news he's got. 'We're going to have to let you go.'

Malachi sits there for a moment, angered by this bit of news. Instead of letting it rest in his chest, he decides to let Blaine know how he feels.

'Fuck you.'

'Fuck you!'

'I'm serious, that's him dude, trust me,'

Malachi meanwhile continues to work out his injured knee, ignoring everything around, and quickly pushes himself past his limits. He can hear the people ogling him, but he chooses to ignore them. In his time since being let go from PRIME, he had been continually stopped to see if it was really the former PRIME superstar. He had grown to hate it in a short time.

He can feel the strain on his knee as he pushes the weights with his feet. Two months of this and he doesn’t feel like he is making an inch of progress. Yet, his trainer keeps telling him that he's making great progress and he'll be able to get his flexibility and athleticism back in no time. He pushes it again as he sees the two boys in the corner of his eye moving towards him. He curses under his breath as they get closer to him.

'Hey, you're Malachi, right?' one of the boys asks him and Malachi decides not to answer him. Instead, he'll stay wrapped up in his rehabilitation, and hopes that they'll just walk off. Yet, they continue to stand there, just annoying the living hell out of him.

'Come on man, can we get your autograph?' the other boy asks him, but Malachi continues to be lost in his own world. Any kind of distraction with this much weight could prove dangerous and he just needs to remain focused. He has lost so much and time is quickly slipping away from him. He can’t afford another setback.

'Oh man, hey, look at that!' the other boy calls out at Malachi and this time he has to look. As he does, trying to figure out what they're looking at, the weights slam back down on his feet and he can feel something crack or snap inside of his knee. He immediately yells out in pain as the boys jump back.

From around the corner, a young man rushes up to Malachi and immediately checks on him. Malachi is doing everything in his power to hold on and not fall over from the shooting pains he's feeling in his injured knee. Yet, it's slowly starting to become too much for him.

'What happened?' the trainer asks and then he looks at the boys. 'Go on, get away from him!' Quickly, the boys scatter as the trainer turns his attention back to Malachi, his face grimacing from the pain.

'I think something popped in my knee,' Malachi manages to grunt out as he grabs at his knee, hoping it's nothing serious. Quickly, the trainer grabs Malachi by the arm and wraps it around his neck to help him get up.

'Okay, come on, I'll help you up. Let's go check it out,' the trainer says and Malachi shifts all of his weight to the trainer. They slowly start walking towards the back room where they have some medical equipment. They pass several onlookers who can't help but be fixated upon the drama going on around them. The trainer though is able to get Malachi to the back room without incident and helps him up onto a table. Then, the trainer walks over to the cabinet and grabs some bottles for Malachi.

'Here, this will help take the edge away. Take these pills.'

Inside of a house in Seattle, Washington, a child no older than eight years old sits in front of a television screen. In his right hand is a remote control that's being used to rapidly change the channels on the television. The kid has raggedy blonde hair with bangs that come right above his eyes. His beautiful blue eyes are locked upon the screen as he knows he should be in bed already. Yet, his mother had taken him out to see a movie, and had granted him a few extra minutes before going to sleep.

So, he flips through the channels.

As he flips through them, his back resting on the leather couch behind him, something catches his eyes. Wrestling. He puts the remote control down and lets out a big smile as he watches it. Since the day he was born he had loved wrestling and it was all because of his father. A man stands in the ring, waiting for his opponent. A song plays throughout the entire arena and from the back steps a man with long brown hair. He immediately looks familiar to him.

'Daddy!' he yells out, completely surprised to see him on the television screen. 'Mommy, come look! It's Daddy!' The screaming draws the slender woman out of the kitchen in a hurry as her eyes get rather big. It's obvious that the kid takes after his mother as she has blonde hair and blue eyes as well. She looks at the television screen and her jaw drops as she sees her husband, the man she hasn't seen in a year.

'Mommy, its Daddy!' the kid yells out again, filled with joy. Unfortunately, his mother doesn't feel the same way as she drops the glass cup in her hands. It shatters into pieces.

'John...,' she whispers to no one in particular.

On the screen though, it says a different name.

It says Malachi.

To Be Continued.