The story continues... the darkness deepens...

First, an introductory bit of prose to set the mood. One of my few forays into the tangled world of "poetry" that I wrote when I was a mere lad of sixteen; and while I still didn't know shit about shit, at least no one had to tell me to pull up my pants. That much I already knew on my own.

---

THE CAGE WITHIN

The Predator roams free on the plains
Eating when he is hungry, running wild.
Enjoying the life he leads
He answers to no one but himself
And is excused of all he does, for though he is a killer,
He wallows in innocence.

But now comes a threat to his existence
Creatures that make harsh sounds and cause hurt and pain
He tries to lash out, to defend himself against these
Threats to his very way of life.
But his efforts are in vain, the creatures' attacks become
More and more frequent, increasingly painful
Until the Predator grudgingly surrenders to their ideals
And allows himself to be taken into their abyss of agony.
He awakes in a world far from home
Looking beyond at strange faces he has never known
Who laugh and point at the way he paces in his Cage
The Cage they made, and imprison him in day after day,
The Cage that forever curtails his freedom and sets him apart
>From the rest of the world.
Without freedom, without hope, without HER,
The Predator loses his will to live.
No one shares in his sorrow, or his pain,
And waves of despair slap his mind
Like the slapping of waves against the rocks.
Deprived of all the things that make him what he is
He struggles on through their attacks and mocking sounds.
Like hyenas they jump up and down outside his Cage
Howling as if deranged, laughing at his way of life
Torturing his ears with their insane noises.
But as they beat his nose with their fists
And they lash out with biting words
The Predator does not forget
And he certainly does not forgive.
He simply waits for that Day, that blessed Day
When the Cage that imprisons his very soul
Weakens in its relentless resolve.
Then shall his strengthen, and unto surprised and terrified faces he shall break free
And inflict some pain of his own
Torturing those who tortured him
Forcing them to live in HIS world
And play the Game according to HIS Rules
And because the Game is his very way of life
And the Rules are engraved into every fiber of his being
They have no chance against him.

But the Cage remains unbroken
And the pain and sorrow continues.
So the Predator waits for that Day
Hopes, longs for it
To be reunited with his world, and his life, and perhaps
Even to finally prove himself worthy to HER.
He waits, and waits, and waits
And he just might wait forever
Waiting for a Day that may never come.

---

Eleven years ago...

It had all started out innocently enough. Such is the way of life-altering events in one's life. Two weeks ago, Kai's mother had received an eviction notice. Jobless, homeless, and hopeless, he and his mother have piled their belongings into a barely functional Chevy Nova and are heading to California to live with his grandparents.

At the end of thirty hours of sustained driving through some of the most forbidding landscape in the world, the City of Angels spreads out before the night horizon. The glittering lights of the city are spread across the plains like a glittering jewel. Looking beyond the bug-spattered windshield at the tableau set before him, Kai cannot help but be enraptured by its beauty. Long, long ago, this place had been home to him... and now, like a conquering hero, he is returning to the land of his birth at last.

His old home had lost its challenge for him. In the short year after his initial playground conquest, Kai had completely taken over his old school. There were a few more challengers here and there initially, who had been unhappy with the fundamental shakeup in the status quo, but they had all long since been silenced by Kai's newfound ability to defeat any opponent by sheer force of will. And after months of existing without that rush of conflict in his life, he was looking forward to a change.

Kai closes his eyes, breathing in the night air that howls through the open windows of the Nova. Sweaty, dirty, and exhausted though he is, he is looking forward to the new challenges that his old homeland will surely provide him.



One month later...

There are five of them, three bigger and two smaller. Behind him is a wall, to his right a short Mexican kid, to his left a taller Vietnamese boy. Standing directly in front of him is Jeremy, Kai's opponent for the week. Last week it was some other kid, the week before that another, but this was new. They were coming in groups now. The five of them have hatred written plainly in their eyes, and they begin to advance.

The short Mexican kid rushes Kai, head bent low to charge into his midsection. With the sweet rush of adrenaline that comes with battle, everything is moving in slow motion for Kai- he anticipates the move well before it happens, and gracefully sidesteps two inches to his left. Shifting his weight subtly, he grabs the Mexican kid by the shoulders and uses the little bastard's own momentum to brutally drive his skull into the wall. The kid moans as a spray of blood spreads across the beige-painted bricks of the school building, and slumps to the ground leaving an accusatory red trail on the wall.

The Vietnamese boy uses the moment's distraction to sweep Kai's legs from under him... or at least attempt to. With the superb balance of a trained fighter, Kai shrugs off the attack and uses his temporary setback to gain an advantage. Falling to the ground as he is, he grabs onto the shirt of the Vietnamese boy and drags him to the ground with him. Kai drives the boy's face into the sidewalk twice, viciously rendering him unconscious. He looks up in time to see one of Jeremy's flanking friends rushing toward him, and almost casually Kai lashes out with a powerful jab to the kid's balls. Not even pausing to savor the taste of the kid's misery, Kai springs to his feet and advances on Jeremy.

Jeremy still does not realize just how badly he's losing the conflict- written in his eyes is still the uncomprehending hatred of someone he doesn't even know. Jeremy swings at Kai's head, an undisciplined roundhouse swing with all the speed of a Mack truck in low gear going uphill. Kai easily ducks the blow, and drives his fist into Jeremy's midsection, driving the air out of him and doubling him over. As Jeremy doubles over, Kai grabs the back of his head and drives his knee upward into the boy's face, feeling the bones give way under the assault. Jeremy goes limply unconsious in Kai's hands, and Kai holds him up for a few seconds relishing the victory before letting the dead weight of his larger opponent fall to the ground. Kai looks at the last standing boy, a reedy white kid with weasely eyes. Fear is written there in those eyes, fear writ large and powerful, and Kai drinks it in like sweet nectar. "You next, asshole?" Kai asks him malevolently. The boy's response is to shake his head and run, far away, to get as much distance between himself and the carnage as he can.

Less than a minute has passed since Kai was just walking along minding his business on this bright, sweltering October day, pondering the smog-stained Los Angeles skies. Seventh grade wasn't going well at all. There were TOO many assholes at this school, and they never seemed to learn the most important thing he could teach them- leave me the FUCK alone. These four have had to learn the hard way...

Kai looks down at the unconscious, bleeding seventh and eight graders lying crumpled at his feet. Shaking from the adrenaline high, and riding a wave of power from the fear he can sense around him, Kai rears his head back and laughs savagely.


Two months later...

A new town, a new school, a new challenge for domination. Kai has been here only a short while, and already the scales are tipped sharply against him. Here in this junior high school in the backwater asshole of Western Washington State, he is once again the School Target. It is a situation totally different from California, where at least they took the direct approach and backed up verbal attacks with physical assault. Physical fights gave Kai something to work with- at least if they threw the first punch, he felt justified in dishing out whatever punishment he could. Here, though, it was different. They were trying his patience. No one had so much as shoved him yet- it had remained mere name calling and jokes at his expense so far.

His mind burns with desire for revenge, but his twisted sense of morality keeps him from taking the initiative. Ever since losing Kizzy in the aftermath of beating Wyatt's ass, Kai has vowed only to retaliate, never to instigate. So now, he wishes more than anything that someone would throw the first punch and give him an excuse.

As Kai walks down the crowded, stifling halls of the school on the way to his next class, he looks at and touches no one. These are not human beings sliding past him, standing before him, roughly pushing against his back; they are cattle. Mindless in their drives, they represent mere obstacles to his path, either to be avoided altogether... or, if need be, mercilessly mown down...

Without warning, a sharp push sends Kai hurtling into a nearby set of lockers. Impacting sharply against the metal, he has only a second to react before an angry fist flies swiftly toward his face. FINALLY! is his only thought as his reflexes take over and the glorious rush of battle claims him yet again. Until now, Kai's only defense against these cretins has been withering sarcasm; now, he will show them TRUE pain.

Ducking the punch, Kai notes the identity of his attacker- a large, slow football player named Al. As usual, Kai has no concept of how someone he doesn't even know could hate him so much, but at the moment he doesn't give a shit either. The agenda for the moment is survival, primal and dark in its urgings, and Kai couldn't be happier with the situation.

With the slo-track imagery of the fight, Kai notes first Al's confusion at his fist's target no longer being there, then his frantic searching, then the withering fear and shock as Kai appears before him, grinning madly as he drives the flat of his palm sharply upward.

Anyone watching from outside the intimacy of the combat, without the benefit of that adrenaline induced slow-motion action, would have seen only a blur of brutal motion. Within seconds, Kai has conquered yet again.

A girl screams, and all motion in the hallway stops, as Al withers unconsciously to the floor, nose shattered. Kai looks at the faces around him, noting their reactions. And he is confused. Written there now, he sees no fear, no adulation or respect. Their hatred for him has only deepened farther.

As Kai is grabbed by two teachers and roughly dragged to the principal's office, he realizes that this is going to be a rough day...


Three years later...

High school, with all its cliques, with its soap opera melodrama, is Kai's worst nightmare come true. The halls he walks through on the way to his classes, and the classes he sits in and suffers through, all are packed with people he hates. Jocks, with their mindless devotion to sports and getting laid. Stoners, with their mindless devotion to "being different" -read "getting high, not bathing, and acting like assholes". Preppies, with their mindless devotion to fashion and looking good in the eyes of others, their intense, nauseating desire to impress. Cheerleader girls, with their mindless devotion to their dual natured sweet-as-apple pie image within the adult community, paired with their secretive gutter-slut gropings in locker rooms and the backseats of cars with their jock boyfriends. Kai judges them all, and judges harshly. Ignorance surrounds them like poisonous vapor, and the cacophonous noise of their thoughts is a wave of sound that drives Kai closer to the edge each time he hears it...

The only people he can even remotely relate to are the so-called "nerds" of the school, if only because they are the TRUE rebels. Like him, they could give a fuck less about fashion OR social acceptance. Some few of them are even here to fucking LEARN... or at least breathe hard and fake it.

It is another new town, another new school, and a new era in "what's cool". Out of three hundred losers in this Eastern Washington podunk shithole school, there are roughly one hundred Garth Brooks clones- the ten gallon hat for a two gallon head, the vertical striped button up puke shirt, the pointy leather "shitkicker" boots, and the giant belt buckle- tombstone for a dead cock. In other words, HICKS.

Within the "stoner" community, we have the newly risen "gangsta wannabe's"- Raider's parkas in the summer, unlaced hightops, and a strutting shuffle to the walk that strikes Kai as vaguely reminiscent of a mentally retarded girl he knew in the fourth grade. It is 1993, the year when white kids first start trying to be black.

The remainder of the school is dressed in all the latest fashions, bought with Daddy's credit card and with store logos boldly displayed. Walking billboards, these are the assholes who will grow up to fuel the mighty consumerism beast. At least eighty percent of them will drive a Honda at some point in their lives.

Kai watches these vacant, soulless bastards from his vantage point outside the school, crumpling a beer can and tossing it aside apathetically. As he steps down from a pyramid-shaped stack of concrete, his thick motorcycle boots rhythmically sound out a CLOMP, CLOMP of unbreakable hatred. The motorcycle jacket and torn blue jeans he wears are his uniform in his war against the stupidity of conformity, and his rebelliously long and unkempt blond hair is a metaphor for the upraised middle finger he has raised to the human race.

As they file in for the beginning of the day, he cannot help but realize that out of all of them, even the few girls he's attracted to, there is not one person in that building who challenges him. Not even the teachers. Kai has grown so used to manipulating peoples' perceptions of him that physical fights have become a thing of the past. An almost physically palpable aura has slowly and sinuously wound its way around him over the long years of endless conflict- as he walks down the halls of the school, people look away nervously and give him a wide berth. No one talks to him, no one approaches him, no one invites him to join into their cliquey existence. High school is where Kai gets most of his sleep, and his photographic memory and the effortless ease with which he glides through the school's pathetic cirriculum lets him get away with it. It is at night, at home with his books, that Kai REALLY learns, far from the distracting teenage wasteland that has become the bane of his existence.

Kai stalks the halls without fear of confrontation, for the first time ever. At last, the sixteen year old warrior has gotten what he's always wanted. People are finally leaving him the fuck alone.

Completely... and utterly... alone...