Try and dodge!

You twist into a dodge, but the sand’s fucked up your vision and you mistime it – and his folded-up elbow hammers into your right shoulder, only just missing your neck.

It makes a sound like raw meat slapping against concrete, and you grunt, wrenching yourself away – barely avoiding the next one. His follow-up strike is aimed squarely at your nose, and a snapped bone in your face would probably end this fight all together.

As it is, your reflexive twist away catches him off-guard, and he staggers slightly towards you, overbalanced. Seeing a sudden opening, you hook his ankle in yours and slam the back of his knee. He bends with it so the joint doesn’t pop, but it brings him to the ground.

And then you’re both down and scrambling – Brazilian jiu-jitsu is your best bet once a fight goes to ground, but you’re barely a novice there, you only know a few tricks –

This is one of them.

He’s rolling away automatically, trying to get distance, regain the advantage – so you deliberately do the opposite, and roll with him. As his head spins round, you see his eyes widen, and he desperately tries to get his arm up –

Not fast enough.

Your hand slices against the base of his skull with perfect timing – frozen mid-roll, the back of his head is exposed for a split second, and that’s where you connect. His head bounces off the hard soil with a sound like a basketball, and he grunts – that must have hurt like a bitch – but somehow he’s still kicking, still snarling, still in the fight.

You’re beginning to feel a certain amount of grudging respect for this guy, but this has already gone on far too long.

Half-stunned, his next strike is already off-target; you deflect it easily off your forearm, and then hammer a chop down to the side of his neck. His eyes bulge – a constricted windpipe isn’t a fun feeling – before you raise your arm high overhead –

And finish it with a final elbow smash to the forehead. His head bounces against the ground one more time, and his body flops suddenly, out for the count.

The silence seems to stretch on forever before you roll to your feet, exhausted.

You weren’t trying to kill him. Matter-of-fact, you were actually doing your best to fight non-lethally – you have absolutely no desire to stand in front of a judge and try to argue self-defence, not with no witnesses to back you up and his grieving mother on the stand.

Fortunately, he’s still breathing. His eyes are rolled up, though, ****, and you can suddenly feel the adrenaline coursing through your body. The fight must have lasted less than a minute, and yet it feels like an hour ago that you were walking down the street.

I won, you think, somewhat disbelievingly. That wasn’t a foregone conclusion by any means; this guy matched your skill level easily, and probably surpassed you in speed and reflexes. Luck – and maybe a certain mad, **** determination – saved you this time.

You take a step experimentally, testing your shoulder. It hurts when you twist it, but that’s no big deal – and honestly, you’re lucky to be walking away from this fight with nothing more than a bruised shoulder.

You take a step towards the light at the end of the alley –

Then another shadow falls over you from behind, there’s a sudden exploding pain in the back of your skull, and darkness snatches away the light.