Chapter Ten: Break the Chain

"They told me to fight for my life.But no one warned me that death might be the one training me for it."

Blaze stopped sleeping.Then he stopped showing up.Then he stopped speaking to me at all.

He was supposed to fight this Saturday—small promotion, local crowd, warm-up match before regionals. It should've been easy.

Instead, he ghosted.

No gym.No texts.No Blaze.

By Tuesday, the promoter was threatening to pull him from the card.

By Wednesday, he was posting training clips—alone, in some garage, with duct-taped mats and a single hanging lightbulb.

By Thursday, I found him.

He was sitting in his car outside the 24-hour laundromat where his mom used to fold towels. Engine off. Head down.

He looked like he hadn't slept in days.

Eyes yellowed. Hands shaking.

I tapped on the window.

He didn't look up.

"You fighting or not?" I asked through the glass.

A long pause.

Then he rolled it down.

"I'm scared," he said. "Not of the fight. Of what happens after."

"The dreams?"

He nodded.

"They don't stop. Not even when I'm awake. I see flashes now. People I don't know. Places I've never been. And The Witness—"

He swallowed hard.

"He's in all of them."

That night, I went back to Carter Vale.

I called the center. Told them it was urgent. He was lucid that day—rare, the nurse said.

I didn't waste a second.

"Can it be broken?" I asked, before even sitting down.

Carter stared at the window.

"Not in the way you mean."

"Blaze is falling apart."

"So were you."

"But I survived."

"No," he said, voice flat. "You adapted."

"What's the difference?"

He finally turned.

"One means you change. The other means you lose everything that made you human."

I gripped the chair arms hard enough to feel the wood creak.

"He doesn't want this."

"Then why is he still alive?" Carter asked quietly. "The loop doesn't choose at random. It wants resilience. Or desperation. He gave it something."

I stood.

"There's got to be another way."

"There isn't," he said. "Just endings."

Friday night.

I sat in the locker room of the event center, hands shaking as I stared at Blaze's name on the fight card.

He was here.

Suited up. Wraps on. Hoodie pulled low.

But he hadn't spoken a word.

His opponent?Kid named Tray Wilson. Fast. Arrogant. Built like a crowbar.

It should've been a clean fight. Skill vs. speed.

But Blaze wasn't thinking about points.

He wasn't thinking about winning.

He was thinking about waking up.

Backstage, I caught his arm.

"Blaze. Look at me."

He did.

Barely.

"If you don't want to do this, you don't have to."

"I have to," he muttered.

"Why?"

He stared at his hands.

"Because every time I fight in the dreams, I learn something new. But when I don't? When I hide?"

He looked up at me. And I'll never forget his voice when he said it.

"That's when I die slower."

The bell rang.

They stepped into the cage.

And everything changed.

The first round was fast. Too fast.

Blaze wasn't dodging anymore — he was predicting.

Tray swung. Blaze was already inside.

He elbowed. Kneed. Shifted posture mid-punch. His body moved like it had run this sequence a hundred times in his sleep.

Because maybe it had.

But in Round 2…

Something shifted.

Tray landed a clean hook to Blaze's temple. Just enough to stagger.

Blaze paused.

Eyes went glassy.

Then—snapped.

He didn't just fight.

He attacked.

Spinning elbow to the jaw. Step-knee to the ribs. A sweep that folded Tray onto the mat like a broken table.

The ref moved to stop it—

Blaze kept going.

Mount position.Fists raining down.No hesitation.No mercy.

Not Blaze anymore.

I jumped the barrier.

Security tried to hold me.

I yelled until the ref dragged him off.

And Blaze?

Didn't blink.

Didn't breathe hard.

Just stood over the unconscious body, chest heaving like he'd just woken up from a nightmare.

The ref raised his hand.

The crowd roared.

And Blaze collapsed.

He came to in the locker room.

No crowd. No lights. Just me and the sound of the arena being swept up outside.

"Did I win?" he asked.

"You almost killed him."

"Did I win?" he repeated.

"Blaze—"

"Because in the dream, I didn't."

He sat up.

"I died. In the third round. He kneed me. I bit my tongue and bled out in my sleep."

He gripped the edge of the bench.

"But here… I made it."

I wanted to scream. To shake him. To tell him this wasn't victory — it was possession.

But I didn't.

Because for the first time in days… he looked peaceful.

As we walked to the car, he stopped at the hallway mirror.

Stared into it.

"He was there again," he whispered.

"Who?"

"The Witness."

"When?"

"Just before the finish."

He looked at me.

"He nodded."

"What does that mean?"

"It means I passed."

Later that night, I watched him from the motel balcony, smoking a cigarette I'd bummed from the parking lot clerk. Blaze was in his room across the lot, lights off, just his silhouette behind the blinds.

He hadn't moved in over an hour.

I could still see the blood on his wraps. Not from Tray. From his own knuckles. Split from impact. Bone against bone.

I thought about all the years I'd coached him — from broken mitts and duct-taped gloves to regional circuits and midnight runs. I'd seen him angry. I'd seen him lost. But this?

This was different.

This was a boy who had tasted death so many times, it didn't scare him anymore.

And maybe that was the most terrifying part.

In the middle of the night, I heard a knock.

Blaze. Hoodie up. Eyes empty.

"I can't sleep," he said.

"Come in."

He sat on the floor, back against the couch like he used to when he was 17 and broke and homesick.

"Do you think I'm still me?"

"Yeah," I said, too fast.

He shook his head.

"No. You don't. You think I'm becoming something else."

"What do you think?"

He hesitated.

"I think I'm not supposed to be scared anymore. But I am."

He looked at his hands again.

"I just don't know if it's me who's scared... or the last version of me who died in a dream."

He didn't stay long.

Just stood up. Nodded. Walked out.

Left the door open behind him.

Like he didn't know if he was coming back.

Like part of him already hadn't.