A familiar rattling on a wooden surface caused Eric to slowly open his right eye, his sleep filled mind registering the vibrating object and glowing light as something to automatically reach out for.
His hand grabbed the flat, rectangular object and pulled the glowing surface closer to his face. As his pupils adjusted, he gradually recognized the image of a hand drawn graffiti-styled "A". The image itself an old photo of a doodle he had made for his younger brother Aaron in middle school.
Entirely by instinct, he used his thumb to press and drag the small green circle at the bottom of the screen. Stifling the inevitable yawn, he placed the cold device on the side of his face before speaking.
"... Sup?"
"Sup!? The hell you mean 'sup?'," said a clearly incensed Aaron through the tiny speaker near his ear, "where've you been all day fool?"
"Chill bruh, my head is killing me. I was... training... at the, logging site?"
Eric imagined he could hear Aaron's eyes roll through the receiver as his younger brother sighed in exasperation as he attempted to calm himself, "Is that supposed to be code for something, like is that a new way to say you were sawing logs? If so, that's too lame, even for you."
Eric hesitated for a moment, not sure of what was going on. He could see that it was fast approaching sundown outside his bedroom window in his apartment.
"My bad bro, I'm kind of disoriented right now, is what code for what now?"
Eric was sure there was steam coming out of his little brother's ears by now. "Man... nevermind all that. You need to be at the venue for weigh-in in twenty minutes! Are you gonna make it or are you gonna take a forfeit loss on your debut?"
Eric sprang up from his mattress, dressed in a flash and was out of his apartment door, with a mouth full of mouth wash, in exactly one minute.
Odd images flashed across his mind's eye as he ran at a dead sprint, jumping over fences, dodging the occasional car and otherwise disturbing the peace. Images of a large, yet rustic, village. Of giant trees that stretched far enough that they seemed to reach the sky. An image of a kind young woman... "look where you're going asshole!" screamed a middle-aged woman that Eric nearly knocked over, snapping him back the present.
"I'm so sorry ma'am, but I'm in a hurry!"
Eric looked the woman over one time to make sure he had only startled her before hopping over a guard rail and sliding down an embankment, not breaking his pace in the slightest upon reaching the bottom.
The woman watched on in stunned silence as he cleared the low river like a professional long jumper and scaled up the other side of the the embankment at an unbelievable speed. His image gone before she could gather her whits about her.
Eric barely took note of hers or anyone's else's reactions as he ran to his destination. As he neared the venue, he saw his little brother standing with the side door of the building propped open behind him, his lanky figure and glasses that always seemed to catch the glint of whatever light source was nearby whenever he was irritated, was a nostalgic image that Eric would never be able to forget.
Aaron seemed exasperated upon seeing his big older brother dripping in sweat while running from an obscure direction. "You know an cab would've been just as fast right? You only took fifteen minutes to get here... how long of a distance did you run!?" Aaron had started yelling at Eric as soon as he was visible. Eric didn't break pace in the slightest and he drew near.
"It's a five mile drive if you go by car but it's only two and a half in a straight line to here!"
Eric light tapped Aaron's chest in greeting as he bolted threw the doorway and ran down the hall to the weighing room. He could hear his younger brother yell at his back, "So two and a half miles with hurdles and a river!? Before a fight! Have you lost your mind bro!?"
Eric laughed as he reached the door at the end of the hall and shouted over is shoulder.
"A warm up jog was just what I needed!"
...
Eric was regretting every choice he made that day.
Contrary to what he imagined his brother's suspicions to be, he had actually stayed up all night the previous night and most of the early morning training and exercising.
He knew it wasn't wise to do so, but he had trained really hard and had been looking forward to the fight for weeks. It had taken Aaron a lot of effort to get him this opportunity and the anxiety had made him over prepare, hence why he had overslept and missed several phone calls before his brother got through to him.
Combine that with his not-so-thought-out "jog" right before weigh-in and he had made himself quite the recipe for disaster.
And now he found himself looking across a boxing ring at a guy that didn't look nearly as tried as him while he fought for breath in between rounds.
Aaron was in Eric's corner, as always. His little brother took this opportunity to climb into the ring and squat down to in order to be eye level with him while he sat slumped over on a stool.
Aaron snapped his fingers in order to Eric's attention before saying, "Hey... Hey! Look at me bro. Focus up! Just breathe and listen to me... You with me? Good. Now I know you you've been looking forward to this fight, we both have. This is the real deal homie, we can't start out looking like some chumps can we? Of course not. Now I know you're exhausted, this is about to be the twelfth and last round. We're not getting this by decision. So I need you to get yourself together, dig really, really deep and push past everything that's holding you back. This is your future big dog, now put the fear of God in this dude." The called for all help to leave the ring, leaving Aaron just enough time to yell at his obviously fatigued brother from ringside, "Remember, push past it!"
"Yeah, yeah. Just watch me."
The bell rang for the final round as Eric mumbled past his mouth guard.
He raised his fists and was standing over an unconscious opponent exactly twenty nine seconds later.
After the celebration and being declared the winner by knockout, Eric had just enough energy to make it the locker room before blacking out.
...
Eric awoke with a start.
He was lying face down with his legs slightly hanging off the side of his bed. His long hair obscuring his vision temporarily.
'Long hair?'
Eric sat up immediately and looked around the small room his eyes finally resting on the rotund young man sitting on the bed opposite of him. The cloth rag full of obviously stolen steamed buns from the commons kitchen lying on the bed combined with his shocked expression made for a comedic sight.
The plump fella's cheeks reddened in embarrassment momentarily before he began shouting, "H-how are you going to just pop up like that after sleeping for less than a few hours!? You almost gave me a heart attack!"
Eric looked at this excitable guy jiggle and stifled an urge to laugh.
"Xiang Jian, I'm mostly certain I wouldn't be the only reason for that."
Eric didn't hear what his dormmate said as a rebuttal as he reflected on his recent experience.
'So it was just a dream, or rather a memory...'
He closed his eyes and allowed himself to replay the images in his head again.
'It's nice to see Aaron's face so clearly. I was afraid I was starting to forget his features.'
Eric smiled a warm smile while his eyes were still closed; a gesture that apparently infuriated the still ranting Xiang Jian and led to him hitting Eric directly in the nose with a steamed bun.
A few moments and a couple thuds that could be heard in the hallway outside and Eric emerged from the the dorm room while wiping his nose with a handkerchief and carrying and clean bundle of clothes, the slowly closing door leaving enough time for passersby to see Xiang Jian's sorry figure.
The image of the poor guy laying on his back in the middle of the floor with his feet above his head while his mouth was overstuffed with steamed buns left a lasting impressions on the onlookers.
...