Max Arena

by

Jamie Doyle

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 Jamie
Doyle

===========================================

For my wife because I love
her...

===========================================

Smashwords Edition, License
Notes

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11:10pm, 31st December. The Arena

7:06pm, 30th June (6 months earlier).
Discovery

11:28am. 1st July. Canberra, Australia (the next
morning). A New Friend

1st July (15 minutes later). A New
Enemy

9:57am, 2nd July (the next day).
Kris

3pm, 2nd July (later the same day).
Isolation

10am, 4th July (2 days later). Trials and
Politics

8pm, 4th July (later that night). Sheikh
Abdullah

11pm, 4th July (later that night).
Fear

8am, 5th July (the next morning).
Compassion

10:30am, 12th July (7 days later).
Fractionation

9pm, 12th July (later that night). The
Truth

Noon, 16th July (4 days later).
Skirmish

Noon, 20th July (4 days later). Spiralling
Downwards

5:30pm, 21st July (the next day). Team
Max

11:45am. 22nd July (the next day). A
Spark

Noon, 29th July (7 days later).
Revelation

4pm, 29th July (later that afternoon). Rules of
Engagement

10pm, 29th July (later that night). Trouble on
the Fenceline

3am, 2nd August (3 days later).
Prophecy

10am, 2nd August (later that morning).
Evacuation

5pm, 2nd August (later that same day).
Dread

9am, 5th August (3 days later). Light and
Pancakes

4pm, 5th August (later that day). Secret
Flame

10pm, 5th August (later that night).
Faith

8am, 7th August (2 days later).
Unveiled

9pm, 7th August (later that night). The World
Sees

2pm, 15th August (8 days later). Maximum
Exposure

10pm, 15th August (later that night). Boys’
Night

4:30pm, 10th September (almost 1 month later).
Rescue

4th October (almost 1 month later).
Peace

5pm, 4th October (later that afternoon).
Unleashed

11pm, 6th October (2 days later). Not
Ever

9am, 13th October (1 week later). Steel In
Hand

12:30pm, 14th October (1 day later).
Everything

7:30am, 12h November (1 month later). Arena
Plans

3am, 22nd November (10 days later). Maternal
Vision

Noon, 1st December (8 days later). Christmas
Hope

Noon, 1st December (same time). Together We
Win

9pm, 1st December (later that night). The Pain
of a Good Man

4:30am, 2nd December (the next morning).
Dawn

1pm, 17th December (15 days later).
Committed

9pm, 17th December (later that night).
Crumbling

5pm, 29th December (12 days later). It Makes
You...Human

5pm, 31st December (2 days later). Final
Reflections

11pm, 31st December (6 hours later). Clash of
Blades

11:20pm, 31st December.
Impenetrable

11:40pm, 31st December. Warlord

12:25pm, 1st January. Glimmer

THE END

Who Is Jamie Doyle?

Also By Jamie Doyle?

11:10pm, 31
^st
December. The
Arena

Max crouched
on all fours, looking down to see his own blood drip and splash on
the lush, green grass of the arena surface. The stadium crowd and
in fact the whole world had disappeared behind a white fog,
impenetrable and silent. He knew his wife and children were out
there and with him in spirit, but right now, right here, he was
alone and that was okay. That was how he needed it to be.

He had just
taken a battering and needed to focus. Max wasn’t hurt, not really.
If he survived the night, the shallow gash on his forehead would
heal quickly enough. Max certainly wasn’t scared either. In fact,
he now knew exactly what he had to do to get through this bout. He
had wondered for the past six months what it would really be like
in the arena. The chaos of the crowd. The atmosphere beneath the
lights. Even the feel of the humid night air. All of it he had
wondered about, but now Max knew and on top of that, he also knew
how to beat this foe.

Looking up, he
saw his instrument of victory. The fog receded a little to reveal
his sword, skewered into the ground like the Excalibur of legend.
The perfectly smithed blade glittered beneath the stadium lights,
its perfection belying its lethal capacity to kill. All Max had to
do now was rise to his feet, walk the handful of metres towards it
and take hold of the hilt. With the blade in his hand, he would
have victory secured.

Max knew that
his foe was bearing down on him from behind, mistakenly sensing
that he was wounded and vulnerable. Without rushing, almost
casually, Max straightened and rose firmly to his feet. Pausing
slightly, he then stepped forwards and in a few paces reached his
destination. He looked down at the weapon and paused again. His
mind imagined him reaching down and grasping the leather strapped
grip. Then Max imagined pulling it effortlessly clear of the turf
and twisting it to hold it upright in front of his face, his second
hand coming up to rest on the hilt directly beneath his other.
Mentally, Max could feel the surprising lightness of the weapon. He
could also see the keen, double edge with twin glimmers of light
rippling along them. Max could even feel the weight of the humidity
infused air, the hair on his arms and legs cloyed with the slight
bead of sweat. He was ready.

Reaching down
with his right hand, Max repeated his imagined scene in real life.
A moment later he was standing with the sword in front of his face,
his gaze watching the light play down the blade edges. His foe was
almost upon him. The sound of the crowd started to diffuse back
through the steadily thinning fog. The world was coming back to
him, or perhaps he was coming back to the world.

Looking up
into the crowd, the fog receded further to show a section of the
stadium, a private viewing booth, mid way up the stand. Its floor
to ceiling glass framed three figures huddled together, looking
down on him like an angel and two cherubs. His wife and their two
beautiful children. There they were. Every reason in the world he
needed to live was standing there looking over him. Now Max was
really
ready.

Behind him,
Max’s foe was launching into the air, preparing to strike him down.
His fingers gripped the hilt of his sword even tighter. The noise
of the crowd roared back into his senses and the green grass of the
arena sprang back into clarity. Stepping lightly, but firmly back
onto the ball of his left foot, Max spun, sword slicing the air. It
was time to fight. It was time to live.

7:06pm, 30
^th
June (6 months earlier).
Discovery

Max gently laid
his sleeping three your old son down on the bed and pulled the
sheet over him. He then reached across and grabbed the stuffed
doggy from the other side of the mattress and tucked it into his
boy’s floppy embrace. Straightening up, Max looked down at the
little boy and the tiniest of smiles curled the corners of his
mouth.

A soft hand
laid itself on Max’s shoulder and without looking around, he
reached up and rested his own hand on his wife’s. Together they
held their little boy in a lingering gaze before turning to switch
off the bedroom light and leave the room.

‘The little man
played hard today,’ Max said as he walked into the small kitchen of
their apartment.

‘Both him and
his sister,’ his wife said as she walked into the living room to
flick on the television. ‘She passed out just as quick as him.
She’s already snoring next door.’

Max smiled as
he started putting the children’s dishes into the dishwasher.
‘Beach holidays will do that to you. Struggling a bit myself.’

‘Oh, diddums.
Had a big day did you?’ his wife drawled back.

‘I wasn’t the
one who had a kip at lunch time.’

‘I needed
that,’ his wife said, sidling up behind Max, ‘to keep up with you
after the kids went to bed,’ she finished as she slid her arms
around her husband’s chest from behind.

Max
straightened and spun in her embrace, pulling her in closer as he
did. ‘And what exactly, young Elsa, did you plan on getting up to
now that the kids have left the room?’

‘Use your
imagination, champ,’ Elsa replied, a smile drawing across her
face.

‘Hmmm, you know
my imagination is bigger than the Earth,’ Max returned, an equally
intentioned smile on his features.

‘That’s why I
married you,’ Elsa said, slipping backwards out of Max’s embrace.
‘Now hurry up and clean the kitchen and I’ll see you in the adults’
room.’

‘Your wish…’
Max said, bowing.

With that, Elsa
left the room and Max watched her go, keenly aware that his heart
rate had skipped slightly up. There weren’t many things, physically
or emotionally in life that impacted him, but from the first moment
Max had met Elsa, it was not only his heart rate that had skipped
up. His entire life had found new meaning. He knew he had at last
found something worth holding on to and when the time came, worth
fighting for.

Turning back to
his chores, Max finished loading the dishes into the dishwasher. He
then wiped down the benches and after a quick glance around to make
sure all was in order, washed his hands and moved into the living
room to turn off the television. With the remote in hand, Max’s
finger started moving towards the off button, when something on the
screen caught his attention. His finger immediately stopped and his
heart rate edged up again. His eyes widened slightly as his
attention zoomed in on the image on the screen.

It was a face,
one that he’d seen countless times and usually in a mirror as he
looked at himself, except this time, his face was not in a mirror.
It was etched into the snow clad, north slope of Mount Everest, at
least five thousand metres above sea level and over five hundred
metres in height.

‘Elsa?’ Max
said quietly, but firmly. ‘You need to see this.’

For the next
ten minutes, Max and Elsa stood together watching the news reports
across the various channels. Max held Elsa’s hand and she pulled
herself in close to his side. Max’s heart rate had settled, but now
her’s was racing. Every channel showed the same story and it was
all about Max, or at least the images they were showing were all
images of him.

Shot after
shot, showed Max’s face impossibly sketched into natural landscapes
across the world with enough detail to know that it was him. Etched
into the snow and ice of Mount Himalaya in Nepal. Glassed into the
sands of the Sahara Desert in Libya. Scribed into the shallow
corals of the Great Barrier Reef of Australia. Carved out of the
bare rocks of the Hajar Mountain Range in the Sultanate of
Oman.

Max was
everywhere and all of the images had apparently appeared virtually
at the same time, but with no evidence of how or more importantly,
by whom. It was a complete and gob-smackingly unbelievable mystery,
but not to Elsa. The mystery stood right next to her, holding her
hand. She had known Max for ten years and knew that those ten years
of her life had been her best. She had loved and been loved in
return like she could not have imagined. She now had two beautiful
children to love just as fiercely and she had hope for a future. A
hope that she knew could not exist without Max. He was her
everything, but now it was all at risk, but then again, she knew
this day had been coming.