"this time you die"

"this time you die!"

brayan awoke from his deep trance with a start . he had unmistakably heard the words . he was certain that he had heard them as plainly as day but when he opened his eyes and looked around the room he was greeted by nothing but darkness and half light .the red glow of the clock said 8:58 .

the sky had darkened and moonlight was creeping its way up the window blinds spilling its pale yellow glow across the floor . he had been under for almost an hour .he had again drifted deeply enough to gradually lose awareness of his surroundings . awareness of everything --including losing awareness of awareness itself .

he had blanked out . gone away . gone beyond thinking to a sweet bliss of nothingness .a rest more profound than sleep. how much of the hour he had spent there , he would never know, but something had suddenly awakened him --and as usual , ended his peace.

he looked around again as he stretched , reassured for the moment that he was alone as he yawned and stretched again to throw off the drowsiness still wrapped around him like a blanket . he felt like closing his eyes and re-submerging into the delicious nothingness that he had just left . he almost succumbed to the feeling.

in the darkness of the room's corner-- away from the door --hidden in a shadow was where he saw an outline --the naked silhouette of a manlike form with some type of strange and large rounded hat or helmet on its head --and with what looked like several thin moving arms upon it.

the being repeated it's admonition in a thick , rasping , familiar voice that rawed loabe's nerves like sandpaper, "this time you die !"

the strange thin arms from the thing's helmet began moving more rapidly --swaying back and forth , as if in a dance , each to its own silent rhythm .

"sumanguru", loabe could barely whisper , his own voice still absent , still wandering in the bliss.

the strong unpleasant aroma of wet canine , liberally mixed with fresh cowdung , with carefully added stale garlic, again successfully combined to make their uninhibited assault upon the nostrils .

loabe recognized also sumanguru's blood red eyes above dog snout and teeth , as the thing eased forward in the moonlight .

he could see that it wore no clothing -- nothing more than the helmet that looked like a round cast iron pot atop the sumanguru's unusually large head .

its right hand held the heavy iron sword with which the creature had earned its fame as a brutal slaughterer of men. that loabe would soon be "next" was the creature's unmistakable intent.

loabe heard a furious hissing like air being forced from several car tires at once along with the steady splash of water and the smell of dank urine rising up into the air as the naked manbeast lifted its leg and relieved itself, marking its hunting territory ,splashing the walls , and leaving a large steaming puddle on the floor .

loabe felt a strong tremoring instantly leap uncomfortably from within the pit of his belly and force its way upwards through his body when he saw the pale yellow glow refelected from the pairs of eyes of what he now knew were vipers atop the creature's head .

two of the snakes curled back simultaneously and quickly arched forward . the flying venom briefly caught moonlight as loabe instinctively with his hands , covered his eyes as streams of venom dripped down the back of his hands and some onto his cheeks . each place it touched , the spitting cobras' hot venom burned and itched leaving a patch of raised red rash blisters .

loabe instinctively grabbed the table lamp by it's heavy base and in almost one move yanked out the cord with one hand and with the other , threw the lamp like a football, as hard as he could at the "manster".

the flying object struck the beast on its metal helmet shattering into dozens of glass and ceramic splinters , causing the cobras to screech like wounded dogs as droplets of cold reptilian blood spattered to the floor.

the impact of the lamp's blow was forceful enough and surprising enough to catch the creature momentarily unprepared, snapping his head backwards with it ,pulling him temporarily off balance.

loabe seized the moment to dive to his left , quietly shoulder-roll across the floor , land upon his feet and scurry into the next room for the nearest weapon.

his eye caught sight of the butt of his favorite pistol --the browing semi-automatic 9 millimeter he had long ago nicknamed "miss nina browning."

his first impulse was to reach for the firearm , pull 'the jealous woman' from the dark leather holster , jack a round into the chamber ,flick off the safety and burn a dozen holes into sumanguru's chest --but something in his better sense told him not to.

instead loabe bent and reached for the long bladed instrument kept on the floor behind the tv/stereo shelf that was miss nina's hiding place .

"though i die the grass will grow , the sun will shine, the streams will flow ."

he was ready.

loabe, his sword hand heavy, turned and charged back into the room .

sumanguru and the spitting cobras had recovered enough to have moved to the center of the room --a trail of cold red droplets on the floor behind them .

the snakes hissing was almost deafening as well as disorienting to the other senses . the taste of their own blood had incensed them and at the same time intensified their own innate hunger to kill . the smell from the shattered lamp's cuts and wounds on their bodies hinted of rotting meat. the smell from the snakes' hissing mouths stunk of death .

brayan moved quickly , his free hand up near the face to shield his eyes from the flying streams of caustic venom . he faked a thrust to the eyes with his weapon . when sumanguru raised his own sword to block the thrust , loabe quickly changed directions , slashing downward diagonally ,heavily across the beast's upper thigh .blood gushed as the sumanguru hyena-screeched in pain.

without pausing , as if undamaged , sumanguru instantly swung his blade downward at loabe's head --moving as if he were angrily swatting a fly .

loabe spun backwards and to his left --the blade barely missing him and smashing instead through the table that had held the lamp brayan had thrown.

loabe immediately skip-stepped forward and used what would have been a front snap kick to adroitly lift one half of the smashed table with his foot and simultaneously propel it forward crashing into sumanguru's face . brayan then slashed with his sword across the manster's chest leaving a large gaping trench in spotted furry chest muscle to spurt out blood. a crocodile's , scaley, clawed foot immediately responded and raked across brayan's jaw as sumanguru drew the first human blood of the conflict .

ignoring the searing pain --ignoring the cobras' constant hissing and spitting punctuated by the staccato of the hyena's laugh , ignoring the burning rash of blisters left on the back of his hands arms and face --everywhere the venom hit , loabe knew that he could not ignore the fact that the stinging and swelling of his eyes revealed that not much time remained.

tiny splashes from the blocked and constant spitting of the cobras were already badly stinging his eyes causing them to swell. in a few minutes he would either be blinded from a direct hit of the venom or his eyes would swell shut from the poison's irritation . he knew he must decisively act now or eventually die .


making a mental snapshot of his and the opponent's positions in the room, he shut tightly his eyes , stepped forward and with both hands and with all his strength , swung the sword in a large figure 8 .

the move was powerful enough and quick enough to have cut a man all the way through to his spine . but as brayan had hoped , sumanguru was too quick and too savvy . the beast avoided the intended death cut by taking a short step back and instinctively raising his weapon to counterattack , waiting like a homerun hitter ready to cut the ball in half .

sumanguru , expecting the second figure 8 slash from loabe was surprised when the human instead allowed the momentum generated from the blade's downward swing to carry his feet into a half circle from which loabe immediately planted his rightfoot, and spun around landing a powerful left spinning back kick to the pelvic triangle that lifted the beast from his position ,smacking him into the wall.

with eyes open, loabe stepped in and made an upward diagonal slash with his weapon that sent most of the cobra heads flying from their bodies --landing each a with sickening thud.

a second crosscut and the awful sound of the hissing now only came from the floor .a shower of cold blood had also splattered the room as an obviously now weakened sumanguru finally showed signs of being injured .

the hissing stopped as the headless serpents convulsed and thrashed wildly. two or three of the severed heads still tried to spit venom up at loabe but the streams no longer had the velocity or the volume to reach .

loabe's full attention was on the sumanguru . the figure 8 move had caused the beast to respond exactly as loabe had hoped it would . it was an old swordsman's tale that figure "8s work best in 2s " .

the figure 8 is a powerful killing technique but against a skilled opponent , the first one, many times fails to connect-- but it does serve well to move the opponent into the right place for the second one to be effective .

sumanguru stepped back from the first figure 8 in order to position himself to cut loabe in half during what he thought would be the second of the 2 . instead , he put himself into loabe's kicking range and paid the cost.

without the distraction of the cobras , the weakened sumanguru was no match .

loabe easily blocked a right middle slash with his own sword and quickly whipped the blade backwards towards the opponent , cutting the beast deeply under the jawbone near its borderline with the neck.

without pausing , he then quickly slid the blade forcefully downwards , tracing lightly along sumanguru's swordarm and hacking him badly at the wrist as the beast's weapon clattered loudly to the floor .

"it's over" , said loabe breathing heavily , "there's no way that you can win. surrender . this is obviously a lucid dream we're in , coming from one of the spirit worlds . give me a gift and i'll let you live."

the sumanguru's dog snout sneered, sheets of milky glue-like saliva dripped from its jagged mouth as it rasped, "here's your 'gift'--you fool--you will chase a lost cause and die a tragic death. that's the only 'gift' that awaits you."

the beast's pronouncement cut deeper than its blade possibly could. the sword cuts only flesh . his prediction burned brayan's hopes worse than the serpents' caustic venom burned loabe's eyes or skin.

as brayan's watched in horror , the sumanguru suddenly began to shake and tremble as the dog snout stretched , elongated even larger --two then three times longer as the fur gave way to scales and cold reptilian eyes

sumanguru lunged its head and neck forward at loabe snapping its teeth together loudly, slamming its jaws shut just barely an inch from loabe's face .the foul damp smell of mud , swamps and partially digested raw meat floated upon the air.

loabe startled by the transformation and the close call , stumbled backwards and was instantly slapped to the ground by the crocodile's thick powerful tail. the beast pounced forward its jaws open , huge sharp teeth bared ready for the kill .

loabe's presence of mind , the swordmaster's constant drills, and perhaps even fate were all that allowed him to survive.

"before meditation" ,as the old swordmaster's saying goes, , "mind is mind --sword is sword. after meditation , mind is sword --sword is mind."

loabe on his back quickly sat up ,swept his legs out of the crocodile's path to the side for support and then from up on one knee , calmly extended in front of him , the sword still in his hands . with perfect timing ,using the beast's own momentum , brayan impaled the crocodile through its greedily open mouth.

using the weapon for support he stood up carefully and with agility avoided the circular sweeping attempts from the muscular slapping tail as loabe held the big lizard pinned by the sword through its mouth to the floor .

"i can do this all day", loabe taunted ,"surrender and give me a gift and i might let you live."

the big crocodile tried to bite down on the sword ,but it only cut worse . it spit and hissed ,twisted its body, clawed trying to get at loabe with its feet , convulsed ,thrashed and slapped wildly with its tail , but it was all useless. nothing worked .

finally the beast's voice rasped as it spoke its words of surrender .

placing the weight of one foot on top of the crocodile head for leverage, loabe pulled the stubborn blade from the beast's mouth and stepped quickly backwards out of reach of the dangerous teeth and tail .


the sumanguru's shape shifted immediately again . this time it adopted the head and claws and upperbody of a leopard carried upon the spindly legs of an ostrich .the strong scent of dank cat piss and the sulfurous odor of badly rotten eggs struck the air.

the beast both kicked and clawed at loabe and as brayan instinctively recoiled from the strikes and the pain in his now bleeding shoulder and collarbone area --very near brayan's neck -- the beast made a sideways leap to the floor to retrieve its sword .

loabe quickly recovered his equilibrium and jumped towards the beast . the sumanguru attempted to rise and resume the battle with its sword .

as soon as it reached its feet, sensing where loabe was behind it , the sumanguru made a backwards decapitation slash with its weapon. brayan ducked low beneath the blade , dropped to the floor and executed a perfect sweep , up-ending the beast , dumping it hard onto its back as it hit the floor .

without thinking ,loabe used the extra momentum of the sweeping motion generated by his legs as the start of a pivot to then turn himself almost full circle and back up upon his feet.

from its back , sumanguru arched and kicked up into a "pop up" technique regaining its feet . but as it spun around to face loabe, the sumanguru this time proved just a shade too slow , just a hair too late and as its fierce eyes met loabe's --with a burst of quickness -- brayan totally accelerated forward and performed a flawless set of figure 8s --first one and then the second.

the trembling , mortally wounded sumanguru stared up from the floor in disbelief at brayan loabe.

its hand no longer able to hold the sword as its life steadily pumped out from the huge slash wounds on both sides of its neck. its blood forming into a dark ,shining pool , growing ever larger on the floor .

"you should have listened" , loabe panted , " i would have let you live" , he said almost remorsefully .

at first sumanguru did not answer.

"proper ettiquette required you simply give a gift when you are defeated by a worthy opponent." loabe breathed heavily , "i would have let you live."

" i gave you a gift---you fool" ,sumanguru's loud rasp was now a small whisper .

"but you were too blind to see it " he struggled and lifted his head from the floor and with his eyes fixed loabe's perplexed glare . "you will spend your life chasing a lost cause and die a tragic death--hahaha--don't blame the messenger."

sumanguru coughed and sputtered , choking upon its own blood --yet its eyes leered defiantly at loabe . loabe himself was now trembling with his own pain, fear, and exhaustion.

as a small but continuous stream of human blood dripped down his arm and onto the heavy instrument clenched in his hand , a wave of frustration and rage flooded over him .

with tightened jaw and sad , tearful , disappointed heart , brayan loabe raised his sword and with one angry stroke finished the task the figure 8s had begun.