I am a huge fan of the Mortal Kombat video game series. Recently, I purchased the latest video game released on PS3 and it has re-activated my fascination with the storyline behind the games.
The following short story is a tribute to the Mortal Kombat storyline and characters. To all the MK fans, I hope you appreciate this.
A quick heads up: This story contains graphic and gory depictions of violence and brutality. Not for the faint at heart.
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FROM THE PIT-FLOOR
A short story by Aman S. Dhesi
I wish I were dead!
Here, amongst the piles of rotting corpses and decaying flesh, I've remained. How long it has been? It is hard to say. Time moves at a different pace in Outworld. Days morph into weeks, weeks transform into months and pretty soon - all concept of time gets lost. Especially when you are in a situation such as my own - lying at the bottom of a ninety foot pit with a giant sharp spike coming out of my hip.
Yes, you read that correct. I am currently lying at the bottom of a giant pit, impaled on one of the hundreds of giant spikes that protrude from the ground. For the past I'm-not-sure-how-long, I've been gushing blood from my mouth and from the wound in my side. My body has gone into shock, my limbs have been flailing spasmically and in many ways, it seems like my body is trying to shut down.
By all rights, I should be dead.
How I am still alive and how I ended up here, you ask? Well, to effectively answer that, I need to start at the beginning.
My name is John Carlton, but you probably know me better as Johnny Cage. I'm an actor. I've spent the last fifteen years making a career out of appearing in movies like "Shadowboxer", "Fists of Thunder" and "Karate Gold". Five years ago, I was at the top of my game and ruled Hollywood. I was an A-lister and was in constant demand. My movies were blockbusters and my name alone was a major box-office draw. That all changed when rumours started circulating that I was a fake. Apparently, some people had a tough time believeing that all the martial arts moves that I performed on film were my own. The rumours caught fire, my name disappeared from the marquee list and my career as an A-list actor floundered.
Just as it seemed Hollywood was closing its doors on me, I received a mysterious-looking invitation. I remember the day I saw it. I was on-set at my last movie shoot when I found it placed on a chair in my trailer. It was an old, dusty scroll that contained a logo of a stylized dragon in a circle and an invitiation to participate in a tournament on some island in the South Pacific. Only the best fighters around the world were invited and I was asked to participate. At first, I dismissed the idea, similarily to how I had dismissed so many movie offers in the past during my Hollywood hey day. But then I figured, what do I have to lose? If I win a tournament against the world's best fighters, that would prove to the world that I'm the real deal.
So I packed my things and accepted.
Straining my neck, I look up and can vaguely see the mouth of the pit. Across the entrance is the bridge where I was defeated by my last opponent; a woman named Mileena. She didn't waste too much time introducing herself before she leapt at me with startling speed. Looking back at our match, there was no way I could have beaten her. She moved quicker than the wind and her large, deadly samurai sais made quick work out of me in no time. I remember the final shattering blow that ended our combat. One second, I was standing in front of her preparing to deliver a crushing back-hand to her face when, all of a sudden, she disappeared. I sensed she was behind me and had just enough time to turn around and was greeted with her boot striking me solidly in the face. I staggered back reeling from the impact and had barely enough energy to remain standing. Through the blood, bruises and sweat that caked my vision, I could see her approaching me. Her purple facemask that she wore throughout the fight had concealed any emotion she may have displayed, but the coldness and malice in her eyes said it all.
She was about to finish me.
Walking upto me, she ripped off her mask to reveal a terrifying, abnormal smiling visage with a mouth containing rows of long, elongated and sharp fangs. Next thing I knew, I could feel her sinister fangs biting into my shoulder and taking a giant morself of flesh, tendons and muscle from my arm. She took a few steps back and crouched down to deliver her final blow.
Her fist flew up and connected with my chin. The sheer force and impact caused me to be flung upwards towards the jet-black sky. For a second, I remained suspended in mid-air and looked up at the Outworld moon. Cold, dark, lifeless and devoid of any luminous light.
This is how it ends, I thought.
From that single moment of stillness, I hurtled downwards, past the bridge, past Mileena and into the gaping hole of the pit. Gravity increased my speed and I fell for what felt like ages. Finally, the ground connected with my face and I felt something painfully shred through my stomach. At first, I wasn't sure what had happened, but when I looked down at myself and saw the sharp, shiny spike with my warm blood glistening from the tip, I knew.
So this is how I ended up in this pit. But it still doesn't explain why I'm not dead. Back to my story.
So as I mentioned, I had accepted the invitation to the tournament and jetted off to Taiwan to board a leaky boat that looked like something out of a bad Bruce Lee film along with a handful of other fighters. At the time, I remember feeling a certain amount of apprehension as I boarded that vessel. Something didn't seem quite right, I had thought at the time. I took a look at the other fighters and wondered what I was getting myself into. One of them had a metal faceplate over his left eye and kept playing with a crude looking dagger. Another guy, who seemed, much older seemed to crackle with electricity and could make himself disappear with a burst of thunder.
Maybe this was a bad idea, I had thought to myself.
How right I was!
It turns out this was more than just a tournament; the whole thing was governed by the owner of the island; some old guy named Shang Tsung and not only was he the grand master of the tournament, he also turned out to be a demon sorceror that sucked the souls of his defeated victims from their bodies and kept them entrapped inside of him. The tournament itself was called Mortal Kombat and while it pitted some of the world's best fighters against each other, it also featured a host of bizarre, alien, otherworldly creatures that possessed wierd, supernatural abilities that competed against us. It turns out all these fighters were from another world called Outworld, the exact place that I am decaying in right now.
There was one guy called Scorpion for example, who had the ability to teleport and project a throwing spear from out of his hand. I remember my encounter with him and his ghastly cry everytime he threw that bloody spear at me:
"Get over here!!"
I barely made it out of that fight alive; I managed to beat him by using the back end of a bladed shield to carve him in half.
Ya, this wasn't just a simple tournament.
Within three days, the only surviving fighters from Earth were myself, a monk named Liu Kang and a blonde cop named Sonya Blade. Every other fighter remaining was from Outworld.
Talk about feeling out of place.
To complicate things even further, it turns out that this Mortal Kombat wasn't just any typical tournament. Basically, it was the only protection our world had from being invaded by Outworld and its forces. According to Rayden, (the electric and thunder guy I had described earlier), Outworld's emperor wanted to invade Earth and would need to win ten straight victories in Mortal Kombat before the Portal could open allowing Outworld's forces to enter our world.
I know what you're thinking, I didn't know what the hell a Portal was either. Basically, it is the mystical gateway between Earth and other world's that can only be opened after ten straight victories in Mortal Kombat.
Outworld had already won nine and this would be the tenth and deciding tournament.
Needless to say, this was alot more than I had bargained for.
Somehow -through sheer skill and some dumb luck - I managed to make it to the final competition. Myself, Liu and Sonya ended up following Shang Tsung into Outworld, where Liu Kang fought him in the final round of Mortal Kombat and won.
We thought the worst was over and could return home. Unfortunately, when we tried returning to Earth, we were ambushed and Sonya was kidnapped and taken to the Emperor's palace. Liu and I managed to make it back to Earth, but decided to return to rescue Sonya. Once we returned to Outworld, we realized that Shang Tsung had concocted another plan. It turns out that he used Sonya's capture to lure us back into Outworld to compete in a new tournament. We had no choice but to enter.
This meant fighting more bizarre, Outworld creatures in one-on-one combat and that explains how I wound up fighting Mileena on the bridge that I am now looking at from this dark pit that I'm stuck in.
And that pretty much brings you upto speed on my current situation.
Oh right, I forgot to mention how I am still alive.
So remember how I mentioned that Outworld has an emperor; well, his name is Shao Kahn - Shang Tsung actually works for him. If you ever saw him in person, I wouldn't hold it against you if you turned around and ran because he is terrifying. The first time I saw him, I think my knees buckled out of sheer fright. The man (if you can call him that)is a giant and wears a mask made up of human bones over his eyes. His powers allow him to keep people from dying. Before this second Mortal Kombat tournament began, Kahn placed a spell on all of us, that would keep us from dying in the tournament so that we could continue in the competition.
Ok, so now you are pretty much upto speed on everything.
Given that death is not an option right now, you would think that I would be overjoyed and bask in my new-found immortality. Quite the opposite actually!
If moving to the afterlife is what it takes to get out of my current situation, I would gladly take it. I'm not sure if you have ever experienced the sensation of a sharp object approximately the size of a beach-log sticking out of your waist, but it is far from pleasant! I can literally feel my body going into waves of shock from the trauma of being impaled.
But I can't die. No matter how badly I want to, I can't. So all I can do is wait.
As if on cue, I can make out the shape of two figures floating around the opening of the pit way above me. Their features come into view as they make their descent into the cavernous abyss in which I took my plunge. As they get closer, I can see who they are and start to tense in fear.
They are Shao Kahn's monks and they have arrived for one purpose.
Both figures are cloaked in thick, dark robes with a cowl pulled over the face so low that it looks like peering into a black void. Silently, they hover towards me and position themselves so that one is floating on either side of me. Behind them is what can only be described as a floating cot.
"I don't suppose you brought a pillow too?" I inquire sarcastically.
What can I say? Anytime I'm nervous or scared, I rely on humour to ease the tension. And the truth is in this moment, I was scared beyond my wits. I knew why they had come and where they were taking me and more than anything else, I did not want to go with them. Even if it meant staying in this disgusting pit.
I didn't get nor expected a response. Silence was their only form of communication. Both figures bent down from their floating positions to grab my impaled carcass. With super-human force they began to life me from my spot on the pit floor.
"No please!" I begged them. "Don't!"
It was no use. In one swift, smooth movement, they lifted my body from the spike and flung my useless form onto the cot.
Remember earlier, I asked if anyone has ever experienced the painful sensation of having a sharp object sticking out of their side? Well trust me, that is nothing compared to the searing, white hot, agonizing pain of having said object removed from you. I screamed bloody murder and nearly passed out from the shock. The cot was quickly stained with the rivets of blood that poured from the gaping hole in my side. I lay there in a sweaty, breathless mess on the verge of passing out from the pain. All I can do at this point is incoherently scream and groan, hoping to be put out of my misery.
"Please don't make me go back!" I screamed in a combination of pain and dread. "I don't want to fight anymore!"
No such luck! Without saying a word, the Outworld monks each took hold of one side of the now blood-stained cot and started to float upwards out of the pit, past the bridge and into the Outworld night sky.
I knew where they were taking me; back to Kahn's palace to fix me up so that I could continue competing in this forsaken tournament. How many more times I would die? I'm not sure. Lying on the cot, flitting in and out of consciousness on my journey back to the gaping jaws of Hell, I thought about all the events that led up to my current situation. Taking stock of everything; the original invitation, the tournament, Outworld, the Pit, the hole in my waist, the same recurring thought kept reverberating through my head:
I wish I were dead!
