Karma

[Buko]

((Jonathan continued from It's Not Sane))

Denton, New Jersey- June 10th, 2006

The aura of the Indie underground was the same has always; the loud music reflecting off the tiny walls and the humidity was becoming almost unbearable. Mostly since three hundred kids where packed into the vicinity and where currently jumping up and down and screaming. A very mad red headed girl seemed extremely frustrated in the fact that she couldn't make it into her room to get away from the crowdedness only to find her hand being grabbed by a shorter and younger boy. Diana Cohen was nineteen years old and a freshman in college, but most of all she was the wife of Christian Cohen and they had been married for just over a year. So, it was when Christian grabbed her hand that she immediately stopped her movements and looked at him obviously angry at him making the trek to the room take more time than necessary.

"I'm going to stop letting you have these shows if you insist on being an obstacle in the path of me and the futile attempt at sleep that I will try to get before everyone leaves at god knows when in the morning…" her eyes narrowed at the boy, who simply grinned at her. She sighed, the nonverbal command of "Just chill and stay with me." That Christian had given her was one that she was reluctant to accept…this is not to say that she actually tried to. He looked at her as the space between them ceased to exist, as everyone started moshing around them.

"I LOVE YOU!" Chris shouted over the crowd and Diana found herself rolling her eyes, before kissing him, he held her close to himself and rubbed his fingers through her hair continuing to kiss her. She separated from him and shook her head.

"You know they're never going to stop telling us that this relationship is purely teenage crushes culminated if you answer every scuffle with a three word sentence and then eventually a night of amazing sex…" she said with a smile. Chris returned it and simply muttered a phrase that sounded an awful lot like "Yeah, act like you don't enjoy it…".

Eventually they battled themselves out of the crowd and outside the storage room, they where sitting in the parking lot and Diana had a cigarette in her mouth while Chad was simply sipping on a can of coke, they where simply holding hands, watching the cars pass by. He would kiss her forehead occasionally and Chris only found himself stopping when he was greeted with horrid vulgarities, a woman around twenty was found storming out a almost untouched red Porsche Cayman, the woman looked absolutely furious and was basically ripping the boy that was only around 5'3" a new one.

"So, you fucking premature ejaculating tiny penis owning has been, what the fuck where you thinking in your fucking termite sized brain when you thought that taking me to a fucking kids party would be a good fucking idea?!"

The boy simply looked at his feet and took the abuse. It was when the girl rose her hand to slap the kid in the face (apparently he said something to the effect of "Because your friends give better head") and the boy just grabbed her by the wrists and pushed her to the floor showing a very surprising amount of strength.
"Don't you dare attempt to hit me you fucking shallow whore, I'm fucking Jonathan Michaels, and I'm the youngest champion belt holding boxer in the world…"

The girl got up and spat at him.

"NO! What you are is a fucking publicity stunt!" the girl retaliated, Jonathan simply wiped the spit off from his forehead, took the girls cell phone, muttering only the words "Mine." And ripped off the girls clothes, deciding to leave her there in her panties only to preserve her modesty and because she was begging (he also said that he wanted those back).

"You spit on me and you spit on the shit I bought you, I hope you go overdose on aspirin you fucking valley girl accent toting girl." And with that Jonathan Michaels got in his car and left his "girlfriend" there in the parking lot of the indie underground.

Diana was silent throughout this whole ideal and Chris seemed a bit angered by the whole fiasco, but of course not for the reason Diana was.

"Let's go help her…" Chris muttered angrily and Diana agreed. They walked towards the girl and they where conversing amongst themselves.

"Can you believe that Michaels kid?" she asked and Chris simply nodded and he looked at her seriously.

"Heartbreak does that to you…" Diana found herself rolling her eyes to this comment, neither she nor Chris had gone through "heart ache", but Chris spoke as if he was a wizened sage, it was really quite ridiculous.

"No, but when you see someone who just obviously wanted to give the one he loved a good time be shot down like that…it's sad."

"And when you see a girl get fucking abused by an arrogant asshole it's even more so." Diana retaliated and as they approached the girl Chris simply shook his head, obviously realizing him and Diana would not agree on this Chris simply muttered the sentence "I love you." And Diana nodded as they helped the girl up and got her dressed.. Chris paid for her cab and the show ended at around five in the morning and for the first time ever everyone left then.

Chris would always remember that day as the day he had some of the best sex of his life…

SOTF Island, June 20th, 2006

The movements of Jonathan Michaels had an emotion that had become foreign to him for the longest time, that emotion being fear. As he reentered the forest, the fear of finding An Linh, well that fear was there, but not as significant as the fact that everyone knew his name and what he looked like and now…now they knew him as a killer, and not only a simple killer…but someone who had the highest kills count in the game. He was a bastard, a tool to the game. Yes, no matter how cliché it was Jonathan felt like this and he was trying to resist it, but the fear. The fear of the ostracization and how tougher the social aspect of this game had caused him to not stop running since the announcement.

Chris Cohen had taken to sleeping in the forest and it was only when he visibly saw a Jonathan Michaels running towards him (seemingly so) with a shotgun, he found himself gripping his sally rod (a thin piece of wood, used for beating insubordinate children in Ireland, well at least according to Danya's guide), and has he saw Jonathan "rushing" towards him without stopping he became apprehensive.

I won't have to kill him to get the power to shape my destiny, the power to see her again.

Jonathan neared Chris, running past him…he never saw it coming.

Chris managed to jump out of the brush and smack Jonathan across the face with the Sally Rod.

BAM!

The shot was way off and Jonathan found himself clutching his face and Chris immediately went to grab the shotgun, Jonathan felt it being yanked from his hands, he grabbed the wrists of the perpetrator and for once in his life he fought without style, without finesse.

Jonathan kicked Chris Cohen in the balls has hard as he could and Chris found himself tumbling to the floor of the forest and Jonathan found himself for once not pointing the shotgun at somebody, especially somebody who had attacked him. Instead he continued to rub his eyes to Chris' groans and stared at Chris with contempt, in fact shock would be the look on his face.

"What type of asshole attacks some guy out of no where with a stick to the face?" Jonathan asked bluntly. Chris stared at him and he found his eyes widening, the kid. The kid that left the girl naked at the show came into his mind and he found himself staring at the boy and muttering in between his grunts.

"The same kind of guy that leaves a girl naked in front of a Ska shows because they broke his heart…"

The silence that  Chris was greeted with was unexpected, and he found himself recovering from the ball shot to get up, the movement shocked Jonathan, but Jonathan still found himself staring at the guy.

"Her name was Danni, I met her at…"
"Let me guess the show tonight?" Chris said sarcastically and Jonathan simply shook his head, obviously not getting the joke.

"When I was fifteen we went to a beach vacation…she was the last woman I…well no…she was the only woman I made loved to, not fucked." Jonathan said with a small smile, "She was a lot older than me though…so when she came to live with us when I went into recovery the relationship sorta fell to pieces…"

Chris simply shook his head, obviously unimpressed by the boy's heartache and simply continued to speak in a calm voice.

"Relationships succeed because of a joint effort and they fail because of a joint effort, blaming someone else for what happens in life is frankly pretty much a pussy way out." Chris said calmly.

"Yeah, coming from the kid who probably lost his virginity this year and March was his three month anniversary or something ridiculous like that." Jonathan rolled his eyes.

"I've been with the same girl since I was seven years old, so can you just shut your mouth you…as my wife would say you arrogant asshole, you're obviously emotionally frail because you haven't killed me yet."

"Don't be so presumptive…I'm…"

"Jonathan Michaels, the youngest person to ever hold a champion title belt? Was that your exact words? Dude…you killed two people…yeah I heard your name…didn't think much of it, till I saw your face. That face that was just taking abuse, you're a child man." Chris said frankly.

"Don't fucking provoke me…" was all Jonathan could manage to say and Chris simply got up and patted the kid on the back. Jonathan immediately retracted from the touch, but eventually calmed down.

"This Danni girl provokes a lot of bad emotion, anger and lust. A challenge I assume…you seem the type of guy that loves a challenge."

Jonathan just nodded, and then the thought that caused him to freeze. The girl that provoked hatred, the girl that he lusted after (that's why he met her) and the girl who interpreting was his biggest challenge…An Linh Tuan.

"Dude, you're wrong." Jonathan muttered "Trust me there is a girl who does all these things…but I am not in love with her. More like she's the type of girl that you want to rape just to teach her a lesson."  Jonathan said angrily.

Chris simply widened his eyes and shook his head.

"Dude…you do not say things like that." He then paused and looked at Jonathan "Look…I'm sure you've come to the conclusion that we're not going to survive this game unless we kill. I personally would do anything to see Diana again…and you obviously have a lot to talk to with this Danni girl and fuck maybe An Linh…I dunno kid, we all have our own problems. So let's just do what we gotta do, rock paper scissors."

Jonathan's eyes widened, rock paper scissors? To decide his life? What kinda nut was this kid?

"Yeah, I know you're probably thinking I'm crazy. But, I cannot go through this game…I cannot face Diana if I killed someone in a fight. So, let's just be fair about this…we lay the shotgun down and if I lose you shoot me in the back of the head and if you lose I'll do the same." Chris said obviously.

"Hmm…" Jonathan paused, it sounded cool on paper, a logical and honorable game, a honorable SOTF? How the fuck was that possible? Jonathan simply stared at him and muttered the words, "Sure".

They both stared at each other, Chris had a smile on his face. They began shaking their hands.

One shake.

"Rock."

Two shakes.

"Paper"

Three shakes.

"Scissors"

Finally the moment of truth.

"SHOOT!"

Jonathan and Chris released and then there was the moment where time seemed to go in slow motion for Jonathan, he had rock and Chris had paper. Jonathan Michaels was going to die right now, as he handed Chris the shotgun tears where forming in his eyes for the first time in a long time.

Jonathan turned around and closed his eyes and waited for the shot. Ten seconds passed.

"Just shoot…" he screamed only to be greeted with a scream, a scream that caused his eyes to widen.

"FINE MOTHERFUCKER!"

Chris was fifty yards away, running out of the forest and it was then that Jonathan was greeted with the shot to the back. He immediately found himself greeted with the various shell pieces lodging themselves in his back, leaving his wife beater ripped to shreds and leaving his back bloody and with an obvious chance of infection.

Chris had made off with Jonathan's bag and shotgun, he had crippled him for the rest of the game and has Jonathan lay on the floor the only conscious thought that came from his mind was this.

"Motherfucker…"

And he got up wincing and walked in the opposite direction of Chris, he came to the conclusion immediately, the conclusion he had been avoiding for a long time.

The conclusion that he needed an ally.

((Chris continued in Where Rational Means Little and Life Means a Lot))
((Jonathan continued in Where Rational Means Little and Life Means a Lot))