All skin tingles with the electricity of the moment, whilst the coldness of steel runs down everyone's spine.
Innocently the ball gazes past the faces around into the starless night.
Oh those faces dripping with sweat, smeared with blood, blood ready to flow through the veins of the winner, or to splatter as the blood of defeat.
Whatever it shall be, there everything is to be lost, as there is everything to win.
Out goes the battle cry, and in moments the arena is filled with the cries, the guttural grunts, and the smell of death engulfs all.
One can hear the sounds of hearts pumping... The sound of blood blowing through the narrow passageways of the players they belong to...
And the players themselves, like their own hearts, pulse with the raw, burning, searing, barely contained rage and fury. Or is it just.. Passion?
One may find out, but it will not be now.
The race is on.
Like the crest of a wave, the players surge over their enemies, engulfing them, slowly beating them into submission.
The very same way cliffs are beaten down into bare pillars of rock, then into sand.
Nothing it seems, will ever stop their advance.
Yet, they falter.
Like the sea, a sudden calm is never a sign of things good to come.
Surging out of the turf, the final push has come.
Inch by inch, they surge through their oppostion.
As their opponents stumble, so do they.
Their assault weakens, as do their opponents.
Alas, even as they gain ground, they lose momentum.
The opposition may have lost many, but 10 will take the place of every one that falls.
It seems that the end is in sight.
A mere inch it is, compared to the distance they have travelled.
But all are human.
And all thus possess human weaknesses.
The sleepless nights, the labored hours. All catch up to them. Exhaustion shows.
Momentum lost, they stop. And retreat.

VICTORIOUS, the opposition cheers. Dancers in the street, cheers in the air.
But what of our players? I ask.
Those who fought this far?
Shall they never taste the sweetness of victory?
Feel the blood flowing through their veins?
Be raised high on shoulders as Heroes, and no longer Pariahs?
It would seem that way.
All that stood between them and their destination,
was but just a feet of air.
And there our heroes shall lie,
While their hearts beat out their final rhythms.
A sign to all who may come after them.

May their hearts and souls rest in peace,
and their bodies crumble to dust in the wind.
With this blessing I pray,
and your guidance on their shoulders,
May the wind take them places,
May they do great things.
Amen.