Tales from the Mat: The Sweat Blob 

Welcome to the second installment of Tales from the Mat, our spooktastic Hallowen series!

If you’ve thought the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu academy is a warm, safe place to be… guess again. Join us as we take a step inside an academy whose less-than-optimal standards of cleanliness proved to be its downfall.

Read on, if you dare…. Muahahahahhahahah.

The Beginning

Loud music blares from the open doorway of the jiu-jitsu academy and filters out into the cool October night. The occupants inside are absorbed in their acts of simulated murder, grunting and breathing heavily, grabbing, pulling and pushing their opponents in search for that elusive, satisfying tap.

Sweat pours down their faces and splashes to the already drenched tatami, seeping into the cracks between the mats. Feet slide, slipping in the puddles before they gain purchase; the puddles, by now, a stew of bodily fluid and bacteria from every member of the academy.

A loud ring sounds, announcing the end of the round. “Time!” the instructor calls out, disengaging from his own partner and swiping wet tendrils of hair from his face before calling for his students to line up against the wall.

He makes a few statements about training hard and living a good life – funny, considering his own marriage is in shambles due to his predilection for pretty white belt women – before bowing everyone out.

He calls for several of his lowly white belts to grab the disinfectant spray and the mops… which are chronically unwashed and reused time and time again, left in the closet to “dry” with suspiciously curly dark hairs sticking to their surface.

This time is like every other… except it’s not.

From the Depths of the Mat

For years it has waited, biding its time in the far corner of the academy, in the recesses where the wall mats meet the floor mats. The hardest spot to clean, even for the most diligent… which our friend the head instructor is not.

That’s where one lowly, harmless bacteria had transformed itself.

Each day, every sweat-filled training session, it had grown stronger. Slurping the dregs of the mat into itself, absorbing the noxious brew of sweat, skin cells, hair and sometimes – those delightfully delicious sometimes – blood…

As its strength grew, so did its hunger.

It was no longer satisfied with what seeped between the mats. It had made a decision. Tomorrow it would feast.

The Hunt

It’s an evening just like any other. The open mat is in full swing at the jiu-jitsu academy. A 90’s rock mix is blaring on the speaker as students are preoccupied with grappling each other, their faces contorted in exertion, their focus narrowed in on their opponents.

The smell of sweat is already heavy in the air. Alluring to the creature who lay beneath. It makes its move.

It bubbles out into the light, toward the nearest pair: a former wrestler, long past his prime and several weight classes heavier, rolling with a lanky teenager with a mop of greasy hair on his head. It slurpes over the wrestler’s foot, testing, tasting. The very air is so moist that the wrestler doesn’t notice.

He tastes goooooood. Salty, pungent, decades of Hot Cheetos and Diet Coke oozing out of his pores.

The blob suddenly washes over the both of them, absorbing them into its toxic body, their flesh and bones quickly decomposing. Whatever cry for help that might have been uttered was swallowed up by the heavy beats of Rage Against the Machine.

Nobody heard, nobody noticed, too absorbed in their own training. Two-by-two, the blob makes its way around the mat, reveling in the individual tastes of each human. Only the vegan tastes a little off, but it eats that one, too.

As the music ends, only one pair remaines: the professor and his partner. “Time!” He calls out, adjusting his belt as he stands. Then he looks up.

The mat is empty, except for the now huge blob looming over him, its body a gelatinous mix of blood, hair, gi fragments and partially digested body parts. He has no time to scream before it washes over him, too.

With no more tasty treats left on the mat, the blob oozes out of the academy and slips down the into the nearby storm drain.

The End... Or Is It?

Blue and red flashing lights illuminate the windows of the BJJ academy the next morning, in response to the flood of calls from frantic family members.

The police had found the academy door wide open, vacant, music still blaring into the crisp air. Gear bags were still scattered about where they had been left by their owners the night before. Flip-flops still haphazardly lined the outside of the mat. Nothing appeared to have been stolen. There was no blood on the mat.

Even with the door left open throughout the night, the inside of the academy still smells faintly of sweaty rashguards that had been left inside a vehicle overnight. The smell emanates from the mats.

Ten feet below the street level, the blob makes its way slowly through the sewer… following the intoxicating scent of another dirty BJJ academy.