Screaming.
Months had passed, falling like grains of sand in an hourglass, and not a single sun had gone down without him hearing the screams, the endless, agonizing screams. Eventually, it came to be that the screams helped him sleep at night, like listening to the late song of the crickets, chirping their peaceful tunes as the blanket of night wrapped itself around the blackened sky. The screaming became his solace, his happy place, and then, slowly, the screams began to fade away. One by one, they went away, until eventually they disappeared entirely. He was not pleased.
It was on a silent night, much like any other, that his life would finally take a turn. He had spent much of the latter parts of the year locked away in his cell, doing nothing more than exercising his body at the expense of his mind - not that there had been much of that left before he had been imprisoned. His once well-groomed, golden blonde hair had grown past his shoulders, dirty and matted, and he wore a thick beard on his face. He was almost unrecognizable, but this particular visitor would know those blue eyes from a mile away.
As he was escorted to the visitors' cell, shackled at the waist and arms behind his back, and head covered in a black hood, his gaze never left the floor, as if he were counting his footsteps. One, two, three, four, right, left, right, left. How many steps have I taken in this place, he thought to himself. Oops, I missed one. Better start over.
The door opened, and he was ushered in by armed guards, and past a man sitting at the large steel table in the center of the room. The guards helped him to the chair opposite his visitor, forcefully pushing into it as they slowly removed the hood from his head. Each guard looked at their prisoner, then at his visitor, nodding as they left the room. The man stared at the prisoner, narrowing his eyes. He had surely never seen him in such condition before this day, as even he struggled to tell if it were really the man he had come to see. Finally, the prisoner looked up, and their eyes met, and it became obvious that the prisoner was not happy to see this man.
"Joey," the visitor spoke calmly, and apprehensively, "relax."
Joey Harris, the prisoner, felt his heart beat quicker as his face grew warm, the adrenaline rushing throughout his body. It had been the first real emotion he had felt since...he couldn't remember. It had been too long, that much was certain. Now, recognizing his visitor as Adam Stone, a man with which he had a long, brutal history, he would remember what it feels like to hate, and to hate with every fiber of his being.
"What...are...you...doing...here?" His words were soft and precise, if a bit raspy, as he grunted through gritted teeth.
"I was sent down here by a friend."
Adam's eyes remained calm, a poker face well-maintained, as Joey threw his head back, a dry laugh escaping his parched lips.
"A friend, huh?" Joey wasn't buying into Adam's claim. After all, these two had been at odds as long as they had known each other, dating back to 2008. The year was 2015, and Joey Harris knew better. "We don't have friends."
Joey knew as well as anybody that, in this line of business, a man had not the luxury of friendship. Though, he could barely recall as his sanity thinned, there was one that he had considered to be a friend. He closed his eyes, as though he were trying to fight the thought away. It was a story he'd rather not recall.
"Look, Joey," Adam continued nervously, "I didn’t completely buy it at all myself, in the beginning. But I was promised that this would work out to both of our benefits.”
Adam shrugged, and folded his hands on the cold steel. He appeared calm and in control, but Joey knew better than that. He knew that Adam Stone wanted nothing more than to leap across that table and rip his throat out, maybe gouge his eyes out from their sockets, sunken in his aged face, which would next be driven into the corner of the table. Adam Stone was a bitter, violent man, and to be in such a situation that he was forced to sit calm and collected against his will...it had to be eating him alive. Joey Harris liked that. Still, the very sight of this man sickened him to his core, and he again felt a rush of blood to the head as the anger rose.
"Benefit? Yeah...not buying it."
“Yeah. Same exact thing I said when given the orders. But let’s face it," Adam slid back in his chair, a bit more comfortably this time. He had begun to feel like, just maybe, he was starting to take control of this exchange. "What’s the risk of taking the chance? I mean, you’re sitting here, stuck in a prison, and I was just sitting at home watching TV. What exactly do either one of us have to lose in this situation?”
Joey paused, for just a moment, as he looked down at himself. Although he was in fantastic shape for a man stuck in a prison somewhere in Mexico, he began to realize that he had not had a real shower in almost a year, nor had he been fed very well. He noticed the heavy clamp around his waist, and the chains that kept his arms limp and useless at his back. He knew Adam had a point. Besides, he thought, if Adam tried anything stupid, I would just have to kill him. This is Mexico. It's doubtful anyone would care about some dirty gringo getting the axe.
"I guess you're right. What do I have to lose?"
Joey hated having to agree with Adam Stone, but he swallowed his pride. Somewhat literally, in this case, as the idea of being on the same page as Adam made him physically ill.
“Exactly," Adam urged him on, slowly standing up from his uncomfortable chair. "If it doesn’t work out we go home, and go back to trying to kill one another. Plus, when I walked in here, I gave the guards the paperwork to start your release, so you don’t really have any other options.”
"Yeah," Joey laughed, rolling his eyes. "No other options."
He clearly had another option in mind. Adam Stone wouldn't have the luxury of knowing.
+++++ Joey's Journal +++++
DATE: 1/28/2015
TIME:7:33 P.M.
++++++++++++++++++++
Life can be funny.
I've spent the past month with Adam and the doctor now, a prisoner of sorts. Not much different when compared to my life just prior to that. See, I was already a prisoner, rotting away in my mausoleum of concrete and iron. I went down to Mexico, convinced somehow that I had a child, a daughter who had been taken away from me, and that I needed to rescue her from her evil stepparents. Of course, Cinderella doesn't exist - It was all in my head. At least, that's what the doctor tells me. Then again, how well do I even know the guy?
He tells me I was a patient of his before, that I had escaped him somehow. I ended up an amnesiac for almost a year, no memory of who I was. I was a wandering warrior, traveling from place to place, fighting on the streets for money. I earned myself the nickname Rhonin, and it stuck with me for a while. I ended up wrestling for a promotion called PWX...or, at least that's what I convinced myself. Doctor Stromgarde tells me that it's just a story I created in my head, something constructed from my past to try and make myself feel important again. I'm not amnesic anymore. I know exactly who I am, where I've been, what I've done. I have beaten some of the greatest names in professional wrestling, and won some championships along the way. It's been a while, though. Maybe the doctor is telling the truth, after all. Maybe I just want to be that big star I used to be.
Lucky for me, I have the chance to do just that.
Doctor Stromgarde informed Adam and me that we have a job now, something we know. Something we're good at. He signed us up with this new company, Sin City Wrestling, entered us in this Blast from the Past tournament. We'll be flying to Ireland in three days, with the accompaniment of the doctor, of course. It's a mixed tag tournament, all randomly generated teams. The winning combination earns itself a championship match, one for each member. I guess my partner is pretty good. She calls herself Darknyss. I don't know much about her, or my opponents - The doctor doesn't let us watch much TV. I mean, sometimes I sneak out to watch New Girl. Zooey Deschanel is such a doll.
What I can tell from the file that the doctor gave me is that Erik Staggs is a big name in SCW. Apparently he's the Head of Talent Relations...I guess times haven't changed, and the management is still booking themselves in big matches. I could probably think of many violent acts I would enjoy enacting on him, but Doctor Stromgarde has been working with me to suppress my anger. Personally, I find it boring. I won't be allowed any contact with his partner, Necra, so I don't think there's much I need to address with her in mind. I do know one thing though, without question. Erik Staggs has never faced an opponent quite like Joey Harris.
That's right, Mr. Staggs, I'm saying that right here and now. You know nothing of fear, until you have looked me in the eyes, and you feel the piss dripping down your legs as you witness the monster staring back at you. I'm not just another "superstar," Staggs...I'm a monster. I smashed Andrew Watts in the head with a baseball bat in order to secure myself my first world championship, and he has never been the same since. I haunted the dreams of the great Katherine Stryfe, sending her crying back home to her family of inbred vampire wannabes. I laughed in the face of Johnny Rotten when he announced to the world that he had cancer, I won the PWO International Championship that he so desperately needed to validate his career, and then I ended his career. You see, Erik Staggs, I'm sure you have defeated many, many "superstars" in your career, but have you ever faced the monster that lurks beneath your bed? And I'm not trying to pretend to be some creature from the movies, Staggs. No, I'm not Count Dracula or the Wolfman. I'm much, much worse.
I'm Joey Harris, and starting on Sunday, you will know that I am more than just a monster...
I am the devil, himself.
