Alex had spent a long time battling his own paranoia. He had finally got to a place where he wasn’t looking over his shoulder all the time. Wasn’t constantly afraid that there were people watching him. That the ghosts of his past were just waiting in the shadows to torment him. With facing his pent up grief, came a release from all the torture his mind had been putting him through.

Unfortunately, being face down in the gutter with a gun pressed to your skull does a real good job of bringing that paranoia surging back to the surface. Harrison had suggested that Luna not be told about what would happen. There were a few reasons for that. The most prominent of which being that it would just cause her undue worry. Undue stress.

Luna lived as carefree as she could, and that was something that neither of them wanted to strip away from her. Alex didn’t want to see her struggling and paranoid like he had spent so much of his life. There was however a nagging feeling at not telling her. At not letting her know what had happened, and what danger was around them. Harrison said it wouldn’t happen again, that they were going to be more proactive. That he was going to do something about it.

Alex had his doubts.

There was a part of him that didn’t want to let her out of his sight. That every time she went out shopping by herself, or went for drinks with friends. Took Duchess for a walk, or said she was going to visit Harrison, that she could be the next one with a gun to her head. That whoever these people chasing Saoirse were, that they wouldn’t be so reserved next time. That they’d take action in a place where there was no chance that they could be stopped.

Paranoia based in reality it felt. He was afraid of what could be coming, that fear. That fear was palpable. Standing in the shower he was battling with himself, battling over his silence. He wasn’t even really sure if Harrison was right. That keeping this from her was the right thing to do. They told each other everything these days. They were honest, they were open. It was a necessary part of the marriage.

He’d promised not to keep the things that tortured his mind secret. It was the biggest danger to their whole relationship, but here he was. Keeping a secret again. A secret he shouldn’t even have had. Alex wanted Saoirse to experience as close to a normal life as she could. There was no doubt in his mind that she deserved to be free of people who could do things like that. He was happy to have Harrison back in their lives.

Their true social circle was incredibly depleted these days. Friends of the past were essentially whittled down to Adrienne and Harrison at this point, and the risk of not having either of them was suffocating. At the same time, if Harrison had stayed away. Kept away from them until whatever horseshit was going on for them was buried. That would have been the best thing for them.

Selfish, he thought to himself. Selfish, but justified.

He reached up and touched his temples, rubbing the spot where the gun had been pressed. He could hear the gunshot ringing in his mind. He’d been so certain he was going to die in that moment. The fear, the adrenaline. His body frozen in terror, completely unable to change what was about to happen.

He could still feel the barrel pressed to his head. He could still feel the weight of the two people on his back and his legs. Phantom pains of a sort. It was hard to push it from his mind when the feeling of it was ever present. The paranoia was creeping back in, and the fear. The fear of things he didn’t even know to be real was rearing its ugly head again.

Alex shook his head, trying to cast aside the thoughts. To throw the sensations out of his body and mind. He tilted his head back and let the stream of hot water flow over his face. Washing the sensations out as he stood there. Stood there under the stream of water, and breathed. In and out, slow and focused. Attempting to centre himself a little. He could hear Luna elsewhere in the house. Cupboards banging, heavy thumping footsteps as she stomped around their home.

The thwack of a tail against the same cabinets. If Duchess could talk, Alex just knew she’d be telling Luna what had happened. It made him wonder if it was something that Duchess even had a real concept of. He knew she couldn’t actually rationalise it all, but still. He wondered if she would have nightmares too about what she had seen. Poor dog, he thought. She was probably as unable to deal with things as he was.

At least she had the never-ending dopamine of being a loved on domestic animal to keep her floating on a cloud. Luna had clearly lost something this morning, because she was rampaging around the apartment. The same cabinets being slammed shut over and over. The repetitive pacing of her trying to trace her path. He lowered his head from the stream of water, and leaned against the tiled walls of the shower. Her phone was on the counter.

He suspected that was what she was rampaging around trying to find. He smiled a little, and reached out to the taps, slowly turning off the water. He didn’t really want to leave the warm and hot stream, but he had to face life eventually. To get out of his head for a minute and face the world again.

“Have you seen my phone?!” Luna yelled from the adjoining bathroom, hearing the shower come to a stop. He smiled a little, wiping his hands off with his towel as he stepped out of the shower. He grabbed the towel and wrapped it around his waist, tying it there for the moment. He reached down and grabbed her phone. It lit up as he did. A picture of them together with Duchess, sitting outside James’ bar. A joy filled scene. She looked radiant that day.

“Yeah, you left it in here.” Alex shouted back, flipping it in his hand as he walked slowly toward the door. Bad decision-making. Luna threw the door open in her frenzy. He was standing just a tad too close to it, and it cracked him straight in the face. It took a mere moment, his battered nose wasn’t quite what it used to be. The blood began to flow, and he groaned in pain. Luna gasped and instantly ran to the sink to grab a dry towel.

“Thanks Iron Mike.” Alex managed to say, as she pressed the unfortunately pristine white towel under his nose. Broken noses were nothing new to Alex, but in the very least, he was actually certain it wasn’t broken this time. A solid whack was enough to turn the blood faucet on however. He took the towel from her and held it under his nose, applying just a bit of pressure to held stave off the fountain pouring from his face.

“I’m sorry! I’ve been looking for it for the last half hour, and I… I’m really sorry sugar.” Luna said softly, a clear panic in her eyes. It was a funny concept moment, really. But it did make one thing absolutely clear in his mind. The near death? That was a secret better kept. If a bit of a blood nose was enough to etch clear agony and concern on her face. The idea that he had almost been shot?

Alex didn’t know he could even look her in the eyes with what that news would do to her. He stretched out his arm and handed her phone to her, groaning a little again at the pain in his face. The worst part of it was he had just showered, and now his face was covered in blood. That and they had definitely ruined this towel. Why did people always choose white towels?

Luna ran off quickly, grabbing a bunch of tissues to replace the towel. She tore them in half and twisted them up, handing them to Alex in quick succession. Duchess decided she also needed to see what has happening, and came trotting in. Tail wagging as she looked back and forth between the two of them. Not a worry in the world. To be as carefree as a fat beagle.

He pushed the tissue into his nostrils and placed the bloodied towel on the counter. He grunted a little with the pressure of putting the tissue in his nose, and breathed out slowly. Trying to find the centred peace that he had, just moments before. Luna was peering at his face, trying to assess if she had broken it or not.

“People are going to think I’m beating you up.” Luna said somewhat playfully, trying to alleviate her own stress and panic with the situation. Alex laughed a little, and shook his head, slowly moving past her with a kiss to the forehead. Moving into the bedroom to find clothes for the day.

“I don’t think people will keep believing I ran into a door at this rate.” Alex said softly, but that primal sense flared in the back of his mind. He turned on his heel, and looked at Luna who was staring at something on her phone. The narrowing of her eyes, the loss of concern and now a bubbling point of… anger? Frustration? Nervousness? He wasn’t quite sure of the emotion. He wasn’t as good at reading it as he’d lead people to believe.

“Hey, I just got a message from Saoirse. Why is she telling me to tell you she is sorry? What happened, Alex?” Luna spoke precisely. Emphasis on the absolute worst syllables. Fucking Saoirse. An instigator, just like Harrison.

Alex took a deep breath and sat on the edge of the bed, patting the spot next to him. The choice to keep what had happened a secret, had been stolen from him. What a shitshow of a morning. Luna stalked over to him, and knelt down, staring him directly in the eyes. Her face is a knit of conflicting emotions. Anger, frustration, fear and worry.

“We need to be more careful, for a little while. When I took Duchess over to James’ the other week. To drop her off. I had an unfortunate run-in with the people that Harrison is apparently trying to protect Saoirse from.” Alex spoke softly, slowly. He maintained eye contact with her, despite every instinct in his mind screaming at him to look away. To avert his eyes. To keep the truth from her.

“What. Happened. Alex.” Luna demanded more than asked this time. Her face was still a whirlwind of mixed emotions, but she was probably leaning more into the anger now. Not one that liked being kept in the dark, and definitely not one to have secrets kept from her. Not now. Not at this point in their relationship.

“Harrison and Saoirse stopped them, but. I was attacked outside the door. They took me to the ground, and they held a gun to my head. They were going to kill me, there and then. Harrison and Saoirse stopped them. I told Harrison to fix it. I told him that this couldn’t happen again. I screamed at him, demanding to know how it could happen. That if it had been you…” Alex explained slowly, his eyes struggling to remain looking at her, but he kept them there as he spoke.

“I told him, I’d kill him if anything ever happened to you.” Alex said softly, and lowered his head. He couldn’t keep looking in her eyes as they searched his. Her hands gripped his wrists tightly, and squeezed. Squeezed far too hard, and her nails dug in far too deep.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Luna asked.

“I don’t want you to turn into me.” Alex said.

“Lexi…” Luna said.

“We don’t both need to be paranoid and delusional.” Alex said.

And for a moment, they sat there, Luna staring into his face. Alex raising his head a little, to meet her gaze again. The locked eyes, and he breathed in deeply. What a sight to be hold. Wet and wrapped in a towel, nose filled with blood soaked tissue, and fear etched onto both their faces.

“Did Duchess help?” Luna asked.

“She woke the world to protect her dad.” Alex replied.

And for the moment, that was enough. A conversation to be revisited, but not right now. She lowered herself down a little more, and rested her head on his lap, arms wrapped around his legs.

This would have to do, for now.

---

“It’s funny, you know? In the moment, the win. It is… cathartic. There is relief in the outcome. In knowing that the confidence wasn’t mislaid. That in that moment everything I worked towards was good enough. It was the first time in… years. In years that I felt that the victory was entirely my own. A win that I earnt. That I had built with my own two hands.”

“On that ship, there were moments where I could see what everything the last two decades have been about. That the outcome was not one that people dreaded or disdained me for having. That for the first time, I won because I deserved it. That I had done what needed to be done to do it.”

“No shortcuts, no cheating. No manipulation or dirty tactics. No cascades of interference, or unreasonable brutality leading to an outcome of my own choosing. No, this time, I did it for myself. I did it for the people watching. I did it for the crowd’s adulation. There wasn’t resentment in the win, but acknowledgement and cheer for the success in it. Two decades being the bad guy. A multi-time World Champion, and this time. This time meant the most to me. There’s no hitches on it, no caveats.”

“Alexander Raven is the Sin City Wrestling World Heavyweight Champion, and that feels good. It feels right. It feels… earned. Validating.”

“Validating.”

“Now I won’t pretend that it was an easy journey. I won’t pretend that it was an easy night. I know exactly how hard it was to get there, and the truth of it? A breath longer and things may have been completely different. I used my knowledge, my acumen. I used two decades of experience to turn the tide just long enough to get what I needed from that match.”

“I won, but I can’t openly say that I beat Miles Kasey.”

“That is why this match is happening. That is why we are immediately being thrown into another outing. A chance for me to tie up our one on one record, and to solidify myself as World Champion. I talked a lot about how I was sorry that I was taking your moment. I talked a lot about how I was sorry for you.”

“I was sorry for you Miles. Sorry that I was working towards taking away what you had spent so long trying to earn. I know that feeling because I have experienced it for years here. Always so close, but just short each and every time. You were spending your time working out what it takes to be the man with the championship. I was… finding out what it meant to be Alexander Raven.”

“That’s the key point here though. You said something that I need to correct you on. I’ve always known who I am. I’ve always known I was the timid, scared, and battle-hardened little nerdy kid. The kid who wanted nothing more than to be the characters in my games, and my comics. Hell, when I started this all. I was the Raging Raven. You know where that came from?”

“Some would tell you it was the unbridled anger that was boiling beneath the surface. True to a point. I was, and still am, a very angry man. Angry at the world, at my circumstances. Angry at the life that I had to live to get to the point of where I wanted to do anything to silence those who would laugh at me. But the truth of it? I just really liked Metal Gear Solid.”

“Dumb, right? I think so. I think back on it, and I laugh. I laugh at that eighteen year old kid who thought using that nickname, that moniker, was cool. That it would endear him to the crowd. Sometimes I wonder how different things would have been for me if I hadn’t met Alexander Remington. If he hadn’t beaten the childlike joy out of that young man, and put me on the path to who I would become.”

“There’s been a lot of iterations of Alexander Raven. The Raging Raven. The One True King. The True False King. The Broken Messiah, the False Prophet. The Napalm Kingslayer, which is a personal little favourite of mine. Twenty years of my life, moving from mask to mask, to hide the man who existed behind it. The scared man who just wanted to be a Metal Gear Solid character. It’s funny to look back on, but it is important too.”

“It’s important because I have always worn those masks. I have always hid behind who I wanted to be, because being me? I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to be Alexander Rabenschwarz. I wanted to be something special, I wanted to be seen. I wanted to leave a legacy, and fuck anyone who tried to stop me. Ego, narcissism, drive and arrogance. Look at it any which way you want, the fundamentals of it stay the same. I wanted people to remember Alexander Raven, and not the man behind the masks.”

“I need to thank you, Miles. I need to thank you for making me look at myself. Making me look at who I am, and making that decision. Making the decision to be better. To be different. To not leave a legacy for men like Brandon Hendrix, Logan Hunter, Alexander Lyons. There is no joy, there is no love. There is no redemption in men like that. In men like me. The best I can do is try and atone for the sins and the legacy built upon broken bodies that I have carved.”

“So now the roles are reversed. You are the man seeking to take what I have earned. Now you have to look inwards and ask yourself that poignant question. What does it take for Miles Kasey to be World Heavyweight champion? The same question, but a different one all the same. You were confident you had the answer. You were confident that you had the answer and in that. The confidence that you would beat Alexander Raven.”

“Focus is an important thing here, and focus is what we both need. I have my eyes no further than my own feet, for I refuse to let this slip away from me again. I refuse to let this be another flash in the pan for Alexander Raven. This is about proving that what I did on that cruise ship? A breath of difference may have been the deciding factor, but. It wasn’t a fluke.”

“It wasn’t a moment of luck. It wasn’t a matter of me being smarter for those three seconds. No, this Miles. This is about proving that I am far more capable now, than I have ever been. In the hardest days of my career, I am better than I have ever been. I am smarter, I am stronger and I am more determined than ever.”

“I refused to let it be my swansong, and I refuse to be nothing more than a two-week transitional champion. I won’t let it happen, and I must apologise to you again Miles. I must apologise for the fact that it is at your cost that this must come. But as remorseful as I am, that does not change what I must do. It does not change that I will beat you, again.”

“When we step into the main event, a place I have become incredibly familiar with. When we step into that ring, the outcome does not change. This time I walk in as World Champion, and I will walk out World Champion. I will hold that championship high, and this time. This time I will offer my hand to you. To the man who forced me to be better.”

“I apologise, but I also thank you.”

“Do not mistake my softened heart, however. I won’t lose to you again, Miles. I refuse to let you take my hard work away from me. I want you to work harder than ever. I want you to want it more than ever. I want you to push me to limits I don’t know I have, because that is what I desire. I desire to be the best, and to be the best I must continue to beat the best.”

“I want you focused, Miles. My fear is that you weren’t focused. A reversal of roles, really. I’m afraid that your personal life, things happening outside the ring. The quiet in your mind, is your undoing. That you are not focused on what it takes to beat me. That you aren’t focused on what it takes to be World Champion.”

“I’m afraid of it, because it disappoints me to think that you won’t bring your best. That you won’t be the best you that you can be. That you won’t give me what I want, and what I want. What I need, Miles, is for you to be focused. To shut the world out, to close the door on the personal and look at what is before you. Redemption and a chance to shut me up, one more time. To put a definitive nail in this proverbial coffin.”

“Come Climax Control, in the main event, I won’t accept anything less than better than you have ever been. Better than you were on the cruise ship. Better than when you were in Japan. Better than you were when you beat me for the Roulette Championship all those years ago. If you’re not better than you have ever been, then don’t waste my time. Don’t waste the fans’ time. If you aren’t focused, if you aren’t putting everything you’ve got in taking the World Championship away from me, then you aren’t worthy of even wondering what it means to be the man with the gold.”

“Because one thing hasn’t changed for me. The championship does not define the man, it does not make him. It is still a prop. A prop that makes every single person step their game up. A prop that makes every person want to be better than the man holding it. Better than the man who is the measuring stick. Make no doubt about it, with or without, I am the measuring stick. I am the ring fucking general.”

“Ego doesn’t just go away, but the way I think about it? The way I channel it? That can change. I am a narcissist, but I am also one of the best at everything I do. On the mic, in the ring, in my marriage, in the world. I fight every day to be better than I was the day before. I had my doubts, I had my moments of fear. I felt the sting, the pain and the agony. I was tired, and I thought I was done.”

“You made me realise, I’m far fucking from it. So I need you to be better than you think you can be, because that is the only way. The only way you are taking this championship from me again.”

“I will make sure there is no question about it, Miles. Alexander Raven is the face of Sin City Wrestling. Alexander Raven is the man on top of the mountain in Sin City Wrestling. Alexander Raven is the man to beat, and if you have even the slightest of doubts. The slightest of fears. The slightest lapse in focus, then you won’t be able to come close to stopping me this time.”

“I had my moment, Miles. Now I’ll build my legacy. I’ll see you at Climax Control.”

When Alex decided to take the dog for a walk in the early hours of the morning, he didn’t expect to find himself pressed to the ground. He didn’t expect the barrel of a gun pressed to his temple, and he didn’t expect to meet new people. He just wanted to clear his head, to enjoy a moment of comfort with his talkative beagle. To give Luna a morning to herself.

Leaving the house, he didn’t have an underlying worry for his life. For his safety. For anything to do with himself. He was going to walk the dog, take the scenic route through the park, and leave the dog with Harrison and Saoirse in preparation for the trip. A suggestion from Harrison himself. It was a good idea. Duchess was familiar with James’ place, having spent a long time there with Adrienne, with James. While they were on the road, it was her home away from. While there were not as many people to play with her ears and throw a ball for her as there once was. It was familiar.

Alex wasn’t his usual hyper alert self today, and that was a mistake it seemed. If he had, he would’ve noticed the car that was following him from a distance. The nondescript Chevy that kept just far enough away that it didn’t seem suspect as it happened to reappear every time he crossed from the park and back to a main road. It was a slow walk, Duchess had to inspect every smell like her life depended on it.

He was strong, but moving an anchored beagle was a task even he didn't have the strength to do effectively. If he had noticed the people, he wasn’t really sure what he would have been able to do anyway. Duchess may have been a hunting breed, but she definitely was not a fighter. He wouldn’t have really been able to move her any faster. She was a rock when she was on a walk.

He didn’t notice them, and so it didn’t matter what he would have done. In a moment of almost inevitable death, it was strange that he felt this… calm. That his mind was going over things he could have noticed, rather than trying to think of a way out of this situation. Instead he was remembering his walk. Maybe that was his own defense mechanism. To think of the peace of it, rather than what would be coming for him.

They had spent a little while sitting in the park, playing with a ball. Throwing it for Duchess, wrestling to get it back from her as she brought it most of the way back but refused to let go. Only throw, no take. It was a fun little game that would have gone far better if she had simply let him take it. That however would not be at all the right way to play, it would seem. Duchess had her own version that took precedence.

She had been good today, stopping to pee on every leaf, rock and tree, but no bowel movements to clean. What should have been a thirty minute walk, ended up being a two hour one. The sun was beginning to creep out and some warmth was beginning to creep in. It was just about to go six, and Alex knew that Harrison was going to be so pleased for the early morning wake-up call. Saoirse didn’t seem the type to get up before noon, so he doubted she’d be the one to greet him. He hoped she liked dogs.

Fumbling for his keys in his pocket, there was that primal sensation finally. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Too late. He felt a pair of rough hands, one on the middle of his back, the other on his head. He was slammed into the door. Another set of hands yanked the lead from his hand and threw it to the floor. Duchess, trained well enough, didn’t take off. Instead she started to bark. Loud enough to wake the dead. Hopefully loud enough to wake someone to what was happening.

“I don’t want any trouble. Take what you want, please.” Alex said as firmly as he could. The people however did not seem to care for the placation. They yanked him back aggressively before throwing him to the ground. A knee dropped into his back that knocked the wind from him. The second person straddled his legs. Assumedly the one with their knee in his back, pressed a gun to his temple.

So he remembered the walk, a moment of peace. Tried to relive a happy moment. Tried to be in that moment for as long as he could. Time seemed to be moving incredibly slowly at that moment. He could feel his heart in his throat, but it seemed to be beating far too slow for the terror that was tearing through him right now. He’d been close to death before, but this was a bit beyond even him.

This was true terror.

“Sorry about this, but that fucker took somethin’ from us. So now, we’re gonn’ take somethin’ from ‘im.” One of the men said, his voice muffled, seemingly behind a mask. He noted something of an Irish accent, but he couldn’t be quite sure. Funny how life comes about in roundabouts like that. Everything seemed to slow a bit more. He closed his eyes, and braced for the bullet.

He heard the gunshot.

The strangest thing was how far away it sounded. He expected getting shot at point blank would’ve been deafening in the moment. There was a considerable lack of pain too. Maybe a protection by the brain to stop the moment from being too shocking. Shock was the last thing he was really worried about, but the primal reactions of the body were something else.

Then he noticed the person on his legs slumped away, less pressure on them. Then the person on his back seemingly floated up and away from him. Was this really what death felt like? A fading away from everything. He dared to open his eyes, and suddenly the world rushed back to him.

“Get up you fucking idiot.” Harrison’s rough voice ripped through the early morning air. Alex rolled over and suddenly felt a spurt of wet liquid across his face. Blood by the smell of it. The door to the bar was open, and James was pulling an already limp body inside. Throat cut. Saoirse dragged the body off his legs and in right behind him.

Why the fuck did he make a morning house call?

Coming somewhat to his senses, Alex got himself up and took a look around. An empty, dusky morning street. Duchess had run inside almost immediately after it opened by the looks. Alex saw the gun that had been pressed to his head on the ground and picked it up. Shoving it into the back of his waistband as he followed Harrison in, closing the door behind him.

“First run in with them I take it?” Saoirse said kind of non-chalantly, no longer lugging a dead body but playing with Duchess’ ears. She was a natural it seemed. The adrenaline it seemed was wearing off, and the actual reality of what had just happened was coming to him.

He emptied the contents of his stomach all over the welcome mat.

Classy.

---

The light patter of rain, the splat of raindrops across a window. A man sitting in a simple wooden rocking chair by the window, his face obscured by a swathe of darkness. A shadow cast by the flickering light of a fireplace. A lingering grasp of a cold winter, refusing to let go. A dreary world, for a dreary story. A large book lay upon the man’s lap, open somewhere in the middle.

“It is funny how life unravels for us all. The days come to pass, and we see all of it fly past us. The villain of yesterday becomes the hero of tomorrow. The actions that lead us to where we stand, they beg for enlightenment. They beg for the light of truth to show them exactly what is necessary to move to the next stage. To overcome our own faults. Winning, and then losing.”

“I won the World Heavyweight Championship, through my own hubris, I lost the World Heavyweight Championship. Eyes on the horizon, looking beyond what lay before me. Twice now, Miles has been the man to upend me. He ended my first reign as Roulette Champion, and though he was unable to stop the stampede of my Internet Championship reign, he got his revenge for that.”

The man turns his face a little, Alexander Raven’s visage revealed. Half swathed still in the flickering shadows. His eyes drawn and tired, his expression softer than usual. A sorrow to the man.

“In what should have been the most important match of the night, the only thing I was meant to be focusing on and my mind was somewhere else. My mind was on the future, my mind was on the ache. My mind was on fucking Brandon Hendrix. A mistake on my half, I won’t contest that. No matter the opinion of those around me, I’ve never had an issue telling the truth. When I make a mistake, and when I am beat. Miles Kasey beat me that night, and I made the mistake of thinking he couldn’t even come close.”

“I’ve been making a lot of mistakes. I nearly lost the championship to LJ. It was only in focus that I was able to win the World Heavyweight Championship. Dubious as the final outcome was, we’ll never know if Carter truly would have escaped the cage. Before that, I was obsessed with the concept. The idea of taking it all away, more than the truth of doing it. It was my mistakes that took me to where I found my struggles.”

“The hardest part of realising you’re wrong, is knowing what steps are next. I don’t really know what is next for Alexander Raven. That is the simple truth. A swansong was the idea planted, but I wonder if I truly deserve that. I built my career on hurting people. Not simply hurting, but ruining them. I have taken every step of the way in blood, fire and pain. Every single action has led to a selfish decision. A narcissist who beggars belief beyond belief. A story told a thousand times, and maybe one that needs an appropriate ending.”

He flicks through a few of the pages, getting closer to the ending of the book. The turns are slow and deliberate. His eyes scanned the tiny print on each page, like he was searching for something. He lowered his head a little, bathing his face in shadow once more, coming to a slow stop.

“I look back on that scared boy who didn’t know what awaited him. The scared boy that had no idea what awaited him. That scared boy who was quickly lured to the quick path. The painful path. The abusive and damning path. The path I knew from my own past. Violence puts the fear into everyone, and in that fear, control. Control and power. That scared boy would be scared no longer. I wasn’t even twenty and I had become World Champion.”

“By twenty-four, I was a two time World Champion. By twenty-four, I thought my career was over. Laid on the ground, and my skull bashed in. A borderline acquired brain injury scenario. I paid for my hubris, tenfold. It was years before I was lured back. A marriage, the self-inflicted death of a friend, the death of said wife. I realised in my time away, that life outside the ring? It hurt just as much as being inside it. Painful, truly.”

“So I came back. To a world that had forgotten me during my sabbatical. To a world that would remind me quite quickly of why it is unforgiving to those of us who struggle and strive. That insidious desire reared its head and it took but a mere moment for it all to come rushing back. Lesson not learnt it would seem. One thing however that would not be forgotten, was the scars that I already wore. The agony that I was already in.”

He slowly closes the book, shaking his head a little. He takes it in his right hand and slides it down the side of the chair, pushing back a little before using the momentum of the chair to push him up onto his feet. Turning his back as he stares out the window, out into the dark and stormy skies.

“It is a story we’ve all heard before. I apologise for always repeating myself, but. Unless we truly understand history, we cannot hope to change the future. Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. It is a truth we see constantly before us. It is something that my very own actions brought to light.”

“Miles, you said something that struck a chord with me. You called this my swansong, and that made me wonder. A swansong is an ending, and I do not know if I am ready for an ending. I do not know if at thirty six, I’m really ready to hang it all up. My choices, my actions. They have led me to a body that just won’t heal. That is the simplest way of looking at this. My mind is at odds with my body. A mind that refuses to quit, a body that is held together by hope and string.”

“Swansong, it is poetic. Ask Jack Washington and he would have told you that, an edgy poet with black and white profile pictures. A man who hides behind big words and lies to protect himself. A poet might be apropos in describing me. I wouldn’t go so far myself. The things I’ve said, the things I say. That aren’t designed to be poetic, they aren’t meant to be elusive. I’d hazard I’ve never really said anything of true substance, but that is all part of the allure. Don’t you think, Miles?”

Alex slowly raises a hand and places it on the window. His other hand was digging into his jacket, searching for something. Not a long search it seems, as his hand evidently curls around something. The bulge of his fist evident through the heavy jacket. He leans forward and places his head against the hand on the window.

“I refuse to let this be my swansong, Miles. I may not have much left, but I’m going to use what I have left to right my wrongs. Right them as best I can. I can’t make up for everything, for every poisoned word. I can’t make up for every egregious action, every drop of blood spilt. I cannot make up for shortening Carter’s career in that Three Stages of Hell. I cannot make up for putting a blemish upon the World Championship the way that I did.”

“What I can do is change how I will be remembered. A man hurt, a man scared. A man who fought tooth and nail to achieve what he needed for his legacy. That is what I will be remembered for. The man who would do anything for them. The people out there, the people who come and bay for it. The roaring fans, the children who will look to be in my shoes one day. For every tortured child who thinks there is no escape from the agony of home.”

“My Swansong will not be a beautiful affair. It will not be a wonderful and applauded thing. I have not and will never earn that. I don’t get to make that choice after what I have done to you, to Carter, to Remington, to Ami and Jamilyn. To my own wife, to my friends. To the world that I pushed aside, abused and used to get to the top. I do not get to have the storybook ending.”

He slowly removes his hand from his pocket. A glinting silver flip lighter, and what appears to be a small fire starter block. He grips them tightly in his hand, as he slowly lifts his head from the window. He turns on his heel slowly, reaching down to grab the book, placing it on the seat of the chair, opening it up once more.

“The Raven is a messenger of the dead, of the sleep, of the other worlds. It travels between realms to deliver messages from the departed to the living. To protect those deemed worthy of a journey beyond that which they currently have. Alexander Raven Black, that’s my full name. Rabenschwarz. A family a little too close to the touch of insanity some would say. My family name will die with me. The last of the Rabenschwarz. The last Raven Black.”

“The more I think about it, the less confident I am in that being the truth of who I am. A phoenix is more appropriate I think. Time and time again, I sizzle down. Ember out and smolder. A pile of ashes waiting for a reignition. Waiting for life to be breathed back into me again. Swansong, Ravens, Phoenixes. I seem to be surrounded by imagery of birds. You know the funniest part of that, Miles? I fucking hate birds.”

He grips the edge of a page in the book and tears it out. Then another, and another. Page after page being torn from the book and thrown to the floor. Ten, twenty, thirty pages torn out. More and more, his eyes rapidly scanning back and forth across the words before tearing another, and another and another.

“Redemption, for me, is human. A man seeking to right his wrongs. Yet I am a victim to my own actions. I am a martyr for my own cause. A heart may be found but the mind is still poisoned. The mind is still deluded. I may not seek to ruin all you have, but I still want what it is you took. I want the World Heavyweight Championship back. I want… I need to be the World Heavyweight Champion. Ego, for all it entails, demands it of me.”

“I hate birds, I hate ships. I hold a lot of hate in my life. Part in parcel for the anger. Ego is what drives me for the most part these days. Ego and anger. Hate and anger. Ego and hate. Some would say I have been projecting my own insecurities for a long time now. They aren’t wrong. I mean, I am but essentially an elder millennial emo at heart. I have to keep up appearances.”

“But I also seek to invite ambition. Desire and drive. To be the man that people want to be, to be better than, or to erase. For those who want to be me, I need to show them how far they can go. For those who want to be better than me, I need to show them how far they must climb. For those who want to erase me, I need to show them what is necessary to make them forget about me. Born in flame, a cleansing.”

He throws the book roughly to the floor. Kicking at the chair and knocking it sideways, tumbling it to the floor too. Aggressively stomping on it, breaking it apart. Breaking it in shards and sticks. He drops the fire starter block onto the pile of tinder and paper. His eyes looked toward the fireplace. The flames threw long shadows over the room.

“I’d like to say this isn’t personal for me, Miles. That I am a better man, a stronger man. A man renewed and with clearer vision. Some of that is right. I am trying to be better, I am trying to be stronger. I am trying to see clearer. To see beyond the illusions that my mind has cast for almost two decades now.”

“This is personal for me, Miles. Not in the same, but personal all the same. This is my story of redemption. This is my main character moment. This is where I must make a choice. Make a decision, make a stand. I am sorry that it must come at the cost of your moment. At the cost of what you have strived for. You took the head of the hydra and held it aloft for the world to see. The snake laid dormant for a moment.”

“On the ship, I will show the world that things aren’t always storybooks. That things aren’t always perfect. I have to show them that Alexander Raven was not a winner by desperation, by fallacy. No, Alexander Raven was and will be, Worlds Champion because I fucking fought for it. By tooth and nail, on my final stretch. With a body broken and beaten down, I am still good enough. I am still strong enough. I am still the man who people quiver at the thought of. No Brandon Hendrix will change that. No moment of clarity will absolve that. Miles, I apologise. But I must take back what is mine.”

Alex walks slowly towards the fire, reaching for a poker that sat nearby. Taking it in hand and shoving it roughly into the fire. A flurry of embers flying off as he does. Notably a few rays of sunshine began to streak through the murky dark storm clouds. The rain begins to lighten as the light begins to pierce through. A few beams of light streaming through the rain splattered window.

“I failed before. I have failed many times. I am a failure in the eyes of many, and that is okay. People underestimate failures. People forget how far a failure climbed before they fell. I wear the ring I made, out of some warped sentimentality to myself. But also because my mind casts my own doubts upon me, it also holds onto hope. Hope that I will defeat myself, and be… reignited.”

“Like the inevitable storm, the sun will always come out. That is a universal truth. No matter how dark the night, dawn will break and hope will come back. The world will be warmed once more. The flowers will bloom, and everything, for a moment. Everything is hopeful once more. If the world won’t produce light, then I will do it myself.”

He yanks back the poker and pulls a few of the burning logs from the flames. They roll onto the paper and the tinder and the fire starter. It takes mere moments, before they ignite. The flames low at first, before screaming to life. The room itself takes mere moments before it ignites. A furious inferno engulfing the room, engulfing Alexander Raven.

“I might not want to hurt you anymore. But I am a sucker for theatrics.”

The flames roar and spin. A furious inferno that engulfs everything. Something sizzles and flies from the flames, landing in the only space that seems phobic to the roaring inferno. An ornate ring. The Sin City Wrestling Worlds Heavyweight Championship Number One Contendership ring, as Alexander Raven so eloquently coined it. Among the burning inferno, one point of peace. That stupid ring.

“I’m coming to take back my World Heavyweight Championship.”

As the fire rages, smoke fills the room. Black smoke that has nowhere to escape to. The room filled with the black smoke, obscuring even the flames in its blanket of darkness.

And then…

Nothing.

Saoirse was a rocket, that was for sure. This bar had become a little hideaway for them. She was quick to make it feel like her home. It was sad, seeing all of James’ charms being washed away, but there was a sweetness in it too. Alex knew if he’d been here, to find out what they had, that he’d have opened his world to them too.

It was sweet having what little was left of their peaceful world still around. Well, peaceful may not be the right call for it, but it was a call nonetheless. When Harrison had called them, told them he had something he needed them to see. Something for them to know about, a kid that was his striking image was not what they expected. The story that came with it, also not quite what they expected. Harrison had a dirty past, and it seems that past went deeper than what they knew.

Why he ever wanted to go back to Ireland, knowing that he was still on the shit-list of one of the few remaining dissident groups? Only he could know that. Yet, it made a little difference in the grand scheme of things. He’d made the decision to protect her. Protect the girl who they would most definitely have used to hurt him. The daughter he gave to his friend. That he gave her the opportunity to have.

The gay man giving the lesbian woman a chance at a child. A red-headed, freckle faced, battle-axe of a girl. Saoirse was an absolute rocket, and he just knew James would have adored her from the first moment he laid eyes on her. Seeing Harrison laughing, smiling, expressing his emotions. It was a foreign thing for Alex. He’d never really been that open for him. It just wasn’t their relationship.

But seeing Luna and Saoirse hanging up fairy lights through the bar, laughter and happiness. Harrison’s gruff exterior broken down, and a kindness. A kindness in him that Alex didn’t think was possible coming to the surface. It was almost too good to be true. Maybe it would be. There was this, sickening feeling in his stomach. A fear of the future.

It wasn’t uncommon for him. Alex was so used to the danger of what is to come, that he couldn’t help but envision the worst parts of what it could be. Envision what could be, what he thought would be. Death seemed to follow the bunch of them around like a magnetic pull. Like they couldn’t escape it.

In this moment, he had to believe it wouldn’t be so bad, and that the images in his head couldn’t be real. He leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes. There was no room anymore, which was a relief. There were images of a tortured past, grief not yet observed. There were memories of the infiniteness of nothing, of potential realities. A memory snuck its way into his mind. A memory of one of the many potential timelines he saw.

Harrison was crawling through the debris. Smashed bricks scattered about the blown up wooden flooring. Smashed glass, the blown out windows. Harrison’s body was torn to ribbons, his clothes barely clinging to his body. One of his eyes seemed to be a bloody hollow, glass and stones dotting his entire body. James’ bar, it was a mess of broken wood, glass and debris.

He was crawling towards a limp body, a flash of red hair under all the decay. Under all the broken panels and the… blood. There was a lot of blood. The body couldn’t have had any left in it. It was just everywhere. There was so much fucking blood. That bar had seen far too much blood for a place meant to be filled with joy and happiness. There was too much blood. He could hear his own gurgling, struggling for breath. Blood in his throat. He could taste the blood in his throat. He could feel the constricting on his body as it went numb. More and more numb, as his body was losing the fight for life. But it didn’t matter. He could see Harrison crawling toward that limp body, willing every last bit of his body to her.

Saoirse.

Harrison pulled her limp body from the wreckage as best he could. The screams, the wails. The groans and the agony. His body struggled to muster up the strength. But he had to. He had to pull her body from all the debris. He had to pull her out and hold her. He had to hold the daughter he’d had for so few moments.

Alex remembered that deeply, he remembered it wholly. Seeing everything that possibly could have been. Turns out that was more of a curse than anything. Turns out that being able to anticipate everything was a struggle that he wasn’t able to deal with. It wasn’t an uncanny feeling, it was a premonition. Things that he knew could come to pass, he just… didn’t know if he was in that timeline or another.

Premonition was a horrible thing.

---

“You know, it is a funny little thing. The indirect karmic retribution. An interruption at the hands of others, but this time. This time I wasn’t the victim of an unfortunate outcome. No, even at that moment. That moment where it felt like it was going to finally be all yours. That split second where the crowd was baying for it. You were right on the cusp of it LJ.”

“But you weren’t good enough.”

“Now I have a lot to say, a lot to talk about. About you, about Carter, about fucking Miles. The one thing however that really must be addressed, is Brandon fucking Hendrix. The Branded Hen, who stuck his fucking nose in my business and copped a near broken jaw for his callousness.”

“Brandon you stupid son of a bitch. I fucking told you what would happen if you stuck your nose in my damn affairs, and lord help me. By hell or fucking highwater it does not matter what you do to try and escape it. Win or lose, with both the championships or none of them, I’ll be coming to remind you of your place. At the bottom of my boot, at the end of my mind. The Branded fucking Hen sticking his nose in people’s affairs like he belongs.”

“But maybe that’ll all be sorted out on its own. Maybe LJ in his furor about the outcome of his only real chance he’ll ever get for the Worlds Championship will do just enough to keep your dumb looking face right out of my affairs ever again. If not, I’ll remind him of what has happened every single time he has decided to point his boots my way. A crack across the jaw, and another night spent staring up at the lights wondering how long it’ll be before people forget your current persona.”

“Stay out of my way, you insolent prick.”

“Yet, it isn’t about LJ or Brandon. No, this is about you and me, Miles. This is about the Sin City Wrestling Worlds Heavyweight Championship. This is about frustration, about two paths leading to the same point. About two men who have bashed heads over and over again. This started way back under the pretense of wars against the Wolfslair. I think I did a thrilling little job there too, all things considered. Gone are the fighters who thought themselves able to stand against me.”

“The infighting tore you all apart, and in the end, there was nothing but a smoldering heap of forgotten memories and remnants. The phantoms of the past keep popping up though, don’t they? Austin James Mercer, Alex Jones, hell give it a heartbeat and the one who shuts us all down, Finn Whelan, he’ll be back to steal it all away from you again. That’s the story though, isn’t it, Miles?”

“Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. First it was Alex Jones, then it was Austin. Finn came soon after, and the world continued to forget about little Miles Kasey. Then they were gone and maybe finally, finally they’d give you a chance. That finally the little wolf that could would be recognised. That the little wolf that was could finally be the big one he’s always sought to be. That’s the dream isn’t it, Miles? That at the end of the day, when the final bell tolls, you’ll be able to look back and think ‘I finally did it.’”

“Things never go to plan though, do they? Finn fell, and the one who reaped up all the scraps in the end? Carter. Your husband. The man who you love, and in that love, you were denied again. As bitter of a pill as that is to swallow,  You were never going to get a chance while he was Worlds Champion, that’s the simple fact of it. I pointed it out, and it hit right on a nerve. Carter was so upset by the notion he even said you’d be next. How sweet.”

“He was right, in a way. You would be next, Miles. The next to fall in a gallant attempt to outstep their bounds. The new little wolf to fall to Alexander Raven, and that is a promise I can guarantee beyond any other. At the end of it all, that’s the goal, isn’t it, Miles? To be the little wolf that could. Just never the one that will.”

“See, I appreciate the work you do to get yourself to where you are. I appreciate that you throw yourself to the sharks time and time again. I can see a little of myself in that. I can see myself in the need to prove, in the need to fight. I can see it in your Miles, and I understand it. I am a victim of the chase. A desirer of the outcome. Of wanting more than wanting can lend itself to. I get it Miles, I get you.”

“But I need you to understand, this isn’t a retread of our time in India, this isn’t a come again story for you. This isn’t about you getting to stand at the top and finally feel like you mean something. We’re a long way from then. No, I want you to think back to the last time you tried to take something away from me. In fact, you’re holding that very thing right now, aren’t you? The Internet Championship. It wasn’t the journey into celebrity that you sought. No, for me it was simply another Sunday fucking night. The everything moment for you, and I wasn’t even thinking about it. No, I was thinking forward.”

“To all the different wars. To the battles with Austin James Mercer, and then what was to come. Fenris, Ken Davison. The Kingslayer, that was who I was at the time, and you, Miles? You were just another wolf in the way of my ascent. I was the most important Internet Champion this company has ever seen. I was the most important man that this place had at that moment. No one to hold that championship since has come even close to where I took it.”

“You know though? It’s time I bring what is rightfully mine, back home. See, I’m still burnt by the blindness on that night. Kevin Carter did not deserve to remain Internet Champion. He bled first, simple as that. Kevin Carter bled, but he covered his head up. The world saw me first, and that was that. So every single change of hands since has been… wrong. You’re holding my championship, Miles.”

“You need to embody that thought. You need to keep that in your mind, that you are a false champion even now. I need you understand that when I said I was going to take everything from Carter, I fucking meant it. I took his championship, I took away his opportunity to pretend that he cared enough to give you a shot at it. One you two would have created a disgusting show of nothingness over. Historically you’ve finished a match on a dodgy finger, and… a dodgy finger. You couldn’t bring yourselves to war over the championship if you wanted to.”

“So come Into the Void, I’m going to take you there. I’m going to push you into the void, and make you see. Make you see in every possible universe, in every possible parallel time. There is not a single one in which Miles Kasey beats Alexander Raven. I’m going to take the Internet Championship, and I’m going to hold it above your head. I’m going to hold my fucking championships and I’m going to wipe my feet of the Kasey-Mckinney fuckstains that taint this world.”

“So I guess it comes down to one final question, one final statement. One final nail in that coffin for you Miles.”

“Have you been listening? I don’t need you to listen, because it doesn’t matter. You’re a fucking nobody, and you always will be.”

---

Alex was still in the habit of journaling. Writing his history. Writing the things he was trying to remember.

Sullivan was in deep with the drug world. A major dealer, and it made sense once we put two and two together. The types he hung out with, they always seemed to be flush with cash when they came in, and begging for a fiver to catch the bus home after. It pays to have friends in high and low places, and Sullivan somehow occupied both at the same time. For what it’s worth, he never tried to involve us. Not purposefully anyway. I sometimes wonder if he was just biding his time.

Harrison had originally come into his life as nothing more than muscle. Someone to stand between him and the barrel of a gun, or the slashing and stabbing of a blade. We were made acutely aware of the type of man he was after we’d been living there for a while. I remember sitting on the front deck, having a few lazy Sunday beers with him. James, Luna and I were there. Laughing, smoking and just talking in general. Sullivan for the most part did seem genuinely interested in our lives. I wonder if that was him gauging if he could manipulate us. It wouldn’t surprise me. The many other kids he took in over the years. For better or worse, got hooked, ended up in prison or… well. You can guess.

Harrison had pulled up out front, another guy in the car with him. I remember the look of fear in his eyes. He was on edge from the moment Harrison and him got out of the car. That smile never left Sullivan’s face, but I could tell he wasn’t happy. I remember him saying he had some quick business to attend to. That he’d be back out soon. I remember Harrison following this scared looking guy into the house.

We didn’t really think anything of it at the time. We just kept talking, drinking and smoking. Laughing and laughing. We were fucking laughing. I remember hearing muffled pleading, asking for another chance. There wasn’t any arguing, there was barely even a response from Sul. Not that I could hear anyway. I remember hearing the thud of something. Probably the guy being pushed to his knees. We stopped laughing real quick. You don’t have to have ever heard a gun go off to know what a gunshot sounds like. The only thing I really remember is being surprised at how loud it was.

We didn’t say anything, we just sort of sat there staring at each other. There was another loud thud, and then the sound of footsteps coming back. Harrison stuck his head out the door and looked at us. He didn’t even need to say anything. We knew exactly what he meant. Silence was golden. I really wonder why we didn’t just pack up and leave. Too scared maybe? I don’t think they would have ever done anything. For what it was worth, they were stupidly good at covering their tracks. Over the years, I suspect countless people who couldn’t pay, or had their product taken had met a similar end.

For what it’s worth, we did our best to stay clear or anything that could even vaguely link us into whatever Sullivan had going on. At least then we did. At least Luna and I did. She might have eventually become the protected surrogate daughter of Harrison, but that was about it. James however… I learnt some things about James after it was all said and done. I learnt about him selling his soul to the devil. I learnt about what it would all eventually cost him. I loved that boy, but damn was he a fucking moron.

What matters for now at least, is that we knew exactly what kind of person Sullivan was after. We knew what kind of people we were living with, and we should’ve left. We should have packed and gone, and maybe. Just maybe things in my life would have been different. We didn’t though. We just pretended it never happened. Tried to push it out of our minds and just keep on. Sullivan had been good to us, so what if he was a murderer? So what if he put a gun to people’s heads when they did him wrong? Wasn’t our problem.

Yeah, you’re right. It is heartless. Truthfully, I don’t know why we justified it. Maybe we were so used to violence in our lives, that the idea of living under the roof of a guy who had no issue blowing our brains out just didn’t phase us. For what it’s worth, part of me regrets not doing something at the time, but. What was I meant to do? I was only nineteen. I had nowhere else to go. We were just finding our groove, and he had been only kind to us. I never liked him, but I never felt in danger either.

I think part of it has to do with the fact that if push came to shove, I might not be able to out muscle the giant that was Harrison, but Sul? Sul I could stomp into mud without a second thought. Sul wasn’t intimidating, but he was scary. Scary, but not terrifying. I think you probably understand it better than you think. I imagine this situation, driving in this car, listening to this tale of death and violence. Love, and addiction. I can imagine it is a frightening situation. Not terrifying enough to ask me to let you out, which if you did, I would do. Just scary because of the threat that I’m lying. That if you asked, I wouldn’t let you out.

It’s probably not a reassuring thought in the slightest. Acutely aware of the fact that the doors of this car automatically lock. To unlock them you’d have to press the button in the centre console. A button I could stop you touching. Everytime you reach out for a cigarette, do I think about grabbing your arm? Stopping you from doing it, because I’m afraid you’ll try to get away. Scary, but not terrifying.

Here, I’ll help you feel better, even if it doesn’t feel like it right now. If you open the glovebox you’ll find something in there that should make you feel safer. Feel like you have your finger on the trigger, if you will. Yeah, that’s it. It’s heavier than you probably would expect. I have to ask that you put it back though. You at least know it is there now. That if I go from just scary to terrifying, you’re in control. I just don’t feel like having that thing pointed my way whilst we’re driving.

I think the faux confidence in our own safety was all that kept us there. Kept us silent. Kept us from stepping out against the two of them. Kept us friends with them. I think the fear was part of it too. Fear that they could carry us out in a garbage bag just like Harrison did that day. Slung over his shoulder, a harsh and empty look on his face. In the years that I knew Harrison, he was always the same. Always hard featured, always looking ready to take someone’s head off.

I never saw Sul and Harry let down their facade around us. I wonder if they even did in their private time. I’m sure there had to be something, for them to be together as long as they were. Especially considering what was the nail in the coffin in the end. Surely there had to be some romance, closeness and affection behind closed doors. I don’t know. I guess it doesn’t really matter in the overall state of things. Just something that I thought about a bit. Maybe I just happened to surround myself with emotionally stunted people.

Sul came out a little while later, and started back on the beers and laughs. We weren’t really in it anymore. It was kind of surreal how little it seemed to bother him. I guess a guy in his position only gets that way if he is willing to get his hands dirty. I’d like to say that was the first and last time I was around when he had to do something that drastic, but I’d be lying. Truthfully I was around way more of the violence from that man than I ever would have liked to have been. At the end of the day though, he only charged us the bare minimum to live there.

What were we meant to do? We couldn’t go back to living out of the van, and for better or worse we were finally finding our feet. It was only another year before we had sort of put away enough money to find our apartment. Move into the city we were starting to fall in love with. To be closer to where we were working. To have our rooms again was something special. We didn’t know it at the time, but it wouldn’t be long until James and I opened our own bar. Luna had started working with us almost from the day she turned eighteen, and we’d sort of developed a strong connection with others in that hospitality space. If that meant we had to deal with living with a drug lord who occasionally put a bullet in someone’s head? So be it.

Sul told us if we ever needed anything, just to give him a call. Told Jimmy moreso than us, I guess. I really should’ve asked who the eventual investor in the Golden Cage was, but I think part of me always knew. That’s something that’ll become relevant later. For now, all that you need to know is that the Golden Cage was the stupid name we picked out for our bar. We weren’t really that creative, when I think back to it. So Golden Cage was the go, purely because James thought the place was kind of like a giant birdcage, and the Golden part felt like it meant something.

The two years with Sul were two of the most important years of our lives, even if I sort of glaze over them. We got on our feet, we made some money, we worked out what we wanted to do and we were witness to murder. Funny how much you’ll simply overlook when it benefits you. Harrison always scared me. Funny to think he’d go onto be a somewhat loving parental figure.

Alex put the pen down, and thought to himself. Thought about how much time has passed. Thought about everything that had changed since those simpler days. Since those easier moments. It was... uncomfortable thinking about those as easier moments. Accepting the brutality of the men who took them in, shouldn't have been easier. The unfortunate reality is that it was.

“I remember now.”

Alex sat there at the end of that hallway once more, looking at the figure that wore his face. Not just his face, but the ghosts of his mind. The torturers of his soul. His warden, his jailor. His keeper. Staring at the door that held back that memory. The memory he knew in fragments. In sounds and reminders. Flashes of a smile, of unrepentant and unforgiving betrayal.

Resentment.

He’d spoken the words to her; they’d had their conversations. Yet it didn’t help. It didn’t slow things down. It didn’t end the nightmares and the moments of collapse. It continued as it always had, as it always would. He’d have to come to terms with it one day. Maybe the easier outcome was to just give in. To stop fighting, to lose himself to The Lost. He always hid from the difficult thoughts. The painful memories.

Forgiveness did not lend itself easily to him. It never had; it probably never would. He’d done his best in the past. Forgiven his father for the abuse and stood at his side. Forgiven Luna for the betrayal that existed at the end of that hallway. Forgiven his mother for leaving him. Forgiven Lauren for leaving him. It was a bitter, narcissistic thing to do. Anger at something he had no control over, anger at them for leaving him behind.

Grief took many forms; he just didn’t deal well with his. A by-product emotion that he had always found solace in. A by-product emotion that they kept saying he’d overcome if he looked inward. That if he simply accepted the things that he couldn’t control and focused on those he could. That things would get better. That he would be better. He wasn’t sure of that anymore. He wasn’t so sure of anything.

Torture of the mind was one worse than any other. It was more defeating than simply negative self-thought. No amount of mindfulness could cure the grief he refused to accept. No, refused was not the right word. He had accepted his grief; he had accepted the things he could not change. That did not mean he had to simply move past them. No, there was a constant bubble beneath the anger.

Resentment.

“Resentment is a bitter emotion, Alexander. One you know too well. One you are all too familiar with. Let me take you out of it all. Let me give you a life that you crave. A world in which none of it happened. A world in which you can be free of it all.” The Lost spoke in that whisper of a voice. One that crawled down the back of his eyes rather than in his ears.

Alex simply stared down the hallway, sitting there, knees up arms wrapped around them. He’d always found comfort in self-soothing. Of curling up into himself. To going back to being that small boy who’d be curled up into a ball under the covers with his mother. Cradled and supported, loved and cared for in the moment. A moment of safety.

“I’d be happy with you gone.” Alex said softly, burying his head in his legs, moving an arm around the back of his neck. Holding himself. It was less of a comfort now, and a reminder. A reminder of harder times. Sitting in the shower racking with sobs. Washing the pain of the day away. The soft and whimpering man that existed beneath it all. The one that tried to claw his own skin off when Lauren died.

Of shuddering and riding out bad nights on the gear. Too many drugs, too many memories and pains. Of nights where he held that rope and considered the same way out as his mother. Dark nights, dark memories. Dark moments he wasn’t keen to confront again. To go back to. He was healthier, even if his body hurt more than ever. He was stronger, even if his body seemed weaker than he could ever remember it being.

His mind, however, was a fractured shell of a creature. A shambling mess of nothingness. A collapse of psyche that trapped him.

“Alexander, open the door. Open the door and be free. Stop fighting me and come together. I promise it will all be better.” The Lost’s voice tore at the back of his consciousness. His skull shuddered under the icy fingers that clawed their way into his mind. Icy tendrils that lured him toward the door.

“I remember now.” Alex said and closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, after what felt like an eternity, it all felt different. The world had changed; he wasn’t sitting there anymore. His hand was on that door handle. His fingers curled around the cold metal. He could hear the breathing on the other side. He could hear the sound of flesh on flesh. He knew the torture that existed beyond it. But today something was different. Today it was… today he would face it.

He had to face it.

Resentment.

He twisted the handle, turned it and pushed forward. Pushed the door inwards. The blinding light screamed into his mind. The room beyond wasn’t the one he expected. It was different to what he thought. It was different because it wasn’t the torture he expected. It wasn’t the image of Luna impaled upon Leon. It wasn’t the memory that he had so desperately wanted to be nothing but a bad dream.

It was everything.

True torture in that room.

---

“A wounded dog is a dangerous one. Afraid, defensive, backed into a corner. It’ll snap and bite and lash out anything that comes close. Anything that comes close to being a friend, a foe. It doesn’t matter. Approach the wounded dog wrong and it all goes poorly for you. Some might say, right now, Alexander Raven is little more than a dog on death’s door. Ready to be taken down once and for all. I know the pain of being backed into the corner.”

“But I’m no dog, I’m no failure of existence beckoned at the hands of the few. I am not a beast to be led to water in hopes of it cooling its wounds. I am not a man to be fucked with, Carter. You of all people should know this. That it always comes back to the simplicity of an idea. A seed planted. A mind left to wonder. Ideas, Carter. Ideas make the world go around.”

“Funny how it all comes back to this. An ideas man, that is what some would call me. An ideas man. I tend agree. Full of ideas, on how to hurt, on how to exact pain. I’m used to it, I’m sure to being the one with the ideas. Three stages of hell, not quite the way I envisioned it, but better than nothing, right?”

“First blood, Falls Count Anywhere and then a Steel Cage. I’m quite acquainted with these stipulations, a tactical choice if anything by Carter. Commendations where commendations belong, I like it. It isn’t quite as… violent as I wanted. But that’s no problem for me. No, I can make do with the cards I’m dealt. I can make do with anything I need to make do with.”

“Choices, Carter. That was what we had, choices. Choices in action, choices in reaction. Choices in what we decide is allowable and what isn’t. This ring, it is sacred. I may not be the most technical man alive, but I sure as hell know what it means to be in here. I may not be the most athletic man to grace the squared circle, but I’ve spilled enough blood to satisfy the Wrestling God time and time again. I am, what I am, and what I am? I am wrestler.”

“That’s the truth of it all. At the end of the day, I am a wrestler. I’ve tried my hand at many things. I was a good publican; I was a good bartender. Bar management had people loving me. I’m a decent husband, I’d like to think. I am decent man, to those who deserve my decency. I wasn’t a very good son, but I did my best. Did my best to respect my mother, to avoid angering my irrationally angry father. I am not a unique story; I am simply a man of my scars. My traumas, my shortcomings.”

“So I need you to understand something. I am not a bad man, Carter. I saw someone cross the boundary that separates the sacred from the worshippers. I didn’t stop him for your sake, although it was not the person you seem so afeared of. No, I stopped him for one simple reason, because it was proof of everything I’ve been saying.”

“You are not the good guy, Carter. You are not the one that should be lauded. You are not the champion of the championless, the holder of integrity. You are a bitter, self-loving bastard who gets enjoyment out of the chastising of others. You hide it behind this idea of being sassy, and endearing. The truth however is beginning to dawn on people. In your own private world someone has taken umbrage towards you. In your professional world, fans themselves are so aggravated by who you are they are crossing the boundaries to hurt you.”

“Think about that for just a minute here, Carter. For all the things I’m accused of, for all the things that I say. The truths, the brutalities, the insults. The mocking and belittling of people, for I do that in spades too. I won’t pretend I don’t. For it all, I am the truth. People have opened their ears and their eyes. They’ve listened, and they’ve looked. They’re finally turning on you, because now. Now it is obvious that you are not a good person.”

“You are a truly evil person, and they are making themselves heard. They are making themselves known. You were attacked, Carter. Not me. The proof of everything I’ve said, right there. The proof of it all, slapping you in the face and it cannot be denied. It cannot be avoided. And at the end of the night, when I lift the Sin City Worlds Heavyweight Championship in the sky and hold it above my head before I throw it into the sea itself. They will cheer for me, Carter. They will cheer, because they know.”

“They know the man with the truth, and the ideas will be their champion. That you have been exposed. You will have to seek redemption, and I do not think you have the strength for it. You are absorbed by self, and that. That is a torturous road to break from. One that I do not think you are ready for. Poisoned by your own actions.”

“I’ve never pretended to be more than that, despite the claims of self-aggrandisement about me. I am what I am. An ideas man, who will give the world the ideas that they want. That they need. That they strive for. I claimed that you were a narcissist. A man with the blinders on, who is a bitter sycophant. That in a world where you are seen as the saviour and I am the one that need be torn down.”

“I gave you an idea, Carter, and you ran with it. You ran and you chose First Blood, Falls Count Anywhere and a Steel fucking Cage. I like the way you think.”

“But let’s look at it on an individual level, shall we? First Blood, I have my gripes with. A tactical choice, truly. I’m a mid-30’s man with the skin of a ninety-year-old. A stiff breeze is enough to cut me open on the best of days. Scarred flesh left too weak and thin from years and years of torture. But steeled enough to know how to stay fresh. Just long enough to outlast a fresh body. I have a bit of bitter past with this particular stipulation. Maybe the blinders were off for you just long enough for you to know that, hey Carter?”

“When I came back last year, and I was denied my opportunity at the meddling hands of James Huntington-Hawkes and Kevin Carter, men I once considered… friends. When I stood across the ring from them, and Kevin Carter put his Internet Championship on the line. First Blood was the stipulation. A weak and flagrant little match type, if there ever was one. An excuse to get out when the going gets good. When the taste of blood flares up the adrenaline. When the blood starts pumping and your face becomes a crimson fucking mask of life essence itself.”

“Kevin got lucky. Unfortunately for you really, Carter. Kevin got fucking lucky. A quick relook at the footage and oh, what’s that? He bled first. Screwed out of my win, but that’s okay. I can take my licks where they come. But it has made me bitter. See I don’t like First Blood normally, but in this case? I can make do. I can make do, Carter, because I’m not afraid to bleed, and I am definitely not afraid of cutting you open. So where does that leave us?”

“Falls Count Anywhere, right? Now this, this I like. Nothing to hold us in, nothing to stop us from taking it all the way to the street. Nothing to bring us to heel except for our imagination. See this is the kind of thing I truly enjoy. Freedom of imagination, freedom to do as I wish. Freedom to explore and enjoy. That’s my kind of game, Carter. See I have no problem dragging you from pillar to literal post. Maybe I’ll even prepare something special for us Carter. See I’m an ideas man. I told you that I was an ideas man.”

“But maybe just the idea of a plan is enough, who knows? I like to leave a little bit of uncertainty in most things. Uncertainty is a quality in life that leads to joy. To understanding of one’s own desires and ambitions. Uncertainty is what leads a weak man to think of destiny and fate. So Falls Count Anywhere, it is a world full of uncertainty. A taste, but possibly one that favours you as well. For in control that is the true danger. Maybe you’ll set a trap for me. Set yourself a little hole to supplant me in. To take away the strengths of what I possess.”

“But lucky last, that’s my favourite. That is the one that if we reach it, and… as unseeming as it would be to bet against myself. I think we will, for that is the way of the world with these things. The Steel Cage is my favourite little domain. Now, you didn’t take the full idea there, and that disappoints me. It disappoints me because it gives you a squirrelling chance of victory. To run away from it all, to escape the cage. Disappointing, but… not surprising.”

“See I like the Steel Cage, and I want you to think back. Think back to the moment that people thought my inevitable demise would come. When I bit and barked and pulled at the attention of Austin James Mercer. King James, I called him. King James for that is what he is seen as here. The King. The figure of devastation. Of fear, of chaos. A man ready to break and tear down any who he sees a need to do so with. To finish off our little soiree, King James and I were locked inside a Steel Cage.”

“The savage beast and the wounded dog. The Internet Champion’s final defence is what everyone thought. Then I won. I walked out looking far more dominant than they expected. I earned King James’ respect; I earned the right to be the one who called the shots. I earned that fucking right, and I did it in a Steel Cage. No running, no escaping. I dropped him on the back of his head on a steel chain and I won. I walked out the champion. If there is anything I can be certain of, if there is anything in this world that I know. The Steel Cage? That’s my domain, Carter.”

“The Steel Cage is my home, the kingdom of Alexander Raven. The home of Alexander Raven. My temple of carnage. My temple of exacting agony, of tearing flesh from the fucking bone. That is my kingdom, Carter. No escape from me, no escape from any of it. No distractions, no outside influence. You and me, in a place of pain. Of blood. Of unforgiving steel and unrelenting metal. The Steel Cage, that is where it will all be decided, Carter. The Steel Cage of your end.”

“Come Blaze of Glory, I am confident in myself. I am confident that I am no wounded dog. I am not simply an ideas man. I am going to be the next Sin City Worlds Champion. I’m tired of waiting, I’m tired of being just short. I am tired of being overlooked, second guessed and thought to be nothing but a challenger. A runner up. A man designed to have his own designs ignored in place of a greater man over me. There is no greater men, for there is no lesser one than you. You, Carter. Evil, sycophantic and manipulative.”

“This is the end for you. I hope you can understand that. I hope you can understand that this all is because you refuse to be truthful. That you keep your kindness locked away behind this mask that you wear. This façade of lies and betrayal. The mask that is slipping but not for the goodness of it. The mask is slipping because the truth is illuminating. You are Lost, just like I have always been.”

“The Lost will guide us home, Carter.”

“Have you listened? Words fall on deaf ears, I fear. That’s okay. This is the end, Carter. Our last dance. With it all on the line, one more time.”

“And then?”

“Nothing.”

---

His head screamed as he barrelled through it all. Every memory he’d suppressed, every little bit of grief he’d fought to fight off. Memories he didn’t want to acknowledge. Pain he’d fought every day to try and hide. The anger burned through his soul, his soul screaming in pain. The laughter, the blows of pain, the mocking.

Every memory was there in his mind.

His mind had snapped when he looked into The Void, the endless nothingness. When Vita Mors had shown him every possible reality in a mere moment. Had taken everything and then shown absolute absence of it all. His mind had never truly quietened after that day. His mind had never stopped. It was just locked away.

This was different. This was him, his own insanity. His own collapse, the ghosts, the pain and the agony. Every single moment of it screamed through his head. All at once, he could do little to fight it off. Grief overwhelmed him, grief threatened to strangle him. Threatened to tear at every part of his consciousness. Explosions of light, explosions of colour. Flashes of flashes of flashes of memories. Moments of curled up agony.

And then, suddenly.

Peace.

As if everything had come to life all at once. As if all had been calmed down and that for a moment. For a simple, easy and quiet moment. Peace. Total and utter calm. Something he’d not felt since…

Ever.

There was a bench in a park. A quiet bench in a park, full of flowers and bees. A flowing wind, a gentle calmness. It wasn’t a place he recognised, but it wasn’t threatening. It wasn’t agonising. It wasn’t painful. All was calm in the world.

He reached up and touched his face and felt the wetness. Felt the tears that flowed and barrelled down his cheeks. Tears of understanding. Tears of recognition. Tears of… happiness? For the moment, that bubbling and boiling in his soul. It was gone. There was nothing left in the depths of him. None of that anger, none of the vitriol. Just a calmness, that his body didn’t know quite how to accept.

He sat there looking into the world around him and took a deep breath, leaning back as he heard the crunch of grass beside him. He turned and looked, and he smiled. His mother.

The one ghost that had never been.

“My sweet boy.” Her voice sang out, like a light breeze.

“Mum…” Alex said softly in response, his voice choked up in his throat.

She sat beside him, and placed a hand on his, giving it a gentle squeeze. Her warmth in that moment was soothing kiss to his fragile mind. A reminder of the positivity in the world, a positivity he had long since forgotten. The thin, wiry woman, an absolute battle axe of a lady.

“You’ve been through a lot, my sweet. A hard life, but you’re here still. A strong, powerful and loving man. Full of grief, but also full of love. Love for the people that mean the most. I loved that girl, Alex. And I know she loved you then, as much as she does now.” His mother said in his sharp, somewhat broken English. He’d nearly forgotten what her voice sounded like at one point in his life.

That powerful German mother, who stood as the barrier to abuse. That stood against the pain of the world and sheltered all those who suffered the same. The roof that protected from the storm. A true fighter, and a true woman of love. He reached turned his palm over and took her hand in his. Holding it for one more fleeting moment longer than he ever had before.

“The world grew bleaker without you here.” Alex said to her, turning to look at her eyes.

She just smiled, a smile that reached them. A smile that he could never forget.

“Only because you put on your sunglasses, Alexander. Only because you put your sunglasses on and never took them off. Look how beautiful it is here. How beautiful the world can be. Even beyond all the grief.” She said softly.

He turned to her and smiled. The Lost, had brought him home. His mind hadn’t been keeping him prisoner. Not in the true sense of it all. No, it had been trying to do what he refused to do. To make him face the truth. To face the resentment. To face his anger.

To realise that the grief wasn’t all he had.

“I miss you, Mum. I miss you every day. I love you.” Alex said, feeling the warmth of the tears still falling from his eyes. An endless waterfall of pent-up emotion. He’d cried a lot lately, but not like this. Tears of acceptance.

“I’m so proud of you, Alexander. I loved you every moment of my waking life, and beyond it. Do not forsake the world. Carry that love for me. Always.” She said one more time as she looked away, looking into the park.

He could feel it in the wind, in the warmth of the sun on his skin. She would leave soon, and maybe, forever. That was okay.

“I’m a little bit fucked up, I think.” Alex said.

“We’re all a little fucked up, Alexander. Curse of the family, I’m afraid. You’ll be right. You’ll pull through. I know you will. I know, because you won’t let the world forget you. Be my shining beacon, like I always thought you would.” His mother said.

And then, as quick as it all had begun. The world vanished. Her warm hand was gone, and the park was different. The park was still a park with flowers and wind. The sun still warm on his skin, but the bench was painful under his ass. He looked down at where his mother’s hand had been and for a moment he could almost feel it still.

“You alright there, grandpa? Taking a bit of a nap are we, sugar?” Luna’s voice cut through the air, as her warms flung around his neck, and she pressed her head against his. He reached up and took her hands in his and nodded.

“Yeah. I think I’m alright, Lu. I love you.” Alex said and leaned into her. Truly leaned into her, and just let the peace he felt linger a little bit longer.

And then…

He smiled with joy.

The bitter taste of defeat. Of failure. Of coming up just short. It was a hard pill to swallow. They had done everything to try and ensure the outcome was controlled, and it slipped away from them. It was a familiar feeling, as haunting as that was. A familiar feeling that he just couldn’t quite shake. A feeling he didn’t think he’d ever really shake. The empty hollow feeling after coming up just short. There was a part of his brain, irrational as it was. That wanted to blame her.

“Never your fault is it, Alexander?” The mocking voice of The Lost filled his brain. Like icy fingers dragging down the back of his skull. The cascading feeling of a waterfall filling a dam of ice-cold waters in the depths of his psyche. He shook his head trying to shake away the cackling sounds in his mind. A deep breath in, a slow heavy exhale. He leaned up against the brick wall, one of the last people in the building. Luna had gone home early; she was upset with herself. Upset with him. Upset with everything and how it had played out.

He sat there, simply staring off into the distance. These quiet moments, these moments of defeat. They were the ugly side that nobody wanted to acknowledge. That nobody ever wanted to feel. These were the moments that weren’t full of glory. Of cheer. They were the loneliest moments. The worst part, is that the only difference in the victory, is that you have a fucking prop to make the moment feel better.

In this moment, he felt truly alone.

It was days like these he almost relished the room that never changed. Being trapped in a world of pure bliss, manufactured and articulated to exist simply in his mind. A place to keep him safe from himself, from his own thoughts. A prison of his making, that had begun to fracture. Fracture so heavily it was no longer pertinent for his mind to trap him there.

No, now it was torture. The reminder of that long hallway. The reminder of what had gone wrong. The reminder of the truly life-altering night. A hallway not unlike the one he found himself sitting in. A wide berth being given by the few staff still walking around. The load out crews doing their final bits of packing down and shipping out. It was nights like this he was reminded of why he truly had tried to run away.

He looked down that long hallway and frowned. A door that shouldn’t exist was set in a wall that he didn’t remember being there. The silence of the world around him finally dawned upon him. Heavy breathing, but not his own. He could feel and hear his heart beating in his ears. His head throbbed, and his stomach churned. An undaunting illness. The world was dimmer. More uncomfortable. He slowly lifted himself to his feet. His steps felt heavy, each one feeling like it took an eternity, but they came. One after the other as he slowly moved towards that door. The breathing was coming from there. It was more than just that though. It was… moaning? The sound of flesh, the sound of movement.

With each step his body screamed at him to stop. His mind itself stabbing with pain, his brain exploding behind his eyes. Demanding he stop. Demanding he turn away. That he ignores the door. That he ignores the hallway. That he walks away. Yet there was another voice, another demand. The lulling of The Lost, urging him onwards.

“It’s time to confront it, Alex. Time to confront that which you refuse to see. Let us do it together.” The Lost’s voice urged him forward. The ghost that wore his face, materialised just beside the door. His hand on the handle. Slowly twisting it, slowly turning it. Alex felt rooted in place, his body no longer responding to him. No longer allowing him his own function or faculties. He knew what this was. He knew what torture he was expected to endure here.

He knew the moans; he knew the sounds of flesh. He knew the breathing. It was a memory; a memory he held such abhorrent hatred in. A memory he had done his damnedest to bury. To pretend that he had truly moved past it. The truth of it, was he never really would get past it. No matter how much love he held for her then, no matter how much love he held for her now. The memory that existed beyond that door was one that hold him in resentment for his life.

“Stop… please… stop.” Alex managed to squeak the words out. The ghostly face of his tormenter curling into a plethora of smirks and grins. Laughter bouncing around in his skull. The roar of a crowd laughing at his pain. At the struggles he was feeling. At the begging for his freedom.

“I’m so sorry, Lexi-baby.” Luna’s voice tried to push through his mind. Tried to drag him away from it. The problem was what existed beyond that door. There was no apology in the world that could fix it. That could change what had happened that night. No apology, because in that moment, when their eyes met. There was no regret in that moment. There was no apology. There was just an almost smugness. A mocking of him for being so naïve in believing she would always be true. That they were destined.

Destiny was a fucking lie. Soulmates were a lie. They just happened to be stuck together for long enough that the bonding had held them together for the time. Bitter resentment bubbled in him, and no matter how much he tried. He would never really move past it. The door opened, the blinding light blaring into his eyes. A roar of agony ripped through him, exploding into the world beyond. He rushed forward eyes closed against the bright light. His hand wrapped around the door handle. He pushed through and felt the cold breeze across his face.

He opened his eyes, sitting upright in bed. The curtains fluttering in the breeze that was coming through the open window. He took a deep breath and reached up pinching the bridge of his nose. Time loss was an uncomfortably common occurrence these days. It had been for a while, ever since his run-ins with Vita Mors. Things didn’t ever really get better; he just got more used to dealing with them all. It didn’t mean they didn’t unnerve him still. Not knowing was… unfortunate. He looked over and saw Luna laying there. Wrapped up in the blankets. Blissfully unaware of the world around him.

He wondered if she was ever tormented by that night. She once claimed that she had never forgiven herself for it, but it made him wonder. Was this all just the same thing playing over again? Building his trust up just to crush him once more. To freeze his heart once more and turn him into that unfeeling beast that he had once been. The blind and rage filled man who didn’t care about anything. About anyone. The man who Lauren had done her hardest to bring back to humanity. Who had seen something soft and gentle in him and had done all she could to bring out of him.

The world had repaid her for her kindness by taking her away early. By removing the sweetness part of the world, and in turn, dooming him to a life of more loss. More pain; more sacrifice. It didn’t matter how hard he worked; it was always the same. Loss of love, loss of those he loved. Loss of his humanity, and a true inability to ever really get over it. For the first time in a long time, Alex wasn’t soothed looking at the woman who lay in his bed. He wasn’t soothed by the woman he now thought of his wife, as the love his life. The woman who had been doing everything in her power to help him.

He was resentful of her, right now. That made him sick, but he couldn’t push the thought from his mind. He turned away from her and rolled his legs out of the bed. Letting the wash of the cool breeze come over him. Silent and slight as a cat, he placed his feet on the floor and stood up slowly. His body groaning under the effort. The pain was just part of the day to day at this point. A pain he would never truly be free of again. No amount of physio and miracle work could fix that.

He slowly made his way across the hotel room. He’d almost forgotten what it was like to be at home. To be with their little Beagle of mischief. To be a simple man for just a moment. Sometimes he’d thought it’d be easier to just…

Thoughts for another night.

He paced across to the open window and pushed the curtains aside. He looked out over another city he’d be saying goodbye to soon enough. Another night in a place he didn’t care for. To go to another place he didn’t want to be in, doing things he’d grown to resent. A loneliness that couldn’t be fixed. It didn’t matter how many times he won, how many times he lost. It didn’t matter how many or how few were to be his friends. At the end of the day, he would falter, he would fall. He would be alone, and in that moment. The grudges, the resentment. The hatred for everyone and everything. It would be all he had left. All that he needed. To be truly left in his anger.

He rested his head against the window frame and continued to stare out into the night. His mind stuck on the images that he was being forced to finally acknowledge. The more he tried to push it from his mind the more it stuck. The moans, the breathing. The sounds of body on body. The laughter as his own demons mocked him for being so thick. For being so dumb. The worst of it.

He couldn’t push the image of her face from his mind. The smirk that betrayed him. The smirk that hurt him. The smirk that agonised him deeply. That moment before she really truly realised what was happening. It was burnt into his very retinas. The pure bliss on her face matched with the mocking smirk of the pain she knew it was causing him in that moment. He lifted his head from the window and turned to look over his shoulder. To look back at her laying in the bed.

She wasn’t the girl she was then, but part of him struggled. Part of him struggled with moving past it. He really thought he had, but the more he was confronted with that memory. The more he struggled with it all. He looked at her, and he wondered. He wondered what she dreamt of. What was going through her mind. How truthful she was. Everyone had their moments of paranoia. It would be hard to be married to a paranoid. A delusional paranoid at that. One who argued with ghosts. Who saw people where they were not.

Who was hated for simply being and wept in quiet for the way they world looked upon him. If she didn’t truly love him, would anyone? He shuddered to know. He shuddered to even comprehend the ideas of what was in his mind. He turned away and rested his head on the window frame once more. Looking out on the glittering lights of a city that just didn’t quite know when to stop. To which he simply hoped that one day. His own mind would know just where to stop the torture.

For now, he simply suffered in silence. A conversation to be had but tonight was not the night for it. Tonight was not the night for his paranoia. Not when he was so alone.

And then…

---

“Funny how things end up playing out. I heard the childish screaming and foot stomping from our lovely World Champion last week. I heard him scream about how it wasn’t right, how it wasn’t fair. I think our little World Champion fails to see what this all means. The tide is turning; the faith placed upon him is shifting. Or, despite his meandering and yowling. The powers that be do not see the same belief in Eddie Lyons as our consummate World’s Champion does. In fact, maybe they too umbrage at the idea of you getting to decide who was worthy next.”

“See I think that is a funny little twist of fate right there. Well, twist of humanity. Fate is… non-existent for people like us. For those who are learning about just how unfair the world truly is. I’ll more for you, Carter. I promise you that. But the next time? Next time I don’t think things are truly going to go your way. Every encounter is different to the last.”

“This week however, the powers that be. They throw the poor unfortunate Ciarán at me. Plucky, happy-go-lucky, barely getting by. Someone who takes anger in the actions of the Branded Hen. Funny how no matter how much times go by, no matter how far we distance ourselves from it all. Our pasts always seem to crawl back to us. Years ago, I sent the Branded Hen running for the hills. Good ol’ Brandon Hendrix. To his credit, he did what I have been doing. He went off, he found himself. Put himself through the wars and the ringer just to prove that he could hang. Just to prove that he belonged.”

“I don’t particularly like the man, but I do understand a man who is acting. Something you seemed to have an issue with, Ciarán. Personal umbrage for an action that has nothing to fucking do with you. That is what boils me, Ciarán. People sticking their fucking noses into things that do not require their attention. That do no require them to be in the slightest bit involved. But you, you’re direct, right? Your own words. Direct. You don’t owe LJ anything, you don’t own him your attention. You don’t owe him the recompense of another’s falling because you happen to be that man’s next target.”

“You, Ciarán, are a meddler. A meddler in the affairs of people greater than you. A meddler in the affairs of people who do not need you. You’re a watcher, right? Sit in your little chair and watch from the side. No panic, no worry. No fear, just good ol’ story telling. Good ol’ wrestling ability. A man of focus, of attention, of belief. Self-belief that undoes everything that others work so hard to prove of themselves. Except, Ciarán, this time? You’re not swinging against a no-good loser like the Branded Hen. No, this time, you’ve got me. Alexander Raven. The False Prophet, the Broken Messiah. The Lost, Alexander Raven.”

“History is something I take some passion in, Ciarán. Something you too seem to have this little knack for. I mean, I do my research too. I do my listening; I do my looking. I do my understanding of who it is that stands across from me, because in understanding you? I know how to tear you apart. I know how to get under the skin, and I know just what to say to ensure that you slip up. That’s what they’ll all tell you, anyway. That Alexander Raven is smoke and mirrors. Wraps you up in rhetoric designed to confuse and befuddle. They all know how I work; they’ll tell you so. They tell me, every single time they stand across from me.”

“Just, I have to wonder, Ciarán. Do you think they’re right? Do you think I’m nothing but smoke and mirrors. A man designed to titter about and bring nothing but a story? Ask men like Aiden Reynolds, Austin James Mercer, Fenris, James Huntington-Hawkes, Kevin Carter. Ask any of them, they’ll tell you that the belief that Alexander Raven is smoke and mirrors is a sure-fire way to being flat on your back and wondering where why your fucking neck feels like it has been snapped in half. Why the stars exist only in your head as you wonder what that bright light that cannot be the sun is. Truthfully, Ciarán, this is little more than a reminder. A reminder of why there is not a single other person in this place that could even be considered the number one contender for the World’s Championship.”

“As long as I’m around, Ciarán. It will never be you. It will never be LJ, or Miles. It will never be Brandon Hendrix or Logan Hunter. Brayden Hilton, or any of them. No, as long as I’m here, there is only one clear contender no matter what they do to try and change it. Not a single fucking one of you comes close to what Alexander Raven is on my worst day. Not a single fucking one of you could lace my boots, and that. That is truth. That is fact. That is what you have to wonder about, Ciarán.”

“You can believe what they say and feel the pain that is coming. You can listen to Aiden Reynolds and realise that he wasn’t lying when he talked about me being a Ring General. You could ask Eddie Lyons for advice and he’ll tell. He just cannot work me out. Ask anyone, and you’ll get the same bullshit, but you’ll get a sliver of truth too. As much as they all deny me, they cannot hide the fact that I terrify them. That they do not know how to step to Alexander Raven on my worst days. That beating me? That never feels like they truly won. No it just feels like on that day they got luckier.”

“But luck, luck has nothing to do with it, Ciarán. No, on the day, they were better. I’ve never pretended other than. I’ve never pretended that I am anything but what I am. Another man, willing to do what I must to get to where I need to. Another man willing to take my lashings if that is what is needed. I’m tired of people pretending that they know me, Ciarán. Pretending that they can get some insight into who I am. Trying to put observations and subjection upon me to bring me down. In the end, it doesn’t matter what they say. What you say. What any single person says. At the end of the day, a universal truth will remain just that. A universal fucking truth. The truth? No one is always the best. No one is always on top. They just had to be better on that day. At the end of it all?”

“No one will even remember your name, Ciarán.”

“No one will care that you were here. No one will cry for the man who brandished his heart for the love it all. No body will care for the man who does nothing but complain. Idolises what he sees in front of him in the World’s Champion. Don’t walk that path, Ciarán. Don’t fall into the fallacies of what they preach to you. Don’t fall into the bullshit of what they are trying to peddle. Eddie speaks of honour yet falls time and time again. Carter pretends to be this loving and accepted man yet screams like a petulant child when things aren’t going his way.”

“Miles Kasey prods the bear over and over and wonders why things never really seem to go his way. LJ, Aiden, Logan, Vincent. Any and all of them are just the same. Mewling children who do not understand what it truly takes to be the biggest dog in the yard. The largest raven in the conspiracy. To be the leader, to be the killer. There is nothing for you here. Nothing for any of them. So, come Climax Control. When you’re blinking the agony out of your eyes, wondering why you can’t get your faculties to work the way they need. You were just an example.”

“A warning, a reminder. Whatever way you need to paint it. Whatever way they all need to paint it. There is no right or wrong. There simply is just this. There is simply just the truth. My truth, for that is all that really matters in the end.”

“I’m excited for Sunday, Ciarán. I’m excited to see the flash of confidence, and the dread of understanding. The moment you realise that there is no way for you to escape this. That you are being thrown to the wolves, and the only person that can help you walk out on your own volition. The only person that can help you, is me, and what I decide to do.”

“Are you listening, Ciarán? I hope you have been listening. I need you to understand.”

“This is the end for you.”

There was a peace in being back in what he felt was truly home for the holidays. Being back in Australia, being back with people he hadn’t seen in so long. He didn’t really consider most of them friends. Adrienne was a friend, but the rest. They were just faces; faces of people he hadn’t seen in so long. Old regulars of the bar. People he’d befriended in moments of delirium in a bathroom haze. The sounds of snorting and the grunt of poor-quality drugs sliding up orifices they shouldn’t. A lot of trust put in people he wouldn’t have trusted to pay their tab most of the time.

There was a peace in it. In being surrounded by people who pretended that they were closer than they actually were. Closer than any of them would ever actually be. At least to him. The true peace of it all though, was in watching her. Watching Luna in her element. Flitting about, moving between groups. Smiles, laughter and happy. A true happy in being the hostess and socialite that she wanted to be. Part of him felt bad for keeping her ‘trapped’ all the way over in America with him. Trapped with the grouch with a heart that only thawed for her.

There was peace, but there was also doubt. Fear and sorrow. There was a concern all the way through. A fear that he was ruining her, by simply being who he was. No amount of reassuring could fix that either. Not when he could see the joy radiate off her in these moments of happiness. Not when he could see how much she missed being in the world. Being with these people that were just acquaintances to him ,but to her.

To her they were the world she was giving up.

Peace and fear. Peace and doubt. Peace and concern. A concern he needed to talk to her about. The hard conversations between husband and wife. The scary talks, the talks that put doubt on the truth of their situation. That was it all just because of the closeness of it all. That without James, was he just a burden on her? When the bar was pumping, she was still able to live this life. To see James, to have that connection to people. Without him, without the bar, without Adrienne’s regular presence.

Was he destroying everything about her he loved?

It was something he had to think on. Something he had to dwell on, because he did not know. He didn’t know the answer to the questions he was asking, and that scared him. That scared him to not know. It was all a deep-seeded fear, and he didn’t quite know how to deal with that. He didn’t quite understand it all. It was a conversation they were going to need to have. A conversation he dreaded, because if she left. He would have nothing. He would be alone. Trapped with himself, trapped with his mind. Trapped with being The Lost.

He couldn’t think of anything that scared him more.

He smiled the smiles he needed to. He smiled and played nicely. Laughed, and shook hands. Drank beers and told stories. Talked about some ‘inside baseball’ with the few guys who had taken it upon themselves to destroy their bodies in the same way he was. Every part of him screaming at him to tell them to save themselves. To not put themselves through the pain and suffering. That the first time they actually taste their blood they will be rattled. That the first time they feel a bone cracking from the force of another’s hold or fist. They’d have wished they’d never laced up a pair of boots.

But that’s not what they wanted to hear. No, they had dreams of grandeur. Of hearing the roar of the crowd. Of hearing the success and admiration. To be the centre of all the focus, the modern-day gladiators. In worldwide coliseums of blood sport. With people baying for the blood of the competitors, demanding their favourites win. Wishing death upon people like himself. Wishing death upon those that did not play the sport the way they demanded of him. When it all came down to it.

He realised just how stupid these people really were. Yet they brought her happiness. They brought a smile to her face. They let her drink and eat and smile. To feel alive in the moment. A feeling he knew she never felt in that ring, no matter how good she was at it. It wasn’t her dream; it wasn’t her goal. She just wanted to do anything to be closer to the two of them. To be seen the same way as James and Alex were. To be closer to her brother.

“Did you used to sit there and think like this when it was her and I dancing through the crowd. Shaking hands and befriending everyone? You always were the fucking weird kid standing in the corner Alex. I did you a favour by toughening you up. You should have been fucking thanking me for taking her from you.” Whispers of Leon’s voice creeped up through the back of his mind. Trying to pull him from his own thoughts.

To bait him into being in his own head again. To start arguing with ghosts, and ruin today for her. To ruin this trip. The problem was that his own mind just knew how to torture him in just the right way. To say the things that would upset him the most. The things that would make him most likely to snap and scare people. To scare people who didn’t know he was as broken as he was. Hearing ghosts, seeing ghosts. Fighting a battle with a consciousness that existed only in his mind. The Lost was a sneaky little bitch.

He took a deep breath and excused himself from a conversation. Stepping through this decent little home of Adrienne’s newest boyfriend. She’d actually been with him for a while. A simple guy, but she seemed to really like him. Maybe she was finally settling. She was finally growing up. Hopefully she didn’t break him like she had a habit of doing.

He crossed and stepped out into the backyard. Everyone else was still inside, eating and drinking and pretending that they were some level of human. That they weren’t having some internal debate about their own existence in others’ lives at any point in time. He pressed a cigarette to his lips and lit it. Taking a long and deep drag on it. Letting the sensation flood through him. Momentary peace. Momentary aloneness.

“You okay, lover?” Luna’s voice came through as she closed the door behind her. Any other time he’d be happy to be interrupted from himself by her. He’d be happy to have her presence. Right now, he was afraid. No amount of peace could truly overthrow the doubts. The fears. The fact that he had Leon’s mocking laughter ringing around his skull. That was something he couldn’t talk to her about. They’d fought in the past over his seeing of ghosts. Her not understanding his delusions. Then because James and her had hid the truth of Leon’s death from him. Hid the fact that he was dead.

“Just needed a moment. You look like you’re having fun.” Alex said softly, taking a long drag of his cigarette as he slipped an arm around her waist. Her own arms coming around his, lacing her fingers on his hip opposite her.

“I’m exhausted actually. I was hoping we could leave soon. It’s been fun, but fuck. They’re all so fake. I’m glad we did this, but…” Luna spoke softly, leaning into him, letting her words trail off. Letting her mind trail off. He looked at her, wondering what was going on in her head. Wondering what she was thinking. Wondering if she was just placating him because she knew him so well. Or if she truly was as good as wearing a mask as he was now.

“We can go soon, if that is what you want. I don’t want to be the cause of you leaving things that bring you joy. I don’t want you to worry about me if it is going to bring you down.” Alex said softly, taking another long drag on his cigarette. The pregnant silence was a little unnerving. Her grip on him didn’t loosen, didn’t tighten. Just remained in the moment.

“I remember why I hated these people. Why when James came to see you, I had to run halfway around the world. I remembered why I hated everything that I had become. That I was made to become. I remember why I used to hurt myself, Lexi. I remember all of it being here. As much as the moment is nice and fun. To see Adrienne playing at being an adult. To see people I used to look forward to seeing. I don’t love it here. I don’t love it like I once did. Once every now and then, is more than enough for me.” Luna’s voice was soft, but there was a confidence in it too. An almost sternness as she spoke. A sternness that spoke into his soul. That aimed to push all the negative from his mind.

They would still have to have the full conversation, but for now. For now they could just be at peace. Peace without doubt.

“I’d like to visit someone, on the way home. You don’t have to come if you don’t want, but. I haven’t been to see her in a very long time. I owe her that much.” Alex said softly, and turned a little, to look into Luna’s eyes.

She just smiled, understanding and nodded.

“I want to see her too. To tell her I’m sorry for who I was. For hurting you. I want to ask her to understand, and to forgive. To see how hard I’m working to try and make you happy.” Luna said softly in response, leaning into him some more.

He smiled a little and wondered. Wondered if Lauren and Luna would have been friends if she had met the woman she is now. Part of him wondered how different things would be in his life if he had never lost her. Not in a regretful way, but in a what if kind of way. Wrestling probably never would have made it back into his life. Reality is that Luna likely never really would have either. It was a strange way to think about life. A strange what if to consider.

---

“It finally comes down to this. To a final moment. One more match, to start the year. A chance for things to change. A chance for things to be different. For Sin City to have a new fear to have. A new change in the wings and a journey that they would never really quite understand. I’m not afraid of what is to come. I’m not afraid of what is before me. I’m not worried because I am happy. I am content. I am at peace with it all.”

“See, I have done nothing but bust my ass to get to where I am. Two years I worked my ass off to get back into the World Championship picture. I left to try and recover, to try and get my body back to where it needs to be. Thirty-Six years of age, isn’t that old, but with the horrors my body has gone through over the last eighteen years of my career? The fact I’m still standing is more than most could ask for.”

“But that’s not enough for me. No, I got my body working just well enough again. I got… well, my mind has never quite worked correctly. That I can’t blame on the crushing of a chair or a pipe. I can’t blame it on the copious amounts of spilt blood, or the broken bones. No, my mind has been a fractured beast most of my life. This isn’t about pity, or garnering forgiveness for my actions. Far from it, I am who I am, and I have no desire to change that. I am bitter, I am passionate. I am angry and I am focused.”

“The sand in the hourglass slowly trickles down, and with each drop, I know my time slowly comes to and end. Maybe not so slowly anymore. Not with how I treat myself. Not with what I do, what I will do, and what will be needed to be done. For beyond it all, for all the doubts and faults. For all the sickliness that I bring to people, there is a universal truth. There is a constant. A constant from Carter, a constant from Eddie, a constant from them all. If I am present, they will do everything they can to try and rattle my confidence. To try and tear down what I do. To try and rewrite their own compass as long as it benefits their own psyche, their own image. It is sickening.”

“Consistency is all I have ever offered. Consistency and transparency. No pretence of a greater ethics. No pretence of being anything more than human. I am someone who will take what I need to take to get to where I need to be. Success has been built on the backs of psychopaths and the world hates that those lack the empathy and care for others get to where they needed to be. Sociopaths and narcissists lead the world, and they are lauded for their successes. Until their lack of empathy finally shows the psychosis of what exists beneath the surface. All I have done is point that out. Point out their sycophantic nature and watch them come apart at the seams.”

“Which is what is happening to you, Carter Casey-Mckinney. Success corrupts and drags down those around you. Success paints a target on your back and puts those around you in danger. You have to be strong enough to fight back those dangers. To be the one to continue to stand or realise. Realise the poison that is seeping into your blood. Seeping into everything around you. Seeping into the world around you. Let me pose you a hypothetical here, Carter.”

“Say you beat me, say you win. I go back to the bottom of the pile, wash your hands of Alexander Raven. That’s how it is done around here, is it not? People are thrown back to the bottom and told they must claw their back up. So I go back down, I get thrown to Miles Kasey or Alex Jones. Your immeasurable faith in your own husband would suggest that you expect him to walk out of Inception still the Internet Champion. Alexander Raven goes back to the bottom of the pile, and in doing so, I set my eyes on hurting you in a different way. I set my eyes on Miles Kasey.”

“Hypothetical, all of it. Hypothetical because I do not share your immeasurable faith in Miles. What I do have a guarantee here, however, is this. Win or lose, Miles is next. I promised to hurt and take everything you love. I win, I take the World Championship, and I demand that Miles be first up on the plate. As the dictator of direction, I will ensure that Miles is hurt next. If I don’t? Then I’ll be at the bottom, and I’ll make it my fucking mission to hurt Miles.”

“Do you know why, in this hypothetical, that is the direction for me, Carter? Let me tell you, let me explain it so you can understand. You can stand by the idea of what you call your morals. What you deem as the right thing to do. To let people fight their own battles, even if it means that they will inevitably suffer. You can stand by as I torture Miles, as I whip him from pillar to post and punish him. As I martyr him for your narcissism, and you have to a make choice. Do you stand by these false ideals you force upon everyone else? Do you stand and let him fight his own fight, or do you interfere as you blame my own wife for doing? Would you make a choice to do the incorrect thing, because you want to?”

“I pose this hypothetical, because I want you to truly think about what I’m trying to do Carter. I have said I care little for the prop. I care in hurting you. In taking away what you have because I do not believe you deserve it. I want to hurt you because you have been nothing but a blind narcissist who refuses to admit it. Admittance is all I demand of you, and you refuse to do it. Did it get under your skin when Alex Jones pointed it out too? Called you out for being a blinded hypocrite? I don’t think it even registered because the words of others, they do not matter to you, Carter. You don’t care. You never have and you never will.”

“I think you will let Miles suffer, because you pretend to hide behind the idea of it being the right thing to do. To let someone do their own fighting. To let them fight their own battles and fight their own wars. You’ll let him suffer because it protects you. In your whole time as champion, why have you never offered Miles a chance at the top? See, love is one thing. Marriage is one thing. But this is a business, this is a business built upon image. Upon success upon how you are perceived and how you are seen by others. Miles cannot be happy bumming about at the ‘bottom’ with the rest of us underserving, can he? So why not offer him the opportunity that he so rightly deserves in everyone else’s eyes… except your own?”

“I pose these hypotheticals, because I simply ask that you think, Carter. I ask that you think about what is before you. I ask you to think about what you are doing to yourself and those around you, by refusing to admit your wrong. By refusing to apology for being an inconsiderate fucking dick. That is what you are Carter. An inconsiderate, narcissistic, sycophantic fucking dick. A prissy fucking cunt who is going to be shown the fallacy in his way of thinking. A fucking mongrel who will be torn down at the ankles because that is all you deserve. You deserve to have it all taken away from you because you are nothing but the scum that exists beneath our feet.”

“I made you a promise when I came back, that I would hurt. I made you a promise that I would take everything from you. I made you a promise that I would ruin you and everything you love, and if there is one thing that people know for sure about Alexander Raven? When I make a fucking promise, I will act on it, or I will die trying. I’m not getting younger Carter, and the reality is? I’ll never be healthy again. I’ll never be able to flip and fly like I once could. I’ll never be able to do half of what I can now, in a year. The difference is. I’ve lost more ability and acumen in this sport than any of you have ever had in your whole damn careers.”

“I want you to truly think about what is coming, Carter. There is no out for you anymore. There is no escape. You lose, and it all comes crumbling down. You lose and everything you’ve said, everything you’ve accused me of, every fucking part of it? You look like a liar. You look like the tantrum throwing child that you accuse me of being. We both know you’ll kick up a storm, you’ll complain. You’ll bitch and moan. Any way it goes down, the great Carter Casey-Mckinney will be a failure in the eyes of those who he has been pretending to stand for.”

“I want you to understand this, Carter. I want you to understand the depths of it all. I do not like you; I will never like you. I want nothing more than to hurt you, because you deserve to be hurt. You deserve to be the one who suffers in agony. You deserve to suffer for your indiscretions and your horseshit approach to being the leader. To being the one that you want people to emulate. Nothing but a bitter spitting mongrel who pretends that they are anything more than that. Mocking and belittling those who come to stand before you, even if you speak the world of them in the moments before.”

“The worst thing someone could do in your world is be the one who steps to you. That is the true reason you deny Miles a chance at what you hold. Because you don’t truly know how to say the right things. You don’t know how to talk, you just emulate. You emulate those you admire, because you are nothing but a mimic. A mimic of those better than you, except now its slipping. Now you are the narcissist that we are. You so desperately wish you could match the person to the action, and yet you cannot. In the depths of your soul, you know this one universal truth.”

“Carter, you wish you could be Alexander Raven.”

“Let me elaborate on that. Let me elaborate on why that is the truth. See, no matter how much anyone tries to talk me down around here, there is one thing they cannot contest. That even in their most confident, when it comes to facing Alexander Raven. You never know what you will need to do. You never know what is going to be required to keep him down. I get under people’s skin. I make them frustrated; I make them angry. I get them heated because I want them blind to the truth. Blind to the world. Blind to their own shortcomings. I am the consummate Ring fucking General of Sin City Wrestling. Eddie will tell you. Aiden will tell you. Alex Jones for better or worse, he’ll tell you. Stepping into the ring with Alexander Raven? You don’t come out trying to play me at my game, and you cannot beat me if you try and ignore it. You simply need to be fucking better than I am.”

“And you, Carter? You’re not better than me. You never have been, and you never will be. You’re just in my fucking way.”

“I’d ask if you’ve been listening, but truthfully? I don’t think you could hear me over the self-lavishing of your own thoughts. But know this. I cannot wait to hear what you have to say, Carter. I just know it’ll be fucking enlightening.”

“I’ll see at Inception. I hope you’re ready Carter. Truly I do. I hope you are ready to lose everything you fucking love.”

“You know rockstar, things are easier if you just go with the flow. Life ain’t such a downer when you just… let go.” James’ voice echoed through his head. Bounced around in his skull. Trapped in this place, it was a torture beyond all other.

The room was different now. More painful, more a prison. He couldn’t move, he could barely breathe. Chains and locks held him in place. Chains expanding into an unknown abyss beyond, holding his arms in the air. Forced to kneel, his head held upright by a collar around his throat. The chain extended behind him, holding his head back. This was probably the most egregious the punishment had been. The most painful of it all.

The worst part of it all was the voices. The people he knew, the people he loved. The people he couldn’t save. The people he would always miss. James, Lauren, even Leon. As much as he hated him, as much as detested him. Leon was someone he once loved, despite it all. Leon meant the world to him at one point in time. Part of him wondered if all of this was just his due time. A true punishment by karma in the collapse of his mind. A journey through his own madness, with no light at the end of the tunnel.

“The past catches up to us rockstar. You can’t escape it daddy. It always catches us up in the end. It's time to let it go, Alex. You can’t keep this up forever.” James' voice whispers through the void, filling his skull. Scraping down the back of his eyes, piercing through his skin. Every inch of him was trapped in the sounds of ghosts.

Whimpering, Alex could feel the tears welling up in his eyes. He was breaking, and he couldn’t stop it anymore. He was slowly falling into the abyss of his own mind, and that terrified him. Terrified him that he would lose everything he was. Lose everything he’d ever been to his own mind. To his own soul. He’d lose himself and everyone he had ever loved, ever lost. Everyone would simply forget about who he once was. The man, the shell, he would leave behind would be the last imprint he left on the world. A world that would never truly understand him.

“Ravey boy, how ya been? Miss me? You didn’t even know I was dead, brother. I mean, I get it. I put it in both your pretty little pieces. You just keep marrying women who want me more, don’t you? Do you remember it? I do. I remember the look on your face. I guess I’d have been pretty upset too. What made it worse? The fact it was both of us? Or the fact that she didn’t even try to stop?” Leon’s voice.

People often talked about forgetting someone’s voice. As time went by, they were afraid of forgetting what someone sounded like. How they dreaded the day that their voicemail was full, or they lost the last video they had of someone. To forget how it sounded. Alex spent every day wishing he could forget Leon’s voice. It was the one voice he knew he never would. The spite, the foulness of it. The mocking tone that laced every single one of his words. He didn’t even know why Leon did it all to him.

Was it a power play? Was it simply because he could? The more he thought about the less sure he was. He didn’t know why Leon seemed to have this hatred for him. Why he clawed at every bit of happiness he ever seemed to have. Why did he feel the need to take everything from him? Considering how it all ended for him, maybe it was because he was so deeply unhappy himself. Alex was still here, suffering through it all. Leon had taken his own life. Despite it all, Alex had had his happiness. He was… happy, right?

The more he thought about the less certain he was.

“Maybe you need a reminder. Of walking in, seeing her impaled upon me. Seeing the bliss and joy in her face. The lack of remorse. Let us relive it, shall we, Alexander?” Leon’s voice whispered through the world around him. Forming colours, images, shapes. Forming a memory. A memory he didn’t want to remember. A night he wished he could just forget forever. Another moment in time of agony.

He was forced to watch himself, watch from the side. Watch as he walks down that hallway. That hallways that seemed far too long. He’d been so good that night. He’d been so happy. He went looking for Luna. Went looking for his girlfriend. They’d been young, they’d been stupid. Alcohol and drugs were their day to day. He’d already achieved more success in the ring than either Leon or James ever had, or ever would. Talented, athletic. Higher tolerance for pain. Better understanding of the ring and technique. That was what he thought anyway. Truthfully, James was always better than he was. Leon was a much better wrestler. James was the all round star. The fact that Alex had been a multi time world champion.

It was just dumb luck.

Maybe it was all just Leon’s way of spitting at the universe. Spitting on the man who was living the life that should have always been his. He wasn’t sure, he never would know for sure. But right now, he would do anything to stop himself from seeing what was to come next. To stop himself from seeing that which was in front of him.

“Stop it. Stop it right now.” Alex begged, struggling against his bindings. A burst of energy. The chains rattled, the collar around his throat gagging him as he bucked and pulled. Trying to break free. Trying to stop himself from seeing it. His eyes clenched shut. His body is rolling. His muscles are contracting and convulsing. He could feel hands on his shoulders. Hands shaking him. A distant voice. A voice begging him to wake up.

And then he did, sitting bolt upright with a scream. A primal roar of fear. Of pain, of agony. Of decay. Luna’s hands on his shoulders, one of her arms wrapped around the back of him.Her eyes wide with fear. In terror. In sympathy. He was clearly having a nightmare. Or at least, that is what she would have thought. The truth was he would have had to be asleep to be having a nightmare. He didn’t really sleep anymore. He just sort of drifted in between states of awareness or not. When his mind let him be free and when it imprisoned me.

The cold sweats, the fear. It boiled over him, but not because of a night terror. Not because of a bad dream that he couldn’t escape. It was a reality that he couldn’t escape. In bed with the woman at the centre of one of the worst nights of his life, and she was here. Part of him wondered if he’d forgiven in a way she shouldn’t. To be married to her was a painful reminder every day of the things he wished he could forget. That never happened.

That was just the delirium talking. He’d truly come to terms with it. There were just days where it all seemed to just… slip away from him. Days like these. Nights like these. Nights where she held him in fear of the agony he experienced in his state of not sleeping. Where he floated in a void of his own making. A prison of his own destruction.

“Bad dream. Sorry.” Alex said softly, leaning over into her. Resting his head on her chest. A moment of reprieve. Of warmth and happiness. Of peace. He just wished it would be like this all the time. He couldn’t quite shake the image of the hallway. Of the door at the end of it. Knowing exactly what he would see when he opened it. If he opened it. Knowing what the two people on the other side would be doing. Who they would be. It was…

Maddening.

---

“Shortcomings. They are a regular facet of life. I’m not one to shy away from them. I’m not one to pretend that things out of our control can happen. I lost to Aiden, I lost to Alex. These things happened, these things are absolutes. I know what losing is, because I have to. I have to know how it feels to hit rock bottom. Because only in knowing failure can we truly know success. Can we truly know what it takes to get there.”

“I don’t harbor resentment for my failings, that would be stupid. It would stupid to rest on them, to assume that the failure of one night can instantly undo the success of others. I beat Aiden multiple times, and now he’s better. Alex Jones has been world champion multiple times, and now he is better. Carter himself has been at the bottom of the barrel time and time again, and now. Now he stands at the peak. The champion of Sin City. The World's Heavyweight champion. Failure breeds success and any who refuses to see that?”

“Complete losers.”

“I have made my career on doing things that people haven’t thought possible. Crushing the skull of Alexander Remington. Coming back and doing this again after being set on fire and near having my brains sprayed out across the canvas. In Puerto Rico I piledrove a man through a skylight, cut my arm near down to the bone. I’ve bleed, I’ve burnt, I’ve struggled. I’ve nearly killed men in that ring, and nearly killed myself. All in the pursuit of being better tomorrow than I was today.”

“So imagine my surprise when little Carter gave in to my demands. In hopes of shutting me up. I know the comfort that would come from being able to put me in the rear-view mirror. An offer he couldn’t refuse truly. To be free of the blight of Alexander Raven. So that he no longer has to deal with the ever present dread of being tracked down by me. So that his family will be safe from me. That Miles will be safe from the pain I will inflict. That his precious little championship will be safely wrapped around his waist.”

“A steel clad little outcome for him. Yet, I have to wonder. Did you even think about the offer on the table, Carter? I win, I get my shot. That’s the poignant part. I just have to win. Something I know you think I can’t do. You think I’m a loser. You think that this will just absolve you of your transgressions. That you will be free to do as you please. To be the champion you want to be. I am a man backed into a corner. An animal caged and afraid. Afraid of the mean and stabby implements of the captors. The dangerous hands that feed and beat.”

“I will beat you, Carter. That is a given. I need to beat you. I need to and will. By any means necessary. See that’s the fault here for you. I don’t care about doing this clean. I don’t care about doing this right. I don’t care about fairness and the rightness. I will win, and I will do it by any fucking means necessary. I will ensure that I do it my way. I’m going to hurt you Carter. That’s the simple fact. I’m going to hurt you, I’m going to embarrass you. Then you’re going to know that no matter what you do. No matter how hard you try. The world is coming to an end for you. Every pretty little thing you’ve surrounded yourself with. Every pretty little part is going to collapse on you.”

“I’m going to take the championship. I’m going to hurt Miles. I’m going to hurt everyone you love, because you. You had the audacity to pretend to be my wife’s friend. You had the audacity to pretend that you cared. When she finally needed someone to listen. To hear what she was saying. You feigned ignorance, you feigned surprise. We screamed for weeks that our friend, her brother, was dead. She finally broke and called you all out on it. You pretended that you didn’t know. That you were surprised.”

“Despicable.”

“This isn’t a game for me, Carter. This is about punishment. Punishment for your sins. For your narcissism. For your blindness. This is about ensuring you learn what happens to those who do not see the truth. You are going to suffer. I will make sure of it. I’ve got plenty more to say to you, Carter. But for now, I’ll let the world show what it needs to. I’ll let things settle as they need to settle. I will beat you, and then when you are faced with the reality. Know this. The ending? It’s going to be a bloody and brutal affair. I’m going to get everything I want. I will beat you. I’ll get them to sign off on another stupid idea, thinking they’ll give you the advantage. Maybe I’ll offer an out. I beat Miles, I pick the stipulation. Miles beats me, you get away from not having to face Alexander Raven.”

“I like making deals, Carter. It's a fun little game of cat and mouse. It raises the stakes. In this place of Sin City, why wouldn’t a little gamble be on the table? But that’s for another day. Another time. Another place. I’ll beat you, and then we can finally get down to business. So that when you’re laying in a pool of your own blood at the end of the year. When you’re laying in a place of decay, and pain. When everything you love is taken away, you will understand what it is that you feigned ignorance of. You will know loss, Carter.”

“Count your days. Time is coming.”

Today wasn’t one of the good days. Today was a prison. A prison of familiarity, but a prison, nonetheless. Today was the endless beach, the cascading taste of sound echoing through his fingertips. The impossibility of sensation a constant reminder of the inadequacy of the world. The room was still the worst of the days. The endless room, now with its empty hole in the roof that leads to the memory of the creation of it all. The schism.

The bar on the night that everything changed.

No, today was a beach, a beautiful beach. A home that lacked warmth, unless they were wrapped up in front of the flames. Wrapped up in the false sensation of comfort. The woman who wore Luna’s face but was not her. The woman who had her touch, but not her sensation. The woman who claimed to be Luna, to entice him to stay subdued in this place his mind constructed for him.

In the world of The Lost.

Hand in hand they walked down the length of the beach. The silk soft white sand like static beneath his bare feet. The absence of life, the colour of existence was as drab as the world he was trapped in. A hellscape of never-ending white sand and the dull blue of the false ocean. The complete lack of temperature was chilling. It was space inside space, and if he ever thought it was anything other than, he’d never escape. A heaven created by his mind to free him from the purgatory of the room. A world in which only they existed, and if only he’d accept…

He'd never accept.

There was never going to be life for him on this beach. There was never going to be peace. There was just a constant lack of everything. The taste of sounds. The sensation of colour. The exploding stars that exist only behind his eyes. His mind screaming at him that this was oh so very wrong. He knew that already; he didn’t need his head trying to pour out of his orifices and ducts to tell him that.

“You’re also so distant these days. Where’d you go, Alex? Come back to me.” Luna’s impersonator said softly, his head turning slowly toward her. Every action was such an effort here. It was like moving underwater. Everything took so long. Everything was always so slow. So painful. No, not painful. Painful meant he could feel something. Other than his mind collapsing in on itself. Maybe this was worse than the room.

“You’re not real. None of this is real. None of it means anything. None of it is life.” Alex said softly, his words felt heavy on his tongue. Sluggish, heavy. The worst part of it all, was that he didn’t even feel like it was that far off the mark for his day to day. He always felt heavy, sluggish. The body ached, his bones groaned. He’d been distant for a while, that was true. Even if she wasn’t, her words were the truth.

Everything hurt, his body, his mind, his heart. Constantly attempting to fill a void but never truly finding the ground to do so. He was going to kill himself doing all that he did, he knew that. His body would give up long before his life was meant to, but there was nothing he could do to stop it. He’d watched James die for the very same things, and James had known better than to continue to torture himself. Luna was going to watch another man die. Three men she’d loved, her brother, her husband, and Leon. Regardless of how he felt about her.

She’d watch them all day, and she’d be left alone. That killed more than anything else in this world. That ruined him on a level beyond any other. The fear of leaving her beyond was almost enough to stop him. To make him become better. But it wasn’t enough. His ego wouldn’t allow it. His need to be seen, to be known. To leave a legacy, a mark. It was something. He couldn’t have kids, that was truth of it. The vasectomy was an easy cover-up, but the truth had been there for a long time. He’d never have kids, so the only legacy he had. Was the one he made himself.

“I’m tired of walking. I want to go home.” Luna’s impersonator said, tugging at his hand. Alex frowned a little, closing his eyes for a moment. He rubbed his eyes through his eyelids; the wash of tiredness was almost nauseating. He felt the world spinning around him. Felt the world falling out from under his feet. Everything tilting, everything collapsing. Falling into an endless abyss.

Then suddenly he was flat.

The world stopped. For a moment, he was alive.

Laying in the bed with his wife, the stolen championship belt wrapped around her body. Her sensitive features covered by the material. The benefits of being a smaller body. He groaned a little as he sat up, the hangover rushing to his eyes. His body groaned with the ache of being awake. He rolled over and turned away from her. He wasn’t sure if he was actually out yet. His mind was a powerful thing. It often tried to trick him into blurring the lines between reality and his mental world.

He sat up slowly, squeezing the bridge of his nose, blinking his eyes rapidly. The world tilted again, a good sign that he was actually just hungover. He groaned as he slowly stood up, staggering with the pain in his mind. Staggering with the pain in his body. Self-destruction took many forms. Self-destruction was a surefire way to ensure that this would be the end of it all. Self-destruction was in of itself, the only thing that really mattered in moments like these. When he was so sore, so broken. So defeated.

The brave face he put on for the world was just that. A brave face. A mask that was always ready to fall away. One strong hit away from being the scared boy that he really was. Afraid of losing Luna, afraid of losing himself. Afraid of not being good enough. He screamed for someone to take his head for months, but the truth of it all. He just wanted to be stopped. Stopped from doing this, stopped from self-destructing. To be able to run away, to fade away. To settle into a world that existed beyond all this pain and suffering.

He slowly staggered his hungover ass through the bedroom and out into the lounge area. Moving to the fridge, taking a bottle of water from it. He gulped it down, fumbling through one of the cabinets near the fridge. Taking some paracetamol packet out and popping two in his mouth. Once upon a time he would’ve taken something heavier. Something stronger. He was down to just the over-the-counter stuff these days. They didn’t do much for the agony he lived in, but they at least dulled the head pain from a night of poor decisions.

The flash of a flame, the first rough inhale of a freshly lit cigarette. The burn in his lungs. He stood there, and looked around. The world that he should be living in. The world he was forsaking my allowing his mind to corrupt him. The world that he wished was his prison. He breathed deeply, and sighed, leaning on the counter. He shook his head and just stared at the wall. Letting the water and painkillers to work their magic. The waft of cigarette smoke filling the air. He felt sorry for whoever would one day have to tear the walls down to rebuild it from all the damage they were doing to it.

Oh well, wasn’t his problem. His problem was staying focused. Just a little longer.

He just needed to stay focused for a little bit more.

And then…

Nothing would be everything for him.

---

“Another week, another win. Some may say it was a victory mired in controversy. I’m not so easily swayed by the actions of others. Despite the fact that they clearly wanted to keep me down and keep me out. My choices, my actions. Inevitable outcomes. I hurt Alex Jones twice. Insulted him, bruised his ego. Made me him feel lesser than. In being lesser than a man he detests, he couldn’t see beyond the veil of the red haze. The anger that bubbles within him. He couldn’t just let himself go. He had to get some semblance of comeuppance, and it came at the cost of poor little Eddie Lyons.”

“Now despite what he’ll scream from the rooftops. Despite what he’ll tell you was meant to be his moment. His chance to take the championship belt back, and hand it to Carter on a simpering little silver platter. Eddie was never going to win. No, the truth of it was Eddie never stood a chance. Just like I told him. You see, Eddie lacks the killer instinct. We’ve done everything we can to show him what he needs to do to take it the next level, and yet.”

“He still fails to understand.”

“Maybe now you’ll have just enough of that killer bite, that drive to take him a little further. In handing him Alex Jones on my own silver platter, maybe, just maybe. He’ll finally see the light. See, two birds, one stone. I dealt with Eddie; I’ve given Alex Jones a new distraction of a chew toy to keep him busy for just a little bit longer. Long enough for me to do what I need to do. Which before I get into the meat and bones of this all. I must talk to a special someone.”

“Hello, Carter.”

“So close, yet so far, right? The vapid cunt Evelyn Hall playing the placating steadfast stalwart of bureaucratic bullshit. Daily fines? Oh, Evelyn. I’ve made a career here paying paltry little sums of money for my actions. You think that’s going to make me give back your little treasure? I’ve done this shit for nearly two decades at this point. You think dipping into my pocket is going to make me back down? Not a chance.”

“And then you Carter, you scared little bitch. Standing behind everything, letting the world run you by. But hey, I’ve got a little offer for you. I see how much this championship means to you. I see how much it matters. So, I’ll give you a chance to get it back. I’ll give you a chance to get back your precious little trinket. Your prop of grandiosity. I’ll give you a chance to hold it one more time. Smell the waft of the cigarettes that have been dropped all over it. The smell of sex and sweat that has seeped into the leather while it has been in my possession. If you try really hard you could probably scrub out the staining and discolouration from the spilt beer and bourbon.”

“Keep an ear to the ground, Carter. I’ll have plenty to say to you come Climax Control.”

“Which leaves me with the final person in the trinity of my past. Aiden Reynolds. A man who has adopted just a slightly more serious sneer. A narrowed brow and just a slight bit more confidence. The jokes and the faffing about left for a previous day and now. Now Aiden is a force to be reckoned with. Not a middling nobody in the nothingness of the Roulette Division. Not a face on the outskirts maybe considered to be a stat buffer for the dwindling Internet Championship division. No, Mr Reynolds is now a World Champion contender. A man who believes in himself.”

“A man I do not care for. A man I have never truly cared for. See, once upon a time, I put Mr Reynolds in his place. I took the Roulette Championship from that man, I took the one thing he had going for him, and I didn’t even want it. Put there to punish him by the actions of a vindictive little vixen, Victoria Lyons. I liked her, for better or worse. I did like her. Then she decided to get mouthy to the wrong person. See, I can respect a person who does the right thing. The moment however they choose to get personal with me or my loved ones? Well.”

“I digress, however. No, this is all about you and me, Aiden. Not Carter, not Eddie. Not Alex or Finn, or any of the other flunkies you’ve somehow managed to keep in your orbit. When you look across the field of this tournament I have to say. This ending? It was inevitable. Liam Davis, LJ Casey? Bill Barnhart? No, none of them were ever going to be the one standing in our spots. This was always going to come down to you and me, Aiden. Some may question the validity of that statement. I mean, Alexander Raven is the loser, right? The one cursed to constant mediocrity. That is what they all say about me. That is what they’ve always said about me. The one who fails to live up to the expectations set. The expectations set by fucking who, Aiden? Set by you? By Mark or Christian? By vapid cunts like Evelyn Hall? The middling nobodies that I have beaten time and time again, and yet they pretend that it was nothing more than a good day on the ninth hole?”

“No, Aiden. Expectations are set by the world to ensure that we are forever made to feel inadequate. Inadequate because they want us to feel that way. This isn’t some grand conspiracy, not a greater and unknowing ‘them’. No the them in this case, are tangible. Understandable. In plain sight. You are the one setting an expectation, just in the same way I set them on you. I set them for Eddie. The world sees us and expects things to go a certain way. I haven’t failed to live up to expectations, no, I’ve simply failed to live up to their view on them. But every time I get close, they like to change the rhetoric. You changed; you’ve changed our own oration. You’ve changed the jargon the way you talk. You became serious because you understood that by shifting yourself you skew them all. You make yourself unreadable.”

“Unreadable except to chaos itself. That’s what they call me. Chaos, a blithering idiot. A man who hides behind language and words that they cannot comprehend. Except for when it is convenient. Except for when it matters for them to know. Except for when they need to understand. For only then, does it matter to them. By then its too late. The truth I speak comes to pass, and they scream that it was unfair. Unfair that the loser could beat them. Unfair that the man who cannot live to their expectations has exceeded them. I’m the failure that they are terrified gets a chance to shatter their unorthodox and unequivocal expectations. The philistines just don’t let up, and yet. Here we are performing for them in the expected outcome.”

“Don’t you see a beauty in that, Aiden? The Ring General you were once so afraid of, now lessened to the bumbling idiot that they all try to convince you I am? Except, reality is. I’m built for these situations. I should have won the Blast from the Past, two years in a row. I’m going to win this tournament. Because the only thing stopping me now, is you, Aiden.”

“The man who I took the Roulette Championship from. The man that I gifted it back to. Gave you the world that you needed to feel relevant again. Not because I, did it out of the goodness of my heart though. No, I did it because I was tired. I was exhausted. I wanted out. I wanted to be free of this. Just for a little while. To let my bones rest, to let my mind clear. Then I went elsewhere, I became a World Champion. In a world of Matt Knox and Amber Ryan, I stood at the top of the pile. The final true champion of Valor. For I am Valor, that is undeniable. I’ve beaten half the world champions we’ve ever had here. I’ve made every championship I’ve held here worth more than usual prop I’ve taken. Don’t worry Aiden.”

“I’ll make sure you understand just how far you still need to go to be on my level.”

“When it all comes to an end, there will be no applause. There will be no cheers. There will just be that pregnant silence. That silence that the inevitable is coming. That Alexander Raven will be challenging Carter for the World Championship. That no level of expectation, no level of disregard or hatred. No level of ignorance of unabashed shamelessness will stop it this time. That no matter what they say, no matter how much they try and stand against it. Alexander Raven has become the inevitable future.”

“And when I’m champion, Aiden. There will be no props. There will be no false images of grandiosity. When I beat you, I will go on to face Carter. When I beat Carter, I’m going to drop that championship belt in a barrel and set the fucker on fire. I will be World Champion, and the world will know it through all of your words. You will have to acknowledge. Carter will have to acknowledge it. Evelyn Hall, Christian Underwood. Every single person will have to say the words.”

“Damn, he finally did it. Alexander Raven is the world champion, that son of a bitch.”

“I’ll see you soon Aiden. To put you down, one more time. To remind you, just how far above you I am.”

Crystals exploded behind his eyes, as he could taste the esoteric decay of chords sliding down his throat. His nose was filled with the smells of some Waltz, familiar but unknowable. The sand beneath his feet felt like shards of glass, slipping between every skin cell to frazzle every thought and feeling he had. Sound was a taste; sight was a noise. The crystals continued to explode and then the world was cold.

Everything was sucked away. No sensation except the freezing cold upon his skin, and the sand beneath his feet. No light pierced this place, but he knew he existed. He immediately wished for the sensations to come back. Taste and smelling sounds themselves, as impossibility unravelled within his mind. His nerves were static, his brain silent. He wanted to move, but his body refused.

“We’re going to have to have a talk, Alex. You can’t just get rid of me, I’m not just a figment of your imagination. I’m not another creature like Mors. I am you, you are me. We cannot be spliced, for if you remove me, I will take you with me.” The Lost’s voice echoed in his empty mind. For a long time, he was certain it was his own voice. Something that wore his face, used his voice and kept him trapped. The more time that passed however, he’d become less certain of it. It was him, but it wasn’t. Calling it The Lost gave it an identity that was separate, but truthfully. He wasn’t really sure how separate they really were. A justification of a mind that was fraying at the edges.

“Let us take a walk.” The Lost said, a snapping of reality. The two of them were standing ankle deep at the edge of the water. The feeling of wet sand between his toes. Alex looked around them, but the beach extended endlessly in every direction, the ocean they stood in filling the rest of the world. Everything felt like it had a veil over it. Devoid of colour, of life, of living.

It was strange, looking at himself standing right next to himself. The Lost, wearing him like a mirror. Completely calm, no readable emotion on the face. The Lost simply stared off into the endless horizon. Alex went to take a step backward, The Lost mirroring it in perfect timing. Completely in sync. One mind.

“I’m so fucking tired of all this. The worst decision I ever made was betraying my promise to Lauren. I never should have come back. I never should have thrown myself back into this world. I might be alone, but Sullivan. James. They’d still be here. There’d be no Vita Mors, or… there’d be no fucking this.” Alex exclaimed, venting his frustrations.

The Lost turned his head to face him. Staring into his own eyes. No, not his own. His own had life showed feelings. Happiness, sadness. They welled with tears and pain and anger. They were full and living. The Lost was a husk, empty. There was no life in the eyes. An artificial intelligence. A poor attempt at replication of the living.

“You should have, Alex. You should have stayed in that bar, complacent. Letting yourself die slowly but contentedly. Alone. You really care so little for her, you’d rather a life where she wasn’t the epicentre of it. Pitiful, Alex. It is depressing that I need you.” The Lost spoke slowly, deliberately. His voice was inside his head. It didn’t come from the mouth. It was strange, looking and seeing the lips move, but the sound was coming from inside him.

“I never asked for you. I never wanted you.” Alex spat back with venom, kicking water up into The Lost’s face. His own face suddenly soaked as he did. Another deception of the mind. He tried to think for a moment. He knew Mors had done something. He had felt his world opening up. What the fuck had Mors done?

“Yes you did. You just don’t remember it, but I only exist because you willed me into existence, Alex. Now I need you to give in, so that I can do what you refuse to. To take care of her, to take you to places you shy away from because you still mourn for a woman who betrayed you in her final moments of life. Mors will not stop me, Mors cannot stop me. Cannot stop us. I am you, Alex. You just need to accept it.” The Lost said, smiling. A terrible attempt at humanity. A robot who didn’t know the truth of a smile.

His eyes snapped open as he screamed. Mors pulled back from him, hissing. The finger he had placed to his head was blackened. Necrotic almost. Mors shook his head and took a few steps back.

“I cannot help you, Mr Rabenschwarz. For you are your own jailor. I’m afraid, you’re damaged goods.” Mors said, slipping his hands into his pant pockets. A three-piece lilac suit. It was hauntingly familiar. Mors turned on his heel and shook his head.

“I feel for you, Mr Rabenschwarz. My jailors are the originators of reality, and even they are not so as unkind to me, as you are to yourself. Vereor Nox, Mr. Rabenschwarz. For one night, you will not wake again to the world you have so painstakingly crafted for yourself.” Mors said, the heel of his shoes clicking on the floorboards as he walked away. Alex went to reach out, and went to scream out to him.

But his hand fell upon the doorknob, and he stepped into the room once more. The window was more a monitor to remind him of Luna. The bed that would never be used here, he didn’t sleep. The numbness that crept over his skin and taunted him with a memory of warmth. Of something more than perpetual nothingness. His heart hurt.

So he sat back down in that chair, and he stared at that bed. He looked at the spot where once the ceiling was beginning to crack. To leak. Water damage. A decay of his own mind. A fissure into another time and place. Where there had once been a crack, there was now a hole. A hole that extended into darkness. A hole that extended into complete and utter nothingness. Alex stared at the hole and wondered to himself if this was a new form of torture. A new form of breaking.

“Even my own prison is breaking down on me.” Alex sighed to himself, standing slowly. Climbing up onto the bed. He looked up into the endless void. Into the infinite blackness that existed beyond it. He reached up, grabbing hold of either side of the hole. He pulled himself up into it. Standing he looked around, recognising where he was slowly. It wasn’t the room, but it was a prison all the same.

Where the hole had been, there were floorboards. A pool of blood on the boards. The floor of the bar that James had owned. James’ blood all over the floorboards. There had been so much fucking blood that night. He looked down, feeling the wetness on his own hands. His hands were covered in it, his shoes were covered in it. The hole wasn’t an escape. The hole was a passage. A passage to understanding. To tell the truth.

He stood there, staring at the blood, and he knew. He knew this was the night his mind had truly broken. When James lay there, blood billowed out. The sirens of the ambulances growing closer. As James had told him how he felt. Had told him about how he had always loved Alex. How in a perfect world, it would have been them.

“This was the night, Alex. The night you lost yourself, and I was born. The night that everything changed. Sullivan, James, Luna, you. All of your lives changed forever. You don’t obsess over her, because you’re unable to be without her. You obsess, because she is all you have left of James. She is your peace, not because of who she is. She’s your peace because of what she is.” The Lost spoke softly, an almost sympathetic tone to his voice.

“They promised to give him back to me.” Alex mumbled, as he knelt into the pool of blood.

“James is dead, Alex.” The Lost said.

And for the first time, in god knows how long.

He cried.

---

“The more things change, the more they stay the same, eh? I like to think my viewpoint on the world has shifted. I don’t inherently blame the idiocy of the world on actions beyond their control. No, in fact, I blame the idiocy on the idiots themselves. The ones who shutter themselves to the world and then wonder why everyone is pointing the finger of accusation their way. Take for instance, the vapid bitch Evelyn Hall.”

“See, there is this recurring theme with those who be in this place. The voices that matter, the people who pull the strings that bring the curtains down. Ineptitude. Blindness. Senseless self-destruction. They guide the blind to a place of control and let them happily be blind as long as it suits their needs. Where was Evelyn Hall to right the wrongs when their inept referee called Kevin Carter the winner on that Cruise Ship? Where was Evelyn Hall to right the wrongs when Kevin Carter stabbed me in the back and denied me my rightfully earned spot in the main event on that cruise ship? Nowhere.”

“Just like always, they were nowhere to be seen. No Christian, No Mark, No Hall. Not when it matters. Not when it counts. So it falls to us individual pawns to break through that muck. To break, to be rebuilt. Reformed, become what they want. I’m not stupid enough to think that they want me to completely be gone. No, far from it. They just want, subservience. A beast that can be controlled. A man who will do as they deem needed, not a man who does as he deems. They don’t want The False Prophet, Alexander Raven at the helm. No, they want the man who once got the crowd cheering for him. Who turned the tide on Kevin Carter. Who was the man the crowd threw themselves behind when Harris was run out of town and we got J2H vs Alexander Raven for the World Championship. A moment that should have been my crowning glory.”

“Alas, I guess I just wasn’t quite there for them yet. Relegated back down to obscurity. Taken out of the spotlight. Forced to the sidelines. Not my idea of a good time, I’m afraid. Not my idea of a good night. Sitting by while the blind and narcissistic get their egos pampered to and the world cheers them on for simply being the favourite. See, I see Carter. I see him for who he really is. Alex Jones, for better or worse, he’s at least brave enough to wear the truth of himself on his sleeve. Unlike Carter. A vapid, narcissist with blinders to the world. A man so involved in himself he cannot see the truth of who he is meant to be.”

“But that is to come. I’ll have plenty to say on line skippers like Alex Jones and blind ingrates like Carter in due time. For another tournament lays before me first. Another opportunity to stand at the gates of success and tear them down. Another chance to waylay the man who my career has been unfortunately linked at the fucking hip with since day dot here. I’m talking of course about Bill fucking Barnhart.”

“Everything feels full circle in this moment. When I first signed in Sin City, I faced off with a man that I had been banging heads with since my return to Wrestling. Brandon Hendrix. I beat him that night. In fact, I went on to beat him twice, solidifying my claims that he was a beneficiary of lucky booking, and not of actual skill. But in beating Hendrix I put myself on the radar for early title opportunities. So, in that path, lay Bulldog Bill Barnhart. A man who time and time again seems to be the barrier to my entry no matter where I go. No matter where I stand. There he is once again trying to be something more than he deserves to be.”

“See, I’m tired of this rodeo. I’m tired of doing the same thing over and over. I’m tired of always being the one to beat the fodder and then expected to just turn it on when the time calls for it. They fuel me with the Bulldog Bill Barnharts and Justin Smiths of the world. Felix Hernandez was on track to be another fodder filler for me. The same tired shit repeatedly, but I guess. That’s just par for the course, right? Feed me easy targets so when it comes time to, I’ve hardly gotten the mileage in. Hardly had any of the ring practice. Hardly any  time to develop any level of actual conditioning or cardio, because the people they throw at me and nothing but scum. Nothing but bottom feeders. Nothing but numbers in the W column. Thirty wins, a milestone for most people. For me it was wasted on the wastrel that is Justin Smith. A walking epiphany of uselessness. Only second to fucking Bill Barnhart. A man who rides on his two early successes and wonders why nobody takes him seriously.”

“I’m the butt of the joke, that’s true. I’m the one that they all laugh at, the toddler. The man throwing tantrums. The one they can’t understand, unless I say something that they think is funny, and suddenly they’re all knowing. Hypocrisy at its finest, I must say. They can’t understand me when I point out the obvious truths, but they know exactly what I’m saying and who I am when I point out the fallacies and flaws of the system. For better or worse, maybe the scum of the system are at least the only ones truly doing what they are meant. Bill is here to make other lights shine brighter. To ground out the miscreants who do not belong. To be the wall of entry, the Gatekeeper. The man who makes the final call on whether someone can tango or not.”

“These are the things I once thought of the man. Years out and he got me good. Twice, in fact. I’ve never hid from the fact. No, the problem now, for Bill, is that every single time since. He’s failed to live up to his Gatekeeper status. A failure of a man. A failure of a beast. A simple walking contradiction. Every week it’s a new thing from the man whose brain seems to be deteriorating before our very eyes. Unable to keep the same rhetoric from day to day, let alone minute to minute. A man so obsessed with self-image he almost makes me blush. He almost makes me reconsider myself. Almost, not but quite. No you see, Bill, Bill is exactly what I say he is. Scum feeding scum. Bottom feeder feeding bottom feeders.”

“The man who once again stands in my way. Just at the start of it all. How are you Bill? Are you tired of this yet? Saying how you’re going to break and beat me. Maybe you’ll spout off some statistics, or maybe, just maybe, you’ve learnt admitting you’ve lost to me 7 straight fucking times is just not a great image for you. Will your dog be with you this time? Or has she stayed home because you can’t think of a way to involve her? Will Bea be there, to see you fail again? I know Luna is oh so looking forward to being there when you fall. To being there when you need to be brought down. I know Luna is happy that we get this little reunion. This chance to embarrass the Barnharts once more. To show that the true power couple has been, and always will be, Alexander Raven and Luna Pasilno. The Broken and the Fallen Idols. The False Prophet, and his ruling Matriarch.”

“But lets get down to brass tacks, shall we? You and I, Bill. Every time I ask the same thing. Let this be our last dance, because I grow tired of it. I grow tired of doing the same things repeatedly. I grow tired of you being my whipping boy. I grow tired of you, Bill. I grow tired of it all. This is the end for it. The end for you, the end for me. This is all to be done with. Because you don’t matter. You never have, you never will. You’re a body in the way of the end, and in the end. You will always fail. You will always end up under the boot of the betters. You will always be a nobody. That’s the simple fact of it all. You are, and will always be, nothing to me, Bill. Just the man who I once thought was worth a moment of my time.”

“Turns out you’re just one of the many. Those who need to be broken down. Torn down to base instinct, so that you can be seen as something more than you are. That’s never going to happen though, because unfortunately for me. Unfortunately for you. Unfortunately for the greater world at hand. You are stubborn beyond all reasoning. You a mongrel beyond all understanding. But like a good bad dog, I know the solution. I’m going to have to put you down, again. I’m going to have to take ol’ Billy out back to the shed. Close the door and… Bang. No more Billy, just a family of tears.”

“But you aren’t what matters here, Bill. No, this whole tournament. It’s a façade. It’s another test from those who would pull the strings. Another way to deny the inevitable. To rip themselves out of the one match that people care for. No one wants to see Alex Jones and Carter run it back again. Nobody wanted to see Carter and Aiden, a man I beat. No one wanted to see Finn and Miles, Finn and Carter, Finn and fucking Alex Jones. No, the one match people wanted was Finn Whelan and Alexander Raven for the World Championship. And we never got it. The one match people cared for, and this place refused to ever let it be. This is another denial of the one thing they know to be true.”

“Throw Bill Barnhart at Alexander Raven and hope for the best. Maybe Eddie Lyons will get it done this time. Boy howdy, it’d be good if someone else could come back and jump the line so we don’t have to risk things changing. Progression. For better or worse, they don’t want Alexander Raven. They just hope they can keep stalling me out forever. No longer, is that acceptable. No longer will I take that. This is it. The end of it all. This tournament, it ends and at the end, I’ll face the Highest of Stakes. Be it Alex Jones or the Blind Narcissist Carter McKinney. At the end, I’ll show the world. The Broken and the Lost are home. And Sin City, will be their feeding grounds.”

“Bill, I look forward to seeing you. I look forward to ending you once more. I look forward to dashing your hopes and dreams again. I want Carter to watch. I want Alex to watch. I want Evelyn Hall to watch. This is all for me. This is the end for them.”

“Sometimes, we have to look inside to truly understand what’s going on out there. I feel like I’m losing myself more and more. The deeper into the anger I get, the harder it is to break free from this haze. It’s like I’m living inside my own thoughts, unable to actually control myself. Jacked into cyberspace and just experiencing it. Experiencing everything but not having any control.”

A change of scenery, but the same prison. Sitting in a bathtub full of scorching hot water. His skin so numb he could barely feel the warmth, the heat. He could taste the steam in the back of his throat, eyes feeling like they were simply slipping from his skull. Bleeding grime in effortless collapse, crystals exploding behind his skull, slipping from existence and decay in moments. The world begged and he careened through it, watching it all.

The blood, the carnage. The birds, their necks snapping. Feathers pulled while they screeched, begging to be left be. Watching as their decay and carnage would fall upon a world that did not care for them. Looking to him, wondering why he would break them so. Smeared and decayed and the warmth. The water overflowing tinged red as his life oozed into the water. His mind was breaking and with it each breath demanded another closer to death.

“I’m going to die in here.” Alex said to himself, opening his eyes to look down upon himself. The cold lap of the ocean pulling at his very soul. Silver sand beckoned at him from a shore that seemed to be getting further and further away. No matter how he struggled, his body refused to move forward. Pushing toward the window of salvation, hoping beyond hope that for one moment he’d be free from it all. That he could lay on the sands and just not be stuck in the surging tides.

“Just for a moment, can we just be together? Like we used to?” His mind warped and demanded more from him. Demanded that he be free, that he could just be there. The blistering cold waters of the sea replaced by the warm crackle of fire, the two of them interwoven with each other. Luna and Alex stuck in each other, legs tangled, arms around her slip of a frame. His nose buried in her hair, but with each deep inhale there was a longing.

Here in this place he was stripped of his senses, of actual understanding. The cold was constant, like he was stuck in that sea eternally. The warmth of the flame lapped at them, but it did nothing to penetrate his skin. He knew what she smelt like. Coffee, cigarettes, the lightest waft of some floral perfume that she’d recently become fixated upon. Things he knew but was unsure of. Had he actually smelt it? Or was his mind torturing him with things that he couldn’t possibly know, trapped inside this place.

“This isn’t real.” Alex muttered gently, feeling her body dissolve. Feeling the world begin to melt around him. Candle wax sliding down an ornate display, the flames not extinguished in good enough time. The peeling walls, the stained-glass desires of a world that existed for him. The door that stood in the way, the door that never led anyway. Just to another room, another place, another time. But never to freedom. Never to a moment of reprieve.

“If you just gave in, you could have it all. Live in a world where you could finally be at peace, no more pain. You could be happy with her, be happy with the ability to change and mould this world to your whim. Learn to create the sensations, learn to be alive while being truly free. You just have to accept me, Alex. Accept that you are the Lost.” The Lost’s voice rang through his head, prickling at the back of his neck.

Making the hairs on his neck and arms stand up, goosebumps lining his body. He sat on the edge of the bed, in that room, the room that never changed. The wall filled with the large window, the allowed him just a moment of insight into the world beyond. The world that he was only occasionally allowed to exist in. He could see the macabre scene, the scene that he had orchestrated. No, not he. That The Lost had orchestrated. A scene filled with death and blood. The walls smeared with messages of blood, the skull with the eyes. The bizarre symbolism of it all. Too extreme for his liking.

But just perfect for the depths of depravity this creature that existed to trap him in of himself. He shook his head as he sat there on the edge of the bed. Thinking to himself about her. About James. About the life he once knew. He breathed deeply and wondered. Wondered if it would be better to just give in. Give in to that part of his mind that demanded he relinquish to it. To flow between the states of mind. Between the bath, the room, the beach, the sea, her arms. In front of the fire. Watching and waiting as the life seeped out him. Watching as his mind fully consumed him and he lost himself inside his own thoughts forever.

“No. I don’t want to lose everything I worked to earn.” Alex said to himself, standing slowly. Looking around the room, he shook his head. Shook the cobwebs out. Shook the thoughts and sounds from his mind. He turned and walked towards the door. He opened it once more, maybe this time it’d be different.

He could smell the flicker of fire, the burning of wood. The smell of coffee, cigarettes and some floral perfume. His skin pressed against that of another, small beads of sweat dripping down his spine. His nose buried in her hair.

“Just for a moment, can we just be together? Like we used to?” Luna asked him, arching back against him just a little more. He nodded a little, and leaned into her, breathing out slowly. He could only hope that this time, this was real. That he was outside, for just a moment. To be loved for just a moment. Real warmth, real smells. Real love. But he was worried.

Because his skin was still numb.

---

“Once again, I had it taken from me. On the finish line, someone decided that they deserved to be in control. They deserved to act. A friend decided that their ego, their desire. That it mattered more than my outcome. That their chosen path was the only path, and they had to make sure it happened the way that they envisioned it, even at my own loss. Kevin Carter, you stuck a knife into my back and tore me up. Attempting to make me little more than a head on a stick, and now. Now you have the audacity to claim it was my own hubris that made you act. Act and do things in a way that didn’t need you. That didn’t need your hand in it. You turned on me, and now, I’m going to make you pay.”

“I’m coming for you Kevin. I’m coming for your blood, your life, your fucking eyes and I’m coming to take the Internet Championship from you. Not for any reason other than I don’t want you to have anything left in this world that gives you joy. I don’t want you to have anything to hold onto. To have and love. You deserve nothing, Kevin, and I’m going to make sure you have it in multitudes. Kevin Carter, watch your fucking back. Watch your fucking front. Check every fucking shadow and every dark room, because when I’m done with you. You’ll be a quivering mess of fear. A quivering mess of nothing. A quivering mess of nothing.”

“I’m coming for you, Kevin fucking Carter.”

“But first, I have an example to make. A man who flounders about, almost as non-sensical as Bulldog Bill. A man so intrinsically tied to the heater of Sin City, that he has even taken Bill’s wife as his manager. So unsure of his own stepping, his own two feet, that the Cat is questionable in nature. Unable to win, unable to dance. Felix Hernandez, you’re nothing but a speed bump on my journey back to Kevin Carter. You are to be an example of what Kevin fucking Carter can expect when I finally get my hands on him. You are nothing to me, you are nothing to this place. You are nothing, Felix.”

“In my absence, filth and scum like you have been allowed to flourish. Surrounded by constant mediocrity. The Justin Smiths, Gabriel Wanks and Bill Barnharts have multiplied. We are now scorned with Liam Davis and you Felix. Scum not worthy to scrub the boots of those who have walked the path to greatness. Bottom-feeders not deserving of the right to stand here. People who infuriate me. People who make me lose myself to this hatred. To the anger. To the frivolity of my ineptitude to stop things like this from happening. I want you to understand something Felix. I need you to understand this. I’m going to come down on you. I’m going to drag your face across the fucking mat and grind your fucking nose off. I’m going to elicit on you a mere fraction of what I intend to do to that backstabbing git Kevin Carter.”

“This isn’t a walk in the park for you. Throw out these fanciful ideas of what is to come and understand this. Understand that I am going to break you. I’m going to hurt you. I’m going to leave you a pile in that ring, so that Kevin Carter can understand what he has done. What he has awoken. What is to be of him. You are nothing in this Felix, but a casualty. A casualty that need be hurt for your own sake. To open your mind. To break you so that you can understand what it is you need to be. I’m tired of it, Felix. I’m tired of ingrates like you begging for acceptance when you do nothing but muddle around at the feet of betters. Muddle at the feet of those who you do not belong with. You are in the class of unfortunates, and it sickens me to share the ring with you. I’m not here to be the workhorse anymore, Felix.”

“I’m here to hurt everyone for the pain I feel.”

“So understand this, Felix. Understand that you are not going to be the lucky one who gets one over on me. The guidance of those who cannot beat me will not hold you in any level of success. You are, and always will be, a loser. I’ll see you Sunday.”