Disclaimer: SCW Documentary film makers went missing in October 2025 while making a documentary about two Sin City Wrestling phenomena known as the Metal Maniacs; Twisted Sister and Anthrax. The film is the recovered footage they left behind.
STATIC
The SCW logo flickered.
Inside the rundown warehouse that was now the home of the Metal Maniacs.
The frame stabilized on the interior of a narrow hallway. Wallpaper curled away from the exposed brick; faint water damage spread like veins. A single overhead light bulb sputtered overhead, humming, dimming…
The breathing behind the lens was shallow but rhythmic … uneasy.
A second camera light passed through the darkness — another member of the crew moving ahead.
Voice: Rolling. …Keep it steady. They said they’d meet us inside.
The red REC dot in the corner of the screen flickered once.
Something metallic clattered deeper in the house.
Voice #2: They?
Cut to the kitchen of the warehouse. It was small. Cabinets hung open; half-eaten cans of food had congealed to rust-colored sludge. Flies drifted lazily, bouncing off the lens.
The camera panned to a table. There was a collection of wrestling memorabilia. Belts, torn posters, boots. All fused together with melted candle wax, forming a grotesque altar.
Pinned in the wax: a laminated SCW Staff Badge. The photo was too burned to identify.
Voice: Looked like someone’s idea of a fan shrine.
The other cameraman didn’t answer. He was pointing his light toward the far doorway. There was a trail of muddy bootprints, one large, one smaller, leading deeper into the dark.
Audio crackled.
A laugh. Faint, female, somewhere down the hall. Then silence again.
Voice: Twisted Sister…?
The laugh repeated, this time closer, reverberating as if through the walls themselves. The ceiling creaked. Dust filtered down like gray snow.
The camera swung upward. Just wood beams.
The laugh turned into humming, off-key, childlike. A nursery rhyme.
The camera shook as they moved forward.
Cut to the living room.
Every wall was painted with words in smeared black:
PAIN WAS HOME.
HOME WAS FOREVER.
FOREVER WAS HUNGER.
There was movement in the corner, a silhouette hunched near a broken TV. The camera light caught a streak of white face paint and a twisted grin.
It was Twisted Sister.
Her back was to the crew. She was rocking slowly in front of the static-filled television. The static flickered in sync with the hum from the kitchen light.
Without turning, she spoke.
Twisted Sister: You shouldn’t have come without an offering.
Voice #2: SCW sent us. They wanted…
She cut him off, her laughter rising sharp enough to distort the microphone.
Twisted Sister: They *always* sent someone. But no one *left.
She finally turned. Her eyes caught the camera light.
Twisted Sister: Anthrax built the walls. I filled them.
Camera 2 had picked up movement. Something heavy shifted upstairs. Boards creaked like footsteps. Twisted Sister smiled wider.
Twisted Sister: He’s awake.
She rose with puppet-like grace, head tilting. The camera followed her as she walked toward the stairwell, each step echoing far too loud. She disappeared around the corner. For a moment, the only sound was the breathing of the crew.
Then a scraping above. A dragging sound, like something being hauled across the floor. The crew hesitated.
Cut to the upstairs hallway.
The hall was narrow, lined with doors. The paint was blistered. Every doorframe had deep gouges, as if clawed from the inside.
Camera light passed over a hanging photo: Anthrax in full paint. The image was cracked, water-stained.
The crew pushed open the first door.
Inside was a child’s bedroom. Tiny wrestling ring toys lay scattered on the floor. Stuffed animals had black stitches over their eyes. A poster on the wall read:
THE HOUSE WATCHED
The closet door was ajar. The camera moved closer. The door creaked open but there was only darkness. There were only shadows inside.
Anthrax: Found you!
The camera jerked backward. A hand, pale, bandaged, smeared with red, burst from the closet and slammed against the lens.
The feed distorted. Static.
Cut to camera two in the hallway
A different angle. The crew was scrambling, whispering panic. One of them pointed the light toward the floor: the trail of blood led away from the bedroom.
Twisted Sister’s laugh echoed from downstairs again, overlapping with a low, rhythmic banging like fists against drywall.
Voice #2: We’re done. We’re done filming.
He turned toward the exit, but the stairwell was gone. In its place? Another hallway stretching into black.
A whisper overlaid the static of the audio, layered voices, male and female, laughing, singing.
“Welcome home… Welcome home … Welcome home…”
The camera panned wildly. Every door now sported the SCW logo scrawled in dripping paint. A light flared behind them. Twisted Sister stood at the far end of the hall, head tilted sideways, hair hanging limp over her face.
Twisted Sister: You wanted a look inside, didn’t you? You wanted to see what makes us tick.
She stepped forward. The light strobed with each word.
Twisted Sister: Pain. Memory. Blood. That’s all this house remembered.
A shadow moved behind her. Anthrax. He dragged something heavy. A wooden chair with belts nailed to it. He set it down in the center of the hall.
Anthrax: Every house needed furniture.
He looked directly into the camera.
Anthrax: Sit.
The cameraman didn’t move. The view trembled. Twisted Sister giggled and circled him, nails tracing the wall, leaving long scratches.
Twisted Sister: They never sat. They always ran.
She leaned into the lens of the camera.
Twisted Sister: That hurt our feelings.
Cut to the basement
The feed jumped. The camera light flickered on again, revealing concrete walls slick with moisture. A single bulb dangled above the chair.
Twisted Sister danced barefoot in the puddles of water, humming that same nursery tune.
The cameraman backed away toward the steps but they were gone again. Just another wall.
Anthrax: You filmed everything else. Film this too.
He gestured to the chair.
Twisted Sister: The House didn’t take kindly to voyeurs.
She pressed her palm flat to the concrete wall.
Distortion.
The camera’s battery icon flashed red. A whisper.
Twisted Sister: Every brick here remembered a scream.
The bulb exploded.
Pitch black.
The screen turned green. The cameraman was alone now. Twisted Sister and Anthrax were gone. He turned the camera toward the floor to show footprints, bare and slick, leading down a tunnel.
He followed, breathing sharp. The tunnel narrowed. The whispering grew.
Voice: … Please… Please…!
He turned a corner. The tunnel opened into a small, circular chamber. In the center stood Anthrax, motionless. The camera zoomed in. Anthrax didn’t move.
The cameraman stepped closer.
Twisted Sister whispered in the dark.
Twisted Sister: Don’t turn around.
The cameraman spun. Nothing. When he turned back, Anthrax was gone.
Twisted Sister: You turned around. Naughty, naughty…
Static
The camera now lay sideways on the floor, pointing toward the wall. The red light flickered. The lens captured only a pair of bare feet stepping into frame. Twisted Sister’s.
She crouched, head nearly upside-down in the frame, hair falling like curtains. Her eyes gleamed. Something slammed into the mic, cutting the audio.
The image was crooked. The camera faced a corner now. In the infrared, a figure stood. The remaining cameraman, trembling, facing the wall exactly as Anthrax had.
His breath hitched. Then stopped. Behind him, the faint shadow of Twisted Sister moved, slow, deliberate.
Twisted Sister: Home was forever.
The figure didn’t turn. Didn’t move.
END OF FOOTAGE.
The walls pulse like lungs. Her heartbeat is a church bell. The lights flicker in rhythm with her grin. We are not watching her. We’re inside her skull now, and she knows we’re here.
Twisted Sister: Aliciaaa … Aliciaaa …! Wasn’t she wonderful once? A queen … Crowned … adored by everyone … Respected … And then she woke up, and the adoration was gone, and the kingdom had roaches and no one remembered her name.
The echoes of a childlike giggle.
Twisted Sister: Poor Alicia Lucas. Roulette Champion. Spinning a wheel hoping the needle lands on relevance. Clawing at mirrors, begging for them to reflect what she used to be. She wants to be somebody again. Yes, yes! I will play with you! Pick you up, cradle you, love you! Because when you’re in my hands, even the broken dolls feel loved again!
And then? Snap! Back on the shelf you go.
Now Bea Barnhart… Pfft!
I’ve seen dollar store dolls with more legacy. A background extra in Bulldog Bill’s autobiography. She speaks in lies that even she doesn’t believe. And lies make kittens cry! I don’t LIKE IT when kittens cry!
You’re the kind of doll that gets left behind at daycare. Sticky plastic arms, haircut done with safety scissors. You think you matter. How precious. How pathetic. You’re not even worth breaking. You’re the test-object. The floor mat. Alicia is porcelain. You’re off-brand plastic.
The breathing grows ragged, raspier.
Twisted Sister: Alicia? I will give you the love they took from you. I will make you feel wanted again. Bea? I might not even notice when I hurt you.
Her lips curl against the inside of her own mind.
Twisted Sister: Let us play. Let us play forever!
