Torturing him with memories of Leon was a new strategy. The Lost truly was grasping at straws now. The fracture might finally be healing, and for that part of his mind. That part of his soul, that would be terrifying. He couldn’t quite imagine what life would be like, to be whole again. To have total autonomy. To be in control of all faculty, and decision. Part of him wondered if he even really wanted to take that back. To be present all the time. He’d been begging for it, demanding it. Screaming to the heavens to allow him to be with his wife, but maybe. Maybe he didn’t really want that.
Part of it could be the torture had become comfortable. Re-examining the aspects of his life he was shuttering away. Leon’s presence had haunted him once before. A schism happened then too. A complete loss of his own self to a part of him he didn’t know existed. That was likely the real first emergence of The Lost. One that tortured him, himself. Last time it was at the hands of Sullivan and Harrison. He’d asked them to help wipe the memories. Hypnotism. Was he still suffering some lingering effects of letting them in and messing with his mind?
It wasn’t beyond belief. Lots of things have happened to ruin his psyche over the years. The near brain damages the hands of Alexander Remington. The near brain damage at the hands of Jamilyn and Syco. The hypnotism, God knows how many times he’d asked them to do that. If he knew, they wouldn’t have been very good at their job. The complete rupturing and insanity inducing possession of Vita Mors. Mors had kept The Lost out of that little compartment of his mind. For that he was grateful at least.
The truth of it was the descent in madness, the beach that never ended. The lack of warmth, the torture chambers. They felt like they were trying to get him to let it in. To reach back into that which had seen everything and nothing simultaneously. The memories that had threatened to cause his very mind to melt in on itself forever. Just the thought of thinking about what was stored away by Mors made his head burn in pain. A stinging and stabbing sensation in the depths of his mind that he couldn’t quite shake. Agony that he’d never truly recover from.
All of that was to say, the torture with memories of Leon was not unfamiliar. It was something he’d been doing for himself for years. Trying to work out where it had all gone wrong. Where things had changed. What could have led one of his best friends to want to take everything away from him? Alex wasn’t sure he’d ever truly know, but that was the pain he had to suffer through. The indignity of his own mind. One day, he’d put it all behind him. Truly do the work needed not to repress but come to terms. To take back control of his own life. For now, he’d simply suffer. Until things were right again. Until he finally had that control back of himself.
He was being taken on a journey. A journey through a series of memories that he knew would ultimately end in that hallway. With the door at the end, the sound of moans and whimpers coming from the other side. The sounds of betrayal, futility and heartbreak. The faces of two of the people he loved the most, engaged in an activity that would ruin him for years to come. That was the ultimate memory of pain. The one he wanted so desperately to avoid. To never go near again.
Yet Alex knew, this yellow brick road. It did end there, for where else could it end? Endings were all that he was ever sure of. Stories seemed to change a bit, and all good stories had many twists and turns before the true ending. Despite it all though, he was quite good with endings. He could see them now. He had to see them. He had to know how things would end, or he’d go insane. He’d never grow. He needed to know how things would end. So, when the world didn’t play by the rules. He just… didn’t know what to do.
His mother’s death, Lauren’s death, James’ death. These were things he didn’t see coming. Endings he couldn’t quite realise ahead of time. Things that were entirely out of his control. That was probably the worst part of endings he couldn’t see. Things being outside of his control. Things being totally and utterly beyond his hand. Death was the ending he couldn’t see coming, and he knew why. That didn’t make it any better at all. He just couldn’t comprehend anything beyond life. Maybe it was why their ghosts haunted him so.
Today was a different sort of ghost. A different type of torture. He was stuck watching another memory. Chained in place, held in spot. A memory of an encounter Leon and Alex had had when they were younger. An encounter that he never really thought much of. It was just another day of being ratbag kids. Teens with anger issues and poor home lives taking that anger out on the world. Taking their anger out on those around them. To punish those who had no right to simply being happy when they were so unhappy. It was just another day.
“There is a lot of excuses thrown around when its convenient for them. A small action ensured the match ended as it needed to. A small action ensured that Carter didn’t have to suffer anymore punishment. To ensure that he was still going to be standing at Inception, so I could finally take the World Championship from him. Narrow-minded as he is, he saw this a slight. A slight against him, and an unfairness. A blindness by the referee cost him and he demands that I not be given my just reward for doing what I needed to do.”
“I laid the terms, and he accepted them. I win; I get my match. I lose; he is free of me. The outcome was not what he wanted, and our favourite little champion threw a fit over it. Screamed to the world that it was unfair, that he was wronged. It is nice of him to be trying to emulate his idols, but I’ve moved beyond that part of my life. I didn’t lull into conspiracies any longer. As much as they would like to believe otherwise. For a man of fairness, I didn’t see him clamouring to my defence when I was the technical rightful winner of my match against Kevin Carter.”
“I didn’t see anyone leaping to my defence in fact. Why would they though? I was only trying to silence the man who they all hated. That had caused them such agony. They just didn’t care because it didn’t affect them personally. Narcissism is the blight and plague the infects those who would pretend to be holier than thou. Something that more and more people are beginning to realise. Alex Jones and Aiden Reynolds both point out your hypocrisy, and you hide behind your belief that you are just doing what you’ve always done.”
“Which is true, he is. Carter has always been an insipid narcissist He spouts hate and vitriol and pretends that it is something positive. He aligns himself with the likes of Miles Kasey and Eddie Lyons. Standing on the right side of things and pretending that it matters. It does not. It doesn’t matter in the slightest. Honour means nothing because none of them truly have it. Are beginning to understand that, Eddie?”
“I need you to look at what is before you and truly understand why I have been telling you for years. You are not fighting on the side of honour. You are not being the bigger man by doing the ‘right’ thing. No, you are simply hamstringing yourself because they are not ideologues like they would lead you to believe. This is not an imaginary and conspiratorial ‘they’ either. No, these ideologues are the people who pretend to have your back just as long as it takes to slip the knife between the vertebrae. They want to see you as a head on a fucking stick, a talking piece for their ideas. To hold down those who are trying to do better. To show the truth of the muck and filth.”
“I am no ideologue in the common sense. I am simply a Broken Messiah, a leader for those who have been torn down by their ideologies. Someone who offers my hand to those who need guidance to a better tomorrow. To an understanding that true selflessness comes in taking your own destiny into your hands. For there is no fate there is simply what you put into the world and what you demand out of it. A narcissism of a different flavour if you will, but there is a difference here. I do not block out the world for my own grandeur. I bring it all with me. I speak into the world the truth of the False Prophecy and they pretend that it does not apply to them.”
“Eddie, for honour you fight and for honour you will fall. They scream at me in defiance for not being honourable, but they only do so because they can no longer control the outcome with it. The lies and the betrayal are in your very eyes and yet you turn from the truth. You hide in your ideas of greatness built on doing it ‘right’. In a world that rewards sycophants and psychopaths. In a world that rewards those that step on others. The only difference between them and me, is that I do not pretend that what I am doing is in the vision of what is right. I know what I do is dishonourable. I know that I disrespect and spit upon the ethics and morals of it all. I do not care that they do not like it. I will drag them up to my level and expose them for the liars and miscreants they are.”
“You’re just another bump on the road for me, Eddie. Time and time again you’ve thrown yourself in the desert looking for a way out. In hopes that this time the circling ravens will not peck and pull at your flesh. That this time things will be different, and yet. They will remain the same. They will not change, Eddie. They cannot change, because you refuse to. I have been to the ends of every extreme. I have been the cheered, the jeered. The anti-hero and the overt villain. I have bled for it all and I would do it again.”
“Even now as my body breaks down and my bones aches. My muscles cry in constant pain and body marred with the scars of my journey. My mind has never been freer. Nothing I say is in mirrors or lies. There is no smoke, there is no pretend. Everything I say is clear as the cleanest bay waters. Filled with beauty and colour that they would seek to murk with their excrement and filth. If you would just listen, you would understand. But the words continue to fall on deaf ears. People like you, Eddie. People who refuse to actually listen. Who like to hide behind this idea that I am trying to twist and turn things. That I speak words that have no meaning, and that it is all a game.”
“None of this is a game to me, Eddie. This is my life. This is what I do to live. To fight, to continue on. To breath into existence everything I do. I bleed for this, because this is what matters to me. To show them the futility of their choices. Carter puts all this idea into the presence of a prop. I took that from him to show him how worthless it truly is. It is a symbol; it is a prop. It is an image to make himself feel better, and yet. He will never truly be the man who deserves to hold it. Just like you Eddie, he cannot be truthful to himself.”
“He cannot be truthful to the world. You are both the same, just at different extremes. One who pretends that it all has to be done on the up and up, and one who preaches that but does not truly follow it. Do you think if the roles were reversed, he’d had have done anything to give me what I deserved? Had he pinned me and my foot ended up on the rope. Do you think he would have let me have my chance still? I don’t. I know he wouldn’t, because he doesn’t truly believe in honour. He just believes in his ideals of lies.”
“You cannot beat me, Eddie. You know this. You know that you will walk into this match, scream to the world that this time it will be different. That this time honour will prevail over me, and then you will fall. You will continue to falter and give in. You will struggle and you will buck, and when it comes to it. You will be another notch in the column for me. My 30th Climax Control win, my 30th singles win here. Two achievements for me, and all I have to do, is put the Lyon down once again. Do you think you can truly stop me? I don’t.”
“I have given you all the tools in the world to prove me wrong. To take the road that you so adamantly refute. The only road that will give you reprieve from the mundanity of your life. From the failures that continue to mount for you. Rise up once more, Little Lion. Rise up once more so I can take your head from your shoulders. So I can put you down again, and you can be reminded. Reminded that you are never going to be at my level. That you have a ceiling made of your own fucking cement. A ceiling you continue to bash your head on, because you refuse to simply take the elevator.”
“I want you to know Eddie. This? This isn’t personal. It’s just fucking business.”
“Have you been paying attention, Eddie? I hope you’ve been listening. I need you to listen.”
“I need you to understand me.”
“We’re all Lost now.”
“You know Alex? One of these days, we’re gonna make it fucking big. You, James and me. We’re gonna fucking blow the lid of these places. Just you wait.” Leon said confidently, the straw of his milkshake stuck between his gappy front teeth. He’d never admit it, but he hated the gap. He’d punched out enough kids to make that well and truly know.
They were sitting in some local do a bit of everything café. Milkshakes, average meat pies and sausage rolls, and crappy in house sandwiches. It was a life they wouldn’t trade for anything. At least not at sixteen. Life would change as they grew, and in time they would want more and more. They’d let life ruin them. Let alcohol and drugs change them. Sex and money would be the difference maker, and success. Success would be the be all to end all.
“You wouldn’t fucking know what to do with yourself.” Alex said back, leaning back in his chair, casting a lazy look over the café. Some dude had been staring at them for a while, sitting in a back corner of the room. He was probably just bothered by some loudmouth kids swearing and being generally disruptive. Something you learn with maturity. Sixteen-year-old Alex? Seventeen-year-old Leon? They weren’t mature enough to know that.
“That cunt has been eyeballing us all day. I’m getting fucking sick of it. Oi fuckhead! What’s your problem?” Leon began to yell out at him, the couple of workers behind the counter looking suddenly very irritated. Wasn’t an uncommon occurrence for the four of them to cause a scene. A few smashed windows, a few brawls, yelling and shouting battles. They were pretty tired of them. But in a town like this, there wasn’t many smarts in refusing any business.
“Do you think you could watch your mouths? There’s kids here.” The guy said, grumbling as he began to stand up. Clearly done with the whole thing. Preparing to leave, Leon shook his head and glared down his nose at him. The bubbling and boiling. The sense of necessity. The privilege in being allowed to just do whatever they wanted. Leon was going to kick the guy’s head in.
Alex didn’t remember much after that. Just the sounds of sirens, his hands hurting. His knuckles split and the groaning, whimpering man who lay underneath him. Turns out it wasn’t so much Leon was going to it, as he was going to direct traffic. Maybe there was more to that day then he really remembered. Leon did a few years for the attack. Alex didn’t. For some reason they didn’t really believe Alex was the assailant that day. Despite all the physical evidence. Maybe it was more so because if Leon was put away, they’d have just a little less trouble. Ringleader goes down; the troublemakers don’t make as much trouble.
Leon was pulling at his shoulders, telling him hurry up. That they had to run. That they needed to get away. The sound of sirens sounded so close. Like they were in his damn head. The ringing, the bleating. The blaring of sound. It was never ending. Leon had such a big smile that day. Maybe that was the first time he thought he was going to take everything away. Maybe he was proud. Alex would never truly know. It didn’t matter either which way. That was maybe the real start of everything, and he’d never even given it more than a second thought.
He just remembered how much his hands hurt. How much blood there was, from both the guy’s busted up face and his busted-up hands. How much his hands throb and ache. And all he could remember truly from that moment.
How much he enjoyed doing it.
How things never really changed.
And then?
