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.”
