QUESTIONS & ANSWERS (CHAPTER 13: 2017) [iiw]
Apr 5, 2023 1:54:24 GMT -5
Post by Admin on Apr 5, 2023 1:54:24 GMT -5
Rock Hill, NY ||| March 31, 2023
(off camera)
(off camera)
It had been a few blissfully quiet weeks in the Yurievich household; The Entity closed its doors shortly after Sev had relinquished their Crimson championship, failing to appear for their third show, despite how badly he had wanted to work a match at the historic Madison Square Garden. PWE's second season came to an end shortly after, finding him with more wins than losses but nothing concrete to show for that. He had a lot of free time coming and frustration to burn. The black greasepaint was packed away. The doomsday cloak was back to hanging in the back of the coat closet, behind more practical items like winter coats and his wife's collection of cosy cardigans. Perhaps that was the reason he'd thrown his proverbial hat into the mix for a chance at the title Joe Montuori had held in iiW. Maybe it was that desperate ache for glory that he always denied, despite it whispering in his ears at the most inopportune moments. He had never feared the unknown.
His previous tag partner had called him a simpleton for that, and had never understood his desire to embrace new challenges and experiences with open arms. He'd been suppressed and silenced for years, his loyalty twisted up into a toxic thing until the sickness had threatened to consume him, trapping him in the dark forever. It seemed like another lifetime now, ephemeral memories that left behind an aftertaste of bitterness but held no sway over his emotions. The pain had been bleached away, stripped by the brightness of joy and the sunshine that filled his days.
He had been freed and now he loved his life, owed it all to the woman he'd chosen to share it with. Her father had tried to snatch that joy from them and had failed.
All the windows were open in an attempt to air out the lingering smell of paint from the nursery – he'd been hard at work over the last few days, putting the finishing touches on some DIY renovations. Sev was just settling down on the couch to put his feet up for a moment when the doorbell rang. He leapt up to answer, knowing that LJ had gone to bed an hour before to take a nap. The last thing he wanted to do was deprive her of the rest she needed. He was surprised when he opened the door to find a FedEX courier standing there with a box in his hands. Usually they had to get their packages at the post office down the road. Couriers rarely came out their way. The man held out the package and waited for Sev to take it before setting a tablet on top.
"Need a signature."
He signed without thinking to ask what was in the box. They had packages coming from all sorts of places, including companies that had learned of his wife's pregnancy and wanted him to use his fame to shill their products – the whole thing was foreign to him. A novel experience that never failed to amuse him now that he was becoming a bigger household name.
The courier was already on his way back to his truck when Sev looked down at the package, noticing that there was no return address. Tucking the rectangular box under his arm, he turned and shut the door, locking it. A soft sound across the room caught his attention and he looked up to see his sleepy wife in the doorway. Tousled bed head and fresh-faced, she still seemed to glow and the sight of her made him smile immediately. He held up the box for her to see.
"A package came. I'm sorry it woke you. Tried to catch it before he rang the bell more than once."
"Ooh, yay!" LJ exclaimed, clapping her hands together a couple of times as she approached Sev. "I may have gone a little crazy on Jellycats." Since they'd found out they were pregnant, they'd started buying the whimsical stuffed toys. Grabbing the box, she set it down on the nearest table and went to work opening it. It was much heavier than she had expected. Once she had managed to open the box and see its contents, the look on her face became almost blank as she stared at it. Inside the box were a pair of ornate, cast-iron candlesticks. It was as if she were frozen in place, white as a ghost.
She backed away slowly, horror written all over her face. She would have kept going, right up and over the couch to climb the wall in an effort to escape the sight if she hadn't collided with her husband. The smile that had been on his face and the joyful laughter bubbling up past his lips at the thought of more stuffed animals for the nursery cut off in an instant as he instinctively caught her, keeping her from stumbling over his feet. She was immobile, eyes wide and staring, focused on some horrible thing only she could see.
"I…" Her breathing was hard as she started to tremble, bile rising up at the back of her throat. Finally able to move, she quickly found the closest bathroom and made it to the toilet where she spilled her dinner into the bowl. It was almost as if she had suddenly come down with a terrible flu. When she was done purging herself, she leaned back against the wall. If it was even possible, her colour had paled even more and now she was shivering – chilled from within. Her head was swimming, her chest so tight she thought she might pass out.
It all happened in a few seconds. The box opening. The stumble. His wife fleeing the room. When he heard the bang of the toilet lid, he hesitated to give her time and privacy – seven months into her pregnancy, he was accustomed to her rebellious stomach by now. Curious, he took a couple steps towards the table, looking down into the box. All he saw were two fancy pieces of metal. He picked one up, feeling its substantial weight. Had to be a good ten pounds and he turned it over in his hand, inspecting the filigree and intricate carving along the base. The one in his hand had a dent at the top, the elegant scrollwork pushed in and scuffed, as if it had been dropped from a great height or kicked around during shipping. He checked the box but it didn't seem to be damaged. Setting it down, he turned just as he heard the toilet flush, heading towards the small half bathroom to check on her.
By the time he returned, LJ had started to cry, her hands covering her face. She felt feverish and completely on edge. "No….no…no." A million thoughts ran through her head, causing a near-blinding headache.
Sev dropped to his knees, immediately gathering her into his arms. She was shaking, trembling so hard that her teeth were almost chattering and he could feel his own blind panic rising, even though he had no idea why she was so distraught. "Shhhh…" he crooned, trying to slow his own heart rate. "I am here, Solnyshka. You are safe."
LJ held onto him as if her life depended on it. "You have to get it out of the house." She buried her feverish face against his chest, her tears dampening his shirt. "Please, please?"
He had watched a thousand horror movies about cursed and haunted items – he preferred the genre because the trauma and terror it evoked was in a controlled and safe environment, easier to process and control. His wife's response to the candlestick seemed almost irrational but he'd never known her to be anything but level headed in the past. He felt a prickle of unease, those ghostly fingers sliding up and down his spine to raise the hairs on the back of his neck. "I don't understand," he whispered, the confession coming out raw and hoarse even as he kept his arms tight around her.
A sob was muffled against his shirt, his chest soaked now with her tears and still she was clinging to him, her nails digging into his back as she struggled to get closer, as if the barrier his bulk provided between her and whatever trauma those damned knicknacks had unlocked was insufficient.
"You are safe," he repeated the words, his voice soft and gentle even as he felt the burn of anger heating his skin. The monster, the darkness that he kept locked away until he was between those ropes gnashed its teeth, clawing at his insides, desperate to be freed, desperate to wreak havoc on whomever who had done this to his beloved. "Tell me what to do," he murmured, pressing his lips to the top of her head, "I will do it."
"Sev…." This couldn't be happening to her. There was no possible way for that to be in her house. "I…" she swallowed hard, feeling her mouth flooding with saliva as though she was going to be sick again. "I need to talk to Atticus…" There was no question in her mind who the package was from and it filled her with such panic in a way she'd only felt one other time.
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FLASHBACK
Natchez, Mississippi ||| August 7, 2017
(off camera)
Natchez, Mississippi ||| August 7, 2017
(off camera)
The euphoria was fading, everything of the last few hours coming back to her in bits and pieces, disjointed flashes of strangers mixing and mingling while faceless men in tuxedos ferried trays of expensive hors d'oeuvres and flutes of bubbly champagne through the mix. LJ stifled a giggle, her mind equating that to the scene in Mary Poppins with the animated penguin waiters – this was no frivolous shared hallucination garden party, though. Satin-encased pillows behind her were the biggest she'd ever seen, so plump and luxurious that they screamed wealth even as they were trying to seduce her back down into their embrace.
Come back to sleep, they whispered and her eyes felt heavy enough to obey. Her head was swimming, dizziness coming and going in waves. Had she been drinking? She couldn't remember but her mouth felt so dry, her tongue thick and woollen.
"Just for a minute," she told herself, letting her eyes close again, feeling the icy sleekness of those satin pillows against her feverish skin – it was cooler up here, despite how she knew heat was likely to rise, especially in an old house like this. Maybe it was because the large ballroom downstairs had been so packed with bodies but the humidity that had made her dress cling to her skin seemed to be gone, finally. A cool breeze ruffled the rebellious curls that had escaped from her elaborate updo, tickling her neck with invisible fingers. She shivered, burrowing deeper into the nest of pillows. The gentle touch continued, feather-light and bringing goosebumps in its wake. It felt good. Relaxing.
She felt herself drifting. Time may have stopped. Or sped up. She wasn't aware of its passage, either way.
Shiftling light on the back of her eyelids was warm and golden and when she opened them, she saw a thick candle on the bedside table. Ivory wax dribbled down the side to pool against the top of an ornately shaped holder – it might have been the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen. The room was darker and smelled sweetly floral, probably from the candles.
She stretched, rolled over and realized she was barefoot; her stockings were gone as well as her shoes and she had no memory of taking off either one. Her bare legs slipped against the satin bedding, banishing the sleepy warmth and bringing her a bit closer to full wakefulness. It was hard to feel anything but cozy in that warm golden light, in that comfortable bed but there was something whispering at the back of her mind where the stubborn fog still hung. She couldn't quite make it out but it might have been talking about danger.
The noise of the party was gone now, the silence making her ears ring with the absence and even as she wondered how she'd gotten here, she remembered a hand pressed to the small of her back and those narrow servant's stairs, clinging to the bannister and feeling like she was climbing forever and a day. It was an old plantation house; she remembered now, her sluggish brain recalling how it had seemed to tower over the lawn, stretching in all four directions as far as they eye could see as she was being ferried up the drive with the other girls.
"Mmmmm," it was almost a contented and very cat-like purr, deep in her throat as she stretched and rolled onto her side. The flame flickered, fluttering in the breeze she'd created and a drop of wax plopped down on the table, marring what was probably an antique surface just as old as the candlestick sitting on it. There was no digital clock, nothing to tell her what time it was and heavy velvet drapes covered the windows. The place was nice, like something from the scrapbook she'd made for herself when she was ten, cutting out photos from her stepmother's Better Homes and Gardens. Her dream house. Dream life, really.
Get out. Go. NOW.
The voice in the back of her head was louder now, was sounding the alarms even though the rest of her body was telling her that everything was fine. She was floating. It was nice here, so quiet and peaceful – and then she felt the bed shift behind her. She felt another flutter of air and the candle danced, distracting her for a moment.
"Oh good," a deep and Southern accented voice murmured, "you're awake."
She jerked as though she'd been doused in ice water, eyes wide as her head whipped around. The man was older, probably in his late sixties judging by his thinning silver hair and the loose skin around his neck. He was in a white dress shirt, starched and perfectly formed collar open and gaping to expose those folds of skin and a narrow chest. Beyond him, she saw a dark suit jacket, draped over the arm of a beautifully upholstered Louis XIV chair. Sitting in the middle of the seat were her shoes and the silk stockings she'd had on – a shiver of revulsion crawled up her spine. Clammy fingers touched her bare shoulder, pulling her back to herself and her terrified gaze locked on his rheumy blue eyes. She recoiled, scuttling back against the headboard and he laughed as though it was all part of some game.
Bits and pieces were coming to her, holes in her memory filling themselves as the terror burned off the rest of whatever she'd been given before she'd arrived here. This wasn't the first time this had happened. Somehow she knew that, even as certainly as she knew that something terrible was going to happen.
Those hands caught her by the shoulders, fingers hooked under the straps of her gown. She had no memory of reaching for a weapon, only aware that she had something in her hand as it swung through the air. Hot wax splattered on the bed, on her hands and her arm. The base of the candlestick struck him in the side of his head. His eyes were wide like hers now, shocked before everything exploded in red. There was so much blood. On her. On the bed. Everywhere.
She was standing next to the bed. Shaking. Her arm ached from swinging that improvised weapon who knows how many times and it slipped from her numb fingers, bouncing on the carpet and barely missing her bare feet. Her mouth was open in a scream but she wasn't making a sound and the tears running down her face were white-hot, like the wax that had burned her arm. There was a phone on the table, this ancient thing straight out of a movie – another useless antique, she thought, but when she picked up the receiver, there was a dial tone. She punched in the only number that she could remember, one that she'd memorised when she was a little girl.
The moment that connection went through, she was babbling, her words as disjointed as her thoughts. "Uncle Atticus. There's… help me. Something bad happened… blood. Candles and I… oh God… I think… he's dead?"
She listened for a moment, breathing so hard it was a wonder she didn't pass out.
"NO! I don't know who… I don't know what's happening…. Oh God. There's red everywhere. So much red. Hurry! You have to…."
The phone fell. She followed it to the floor, all that red going black in an instant.
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[•REC]
E̷N̷I̷G̷M̷A̷: I saw a movie once. The opening line was one of the greatest I had ever heard at the time. Since its debut nearly two decades ago, it has been repeated far too much for my liking, generally by the worst frauds out there. Still, I find myself reciting it now: "allow me to be frank at the commencement. You will not like me".
An impenetrable darkness resolves slowly, coming in grainy to show the hulking figure of a man sitting in the middle of a small cinder block cell. The walls are dingy, shadows making it hard to tell if they're just dirty or if that's the rotten decay of black mold. The metal chair he's perched on creaks as he shifts his weight, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees and lock his soot-bracketed, colourless eyes on the camera.
E̷N̷I̷G̷M̷A̷: I will reiterate, in case it was unclear. You. Will. Not. Like. Me.
There's no trace of emotion on his face. His voice is barely louder than a rough whisper, the tone neutral and slightly tinged with a foreign accent yet there is an undercurrent of steel that carries weight – makes you want to pay attention.
E̷N̷I̷G̷M̷A̷: I am not a household name, not universally known for the things that I can do, the sacrifices I have made for this business over the last two decades. I do not expect you to understand my motivations, to understand that the moniker bestowed upon me was not hubris. Ah, but my mouth has a way of getting ahead of my brain sometimes. Allow me to explain, since we are not yet formally acquainted.
One thick-fingered hand lifts and he rubs his palm across his lips, shaking his head slightly before he continues.
E̷N̷I̷G̷M̷A̷: My wife, she was ecstatic that my bookings all dried up at once – having me home, this is a good thing. She tells me that I am nearing the age where I should consider slowing down, should start making other plans for my future. I know this comes from a good place, a place of love where she wishes to protect our family but there is a reason I cannot stop. For me, to stop is akin to death. To give up, to walk away? No. Absolutely not. For the sake of my family, for everything that I love, I cannot give up. I must keep going.
And this, this is how they came to call me a MONSTER, a MACHINE. Unrelenting. Unyielding. A tool to be unleashed for maximum damage. I embraced this, formed my sole purpose around that construct. Allowed my true self to be caged, suppressed and devalued. For two decades, I was only fully alive between those ropes, when the leash was unclipped. I did not exist then. I was a shadow. In 2017, my name was nowhere to be found in any record book that ever mattered in this business.
He falls silent for a moment, breaking eye contact. When he speaks again, his upper lip curls into a snarl of distaste.
E̷N̷I̷G̷M̷A̷: And for you? It was a banner one, yes? You were at the top of your game in a company that collapsed six months into your biggest accomplishment. This is the insurmountable gulf that divides us, Slater. This is why you will never like me – and why I have come to loathe you.
The monologue stops again, and this time he reaches down for a bottle of water, taking a swig and swishing it around as though he needs to wash away that bitterness. When he resumes, his tone is calmer, even though it seems like he's making an effort to keep it that way.
E̷N̷I̷G̷M̷A̷: I do not wish to relive the past. I strive to push forward, to use my knowledge and experience all the things that were denied me for so long. I wish to have life speed by so quickly that it leaves my hands raw trying to grab hold. I wish to see the roads I leave behind boiling like lava in the wake of my passage. To leave an indelible mark, a scar like this on the universe? This is a legacy to be in awe of. This is what I would leave behind for my daughter. To know that her lineage stems from being fearless, from being driven to survive no matter the cost. To know that sacrifice should never be in vain.
I wear the evidence on my skin. Each blow that tried to break, each lash intended to humiliate – endured them all. The cage, it was not a clever metaphor. It was real and the scars that remain now that the chains are forever broken are a testament to my resilience, not my weakness.
Your friend, Chris Page, he can tell you what he has seen firsthand. You have eyes. You have ears. You will know the violence that I employ, the carnage that I embody. It is real. It is inevitable and inescapable, especially for you. I am not without mercy, though. I will serve up this warning. I expect most of this will fall on deaf ears as you try to tell yourself that you have not lost a step since those glory days.
And all the clever lies, all the excuses in the world will not stop me from coming for you with every last ounce of my energy. There is no Delorean, no reset button that will allow you to reach out and pluck that former version of yourself from the aether, Slater. You cannot escape what is coming. You will understand the construct now. Feel the monster machine in your head, gears endlessly churning. Hear my voice when you are trying to drift off to sleep, picking your pockets of all your shortcomings, seeding doubt. Are you ready to give it all? Are you willing to be tested? To sacrifice?
Nostrils flare and he's breathing heavily for a moment. In the silence, thunder rumbles ominously and a ghost of a smile quirks across his lips, there and gone in an instant.
E̷N̷I̷G̷M̷A̷: I know you, Slater. Despite your efforts, I know everything. I am in your head. I am whispering in your ears. I am laughing because I have seen the future, no gimmicks required – is your ego bigger on the inside? You are nothing more than a footnote, now. A shadow of the former GLORIOUS One. Reduced now to a single sentence in an epic story about someone else. How does it feel to be bought and sold as a commodity for a shot at a scrap of gold, for a sliver of fame and marquee lights? They will forget your name and what you used to mean to WGWF. 2017 was a long time ago. A lifetime. We have come so far since then, never to return.
Look in the mirror. See the stranger looking back. Who is this? How did this happen? The one who sold you out, Slater? It was not me. It was YOU. That is who you can blame. I do not actually exist, after all. Remember? I never did.
