Post by Non Compos Mentis on Jun 19, 2017 19:12:13 GMT -5
There are many kinds of shame.
The embarrassment of facing up to every pathetic fan after your promises have been turned to dust.
Watching as a jumped up gamer boy pinned your shoulders to the mat, unable to do a gods damned thing about it.
The general misfortune of being Razor Blade.
And seeing a once proud warrior wither into a husk of what he once had been. For once once I could not lay that one solely on Ezra's bony shoulders.
“Ehhh... I don't like, boss.” Pike's mad eyes seemed unnaturally worried as he tickled the rusted handle of the industrial cooler. His caterpillar eyebrows hugged his wild glare to comfort them from the potential danger he could be allowing. “The boy might'a gone rabid, like a man-sized rat. I've seen it happen. One day they're talkin' back and the next they're gnawin' on their own leg like it's a candy cane.”
“You underestimate him, Pike, he's a little more resilient than that.” I spoke, more from hope than expectation. If Ezra's recent behaviour had been any indication, when that door opened he would be a rotting corpse. But if, just if, part of him was still the Guardian that had been trained to fight by The Order then he might have survived. “Give it time and even the last morsels of humanity will leave him... I hope it won't come to that though.”
The caterpillars lifted in silent relent and Pike sighed. Giving a last look of longing toward Tor who, as she always had been, remained voiceless but allowed a curt nod of approval. “Whatever you say, Sir. Personally I'd throw a cat in there first just to play it safe, but if you insist...”
With a heave the door to the disused industrial cooler opened and the stale air of the kitchen, unpleasant to the nose, was replaced by the fetid stench of death.
Pike wrinkled his nose and flashed his head back in disgust. “You're right, Sir. Would'a been a waste of a good cat... Sir?”
I took at step past Pike and into the cloud of deathly odour. Few times in life do you experience that concoction of rotting matter and withering life. With the full expectation of finding a young man's body nestled in some lightless corner, I took a step into the cooler.
The howl was not human, of that I was certain. Perhaps Pike had settled on a sickly hound instead of the cat to search the room. But no, out of the gloom hurtled a horrifying form in what could only be described as a shambling dash.
I braced myself to be tackled by the creature but, rather than attacking me directly, it speared for the hole in the door. Seeking the light, it's bony frame struck a glancing blow against my shoulder. As I spun from the impact I grabbed a handful of red sweater and pulled back hard.
“I've got him!” I shouted, frenzied, at the two figures in the doorway. “Close it!”
“Sir, you're...?” Pike stared into the room with panicked eyes as the thrall-like face of a once young man tried to throw itself at him. Next to it, dragging the wretched thing back, was his master.
“Shut the fucking door!” I ordered and Tor, without hesitation, took the door from Pike and slammed it shot on the head of the withered thing.
The slam sent it tumbling backwards across the pitch black ground but I heard the desperate scuffle of bare feet scrambling back to his one point of salvation. “No! No no no! Let me out of here you fucking freaks!”
The voice remained the same at least. Drained but still fundamentally 'him'. And then it turned into a quiet sobbing against the metal door, hoping for escape, or maybe just the comfort of the light. “You're not going anywhere, Ezra. We're both in the shadows now.”
The starved body of Ezra Colne recoiled from the door and shuffled back. I remained sat close by, thrown by his desperate bid for freedom, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the darkness.
I was used to the darkness, but Ezra was a child of the light and so alien to the shadows even after two weeks. I felt the air in the room shift as he waved his arms around, searching for me. “What are you doing to me, Sean? What do you want?”
Two weeks in the dark, barely any food or water, only the room of a soup kitchen cooler to use for all his body functions. I meant, of course, to break him the way I had been broken. The way it had taken decades for me to reach.
I wanted him to see, for once, what I saw. To stand at my side and understand why I wanted to put PCW to the sword, why I wanted to lead every member of my horde to a better life, why I needed him.
“I want you... I need you, Ezra, the real you. I want the real you by my side like it used to be...” I imagined what we looked like then; an illegitimate and defeated king of the hobos and a whining bitch of a so-called warrior. To stand together, to stand at all, was a farce. ”but we've both fallen such a long way.”
I head the shuffling of feet again and the thud of back to concrete. Ezra's body sunk down the soiled wall until his ass hit the cold, moist ground. He'd given up the search for the door and instead settled in on the floor to conserve energy after his frantic lurch for liberty.
In the dark I heard his breathing, first shallow and considered until... until the pace of his breath quickened and gained sound. The sound became a laugh, a cackle. “You lost, didn't you? I know that sound. The shame of it just eats you up inside, doesn't it.”
“I underestimated them. Shane... Tamora, Gabriel, every other person in that tournament. I didn't see what they were capable of.” It didn't matter what I said, what weakness I admitted to the gargoyle in the room, the hacking laugh wouldn't stop.
It was right though. Kyle Shane was a punk kid with a god complex but he'd wrestled two grueling matches in one night and come out victorious in both. Alexandra Tamora had run through to the final, through veterans and newcomers alike, showing ungodly strength and more smarts that her looks let on. Both of them out-matched and out-gunned the wily veteran.
“Or maybe you overestimated yourself.” Another rasping cackle broke out from the monster's unseen lungs, carrying a sinister edge that enjoyed tormenting the tormentor. If I wasn't so ashamed of the verbal bruising I would have been proud of him. “You got your neck broken by Alexa Black. You failed as the Seeker that Cleric Calder wanted you to become. You fell not once but twice in the Icemann Invitational. Maybe you just aren't the 'king' you think you are, tough guy.”
Alexa Black, Kyle Shane, Alexandra Tamora, Gabriel... all the competitors from the Last Chance Battle Royal and more, every single one was a potential entrant into the Battle Bowl and I fully intended to be among their number for the first time ever event. It presented an opportunity, to make history and stake a claim after all had been lost.
But for all that bluster, all that ambition, the same weaknesses would be in the mix and I had to prepare for the eventuality that we would be meeting again very soon.
“From someone who can't even fill his sweater, that doesn't mean much.” The cackle stopped but I could hear the pumping of his chest and the rattling of his breath as it tried to escape. He was laughing in my face in all but sound. “You should have been a fighter in your own right but you became weak. We both let ourselves become weak. But at least I was trying to do something about it.”
I thought back to my death in PCW as far as the Faithful were concerned, the broken neck suffered from the Black Widow. The ten months away rebuilding from the ground up. Before that the moment I got Ezra free from The Order and its corrupted mitts, Cleric Calder's broken ideology being destroyed by something he didn't understand. And then all the progress fell to nothing. “I fought and I killed Calder, in spite of not living up to his grand billing. I came back from Alexa Black's worst, I healed that broken neck and I made an army. The tournament was a convenient option, and I thought it was a given... I won't make that mistake again.”
“Compulsive mistake makers always say that, Sean. Whatever comes next, you'll expect to win... but what happens when you can't?” In the shadow I saw a devil's face staring back at me. Practically glowing with righteousness and hate, reveling in the spite. It reminded me of myself a little too much for my stomach to muster.
“I find a way to survive. I always have and always will. That's what I want you to understand.” Every second since I'd taken Ezra away from The Order was geared toward training Ezra to survive in the real world, not the fantasy land he'd lived in before. “I brought you here. I saved you and kept you alive. What did I get? I got a whiny, whinging child who was too weak to survive without my help.”
Suddenly the haggard shape of a slender man loomed up in the shade and steadied his weakened frame. “You brought me here to rot! You brought me here to die from the soul outward as I watched the Sean Rhodes I'd known fade away into this... thing!”
“NO!” I fired up from the ground to meet my desiccated lover and, without thinking, took Ezra's throat in my left hand. He had no right to criticise who I was, what I'd become. Medication is for the weak who don't have what it takes to survive what life can throw after all it's regular weapons are exhausted. I'm not sure if he was so light, or I found the strength within myself, but I lifted his pathetic body clear off the ground. “You're wrong! I brought you here to make you strong again! Only when you've seen and lived through the worst humanity can offer can you understand what it truly means to survive! I haven't got the decades it took to teach me that, but I have this place.”
I'd learned how to survive on my own, now I was helping him take those steps. I felt Ezra gasp desperately for air and try to fight back with feeble strikes at my arm. His weak limbs were nothing and I felt stronger than ever as whatever power he had left was drained from him. “Sean... stop.”
“No, no no no. You're not there yet. You still have your ideals and your morals, you still have your hope. When you stop asking me to let you go and start asking me to let you die again... maybe you've seen enough to learn how to survive.”
“SEAN!” I heard through a haze of blood lust and power. He was on the verge of being lost to the world when my grip finally relented. I threw Ezra's fragile body to the ground with all the callousness I'd give the other fighters in the Battle Bowl. His bones clattered into the cold hard floor as I made my way to the door.
“Open up.” I hollered and banged on the door, looking back to see Ezra scrabbling around in the shade like a spider looking for a hole to dive down. “Open up!”
The light filled the room instantly, burning the eyes with its touch. As my eyes adjusted once more I found Pike's longing eyes and Tor's silent strength waiting for me. “Give him another two weeks. We'll see how that idealism holds out when there's nothing else left.”
The embarrassment of facing up to every pathetic fan after your promises have been turned to dust.
Watching as a jumped up gamer boy pinned your shoulders to the mat, unable to do a gods damned thing about it.
The general misfortune of being Razor Blade.
And seeing a once proud warrior wither into a husk of what he once had been. For once once I could not lay that one solely on Ezra's bony shoulders.
“Ehhh... I don't like, boss.” Pike's mad eyes seemed unnaturally worried as he tickled the rusted handle of the industrial cooler. His caterpillar eyebrows hugged his wild glare to comfort them from the potential danger he could be allowing. “The boy might'a gone rabid, like a man-sized rat. I've seen it happen. One day they're talkin' back and the next they're gnawin' on their own leg like it's a candy cane.”
“You underestimate him, Pike, he's a little more resilient than that.” I spoke, more from hope than expectation. If Ezra's recent behaviour had been any indication, when that door opened he would be a rotting corpse. But if, just if, part of him was still the Guardian that had been trained to fight by The Order then he might have survived. “Give it time and even the last morsels of humanity will leave him... I hope it won't come to that though.”
The caterpillars lifted in silent relent and Pike sighed. Giving a last look of longing toward Tor who, as she always had been, remained voiceless but allowed a curt nod of approval. “Whatever you say, Sir. Personally I'd throw a cat in there first just to play it safe, but if you insist...”
With a heave the door to the disused industrial cooler opened and the stale air of the kitchen, unpleasant to the nose, was replaced by the fetid stench of death.
Pike wrinkled his nose and flashed his head back in disgust. “You're right, Sir. Would'a been a waste of a good cat... Sir?”
I took at step past Pike and into the cloud of deathly odour. Few times in life do you experience that concoction of rotting matter and withering life. With the full expectation of finding a young man's body nestled in some lightless corner, I took a step into the cooler.
The howl was not human, of that I was certain. Perhaps Pike had settled on a sickly hound instead of the cat to search the room. But no, out of the gloom hurtled a horrifying form in what could only be described as a shambling dash.
I braced myself to be tackled by the creature but, rather than attacking me directly, it speared for the hole in the door. Seeking the light, it's bony frame struck a glancing blow against my shoulder. As I spun from the impact I grabbed a handful of red sweater and pulled back hard.
“I've got him!” I shouted, frenzied, at the two figures in the doorway. “Close it!”
“Sir, you're...?” Pike stared into the room with panicked eyes as the thrall-like face of a once young man tried to throw itself at him. Next to it, dragging the wretched thing back, was his master.
“Shut the fucking door!” I ordered and Tor, without hesitation, took the door from Pike and slammed it shot on the head of the withered thing.
The slam sent it tumbling backwards across the pitch black ground but I heard the desperate scuffle of bare feet scrambling back to his one point of salvation. “No! No no no! Let me out of here you fucking freaks!”
The voice remained the same at least. Drained but still fundamentally 'him'. And then it turned into a quiet sobbing against the metal door, hoping for escape, or maybe just the comfort of the light. “You're not going anywhere, Ezra. We're both in the shadows now.”
The starved body of Ezra Colne recoiled from the door and shuffled back. I remained sat close by, thrown by his desperate bid for freedom, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the darkness.
I was used to the darkness, but Ezra was a child of the light and so alien to the shadows even after two weeks. I felt the air in the room shift as he waved his arms around, searching for me. “What are you doing to me, Sean? What do you want?”
Two weeks in the dark, barely any food or water, only the room of a soup kitchen cooler to use for all his body functions. I meant, of course, to break him the way I had been broken. The way it had taken decades for me to reach.
I wanted him to see, for once, what I saw. To stand at my side and understand why I wanted to put PCW to the sword, why I wanted to lead every member of my horde to a better life, why I needed him.
“I want you... I need you, Ezra, the real you. I want the real you by my side like it used to be...” I imagined what we looked like then; an illegitimate and defeated king of the hobos and a whining bitch of a so-called warrior. To stand together, to stand at all, was a farce. ”but we've both fallen such a long way.”
I head the shuffling of feet again and the thud of back to concrete. Ezra's body sunk down the soiled wall until his ass hit the cold, moist ground. He'd given up the search for the door and instead settled in on the floor to conserve energy after his frantic lurch for liberty.
In the dark I heard his breathing, first shallow and considered until... until the pace of his breath quickened and gained sound. The sound became a laugh, a cackle. “You lost, didn't you? I know that sound. The shame of it just eats you up inside, doesn't it.”
“I underestimated them. Shane... Tamora, Gabriel, every other person in that tournament. I didn't see what they were capable of.” It didn't matter what I said, what weakness I admitted to the gargoyle in the room, the hacking laugh wouldn't stop.
It was right though. Kyle Shane was a punk kid with a god complex but he'd wrestled two grueling matches in one night and come out victorious in both. Alexandra Tamora had run through to the final, through veterans and newcomers alike, showing ungodly strength and more smarts that her looks let on. Both of them out-matched and out-gunned the wily veteran.
“Or maybe you overestimated yourself.” Another rasping cackle broke out from the monster's unseen lungs, carrying a sinister edge that enjoyed tormenting the tormentor. If I wasn't so ashamed of the verbal bruising I would have been proud of him. “You got your neck broken by Alexa Black. You failed as the Seeker that Cleric Calder wanted you to become. You fell not once but twice in the Icemann Invitational. Maybe you just aren't the 'king' you think you are, tough guy.”
Alexa Black, Kyle Shane, Alexandra Tamora, Gabriel... all the competitors from the Last Chance Battle Royal and more, every single one was a potential entrant into the Battle Bowl and I fully intended to be among their number for the first time ever event. It presented an opportunity, to make history and stake a claim after all had been lost.
But for all that bluster, all that ambition, the same weaknesses would be in the mix and I had to prepare for the eventuality that we would be meeting again very soon.
“From someone who can't even fill his sweater, that doesn't mean much.” The cackle stopped but I could hear the pumping of his chest and the rattling of his breath as it tried to escape. He was laughing in my face in all but sound. “You should have been a fighter in your own right but you became weak. We both let ourselves become weak. But at least I was trying to do something about it.”
I thought back to my death in PCW as far as the Faithful were concerned, the broken neck suffered from the Black Widow. The ten months away rebuilding from the ground up. Before that the moment I got Ezra free from The Order and its corrupted mitts, Cleric Calder's broken ideology being destroyed by something he didn't understand. And then all the progress fell to nothing. “I fought and I killed Calder, in spite of not living up to his grand billing. I came back from Alexa Black's worst, I healed that broken neck and I made an army. The tournament was a convenient option, and I thought it was a given... I won't make that mistake again.”
“Compulsive mistake makers always say that, Sean. Whatever comes next, you'll expect to win... but what happens when you can't?” In the shadow I saw a devil's face staring back at me. Practically glowing with righteousness and hate, reveling in the spite. It reminded me of myself a little too much for my stomach to muster.
“I find a way to survive. I always have and always will. That's what I want you to understand.” Every second since I'd taken Ezra away from The Order was geared toward training Ezra to survive in the real world, not the fantasy land he'd lived in before. “I brought you here. I saved you and kept you alive. What did I get? I got a whiny, whinging child who was too weak to survive without my help.”
Suddenly the haggard shape of a slender man loomed up in the shade and steadied his weakened frame. “You brought me here to rot! You brought me here to die from the soul outward as I watched the Sean Rhodes I'd known fade away into this... thing!”
“NO!” I fired up from the ground to meet my desiccated lover and, without thinking, took Ezra's throat in my left hand. He had no right to criticise who I was, what I'd become. Medication is for the weak who don't have what it takes to survive what life can throw after all it's regular weapons are exhausted. I'm not sure if he was so light, or I found the strength within myself, but I lifted his pathetic body clear off the ground. “You're wrong! I brought you here to make you strong again! Only when you've seen and lived through the worst humanity can offer can you understand what it truly means to survive! I haven't got the decades it took to teach me that, but I have this place.”
I'd learned how to survive on my own, now I was helping him take those steps. I felt Ezra gasp desperately for air and try to fight back with feeble strikes at my arm. His weak limbs were nothing and I felt stronger than ever as whatever power he had left was drained from him. “Sean... stop.”
“No, no no no. You're not there yet. You still have your ideals and your morals, you still have your hope. When you stop asking me to let you go and start asking me to let you die again... maybe you've seen enough to learn how to survive.”
“SEAN!” I heard through a haze of blood lust and power. He was on the verge of being lost to the world when my grip finally relented. I threw Ezra's fragile body to the ground with all the callousness I'd give the other fighters in the Battle Bowl. His bones clattered into the cold hard floor as I made my way to the door.
“Open up.” I hollered and banged on the door, looking back to see Ezra scrabbling around in the shade like a spider looking for a hole to dive down. “Open up!”
The light filled the room instantly, burning the eyes with its touch. As my eyes adjusted once more I found Pike's longing eyes and Tor's silent strength waiting for me. “Give him another two weeks. We'll see how that idealism holds out when there's nothing else left.”
