Post by The Anarchist on May 29, 2019 8:13:17 GMT -5
The conditions couldn't be more favorable than they were on this day. The sun fixed itself in the western part of the sky. Blue was predominant all around with a scatter of white clouds. Some of which, if one wished to engage in a whimsical endeavor, could be looked at with guesses about its shape.
Temperatures remained cool and mild in the mid-seventies. Everything was aligned so perfectly that people of all ages descended upon the local park to partake in whatever activity brought them there. The sounds of children laughing and squealing at the playground. The smell of barbeque perfuming the air. The ambiance of ducks flapping along the pond surface, quacking as they settled into position for scattered nibbles of food.
Up a grassy knoll of bright and shaded greens lay a red and white checkerboard cloth. Dotted all around were bellis perennis, better known as daisies, with their yellow disk florets and white petal-like ray florets. On top of the cloth was a wicker picnic basket. The utensils, plates, glasses and leftover food has long been packed away.
Seromine and Destiny were enjoying their outing. His hair was neatly pulled back into a tight ponytail, the length of which reached close to his shoulders. An earth tone button up shirt accentuated his beige pants. Destiny had her medium-length brown hair tied in a french braid. A minor application of foundation was applied to her face, but nothing more. Her maternity clothes provided plenty of comfort and was light enough for the weather.
She was now into her thirty-fifth week with Melanie, who thanks to finding a recliner in her future mother's pelvis, forced Destiny into frequent bathroom trips. Not a fun excursion when her pelvis and hips are experiencing the aches and pains associated with a future delivery. Destiny kicks her sandals off while cozying up against her husband's body. Seromine gently puts his arms around her while repositioning himself so that she's kept as comfortable as can be.
"Did you see the look on his face when I showed up?"
Seromine does his best imitation of Rick Majors reaction, which makes Destiny giggle. He said, and I quote, "I need to be fully focused on my opponent tonight if I want to win. And I will be. Seromine's not in my head. I'm in his."
Seromine snickers at the thought. "I told him and the entire world that I was going to be there and I was going to get him. Majors lost his focus and lost his match to a better opponent."
Destiny teases with a correction. "Actually, you said that you were going to return the favor."
"Same difference."
"He attacked you."
"After I had a grueling match with Stormm. Rick Majors can try to escape his past as Gabriel, but he's not going to escape my wrath at Living a Legacy. Besides. I proved my point."
Destiny tilts her head slightly back, viewing her husband at a partial upside down angle. She reaches up to pinch his cheeks. "You're so cute!"
"I took him in and gave him the salvation he desperately needed. How does he repay me for that? He hits me with his finisher and leaves me to the wolves!"
Seromine quickly apologizes to the womb in a calm whisper.
"Please be careful in there. I don't want you getting hurt again."
Her concern was valid. The night of Mass Destruction wasn't lost on either. Nobody has come forward to take responsibility for the attack before his entrance. Grimm, on the other hand...well, injuries are part of the business. Some are minor. Some are major. Some are career ending. That was the first major injury in his career and all he remembers about it was the sea of black that erased the sights and sounds of the match.
Destiny took the first flight out late that night filled with grief. When she got to the hospital and saw the love of her life laid up and hooked to machines, nurses had to calm her down as her emotions spiraled into overdrive. She was concerned that his career had just been ended, relieved that the injury wasn't as bad as it appeared and upset that he agreed to such a stupid stipulation like having Grimm's shovel legalized in the first place.
She was inseparable from him. No matter how long he would be admitted, she wasn't going back to Anaheim alone.
"Did you hear me?" She asks after drawing his attention.
"Always."
She smiles and offers a playful "you better have" in reply.
"I wish you could still be at ringside. I miss you being around." He sighs. "It feels weird after all of these years. Although it shouldn't since this isn't our first child."
She didn't reply.
She wasn't ignoring him.
She wasn't there.
"Destiny?"
He looks around the park. "Destiny??"
"DESTINY, WHERE ARE YOU?!"
Nobody was there. It was just him all alone in the park. He was confused by what he saw around him. The daisies wilted. The crisp green grass had turned brown. Shade became dark shadows everywhere he looked. The once blue sky was rapidly turning dark, pitch black almost, with the clouds getting gloomy.
Seromine cautiously stands up. Underneath his feet lay the tattered checkerboard cloth with fraying fabric peeling back from whistling wind. The wicker picnic basket was filled with bugs that needed no description. The smell of barbeque reeked of cooked flesh that had been left on the grill for too long. The metal playground equipment was rusted.
Over in the duck pond lay many dead waterfowls. Their snarled beaks frozen in horror of their last moments. Feathers soaked in blood which turned the water they floated on into a crimson pool. Trees everywhere stripped of their leaves, leaving naked limbs with jagged bark and exposed roots.
Seromine's anxious apprehension was beginning to take hold of his limbs. The once grassy knoll where he and his wife had once been sitting at, rumbled with a monstrous roll as if there was something moving through the earth.
And there was. The top of a shovel carving through like it were a sharks fin.
Grimm explodes out with such force that Seromine is knocked over like he was caught in an earthquake. His beard of fire was matched by the flowing embers in his hair. His glacier blue eyes were turning as dark as the deepest depths of the ocean. His hands were grasped firm on an oversized shovel with its glistening blade. His skin was ghostlike in its transparency.
The Hangtown Horror turns his weapon of choice sideways, showing Seromine the blood he drew at Mass Destruction still fertilized the ground for a macabre harvest.
Before he could eek out his wife's name one more time, the apparition began to shapeshift into who it actually was. Uprooting from the ground around Seromine came wooden crosses with rotting bodies fixed to them. Not crucified, but positioned in a way that they weren't going anywhere.
Bits and pieces of pastel prairie dresses and pinafore still remained on the four female corpses, their faces hidden behind battered animal masks, their braided pigtails somehow still in tact.
The four male corpses emerged with their dark plaid shirts and broadfall trousers in various states of ruin. Their animal masks also battered, if not partially missing some definition.
The spectre wasn't a version of Grimm after all. It was a scarecrow pieced together by wispy feathers of the eponymous bird. The park meanwhile was transformed into Seromine's 'Labyrinth Grove,' which places the orange trees in his immediate direction. The barn he had converted into a church was no longer rubble from a fire, but restored to its previous state. Although crows still perched anywhere they could.
XIII was not the costume of Justin "Stormm" Michaels this time, but rather a part of Seromine's trauma manifesting from his subconscious and appearing in his dreamscape.
This wasn't the first time.
Seromine finally has the resolve to make a move, but as he does that, XIII vanishes into an aviary kaleidoscope, flying away into the night sky. The former cult leader catches a glance at his ex-followers beginning to have their bodies regenerate.
That's when he wakes in a full panic. He looks at where he is as his brain starts to remind him of what's real again.
"Babe! Babe! Calm down, I'm here. Shh. It's ok, babe. I'm here."
Destiny pulls him over and wraps him up in her arms, quickly giving him a kiss as she lays her head against his.
Temperatures remained cool and mild in the mid-seventies. Everything was aligned so perfectly that people of all ages descended upon the local park to partake in whatever activity brought them there. The sounds of children laughing and squealing at the playground. The smell of barbeque perfuming the air. The ambiance of ducks flapping along the pond surface, quacking as they settled into position for scattered nibbles of food.
Up a grassy knoll of bright and shaded greens lay a red and white checkerboard cloth. Dotted all around were bellis perennis, better known as daisies, with their yellow disk florets and white petal-like ray florets. On top of the cloth was a wicker picnic basket. The utensils, plates, glasses and leftover food has long been packed away.
Seromine and Destiny were enjoying their outing. His hair was neatly pulled back into a tight ponytail, the length of which reached close to his shoulders. An earth tone button up shirt accentuated his beige pants. Destiny had her medium-length brown hair tied in a french braid. A minor application of foundation was applied to her face, but nothing more. Her maternity clothes provided plenty of comfort and was light enough for the weather.
She was now into her thirty-fifth week with Melanie, who thanks to finding a recliner in her future mother's pelvis, forced Destiny into frequent bathroom trips. Not a fun excursion when her pelvis and hips are experiencing the aches and pains associated with a future delivery. Destiny kicks her sandals off while cozying up against her husband's body. Seromine gently puts his arms around her while repositioning himself so that she's kept as comfortable as can be.
"Did you see the look on his face when I showed up?"
Seromine does his best imitation of Rick Majors reaction, which makes Destiny giggle. He said, and I quote, "I need to be fully focused on my opponent tonight if I want to win. And I will be. Seromine's not in my head. I'm in his."
Seromine snickers at the thought. "I told him and the entire world that I was going to be there and I was going to get him. Majors lost his focus and lost his match to a better opponent."
Destiny teases with a correction. "Actually, you said that you were going to return the favor."
"Same difference."
"He attacked you."
"After I had a grueling match with Stormm. Rick Majors can try to escape his past as Gabriel, but he's not going to escape my wrath at Living a Legacy. Besides. I proved my point."
Destiny tilts her head slightly back, viewing her husband at a partial upside down angle. She reaches up to pinch his cheeks. "You're so cute!"
"I took him in and gave him the salvation he desperately needed. How does he repay me for that? He hits me with his finisher and leaves me to the wolves!"
Seromine quickly apologizes to the womb in a calm whisper.
"Please be careful in there. I don't want you getting hurt again."
Her concern was valid. The night of Mass Destruction wasn't lost on either. Nobody has come forward to take responsibility for the attack before his entrance. Grimm, on the other hand...well, injuries are part of the business. Some are minor. Some are major. Some are career ending. That was the first major injury in his career and all he remembers about it was the sea of black that erased the sights and sounds of the match.
Destiny took the first flight out late that night filled with grief. When she got to the hospital and saw the love of her life laid up and hooked to machines, nurses had to calm her down as her emotions spiraled into overdrive. She was concerned that his career had just been ended, relieved that the injury wasn't as bad as it appeared and upset that he agreed to such a stupid stipulation like having Grimm's shovel legalized in the first place.
She was inseparable from him. No matter how long he would be admitted, she wasn't going back to Anaheim alone.
"Did you hear me?" She asks after drawing his attention.
"Always."
She smiles and offers a playful "you better have" in reply.
"I wish you could still be at ringside. I miss you being around." He sighs. "It feels weird after all of these years. Although it shouldn't since this isn't our first child."
She didn't reply.
She wasn't ignoring him.
She wasn't there.
"Destiny?"
He looks around the park. "Destiny??"
"DESTINY, WHERE ARE YOU?!"
Nobody was there. It was just him all alone in the park. He was confused by what he saw around him. The daisies wilted. The crisp green grass had turned brown. Shade became dark shadows everywhere he looked. The once blue sky was rapidly turning dark, pitch black almost, with the clouds getting gloomy.
Seromine cautiously stands up. Underneath his feet lay the tattered checkerboard cloth with fraying fabric peeling back from whistling wind. The wicker picnic basket was filled with bugs that needed no description. The smell of barbeque reeked of cooked flesh that had been left on the grill for too long. The metal playground equipment was rusted.
Over in the duck pond lay many dead waterfowls. Their snarled beaks frozen in horror of their last moments. Feathers soaked in blood which turned the water they floated on into a crimson pool. Trees everywhere stripped of their leaves, leaving naked limbs with jagged bark and exposed roots.
Seromine's anxious apprehension was beginning to take hold of his limbs. The once grassy knoll where he and his wife had once been sitting at, rumbled with a monstrous roll as if there was something moving through the earth.
And there was. The top of a shovel carving through like it were a sharks fin.
Grimm explodes out with such force that Seromine is knocked over like he was caught in an earthquake. His beard of fire was matched by the flowing embers in his hair. His glacier blue eyes were turning as dark as the deepest depths of the ocean. His hands were grasped firm on an oversized shovel with its glistening blade. His skin was ghostlike in its transparency.
The Hangtown Horror turns his weapon of choice sideways, showing Seromine the blood he drew at Mass Destruction still fertilized the ground for a macabre harvest.
Before he could eek out his wife's name one more time, the apparition began to shapeshift into who it actually was. Uprooting from the ground around Seromine came wooden crosses with rotting bodies fixed to them. Not crucified, but positioned in a way that they weren't going anywhere.
Bits and pieces of pastel prairie dresses and pinafore still remained on the four female corpses, their faces hidden behind battered animal masks, their braided pigtails somehow still in tact.
The four male corpses emerged with their dark plaid shirts and broadfall trousers in various states of ruin. Their animal masks also battered, if not partially missing some definition.
The spectre wasn't a version of Grimm after all. It was a scarecrow pieced together by wispy feathers of the eponymous bird. The park meanwhile was transformed into Seromine's 'Labyrinth Grove,' which places the orange trees in his immediate direction. The barn he had converted into a church was no longer rubble from a fire, but restored to its previous state. Although crows still perched anywhere they could.
XIII was not the costume of Justin "Stormm" Michaels this time, but rather a part of Seromine's trauma manifesting from his subconscious and appearing in his dreamscape.
This wasn't the first time.
Seromine finally has the resolve to make a move, but as he does that, XIII vanishes into an aviary kaleidoscope, flying away into the night sky. The former cult leader catches a glance at his ex-followers beginning to have their bodies regenerate.
That's when he wakes in a full panic. He looks at where he is as his brain starts to remind him of what's real again.
"Babe! Babe! Calm down, I'm here. Shh. It's ok, babe. I'm here."
Destiny pulls him over and wraps him up in her arms, quickly giving him a kiss as she lays her head against his.