Post by Murdoc on Sept 13, 2014 13:21:01 GMT -5
****
It’s amazing how things can change in just a few hours.
He hadn’t been able to sleep.
Common occurrence lately, but notable all the same. Sleep should be possible after the brutal training schedule he’d kept. One would imagine the man to be comatose from his exertion. But not Murdoc. Oh no. THIS one finds himself suffering an ill-timed bout of insomnia. What great luck, eh? Him not having seen the inside of his own bedroom, there had been no indication that she would be joining him this evening. By all accounts, His Star should be twinkling along with all the other dreams lifted to the night sky.
Just a little bit brighter than the rest.
Instead, the night is darker from her absence. The world missing out on her celestial glow. For she walks the Earth anew this night. Standing before him. Actually. Standing before him is the wrong phrase. Undulating before him. Tantalizing him. Prodding at those primal urges that we ALL must give in to. Murdoc knows those urges all too well ... and he is on the cusp of acting upon them.
A sudden stagger, subtle and nearly imperceptible, but a stagger all the same. She steadies against him, head buried in the crook of his accepting shoulder. Instantly, ANOTHER urge barrels its’ way to the forefront. That of protector. She assures him that she’s fine, that it may just be hormones. Hormones. Of course. It might be that time ... wait. Hormones.
... hormones?
Hormones would only cause vertigo in ......
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
A thermo-nuclear thought explodes in his mind. Remnants of whatever may have been happening before scattered to the four winds, nothing left in mind but ... HER.
Instinctively, a hand raises to her abdomen. Mind bubbling with so many thoughts, he can’t even remember the words that come out of his own mouth. Obviously, the token concern for her well-being. Especially with ... the pay-per-view coming up. ... fuck. The Black Hand. The Black Hand don’t give a fuck about mind games. They don’t care if they have to get their hands dirty.
The importance of this concern lay not in her past, but his OWN distant past.
The original Living a Legacy pay-per-view.
Himself squaring off against a VERY angry pair of women in Angelica Night and Whisper. Whisper. There was the issue. There was NO WAY he wanted anything to do with EITHER of them. ESPECIALLY at the same time. Murdoc worked some magic, called in some favors ... ta-da. The pre-show paperwork would show that Angelica Night had failed a drug screening. Those same favors would also allow him the secret knowledge that Whisper was expecting. Of course, Pure Class Wrestling would not sanction her to compete and would place her on medical leave.
Eira, however, would be the last person to mention it to anyone. But with that chance, what would happen if ...
... no. Nothing to worry about. Too early to tell. She’d need blood work done and ...
...
... suddenly, Murdoc was very afraid of the Black Hand.
****
The clock marches on with or without you.
“I’ve spoken this evening of time and the passage of it.”
“I have the chance. A brief chance. An outside chance. Not only to successfully defend what I have ... but to take from someone who been nothing but a THORN in my Lioness’ paw. I’m talking about YOU, Whitey Ford. The World Champion. The man who has the unenviable distinction of both having what I desire ... AND having wormed his way into my personal affairs.”
The room is small. Filled with the echo of a hundred clocks. Out of sync and deafening.
“I would be lying if I said there wasn’t a personal flavor to this match.”
“My personal march to the World Championship and you being a second-rate Prophet from 2007. Mhmmmmmmm. I look at you Whitey, and I see myself. Years ago, doing whatever it takes to stay one step ahead. I’ve outsmarted the best of them, outplayed the best. Until I realized something that you’ll come to realize if you manage to walk out of Return to Glory under your own power.”
“You will someday realize what I did long ago: that I didn’t NEED to outsmart anyone.”
‘What I said to you when you returned to Pure Class Wrestling still applies, Whitey. You’re walking the Prophet’s Path, a Trail of Tears that even I wished I hadn’t forged. Whitey, I’m not going to let you do it. Not because I want to be the only one to walk it or what have you. Whitey, I see myself in you. I see you where I was years ago. Full screen and larger than life and I ... “
... I wish I had never taken that path.”
A heavy, weighted sigh drowns out the clocks for just one moment.
“I should have gotten out while I could. I should’ve never come back when Pure Class Wrestling closed. I should have listened to my instincts. Followed my heart. AND NOT GIVEN A DAMN ABOUT THESE FANS! These people, this company ... they stole my life from me. My youth. My EVERYTHING! MY LIFE! They took my life, Whitey. And they’re taking yours. You may not notice it now, but five years down the road ... ten years ... you’ll finally understand. Clocks keep ticking, Whitey.”
The ticking slowly distorts, a hellish analog to the man’s words.
“My time is here and at Return to Glory, my time is UP.”
“I will take that World Championship because it is my last shot. The only thing that means anything to you people. The only way I can have revenge upon you. THE ONLY THING I WILL HAVE TO SHOW FOR GIVING MY LIFE TO THESE BUZZARDS! I will carve my name into PCW record books, into the public memories ... and I’m going to do it with your blood, Whitey. I pity you, Whitey. I FEEL SORRY FOR YOU. Because I know where you’re headed. And that’s no way to die. You probably feel immortal with that championship around your waist. The Superman Syndrome.”
“You’re not immortal.”
“All it takes is three seconds, Whitey.”
“One.”
“TWO.”
The clocks explode around him. Fireballs of time, flash-fried and melted. Salvador Dali’s wet dream.
“ .... three.”
****
