Post by DistortedAmber on Aug 13, 2020 6:42:35 GMT -5
“I find it truly appalling that there are people in the world like you. You are a disgusting, vile, repulsive, repugnant, foul creature. Because of you, I don't believe in God anymore. No just God would allow someone like you to exist.”
― Tucker Max, I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
Abandoned Dive Bar Basement
Atlantic City, NJ
09.08.2020
10:04pm
Someone had once told her never to drink after a head injury.
Of course the idea of injury was one eternally up for debate in the wrestling industry and the line drawn between harmless and life threatening was one consistently blurred by exceptions to the rule. Far more often than not it was the innocuous and the benign that posed the greatest threat to a career- a bad landing, a mistime, an error of judgement…
Perhaps that's how she’d ended up in this position- hunched over as far as her body would allow in an attempt to take up the least space possible without physically imploding, her left hand tightly clutching a murky glass as though trying to shatter it with sheer force of her grip. Years of broken and dislocated fingers however prevented this possibility, while her strength and will had been sapped by the hollow, sick feeling resonating in the depths of her chest.
With knuckles pale, she watched the last residue of something dark amber and smelling fiercely alcoholic pool silently in the bottom of the glass- normally she might have taken such beverages over ice but judging by the sanitary conditions of the place she’d rather just have avoided a case of dysentery altogether.
Despite the many years she’d been coming here- no one could ever agree on the origin of this place, some said it used to be a high class cellar during prohibition with casks of whiskey and priceless bottles of wine stacked from floor to ceiling, others disputed that it was a hangout for organized crime lords and that tunnels they used to run drugs and firearms had long since collapsed due to the increased infrastructure and poor maintenance.
Either way- Amber would have been just as content to see the place burn as for it to stand another thousand years.
Water seemed to leak in with a constant drip like white noise, while mould flourished like a darkening blanket that no one wanted to acknowledge as an issue. Signs had been posted up that there was ‘No Smoking’ however ashtrays still dotted the room in an attempt to encourage people from stubbing out their cigarettes on the bar.
Somewhere in the background the visceral sound of a man vomiting drew Amber briefly from her stupor, the makeshift cage he leaned on bowing and unsteady against his weight- the type of set up just sturdy enough to keep people contained but not so much so that you couldn’t argue it was more just aesthetic.
Far more times than she dared to admit aloud, Amber had stepped between those flimsy walls when nothing else could temper the noxious fury in her heart. It was unhealthy and wrong, she’d been told time and time again that violence wasn’t the answer to her problems, but it was certainly enough of a distraction that the rest of her life might not seem so daunting if only for a while.
In her pocket she could feel her phone vibrating- no doubt it was Mac for the umpteenth time. She hadn’t spoken to him following Chaos and word was that he’d gone looking for her, but she’d disappeared before he ever got the chance.
Another wrong, another shitty decision on the mounting pile she’d curated… but she couldn’t do this to him, not right now. Fuck. He deserved so much better knowing she’d never live up to the image he held- eventually he’d come to his senses. He’d see her for what she really was and the fairy tale would fall through her grasping fingers…
He wanted to right all the wrongs and make the world better, but she didn’t have the emotional capacity to be doted on… She didn’t want him dragged through the mud like she’d done to so many others- god knows how many times that mistake had cost her beyond measure.
Mac wanted to fix everything, to fix her… but sometimes she didn’t want a solution- just to be allowed to hate everything.
Granted, he had every right to be concerned, to say it was a shitty night was an understatement and somehow she couldn’t bear to make it any worse. She knew he’d be outraged, not only at what she was doing now… Year and a half of relative sobriety straight down the fucking drain cause things went sideways with a man on a constant downward trajectory, but because of what…
Because he...
FUCK.
Viciously Amber swiped the glass off the bar where it exploded upon impact with the floor, sending shards skittering in all directions. Several other ‘patrons’ glanced over for a moment towards the redhead, her heaving breaths and seething glare nothing new in a place like this- but wildly uncommon for the usually apathetic champion.
None of them actually gave a fuck. They had no reason to- none of them cared she was a kendamned world champion, that she was supposed to be able to keep her cool, that she was supposed to stay level-headed and self-assured in the gloating faces of people like GKD.
She wasn’t though and the illusion of stability she’d created as champion was falling away, she was losing her grip and falling back into a mental place she wasn’t sure she could drag herself back from with vengeance and gratuitous violence.
God, he was like a damn splinter in her psyche… The more she resisted, the deeper he seemed to dig.
Instinctively, she hunched back over with her left hand seeking out the stitches tracing down the back of her head- each nub still inflamed and raw as flakes of dried blood came away on her fingertips.
She couldn’t stand to be around people but dared not be alone as thick tresses of crimson fell around her face- a heavy thud followed by some lukewarm jeers in the background suggested a rather anticlimactic end to the fight, however Amber was far more preoccupied with the ceaseless wracking pain pulsating through her skull.
No doubt another drink would do little to help, but by now she didn’t really have anything else left worth trying.
“May I?”
Crackled with age and likely the rigors of hard living, an older man in faded fatigues stepped up beside her with a polite, albeit distant half smile. Once lithe muscle had atrophied in places with age and neglect while the dull shine of grey glittered under the poor attempt at fluorescence.
Maybe 6’2 or 6’3, it was difficult to tell with posture as he slumped forward slightly- the open front of his faded button up exposing a once white wife beater, now pale and sickly grey. Amber didn’t respond, more so in hopes that he might simply leave without further conversation however with a beer bottle in hand, he lingered with a level of uncertainty in his bleary, bloodshot eyes.
“I’m sorry for staring, but you look oddly familiar.”
Scoffing loudly, Amber half-heartedly waved down for another drink of her own, garnering a vaguely annoyed look for the fact her previous glass was in a thousand pieces strewn across the floor.
“I don’t doubt that. I’ve been told I resemble a young Marilyn Monroe…”
Sarcasm was effortless, an easy vitriolic mechanism to keep the world at bay however the man took it in his stride, his heavy set cheekbones and deep wrinkles around his dark eyes suggested at one point he might have been handsome however the passing years hadn’t been at all kind.
“While I’m sure that's the case, it's not that. Your mother's name… it wouldn’t happen to have been Sarah, would it?”
Every shot in the dark had a chance to hit although Amber did her best not to react, however the twinge in her chest illustrated briefly in a twitch at the corner of her lips. She never actually knew her mother, photos could only tell so much of a story and the recollections of others always seemed rose tinted and poetically nostalgic as if ‘don’t speak ill of the dead’ didn’t have a statute of limitations.
“It’s just you have her looks- thank god. Your fathers eyes though… I’d recognize that color anywhere.”
Without making eye contact she took up her new glass, examining it briefly before downing it's contents in one, the burning sensation doing little to dull the radiating ache from the hole in her chest where she swore her heart was supposed to reside.
She’d always been told she got her somewhat distinct eye colour from her father, not quite blue but not quite green either like the shifting ocean on a cool winter morning, like tiny plumes of smoke should they have been painted a misty teal.
He was a missing puzzle piece though, indistinct as though the memory had blurred where he once stood- no one could ever tell her more than cursory niceties as though they might be describing a piece of furniture or child's scrawl on the fridge.
Something inside Amber’s chest spasmed painfully, that wrenching pain stealing the breath from her lungs momentarily as ‘Godly’ Ken Davisons words echoed inside her head. Vividly, like he might have stood beside her and whispered softly straight through her frontal lobe…
Maybe he knew the impact of what he said, maybe he was as surprised as anyone else the way she’d stopped dead in her tracks- that somehow he’d put something into motion that even his charm offensive could no longer mitigate.
Of course, in the end, they were just words…
Words that changed nothing. Words that she would make him choke upon.
Maybe that's all they were, but that didn’t make them hurt any less.
“Ah, fuck. I must be the biggest asshole going… Name’s Jonathan Webb. Johnny if you prefer although I’ll respond to anything provided you sound convincing enough. Your father and I served together- great man, bit of a dick but aren’t we all…”
She could feel that burning knot buried beneath her sternum like rubbing alcohol poured across every nerve scraped raw- her skin prickled in anticipation as adrenaline bubbled uncomfortably in her blood, no longer could she disguise the fierce tremble in her hands behind painfully clenched fists.
Taking a long swig from his bottle, Johnny’s words hung heavily despite the easy nature of his tone.
“You don’t believe me.”
Did she believe him? It was hard to say- she went to speak but choked out only a vague comprehension of acknowledgement as though the words, bitter on her tongue belonged to someone else.
Johnny stifled a small chuckle, perhaps sensing her hesitation.
“Don’t worry, I wouldn’t either…Of all the shitty dive bars in all the world- the odds of people like us crossing paths is remarkably slim. You could call it fate, or destiny or whatever your favourite poison might be, but sometimes these things just happen. We can’t explain them- so why bother trying?”
With her pulse thundering in the back of her throat as though it might become a choking hazard, Amber pensively stared through the bottom of the glass. She wanted to run, to throw herself into oncoming traffic, to chain smoke until her lungs might collapse, to fall into the arms of a man who’s love she absolutely didn’t deserve and cry every shitty, hateful thing she held inside onto his shoulder.
She wanted everything to stop being so fucking real, so acerbic and hurtful.
All of this, whatever the fuck it was becoming, it felt so wrong… but in the same breath, it was the closest thing she’d gotten to a semblance of closure.
“I find it hard to put much belief into anything a man says when he hasn’t said anything at all. If you wanna talk idle philosophy- I’m sure there's a pile of sick in the corner that would be far more intrigued.”
“Yeah, you really are his girl… Same hostile attitude, same dogged persistence and same lack of anything resembling patience.”
Before now, she hadn’t considered the fact she might be concussed- she didn’t think so, but that didn’t make her feel any less nauseated.
God, she wished Mac were there.
He’d have understood, even if he couldn’t. His confident, warm smile would tell her that he believed she was capable of anything- even if she couldn’t believe it herself. She wanted that warmth, that determination to be better… and instead she only found a void urging her to simply fall away.
Fall away, lose control… It’d be easy. No one would even notice.
Maybe this was all a kendamned mistake- like mixing LSD with moonshine leading to the world's worst hangover, a bedroom filled with red helium balloons and a strangers hat that smelled oddly like Chinese food. Maybe she should have just sat alone on her shitty fucking balcony contemplating the survivability of a five storey fall, and pretending like she wouldn’t wake up in the morning just a little more pissed off upon hearing that Ken Davison’s hadn’t simply died from being massive cunt.
She definitely shouldn’t have been drinking but somehow that stopped mattering hours earlier- back when she could practically still feel the metal of those brass knuckles cracking through her kendamn skull cause she was so caught up in his bullshit that she missed the fatal error staring her straight in the face...
“Perhaps... we could come to some form of information arrangement.”
Maybe this was what disappointing everyone was supposed to feel like.
******
“I’ve failed a lot of people in my life.
Many of them were those who cared about me for just long enough that I could hurt them so badly that they never recovered, they were people that I always swore I’d never do wrong by- only to then go and cross my fingers behind my back the moment things got a little out of control. They were the people who gave me far more than I have ever deserved and who accepted the little decency I was able to give- the same people who could only stand by and watch as I took all of that and set it aflame.
I’ve sent more bridges to cinder than I was ever able to build- and yet for some reason there are those who still continue to care…
I guess I’m just really good at letting people down.
I haven’t always been this way though- I guess the worst of us have that line constantly synced up ready everytime we’re asked to justify our actions. I didn’t just wake up one day and decide that today was the day I’d start just ruining peoples lives.
For the longest time I just wanted to do right by people, I wanted to be everything the world ever wanted me to be and to live up to the potential that they told me I saw- there was a time in my life that I was a good fucking person.
That I’d have done anything for those I cared about- even if it meant making some questionable decisions.
There are those you encounter in life though that won’t ever let you be that person- they can’t bear to see anyone try to better themselves, they won’t allow you to find peace and absolution in the darkest corners of your existence…
They wanna see everyone be as miserable and kendamned awful as they are- cause otherwise it exposes them, all of a sudden their defences of vindication and that they are the lesser of evils somehow falls like dominoes around them cause they can’t point at someone and tell everyone how their flaws are somehow worse.
Now, at We Are Relentless I stand across from a man who epitomises the very worst of those people...
A man who wants nothing more than to see me fail just one more time, as though it somehow makes me a lesser person for having done so. A man whose current life's work is to make the world around him justify his actions by exploiting everything and everyone around him if only so that when consequences finally come for their pound of flesh, he can throw his hands up and claim it was self-defense and persecution all along.
A man so fucking determined to make sure that I end up disappointing everyone who might still give the tiniest fuck about me.
So I guess this is the obligatory point I’m supposed to start declaring how that won’t happen, how I’m going to overcome it, cause good triumphs over evil and fairytales always have a happy ending. Heroes win the day and the villains slink back down the holes they crawled out from, dragons are slayed by brave warriors and princesses rescued from gloomy keeps... Cliche after sorry, tired cliche cause the idea is just so satisfying to cling to.
Thing is kiddies- and especially in this case- there's no good left to overcome the evil, there are no heroes to defeat villains nor knights to slay fire breathing beasts...There is no storybook ending here cause fairytales don’t really exist.
If I thought it meant anything- I could stand by and declare that this time would be different, that I could promise against all odds that I’d be better, that this time I wouldn’t disappoint again… But what you need to understand is that to keep this title?
I’ll take all those promises and plant my sweetest gasoline kiss on their lips.
Maybe that makes me selfish, maybe I’m the fucking worst person in the world to hold this title above all and that I shouldn’t allow a strap of leather and metal to define my career but what you need to understand is that I’ve sacrificed far too much to simply stop now. I’ve put everything I ever cared about on the line for this and I’ll be damned if I don’t make those sacrifices mean something.
From the moment I won I swore I’d make this title worthwhile again, make it something worth chasing and holding- I wanted it's prestige to be more than just that of the person holding it, that the title might make the holder and not the other way around.
… then someone like you wants to come along and take that from me.
And why?
So that I can’t have it.
You wanna take it for the sake of making sure it doesn’t belong to anyone else- and let's be honest you’ve done your damnedest to try and take from me enough as it is… Hell, I have no doubt you hold this title in as much acclaim as you do having a regular bowel movement.
Time after time, you’ve taken the lives of friends and family into your own hands like you might actually believe you are God himself- and you’ve gone out of your way to make this personal at every turn and I won’t sit here and deny that you’ve succeeded.
I’ll be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever hated someone so much in my life- but it's not for the reason you might think…
It's not cause you’ve dragged everyone I care about through the fucking wringer in an effort to draw the worst out in me, it's not even for the fact that you got everything you ever wanted by being the biggest scumbag this company might ever have seen…
It's because you just don’t fucking care about any of this.
You turned this match into a cesspool of emotion and drama- throwing everyone under the proverbial bus cause you just want to see me hurt but I won’t make this about them- as much as I’m sure you’d love to.
I won’t make this about Kyra and how much it kills me to see you whispering sweet nothings in her ear knowing all too well that you’re using her cause those easily offended are just as easily manipulated. I won’t make this about Mac cause that man loves me more than I have any right to be loved and I can’t even begin to describe what I’d do if you so much as looked at him the wrong way.
And I won’t make this about Jack Michaels despite the fact that this is where it all started.
No Ken, try as you might… This match comes down to us, and only us.
See, you might piss me off relentlessly with the fact your ticker hasn’t just exploded in your chest and saved us all the effort… but I took some time to reflect and realized that this title, this Carnage World title. MY Carnage world title…
Well, keeping it means far more than anything you might ever say or do to me.
What I am is the worst kind of World Champion Ken- the type that freely admits they care about this title above all else, the type that is selfish beyond measure and ruthless to a fault. ‘Over my dead body’ never truly seemed so kendamned apt considering I’d rather shuffle off this mortal coil than ever see you hold this belt. I’m a desperate fucking champion Ken, trying desperately to dig her heels into the soft sand while clinging onto something that should have never rightfully been mine...
I shouldn’t be the Carnage World champion.
I’m not a dominant champion spitting out challengers like a macabre woodchipper- I’m an underdog champion hanging on by the skin of her teeth, clawing at a glass mountain side in hopes that I might keep a foothold for just a little longer. Scrambling to keep hold of the idea that I might just be better than any other man or woman on any given night.
I never should have beaten Mac for my shot considering he dislocated my shoulder twice in that match.
But I did.
I never should have beaten Jack for the title at Isolation- instead I should be in a fucking morgue somewhere with my career asterisked and forgotten about.
But I did.
I never should have beaten Trent to retain it after going into overtime clinging to the hope that one of us might be the first to falter.
But I did.
Now, I shouldn’t beat you cause you’re in my head and living rent free, redecorating by trying to kick my amygdala through the space between my eyes and trying to draw out something awful in me in hopes I might simply lose control.
But I can and I will.
If this is your magnum opus GKD, your crowning achievement and masterstroke of brilliance- it carries as much weight as ghosts foreskin, you threw away everything you worked for the moment you wanted to turn this into a bloodbath.
2017 I won this title at the same event- I took everything Sabiru had to throw at me and I smiled and asked for more. 2018 I stepped to the edge of oblivion onto an operating table being told I might not walk again and 2019 I was bleeding out on a pavement cause addiction and self-loathing got me so fucked up I couldn’t see straight sober.
So if you think there's anything that you might be able to do now to stop me… All those precious moments where you sunk your claws a little deeper cause it made you smile, all those words whispered so sickly sweet it might give me diabetes if I think too hard about it- all those times that you thought you had gotten the better of me…
I’m no longer your victim Ken, I’m no longer a tragedy to be prodded to breaking point.
Submission. First Blood. Cage Of Death.
At We Are Relentless- I’m gonna go out there and do what I do best… Disappoint everyone by walking out with MY Carnage World Title.