Post by theravenmattknox on Dec 25, 2020 23:35:24 GMT -5
There are some secrets which do not permit themselves to be told. Men die nightly in their beds, wringing the hands of ghostly confessors, and looking them piteously in the eyes - die with despair of heart and convulsion of throat, on account of the hideousness of mysteries which will not suffer themselves to be revealed. Now and then, alas, the conscience of man takes up a burden so heavy in horror that it can be thrown down only into the grave. And thus the essence of all crime is undivulged.
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Baltimore was temperamental in the winter. Frigid enough to ward you away from walking its streets. So icy, you would swear warmth was a sensation once imagined. Something that could never be a reality in this landscape. Or it is balmy and threatening a torrential downpour. The kind of rain that brought Noah and his Ark to mind.
Would you be one of the two?
Matthew Knox would never even be told of the boat. He never had been before. Now, here two days before one of the most universally joyous days the world over, he sat in the empty parking lot of the Carnage Arena in Baltimore, MD. His breath hitched, his muscles cramped from being so wound and ready to spring. And his head, God his head. It screamed
HE has to die
THEY have to die
THIS has to DIE
With a great effort, he leaned forward to rest his head on the cool leather of the old Jaguar’s steering wheel. He took in a deep, hissing breath and let it out quickly. His breath steamed visibly in the icy interior. He had no idea how long he had been parked here. Only the night knew.
He reached between his legs, grabbing the brown paper bag and bringing the uncapped pint of Jim Beam to his lips, taking a swig to calm the nerves. To try and quiet his head. To quiet...
To quiet...
“Hello, Matthew….”
The door of the Jaguar XJ12 flew open then. The last barrier between him and the night air is gone, he feels the harsh bite of winter against his skin as much as anyone as drunk as he could. With an unsteady gait, he stepped away from the car still clutching his beverage. He raised one hand, pale as the moon above, and ran it through hair as dark as the night it lived within.
Glasz eyes raised to settle on the accursed building. He heard the cheers, like so many ghosts. Felt old wounds sting and lurch in their graves. The body shots of the unwell legend. The wrath of a monster. Cheap shot after cheap shot after cheap shot from the petulant manchild. The steel upon his throat from the unwell woman.
Then, the worst of it. The words.
“I love you, ok?”
“I know the person you’re trying to be.”
“We’re always here for you.”
Empty platitudes, it seemed in the end, With as much weight as a feather. And he bought it like it was gold. His rigid form relaxed slightly as he leaned into the Jaguar’s hard, unforgiving embrace and brought the bottle up for one more swig, before carelessly dropping it to the ground and heading to the rear of the vehicle, using it to steady himself as he fingered through the keyring to get to the right one.
The trunk popped open with a slight creak, betraying the age of the old car further. Matthew swore his back had made the same noise and allowed the thought a chuckle that did little to lift his spirits. Inside the trunk, a jerrycan stared back at him like a matador’s cape stared at the bull. A gaudy red beacon to his darkest desires. Once more, his eyes lifted back to look at that accursed, empty warehouse.
Its silhouette mocked him. Told him he ran away and abandoned all those who dwell within. That he was wrong and just as awful as they claimed him to be. Never won gold here because he wasn’t good enough. He was just an old has been meant to dwell in the mid-card, picking fights with high profile stars and authority figures just to stay relevant. And then, because he couldn’t get his revenge match and because his girlfriend took her ball and went home he left. Using her mistreatment as a moral high ground to stand above his failures.
Failures.
It was in the waning moments and wreckage of his greatest failure in Baltimore that he began to truly see the cracks in the foundation of the home he found. Where a man he let himself trust despite every red flag waving in his face calm down and lead away a monster who was hell-bent on killing him away like a pet to its crate. And then in the following days, piecing together that they were living together. Bedfellows for all he knew.
“You can’t fight one cancer while helping another spread.”
He was right when he told the younger man that. But She, the one he had let in, convinced him to trust. To let go of those dark feelings and give peace, camaraderie, and friendship a chance.
Then they stayed with the mending monster while he lay alone in a hospital bed.
He snatched the jerrycan and slammed the trunk lid shut. He began to walk to that big, empty blot upon the Baltimore skyline. A roar of thunder ominously told of the coming rains, the flood. The icy winds smelt wet from more than just the ocean. Inside, the storm raged nearing a crescendo. The cracks in his own foundation begin to widen.
This had to DIE.
Matthew deftly moved to the service entrance, where all the equipment was loaded and now sat dutifully waiting for the return of the stage staff to set it up to put on the pomp and circumstance meant to rile up the bloodlust of the fans before the carnage began. He reaches out, laying a hand upon the building with slight hesitation. Something he always did before shows. It felt like something then. Alive. A coliseum where he could prove himself to be one of the elite talents in this business.
Now, it almost burned.
Another crack of thunder brought him from his reverie, and with a sneer, he ripped the cap from the jerrycan and splashed the gasoline upon the service door and upon the walls. His veins, his pores, everything is engulfed in vitriol. His teeth clench and his eyes sting with rage-filled tears, his nostrils are assaulted by the gasoline. The fuel of the old, black, empty eyesore’s demise.
It was supposed to be home.
They were supposed to be family.
Now they had to
“Die?”
The voice freezes him, his limbs go numb. The jerrycan nearly slipping from his grip. His eyes clinched shut, a shaky exhale escapes his lips.
“I guess that makes sense. You being a killer and all. Your marriage, your chance at raising those girls, your career..” a pause, an inhale that sounded strained and wet, “Me.”
With more effort than he would ever admit to, Matthew opens his eyes and shifts them left to drink in the source of the voice. Stood beside him was the familiar form of greed, villainy and a hell of a cocaine habit that would put the 1980s to shame. He was a hair under six foot, salt and pepper hair slicked back with a goatee fading into a beard he hadn’t bothered to shave that morning. He was adorned in a grey track suit and the oldest pair of new balances in the united states.
And his head was twisted in a way it should not be. One eye had been filled in with a sickening red, further evidence of the untimely fate he met - No, earned.
Marv Nixon. The man who had tried having him killed over a dispute as ridiculous as the one that ended his employment in Carnage. The man who killed his step father in a bumbling attempt to kill him. And the man who’s neck he broke and left somewhere in the Northern Maine foliage.
“So, this is what it’s come to then? Arson? Jesus, even your criminal activity is declining in quality,” the thick northern accent ticked at his nerves like it did when the man was alive “A lot harder to hide this than a body, too you know.”
“Shut up.” Matthew mumbled, a hand idly raising to his face and pinching the bridge of his nose. He exhales a slow breath, “You’re not here. You’re. Not. Here.”
“Of course I am. Or maybe I’m not. Could be you’ve lost it, kid. Not that you ever had it.,” The form shifts, closer to him. The head and face bob in an unnatural fashion. Another deep, wet, ragged breath and he spoke again “Of course, that would mean you’d have to confront that ugly truth. And you won’t do that.”
“No, Homicide is your speed. Not the other one.”
“Shut up.” Matthew repeated, setting the jerrycan that had suddenly grown a hundred times over in weight to him down, and taking an uneasy, drunk step away from it. “Go away. You’re dead, you’re either a figment of the drink, or you’re just proof that I’m crazy. Either away, fuck off.”
The words lacked the same amount of resolve as they did venom. His tone was uneasy, filled with unease and fright. The specter, real and ethereal or ghost of his own device, paid him a brief, deafening laugh.
And then the first droplet of rain splashed upon his cheek, and he was aware of the storm’s arrival, and the deafening silence he greeted it with. An unsteady hand ran through his hair, quickly dampening in the downpour. He turned his face upward, eyes clinched shut. The rain showered down upon him in icy droplets, each picking away at the sin and regret that covered him.
Wash it away.
He couldn’t do this. He was a fool to even start on the path. Unsteadily, he began to move back toward the Jaguar, head rotating to where his face was downcast along with the rest of him. He reached a steadying hand out, resting it on the car just above the door as he turned his gaze one last time to the empty warehouse that now stood proud, and victorious.
It had beaten him.
He pulled the car door open, and slid into the soft, forgiving leather of the driver’s seat, slamming the door shut and cutting the icy night and the stench of defeat and regret out. A soft exhale afforded him a bit of relief. No. He couldn’t burn down this god forsaken monument to corruption, greed, betrayal and everything wrong with both wrestling and humanity.
And he’d never be able to bring himself to hit one of them. Levi, Mitch they were like children to him. Guess it was a trade off, getting two to love him once more and now two that had come to love him in some kind of way to hate him for the pettiest of reasons. Although he doubted Levi hated him, but then the poor girl was never one to let her own opinion shine.
Mitch he could never hate. He was a good man. Sacrificing for the one good thing in his life. He had spent Thanksgiving with them. And a week later, because he had decided to depart, the kid was making threatening innuendo about him and toward him on social media. Of all the bullshit and ire he received, this one hurt the most. It was like Hope slapping him in the face and accusing him of beating down Thor all over again.
The rest of them? He had nothing left. They could rot in hell, and in all their sin. Liars weren’t anything special, but at least some had the good grace to own their lies. Not many, but some. The Rat, and his roommate? No. They were comfortable in their arrangement. Comfortable in ignoring everything they’d done and grandstanding as the champions they are. Nevermind the two of them were gifted those shots by other people.
No, he couldn’t fight them. Doubt they’d want to. But he could find someone to take their punishment, their pain. The penance for their sins would fall on the head of another. Matt Stone would be their atonement. On that cold, January night in Reno, Nevada his face would be the face of betrayal and corruption. His blood would be what washed away the stench of sin.
He would suffer. And Matthew would be able to breathe, and silence the madness for at least awhile longer. Somewhere between monster and man was no place to live, not anymore. He had to end this and move on. And it all started at Revolution 4.
“Because I suffer, so shall you. Because I weep, You will bleed. Because I loved, I hate you..” he waxed poetic in the key of slurred, reaching up and turning the key to fire the 50 year old 12 cylinder motor up, “Craving, attachment, and desire.” Poe was always there, at least.
Who would be there for Stone?
A sneer as he slammed the gear shift into drive.
Only the end.
And with that, he drove away from the ugly reminder of a home he left. Headlights illuminating his path to the world he was going to end.