Post by Kyzer on May 22, 2019 3:18:19 GMT -5
Do you know what it feels like to wait for something so long that when it is finally time, you hesitate?
8 years…
I have waited for this moment since I threw you from that stage.
I always knew this was how it was going to end.
But now I hesitate…
It isn’t fear that stops me from stepping through that curtain.
I am certainly not afraid of you.
I am not afraid of the end.
I know what waits for me at the end of this story.
There is no happy ending for me. I don’t deserve it.
But neither do you.
You are the villain in this story. For once I am not the sociopath here.
I am just a father who failed his kids, a mentor who failed his pupil, a man with no friends.
Never before have I felt more alone in this world. The whores used to fill the loneliness while the drugs filled the holes in my life.
It was a successful formula for a long time.
Destiny…fate…or maybe it was just a coincidence that we formed the bond we had.
Brotherhood, right? That is what I thought it was. But was that the reality of it? Were we brothers? Or were we just two damaged individuals who fed the ego of the other?
That last one is probably the most accurate representation of our relationship. Ego drove us together and ego drove us to the top. Ego kept us there for a while…you more so than me.
But you were always free of the complications of my life. An ex-wife…legitimate and illegitimate kids…insane former in laws…
How could I expect you to understand the feeling of looking into your son’s eyes when you don’t have one? I didn’t come to appreciate it until it was too late. I never knew I would have those feelings of affection fathers express about their children. I wasn’t there for Serenity by choice. Gavin was forced on me against my choice.
I never wanted to be a father.
Maybe I should have paid more attention to birth control than heroin.
When I saw him with a tube down his throat and hooked up to a breathing machine to keep him alive…my heart broke…
I was going to watch my son die.
You were there…you saw my world shatter…
And yet…
You did nothing…
What should I expect?
We were never the good guys. But when I saw it happen, I was suddenly transformed into this caring parent. I don’t understand it. I have never let tragedy affect me. This was different.
This was my son…in that moment…I understood that…
And that was the moment you decided to cast away years of friendship and comradery…
You noticed the difference before it registered in my brain. You were going to betray me. You saw me as weak. You thought I turned on you and everything we were about.
I just beat you to the punch.
It was the day I pulled the plug. That was the day I was going to break your back…
***************
***************
The First Injection (Past)
I can the feel the needle pierce the skin. My adrenaline ramps up in anticipation. It is almost as thrilling as chasing the dragon. I savor it…feed off of it…
“I f~cking love this moment right here.”
He looks at me with his stoned grin like I am f~cking out of my mind. I am of course completely batsh~t. I am sitting here shooting heroin with the only person in this company I find remotely interesting.
Drakz…What a strange name…weird goth kid…got to get him away from that sh~t. I will teach this guy about having style.
Even a junkie should have style.
“I never thought I would meet an interesting yank.”
I push down on the syringe and lean back. I feel it warm my veins, a moment later the euphoria slaps me in the face with its c~ck.
“You are definitely someone I can party with.”
Drugs…the ultimate friendship creator…
He is babbling on more but I am just focused on not falling through the clouds. He is right; there is a lot of potential here. The WFWF is full of losers but there are a lot of them. It would be good to have someone watch my back and if he wants to enjoy life like I do then even better. It isn’t like there are any better options.
“Drakz…”
Fading in and out….
“I am not looking for someone to party with, that is what whores are for…I am looking for someone who has ambition…has aggression…has potential…I am looking for a fellow conquistador…”
Conquistador?
“I see all the angles…I take every advantage…my ambition is to conquer…”
“Conquer what?”
“The world.”
He is trying to figure out if I am just rambling because I am high or if I actually want to conquer the world.
“I am a slave to my own ego. Everything I do and everything I will do is about satisfying my ego. I need someone with me that understands my perspective. I want someone who understands the potential here. Do you follow?”
“Are you trying to f~ck me?”
Maybe I am wrong here. Maybe this kid has no f~cking sense. His sudden laughter catches me off guard.
“I am only joking. I can behind what you are talking about. There is a lot we can gain from watching each other’s back.”
Do I bring this kid into my web and drag him down into the abyss with me? What if I create a monster that I can’t manipulate? He could rise higher than me and then I will be looking up at him. That isn’t an idea I like.
“It is about more than just watching each other’s back…this is us sharing a trench and waging warfare on everyone at the same time…this is about trust…”
He shouldn’t trust me. I only care about myself. But I have him hooked.
“Do you understand the scope of what I mean? It is a bond…a brotherhood…lives will be altered…crushed and destroyed…bad things will happen to good people…”
“I understand.”
“You had your chance to escape the dark city. I hope you can sleep in the abyss.”
He has no idea of the world he is about to get sucked into.
“You are a trip.”
Maybe I am just insane. Have I lost my mind? Are these just the thoughts and desires of a typical junkie? Does the average junkie have ambition? Am I the only one wants to hurt someone based purely on my disgust with him? I can’t be the only one who was to crack a bat across the skull of every tool I meet?
“There are some people I just see as cattle. There exist to sustain me, sex, food, drugs. Those people have no use in this world beyond the one thing I need them for. There are those that are sheep. They are the ones who exist for me to manipulate for my personal enjoyment. Then there are the wolves. That is us. The Predators. The Conquistadors. We are the ones who use the cattle and sheep. We are the ones who have to kill everything else that has no use. The vermin have to be exterminated. We are going to wipe an entire civilization and replace it with one in our image. We will stand at the pinnacle of this new world. It will be ours to f~ck.”
It isn’t the drugs talking. The world will worship me. The WFWF will be mine…
***************
***************
I honestly thought with our history that I would be more emotional about all this. We have intertwined ourselves into each other’s history so much that you can’t say Kyzer or Drakz without thinking of the other one. But as I stand on this precipice, I feel nothing for you.
It is not anger that motivates me anymore.
Maybe I just want this to be the way I go out.
Destroying the prick I brought with me on my rise to the top all those years ago…or being destroyed by him…
Can I beat Drakz? Can I be the one to finally put the career to rest? He wouldn’t be who he was without me. And yet, I wouldn’t be who I am without him…
What happens if I come out victorious?
We both know what is waiting. You have already tasted his wrath.
What a future…Beat the man I helped make…only to face the Dragon I unleashed…it is almost poetic…
If it wasn’t for fate…
My fate ends at SuperBrawl….
I will die to make sure that Drakz doesn’t survive that match. I will die to make sure he is never announced in the WFWF ever again.
I will vanquish Drakz…then I will stand before the executioner and wait for him to burn me alive….
I will never deserve the happy ending…
That doesn’t happen for people like me. I may not be the same drug fueled egomaniac I was in 2007 when I started running with the Brit, but that doesn’t change things. I can feel sorry for myself; I can say that I am a sh~tty parent…friend…husband…
I am always going to be Michael Kyzer. I can’t escape what I created, no matter how much I want to.
Sometimes there are fights you can’t win. I can’t win against my past.
I can’t let go of it either.
Not until I resolve this last thing.
You are the last link to everything I am ashamed of. You are my last shame.
I should have left you in the gutter.
***************
***************
China Whiteout (Semi-Present)
“It has been 14 weeks since I last used…heroin at least. I haven’t touched the stuff since my last encounter with my daughter. The reality of that and what happened shortly after in London shattered my perception. It was as if actual glass shattered in my head and after my feet were bleeding and cut by it I suddenly woke up to the world around me. I felt the world crashing down on me long before that. I tried to delay it as long as possible. I surrounded myself with sycophants and mindless war machines. I went on a binge of drugs, whores and trouble. I thought I was chasing the ultimate rush but I was just running from what was chasing me. When I watched him steal that moment from me in London, I thought that was the end.”
He stares at me without judgement for once. We have never been particularly close. I was always a disappointment to him. But we have moved past his irreconcilable opinion of me. Now we sit in this diner across from one another for the first time in a long time.
“I went into that fight with everything I had left. I went into it needing to prove that I could still at least control this part of my life.”
Drakz took that last vestige of control from me.
“I walked into Seattle preparing to say goodbye. I didn’t have anything else left. I truly thought that was the end. Suddenly the sycophants attacked, and then Drakz attacked and stole that moment from me. I know I don’t deserve to go out on my own terms, but I thought with everything else being what it is; I could at least have that. God has a way of slapping me in the face.”
God of F~ck…That is what I used to call myself. I bought into the whole thing just like the rest of the world. It didn’t matter if I won or lost, I always came out on top. I was always the one who had a backup plan. I was out of plans in Seattle.
“Now he keeps calling me out. He wants to drag up the biggest buried skeleton in my closet. He wants to remind me why I broke his back 8 years ago.”
“Why did you?”
Break his back? He nods.
“I did it because you don’t want for the coral snake to bite you before you chop its head off. You strike first. I just made the mistake of not chopping it off completely. Truthfully, I don’t remember anything going through my head other than it was only a matter of time until he did the same thing. He lost respect for me the day of Gavin’s accident. I became the caring father, I never was. It changed the whole dynamic between us.”
“He thought you were weak?”
“Something like that. I wasn’t the ruthless bunghole he started The New Epoch with. I was suddenly human in his eyes. Only Drakz would see that as a bad thing.”
It would take 8 years for me to become human in my eyes. Maybe Drakz is better at predicting people than I am. He saw this moment coming. He knew I was going to be a broken down old man who has nothing and no one.
“You are alone now.”
“Thanks for stating the obvious. I am fully aware of how things are for me. I wouldn’t be sitting here with you otherwise.”
He shrugs.
“Alone is what I deserve. Ashley and Serenity deserve to finally have me out of their lives and not torturing them. DMK is free to walk his path in life without my corrupting influence. Subutai, or whatever name he goes by, is on his own now too. All the lives I influenced in a negative way are free from my grasp. And truthfully…it is a weight off of my shoulders. While my life feels emptier…I am unencumbered by any of those burdens now. But where do I go? For the first time in my life, I have no direction.”
“That isn’t correct.”
“What do you mean?”
“You have a direction. There is one thing left for you to resolve before you can reset your life.”
Reset my life? Is that even possible at my age, with my history, and background?
“What are you talking about?”
He just looks at me. His piercing blue eyes stare, behind them he sits in his thoughts…his disappointment in me…my brothers…my sister….
“You haven’t let go of him.”
Who? Gavin? Drakz? DMK?
“You need to resolve everything one on one. You need to have your moment as the hero.”
The hero for whom?
“Hero for Gavin.”
How can I be a hero for my dead son?
“By finally putting to bed the issue with Drakz, you will be able to let go of your guilt. You have intertwined the two so much in your head, you can’t separate the two. And you can’t go on with your life with all that on conscience.”
Conscience? What is that?
“I am in your head, I know it is in the back of your mind festering. You are only going to continue down this spiral if you don’t forgive yourself. And you can’t do that while Drakz is still on television antagonizing you. You have to leave everything behind. End Drakz…End your guilt.”
I look down at my coffee as his words echo truth in my head. He is right. I want so much to just move on from the past and let it go. But I can’t do that with it haunting me on such a public platform. I want so bad to just not be Michael Kyzer these days. I want to escape the prison I trapped myself in. He knows it. He can see it plainly on my face. Worn down from the drugs, the partying and grief I have caused I can’t put the mask on anymore. Even the waitress can see it as she walks up.
“Are you alright?”
I look up at her young, pretty face. It has a genuine look of concern on it. She must not know who I am around here.
“I am good.”
“Then who have you been talking to for the last hour?”
I look across the table at the empty seat in front of me. He is gone. Like father, like son right?
“No one.”
She sits down in his seat.
“You look sad, are you sure you are alright?”
She is sweet and you can see the innocence on her face. She is the type that I would have wrapped around my finger back in the day. I would shatter her innocence, her self-esteem and her life in general. And I would do all of that just for kicks. Now I want to tell her to run as far away as possible from me so she doesn’t get infected with the Kyzer gene. She is right though. I am just plain sad. Conversations with ghosts aside, I have no one.
“I am alright. I appreciate the concern. Just lost in my world.”
“That happens to me all the time. Especially when things are not looking good. You just have to remind yourself of the people you love and use them to keep your grounded.”
What if those people don’t love you and in fact despise you? This not a question I am going to ask this girl. It would lead me down a road of manipulating her by playing up the emotionally damaged bad boy. It is the card I have used for years. This girl is lucky we didn’t meet a year ago. I would have her serving me some pie already.
“You are right. I will keep that in mind.”
She stands and puts her hand on mine. I could f~ck this girl right here if I wanted. I could shoot her full of Kyzer baby juice and have her pop out a new Gavin. I could control and emotionally manipulate this girl into loving me for the rest of my life and just live off her hard work. I could do all these all these things but I am not. She doesn’t deserve it and I can’t shatter any innocent lives. But he is right; there is one not so innocent life I do need to shatter. I look up at her with a look of appreciation and we share each other’s gaze for a moment longer before she walks off to check on her other guests.
“SuperBrawl…”
I need to listen to his advice for the first time in nearly two decades and go back. It is the only way for me to move on and discard who Michael Kyzer was….
***************
***************
What will happen to the world if I beat you, Drakz?
It will be the first time that I was on top of the mountain in 8 years. It will be the first time that I actually deserved to be there though.
If I beat Drakz, I deserve a second chance….
I have to keep telling myself that. I have to forgive myself even if the rest of the world won’t.
Kyzer is the God of F~ck…
I have to kill the God of F~ck…
It doesn’t make sense, I get that. But for someone like me to so epically change ground and become someone the opposite of what I was, I have to commit the most epic of murders.
And that isn’t Drakz. That is just to resolve the guilt.
This is to build a new future for myself. One with me not being the monster in everyone’s dreams. I will never be the guy anyone looks up to and this isn’t about redemption because I am beyond that. This is all about getting that two sentence mention in Wikipedia about how he turned the corner, and went out on his own terms.
I am not immortal. I have no realistic expectations about beating Drakz. I really don’t. I haven’t been at my peak in a long time. But this is me standing up for one last fight with the worst kind of person, the kind of person I understand way too much.
By attempting to beat Drakz, I am attempting to beat that part of myself. He is everything that I was and everything that I am ashamed of now.
Maybe I will be surprised and at the end of SuperBrawl, it will be me standing with my hand raised and the World Heavyweight Championship around my waist. The title has almost become second to the history and the hatred between us.
But to have another run with it…is that going to be in the cards for me? If it is, I know I will appreciate it this time. I will appreciate the responsibility of carrying around that title.
I want that chance.
I want that moment with the crowd chanting my name.
I want the opportunity to go out on top.
I want that title.
I want to be champion.
This time isn’t about stroking my ego. It is about being the person the WFWF needs for once. It is about putting the fans first for the first time. It is about me breaking my back for something and someone other than myself.
Sacrificing myself for a cause that is above my own selfish desires is exactly how I want to end my career.
Whether that is as the World Heavyweight Champion or in an attempt to purge Drakz from the WFWF waits to be seen.
***************
***************
House of Lies (Present)
“If I beat Drakz, are you prepared to do what you have to do?”
He looks down at me from behind the mask. He is the one man, I have never figured out. It is easy to pick apart people’s emotions when they don’t hide their face behind a piece of metal. I am sure the mask has nothing to do with it. The scarred visage of his face wouldn’t be any easier to read.
“I am.”
“Good. I don’t want you to hold back on account of our history and your loyalty. If I beat Drakz and take that title, we will be on a collision course. I just want all of this out of the way now. You and I are on separate roads in the WFWF.”
“I understand. There will be no quarter given if we stand across from each other in that ring.”
“That is all I needed to express. This could very well be the last ride for me. And if that is the case, I hope you finish what I couldn’t finish.”
He just stares. It is really unnerving.
“I am sorry for stealing your opportunity.”
“I understand your reasons for doing what you did.”
“What do you put my odds at?”
“Your odds?”
“You understand fighting better than anyone I know. You have also been by my side during my string of failures that have marked this end of my career.”
He doesn’t say anything for several minutes.
“You are fighting for something when you have nothing. When you have nothing, you will go to any extreme to grasp hold of something. Never underestimate that man. Desperation can be a valuable weapon. You can find strength you did not know you had when you looking at falling off that cliff back into nothing. He is coming into this fight with the arrogance of knowing that you are beaten down and on the decline. He is at the disadvantage here because he is walking into this fight expecting you to crash and burn. You have the chance to catch him off guard and deliver the death stroke before he recovers.”
Drakz isn’t the only one expecting him to win. Vegas doesn’t put my odds high either. But am I that man Subutai describes? I am on the decline, I am beaten down. But there is a chance for me to rebound. A lot of people experience career resurgences. I don’t need a complete comeback. I just need this one match. I just need to beat Drakz.
“I am looking for reassurance from the most emotionless person I know.”
“I am not without emotions. I just learned a long time ago how to keep them in check. That is a fault that you and him both have. It is why he failed against me. Fighting is more than just size, speed and strength.”
He is right there. I have never been the biggest, strongest, or fastest. I have always been the most cunning, the smartest man in the room. I need to find that edge that I lost somewhere.
“I have never had doubts like this, I have never needed reassurance.”
“You are not the same person you were. You have moved onto your next life.”
Sometimes I just don’t understand this guy.
“People change, evolve and are reborn.”
Mongolian philosophy.
“This match is just coming so long after the culmination of my career while he at his.”
“That does not mean anything. Any person can beat another person on any given day. Even a dragon can be defeated.”
But you beat him when you fought him. Maybe I should get you to fight a last battle for me? I am not going to echo these thoughts. I can’t go that route. This is something I have to do.
“No matter what happens with my match with Drakz, I know that you are the future of that place sooner rather than later. You are going to eclipse me and Drakz with what you can accomplish.”
“This is not about me. This is about you. It has always been about you. I am not even real.”
His words wake me. I look around my empty living room. It takes me a minute to get my bearings. I am alone in my house. Alone like always lately.
“It is better this way.”
Looking around I find my bong already filled with half torched bud. I hesitate but then decide to torch the rest. The delicious smoke fills my lungs and I lean back blowing smoke like I am The Dragon.
“I am The Dragon.”
I enjoy the grip of the cannabis for a moment longer before I come back to reality.
“Drakz…Drakz…Drakz…”
Isaac…
“This is the moment. Everything has to end.”
I don’t know what I am saying…thinking…feeling….
“F~ck the doubts that fill my head. I will drown them in smoke.”
I have to get my head straight before SuperBrawl. I don’t even know if I am making sense at this point.
***************
***************
Summer Days (Past)
Summertime in Seattle means me spending a lot of time outside with the kid. He is lucky; I have a big yard for him to play in. It is still unreal to me that someone would actually give me custody of a kid. I have no clue what I am doing. So far I have adopted a very liberal parenting style. Basically I let the kid do whatever the f~ck he wants even though he is a moron.
“I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that you have to take care of a kid.”
Drakz actually shivers at the notion of taking care of a child. I wouldn’t be in this spot if his whore mother didn’t disappear after dropping him off on my doorstep. I look over at him. He looks just like me when I was that age. He kicks ball across the yard. Watching him me wonder what he thinks of all this. So far he doesn’t talk much except when it comes to EBR. I hate that his favorite wrestler is still that junkie.
“Speaking of drugs…”
Drakz and I share a telepathic link. I turn back to play our favorite game, snort the line. Cocaine under the hot sun is more enjoyable than you would believe. We lean back relaxing watching the kid like two normal grown men. It is like we are a gay couple with a kid.
“We are not a gay couple.”
I can only laugh. Looking around for a where I put the blunt, I notice Drakz getting antsy.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“The blow has me a bit twitchy. Or maybe it is the kid being here. I just can’t get comfortable with it around.”
He expressively waves at my son. I can understand his perspective. He doesn’t have kids and isn’t used to this kind of baggage.
“Well I can’t exactly do anything about the kid situation at the moment. His mom split and disappeared.”
“Couldn’t you pawn him off on your ex-wife?”
“She thinks this is an ‘opportunity’ and I should get to know him. The only thing I know about that kid is he has sh~tty taste in wrestlers.”
“Who does he like?”
“EBR.”
“F~cking gross. No offense but I don’t like your kid.”
I should be offended by that but I am not. He looks just like me, blue eyes and blond hair. But I have no connection to him. Even Serenity stirs some feelings in me, but this kid just makes me feel nothing. The world would condemn me if they knew just how little I care about this kid. It isn’t the kid’s fault. He doesn’t cry and he doesn’t cause trouble. Sometimes I wonder if he is really my kid. If it wasn’t so obvious then I wouldn’t believe it based on his demeanor.
“Can we talk about something else than your little bastard over there?”
I light the blunt that I magically found and inhale deeply. The resentment in his voice isn’t lost on me. As I pass him the blunt, I can see through the haze and see that he isn’t fond of this situation in the slightest.
“Yeah sure. Where is Brennan?”
I bring up David to distract him.
“East Coast or somewhere like that.”
Well that narrows that down.
“He has been killing it for us lately. It was a good idea to bring him into the fold.”
After his first match, I knew he could be turned into a valuable asset.
“He has definitely earned his worth.”
Drakz babbles on about Brennan. I think Drakz has a bit of a man crush. I scan the yard for Gavin and find him on the far end still kicking the ball. This is what fatherhood is. I get blasted and watch the kid kick a ball around the yard with my best friend yammering along about his man crush. I can think of a hundred things that are better than this right now. This is not the way I want to spend my day.
Everything suddenly slows around me…is this overdose everyone always thought I would have?
Then I see it…
It is like a silent slow motion reel from a movie…
I can’t react as I see the car head straight towards Gavin…
The scene before me is indescribable…He had no chance to avoid him…the car stops but it is too late….
The blood coming from his head wakes me from my fog…
“F~ck…”
Drakz echoes my thoughts. Instinct suddenly takes over and I take off running to my son. As I get there, the driver of the car stands there. It is just some girl who is barely legal. I ignore her and immediately take him into my arms. Blood is pouring from his head.
“Gavin…”
He doesn’t respond.
“Call 911!”
I scream at the crying c~nt to call. I feel him breathing at least. I use my shirt to try and slow the bleeding. I don’t know what else to do.
This is so f~cked.
I look up at Drakz. He hasn’t moved. His face says it all though. I ignore his look of disdain and focus back on my son who is covering me in his blood. An ambulance siren goes off in the distance. This is so unreal. My son is slowly dying in my arms. F~ck…
F~ck…
F~ck…
This can’t be real. This has to be a nightmare, right?
***************
***************
Do you think I wanted things to go this way? They played out the way they did for a reason.
You found success while I fell off and lived off of my reputation. You achieved what I didn’t. You weren’t anchored down by the same things as me. You were free while I trapped myself in a prison.
Do you want me to admit I was jealous of your success after I broke your back? I was…I am.
I will never meet the accomplishments you had here.
I will never reach the heights you have.
You came back motivated after what I did to you.
What happened to me after that? Not a whole lot.
The decline may have started when I lost to Schneider but it doesn’t matter…
This is my last shot. This is my chance to wipe the slate clean and start over.
This is my chance to forgive myself for what happened to Gavin.
And my chance to forgive myself for what I did to you…not that I regret it or any of my actions afterwards. But it is my chance to forgive myself for dragging this out for so long.
We are long overdue.
This is the biggest moment in the history of the company regardless of everything.
No one has bigger reputations than us. Are you ready to put it all on the line? Are you ready to walk away if you lose?
Because I am.
I want to win; I want to finally put all this to rest. I want to move on from you and all the bullsh~t that exists between us. But I am ready to walk away if I don’t.
The moment that bell rings…the history is gone...
Once that match starts…the achievements mean nothing...
It will be just me and you…
The rest of the world will cease to exist until one of us is dead…
There is only one last thing to say then there is nothing to do but fight…
F~ck Drakz….
8 years…
I have waited for this moment since I threw you from that stage.
I always knew this was how it was going to end.
But now I hesitate…
It isn’t fear that stops me from stepping through that curtain.
I am certainly not afraid of you.
I am not afraid of the end.
I know what waits for me at the end of this story.
There is no happy ending for me. I don’t deserve it.
But neither do you.
You are the villain in this story. For once I am not the sociopath here.
I am just a father who failed his kids, a mentor who failed his pupil, a man with no friends.
Never before have I felt more alone in this world. The whores used to fill the loneliness while the drugs filled the holes in my life.
It was a successful formula for a long time.
Destiny…fate…or maybe it was just a coincidence that we formed the bond we had.
Brotherhood, right? That is what I thought it was. But was that the reality of it? Were we brothers? Or were we just two damaged individuals who fed the ego of the other?
That last one is probably the most accurate representation of our relationship. Ego drove us together and ego drove us to the top. Ego kept us there for a while…you more so than me.
But you were always free of the complications of my life. An ex-wife…legitimate and illegitimate kids…insane former in laws…
How could I expect you to understand the feeling of looking into your son’s eyes when you don’t have one? I didn’t come to appreciate it until it was too late. I never knew I would have those feelings of affection fathers express about their children. I wasn’t there for Serenity by choice. Gavin was forced on me against my choice.
I never wanted to be a father.
Maybe I should have paid more attention to birth control than heroin.
When I saw him with a tube down his throat and hooked up to a breathing machine to keep him alive…my heart broke…
I was going to watch my son die.
You were there…you saw my world shatter…
And yet…
You did nothing…
What should I expect?
We were never the good guys. But when I saw it happen, I was suddenly transformed into this caring parent. I don’t understand it. I have never let tragedy affect me. This was different.
This was my son…in that moment…I understood that…
And that was the moment you decided to cast away years of friendship and comradery…
You noticed the difference before it registered in my brain. You were going to betray me. You saw me as weak. You thought I turned on you and everything we were about.
I just beat you to the punch.
It was the day I pulled the plug. That was the day I was going to break your back…
***************
***************
The First Injection (Past)
I can the feel the needle pierce the skin. My adrenaline ramps up in anticipation. It is almost as thrilling as chasing the dragon. I savor it…feed off of it…
“I f~cking love this moment right here.”
He looks at me with his stoned grin like I am f~cking out of my mind. I am of course completely batsh~t. I am sitting here shooting heroin with the only person in this company I find remotely interesting.
Drakz…What a strange name…weird goth kid…got to get him away from that sh~t. I will teach this guy about having style.
Even a junkie should have style.
“I never thought I would meet an interesting yank.”
I push down on the syringe and lean back. I feel it warm my veins, a moment later the euphoria slaps me in the face with its c~ck.
“You are definitely someone I can party with.”
Drugs…the ultimate friendship creator…
He is babbling on more but I am just focused on not falling through the clouds. He is right; there is a lot of potential here. The WFWF is full of losers but there are a lot of them. It would be good to have someone watch my back and if he wants to enjoy life like I do then even better. It isn’t like there are any better options.
“Drakz…”
Fading in and out….
“I am not looking for someone to party with, that is what whores are for…I am looking for someone who has ambition…has aggression…has potential…I am looking for a fellow conquistador…”
Conquistador?
“I see all the angles…I take every advantage…my ambition is to conquer…”
“Conquer what?”
“The world.”
He is trying to figure out if I am just rambling because I am high or if I actually want to conquer the world.
“I am a slave to my own ego. Everything I do and everything I will do is about satisfying my ego. I need someone with me that understands my perspective. I want someone who understands the potential here. Do you follow?”
“Are you trying to f~ck me?”
Maybe I am wrong here. Maybe this kid has no f~cking sense. His sudden laughter catches me off guard.
“I am only joking. I can behind what you are talking about. There is a lot we can gain from watching each other’s back.”
Do I bring this kid into my web and drag him down into the abyss with me? What if I create a monster that I can’t manipulate? He could rise higher than me and then I will be looking up at him. That isn’t an idea I like.
“It is about more than just watching each other’s back…this is us sharing a trench and waging warfare on everyone at the same time…this is about trust…”
He shouldn’t trust me. I only care about myself. But I have him hooked.
“Do you understand the scope of what I mean? It is a bond…a brotherhood…lives will be altered…crushed and destroyed…bad things will happen to good people…”
“I understand.”
“You had your chance to escape the dark city. I hope you can sleep in the abyss.”
He has no idea of the world he is about to get sucked into.
“You are a trip.”
Maybe I am just insane. Have I lost my mind? Are these just the thoughts and desires of a typical junkie? Does the average junkie have ambition? Am I the only one wants to hurt someone based purely on my disgust with him? I can’t be the only one who was to crack a bat across the skull of every tool I meet?
“There are some people I just see as cattle. There exist to sustain me, sex, food, drugs. Those people have no use in this world beyond the one thing I need them for. There are those that are sheep. They are the ones who exist for me to manipulate for my personal enjoyment. Then there are the wolves. That is us. The Predators. The Conquistadors. We are the ones who use the cattle and sheep. We are the ones who have to kill everything else that has no use. The vermin have to be exterminated. We are going to wipe an entire civilization and replace it with one in our image. We will stand at the pinnacle of this new world. It will be ours to f~ck.”
It isn’t the drugs talking. The world will worship me. The WFWF will be mine…
***************
***************
I honestly thought with our history that I would be more emotional about all this. We have intertwined ourselves into each other’s history so much that you can’t say Kyzer or Drakz without thinking of the other one. But as I stand on this precipice, I feel nothing for you.
It is not anger that motivates me anymore.
Maybe I just want this to be the way I go out.
Destroying the prick I brought with me on my rise to the top all those years ago…or being destroyed by him…
Can I beat Drakz? Can I be the one to finally put the career to rest? He wouldn’t be who he was without me. And yet, I wouldn’t be who I am without him…
What happens if I come out victorious?
We both know what is waiting. You have already tasted his wrath.
What a future…Beat the man I helped make…only to face the Dragon I unleashed…it is almost poetic…
If it wasn’t for fate…
My fate ends at SuperBrawl….
I will die to make sure that Drakz doesn’t survive that match. I will die to make sure he is never announced in the WFWF ever again.
I will vanquish Drakz…then I will stand before the executioner and wait for him to burn me alive….
I will never deserve the happy ending…
That doesn’t happen for people like me. I may not be the same drug fueled egomaniac I was in 2007 when I started running with the Brit, but that doesn’t change things. I can feel sorry for myself; I can say that I am a sh~tty parent…friend…husband…
I am always going to be Michael Kyzer. I can’t escape what I created, no matter how much I want to.
Sometimes there are fights you can’t win. I can’t win against my past.
I can’t let go of it either.
Not until I resolve this last thing.
You are the last link to everything I am ashamed of. You are my last shame.
I should have left you in the gutter.
***************
***************
China Whiteout (Semi-Present)
“It has been 14 weeks since I last used…heroin at least. I haven’t touched the stuff since my last encounter with my daughter. The reality of that and what happened shortly after in London shattered my perception. It was as if actual glass shattered in my head and after my feet were bleeding and cut by it I suddenly woke up to the world around me. I felt the world crashing down on me long before that. I tried to delay it as long as possible. I surrounded myself with sycophants and mindless war machines. I went on a binge of drugs, whores and trouble. I thought I was chasing the ultimate rush but I was just running from what was chasing me. When I watched him steal that moment from me in London, I thought that was the end.”
He stares at me without judgement for once. We have never been particularly close. I was always a disappointment to him. But we have moved past his irreconcilable opinion of me. Now we sit in this diner across from one another for the first time in a long time.
“I went into that fight with everything I had left. I went into it needing to prove that I could still at least control this part of my life.”
Drakz took that last vestige of control from me.
“I walked into Seattle preparing to say goodbye. I didn’t have anything else left. I truly thought that was the end. Suddenly the sycophants attacked, and then Drakz attacked and stole that moment from me. I know I don’t deserve to go out on my own terms, but I thought with everything else being what it is; I could at least have that. God has a way of slapping me in the face.”
God of F~ck…That is what I used to call myself. I bought into the whole thing just like the rest of the world. It didn’t matter if I won or lost, I always came out on top. I was always the one who had a backup plan. I was out of plans in Seattle.
“Now he keeps calling me out. He wants to drag up the biggest buried skeleton in my closet. He wants to remind me why I broke his back 8 years ago.”
“Why did you?”
Break his back? He nods.
“I did it because you don’t want for the coral snake to bite you before you chop its head off. You strike first. I just made the mistake of not chopping it off completely. Truthfully, I don’t remember anything going through my head other than it was only a matter of time until he did the same thing. He lost respect for me the day of Gavin’s accident. I became the caring father, I never was. It changed the whole dynamic between us.”
“He thought you were weak?”
“Something like that. I wasn’t the ruthless bunghole he started The New Epoch with. I was suddenly human in his eyes. Only Drakz would see that as a bad thing.”
It would take 8 years for me to become human in my eyes. Maybe Drakz is better at predicting people than I am. He saw this moment coming. He knew I was going to be a broken down old man who has nothing and no one.
“You are alone now.”
“Thanks for stating the obvious. I am fully aware of how things are for me. I wouldn’t be sitting here with you otherwise.”
He shrugs.
“Alone is what I deserve. Ashley and Serenity deserve to finally have me out of their lives and not torturing them. DMK is free to walk his path in life without my corrupting influence. Subutai, or whatever name he goes by, is on his own now too. All the lives I influenced in a negative way are free from my grasp. And truthfully…it is a weight off of my shoulders. While my life feels emptier…I am unencumbered by any of those burdens now. But where do I go? For the first time in my life, I have no direction.”
“That isn’t correct.”
“What do you mean?”
“You have a direction. There is one thing left for you to resolve before you can reset your life.”
Reset my life? Is that even possible at my age, with my history, and background?
“What are you talking about?”
He just looks at me. His piercing blue eyes stare, behind them he sits in his thoughts…his disappointment in me…my brothers…my sister….
“You haven’t let go of him.”
Who? Gavin? Drakz? DMK?
“You need to resolve everything one on one. You need to have your moment as the hero.”
The hero for whom?
“Hero for Gavin.”
How can I be a hero for my dead son?
“By finally putting to bed the issue with Drakz, you will be able to let go of your guilt. You have intertwined the two so much in your head, you can’t separate the two. And you can’t go on with your life with all that on conscience.”
Conscience? What is that?
“I am in your head, I know it is in the back of your mind festering. You are only going to continue down this spiral if you don’t forgive yourself. And you can’t do that while Drakz is still on television antagonizing you. You have to leave everything behind. End Drakz…End your guilt.”
I look down at my coffee as his words echo truth in my head. He is right. I want so much to just move on from the past and let it go. But I can’t do that with it haunting me on such a public platform. I want so bad to just not be Michael Kyzer these days. I want to escape the prison I trapped myself in. He knows it. He can see it plainly on my face. Worn down from the drugs, the partying and grief I have caused I can’t put the mask on anymore. Even the waitress can see it as she walks up.
“Are you alright?”
I look up at her young, pretty face. It has a genuine look of concern on it. She must not know who I am around here.
“I am good.”
“Then who have you been talking to for the last hour?”
I look across the table at the empty seat in front of me. He is gone. Like father, like son right?
“No one.”
She sits down in his seat.
“You look sad, are you sure you are alright?”
She is sweet and you can see the innocence on her face. She is the type that I would have wrapped around my finger back in the day. I would shatter her innocence, her self-esteem and her life in general. And I would do all of that just for kicks. Now I want to tell her to run as far away as possible from me so she doesn’t get infected with the Kyzer gene. She is right though. I am just plain sad. Conversations with ghosts aside, I have no one.
“I am alright. I appreciate the concern. Just lost in my world.”
“That happens to me all the time. Especially when things are not looking good. You just have to remind yourself of the people you love and use them to keep your grounded.”
What if those people don’t love you and in fact despise you? This not a question I am going to ask this girl. It would lead me down a road of manipulating her by playing up the emotionally damaged bad boy. It is the card I have used for years. This girl is lucky we didn’t meet a year ago. I would have her serving me some pie already.
“You are right. I will keep that in mind.”
She stands and puts her hand on mine. I could f~ck this girl right here if I wanted. I could shoot her full of Kyzer baby juice and have her pop out a new Gavin. I could control and emotionally manipulate this girl into loving me for the rest of my life and just live off her hard work. I could do all these all these things but I am not. She doesn’t deserve it and I can’t shatter any innocent lives. But he is right; there is one not so innocent life I do need to shatter. I look up at her with a look of appreciation and we share each other’s gaze for a moment longer before she walks off to check on her other guests.
“SuperBrawl…”
I need to listen to his advice for the first time in nearly two decades and go back. It is the only way for me to move on and discard who Michael Kyzer was….
***************
***************
What will happen to the world if I beat you, Drakz?
It will be the first time that I was on top of the mountain in 8 years. It will be the first time that I actually deserved to be there though.
If I beat Drakz, I deserve a second chance….
I have to keep telling myself that. I have to forgive myself even if the rest of the world won’t.
Kyzer is the God of F~ck…
I have to kill the God of F~ck…
It doesn’t make sense, I get that. But for someone like me to so epically change ground and become someone the opposite of what I was, I have to commit the most epic of murders.
And that isn’t Drakz. That is just to resolve the guilt.
This is to build a new future for myself. One with me not being the monster in everyone’s dreams. I will never be the guy anyone looks up to and this isn’t about redemption because I am beyond that. This is all about getting that two sentence mention in Wikipedia about how he turned the corner, and went out on his own terms.
I am not immortal. I have no realistic expectations about beating Drakz. I really don’t. I haven’t been at my peak in a long time. But this is me standing up for one last fight with the worst kind of person, the kind of person I understand way too much.
By attempting to beat Drakz, I am attempting to beat that part of myself. He is everything that I was and everything that I am ashamed of now.
Maybe I will be surprised and at the end of SuperBrawl, it will be me standing with my hand raised and the World Heavyweight Championship around my waist. The title has almost become second to the history and the hatred between us.
But to have another run with it…is that going to be in the cards for me? If it is, I know I will appreciate it this time. I will appreciate the responsibility of carrying around that title.
I want that chance.
I want that moment with the crowd chanting my name.
I want the opportunity to go out on top.
I want that title.
I want to be champion.
This time isn’t about stroking my ego. It is about being the person the WFWF needs for once. It is about putting the fans first for the first time. It is about me breaking my back for something and someone other than myself.
Sacrificing myself for a cause that is above my own selfish desires is exactly how I want to end my career.
Whether that is as the World Heavyweight Champion or in an attempt to purge Drakz from the WFWF waits to be seen.
***************
***************
House of Lies (Present)
“If I beat Drakz, are you prepared to do what you have to do?”
He looks down at me from behind the mask. He is the one man, I have never figured out. It is easy to pick apart people’s emotions when they don’t hide their face behind a piece of metal. I am sure the mask has nothing to do with it. The scarred visage of his face wouldn’t be any easier to read.
“I am.”
“Good. I don’t want you to hold back on account of our history and your loyalty. If I beat Drakz and take that title, we will be on a collision course. I just want all of this out of the way now. You and I are on separate roads in the WFWF.”
“I understand. There will be no quarter given if we stand across from each other in that ring.”
“That is all I needed to express. This could very well be the last ride for me. And if that is the case, I hope you finish what I couldn’t finish.”
He just stares. It is really unnerving.
“I am sorry for stealing your opportunity.”
“I understand your reasons for doing what you did.”
“What do you put my odds at?”
“Your odds?”
“You understand fighting better than anyone I know. You have also been by my side during my string of failures that have marked this end of my career.”
He doesn’t say anything for several minutes.
“You are fighting for something when you have nothing. When you have nothing, you will go to any extreme to grasp hold of something. Never underestimate that man. Desperation can be a valuable weapon. You can find strength you did not know you had when you looking at falling off that cliff back into nothing. He is coming into this fight with the arrogance of knowing that you are beaten down and on the decline. He is at the disadvantage here because he is walking into this fight expecting you to crash and burn. You have the chance to catch him off guard and deliver the death stroke before he recovers.”
Drakz isn’t the only one expecting him to win. Vegas doesn’t put my odds high either. But am I that man Subutai describes? I am on the decline, I am beaten down. But there is a chance for me to rebound. A lot of people experience career resurgences. I don’t need a complete comeback. I just need this one match. I just need to beat Drakz.
“I am looking for reassurance from the most emotionless person I know.”
“I am not without emotions. I just learned a long time ago how to keep them in check. That is a fault that you and him both have. It is why he failed against me. Fighting is more than just size, speed and strength.”
He is right there. I have never been the biggest, strongest, or fastest. I have always been the most cunning, the smartest man in the room. I need to find that edge that I lost somewhere.
“I have never had doubts like this, I have never needed reassurance.”
“You are not the same person you were. You have moved onto your next life.”
Sometimes I just don’t understand this guy.
“People change, evolve and are reborn.”
Mongolian philosophy.
“This match is just coming so long after the culmination of my career while he at his.”
“That does not mean anything. Any person can beat another person on any given day. Even a dragon can be defeated.”
But you beat him when you fought him. Maybe I should get you to fight a last battle for me? I am not going to echo these thoughts. I can’t go that route. This is something I have to do.
“No matter what happens with my match with Drakz, I know that you are the future of that place sooner rather than later. You are going to eclipse me and Drakz with what you can accomplish.”
“This is not about me. This is about you. It has always been about you. I am not even real.”
His words wake me. I look around my empty living room. It takes me a minute to get my bearings. I am alone in my house. Alone like always lately.
“It is better this way.”
Looking around I find my bong already filled with half torched bud. I hesitate but then decide to torch the rest. The delicious smoke fills my lungs and I lean back blowing smoke like I am The Dragon.
“I am The Dragon.”
I enjoy the grip of the cannabis for a moment longer before I come back to reality.
“Drakz…Drakz…Drakz…”
Isaac…
“This is the moment. Everything has to end.”
I don’t know what I am saying…thinking…feeling….
“F~ck the doubts that fill my head. I will drown them in smoke.”
I have to get my head straight before SuperBrawl. I don’t even know if I am making sense at this point.
***************
***************
Summer Days (Past)
Summertime in Seattle means me spending a lot of time outside with the kid. He is lucky; I have a big yard for him to play in. It is still unreal to me that someone would actually give me custody of a kid. I have no clue what I am doing. So far I have adopted a very liberal parenting style. Basically I let the kid do whatever the f~ck he wants even though he is a moron.
“I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that you have to take care of a kid.”
Drakz actually shivers at the notion of taking care of a child. I wouldn’t be in this spot if his whore mother didn’t disappear after dropping him off on my doorstep. I look over at him. He looks just like me when I was that age. He kicks ball across the yard. Watching him me wonder what he thinks of all this. So far he doesn’t talk much except when it comes to EBR. I hate that his favorite wrestler is still that junkie.
“Speaking of drugs…”
Drakz and I share a telepathic link. I turn back to play our favorite game, snort the line. Cocaine under the hot sun is more enjoyable than you would believe. We lean back relaxing watching the kid like two normal grown men. It is like we are a gay couple with a kid.
“We are not a gay couple.”
I can only laugh. Looking around for a where I put the blunt, I notice Drakz getting antsy.
“What’s wrong with you?”
“The blow has me a bit twitchy. Or maybe it is the kid being here. I just can’t get comfortable with it around.”
He expressively waves at my son. I can understand his perspective. He doesn’t have kids and isn’t used to this kind of baggage.
“Well I can’t exactly do anything about the kid situation at the moment. His mom split and disappeared.”
“Couldn’t you pawn him off on your ex-wife?”
“She thinks this is an ‘opportunity’ and I should get to know him. The only thing I know about that kid is he has sh~tty taste in wrestlers.”
“Who does he like?”
“EBR.”
“F~cking gross. No offense but I don’t like your kid.”
I should be offended by that but I am not. He looks just like me, blue eyes and blond hair. But I have no connection to him. Even Serenity stirs some feelings in me, but this kid just makes me feel nothing. The world would condemn me if they knew just how little I care about this kid. It isn’t the kid’s fault. He doesn’t cry and he doesn’t cause trouble. Sometimes I wonder if he is really my kid. If it wasn’t so obvious then I wouldn’t believe it based on his demeanor.
“Can we talk about something else than your little bastard over there?”
I light the blunt that I magically found and inhale deeply. The resentment in his voice isn’t lost on me. As I pass him the blunt, I can see through the haze and see that he isn’t fond of this situation in the slightest.
“Yeah sure. Where is Brennan?”
I bring up David to distract him.
“East Coast or somewhere like that.”
Well that narrows that down.
“He has been killing it for us lately. It was a good idea to bring him into the fold.”
After his first match, I knew he could be turned into a valuable asset.
“He has definitely earned his worth.”
Drakz babbles on about Brennan. I think Drakz has a bit of a man crush. I scan the yard for Gavin and find him on the far end still kicking the ball. This is what fatherhood is. I get blasted and watch the kid kick a ball around the yard with my best friend yammering along about his man crush. I can think of a hundred things that are better than this right now. This is not the way I want to spend my day.
Everything suddenly slows around me…is this overdose everyone always thought I would have?
Then I see it…
It is like a silent slow motion reel from a movie…
I can’t react as I see the car head straight towards Gavin…
The scene before me is indescribable…He had no chance to avoid him…the car stops but it is too late….
The blood coming from his head wakes me from my fog…
“F~ck…”
Drakz echoes my thoughts. Instinct suddenly takes over and I take off running to my son. As I get there, the driver of the car stands there. It is just some girl who is barely legal. I ignore her and immediately take him into my arms. Blood is pouring from his head.
“Gavin…”
He doesn’t respond.
“Call 911!”
I scream at the crying c~nt to call. I feel him breathing at least. I use my shirt to try and slow the bleeding. I don’t know what else to do.
This is so f~cked.
I look up at Drakz. He hasn’t moved. His face says it all though. I ignore his look of disdain and focus back on my son who is covering me in his blood. An ambulance siren goes off in the distance. This is so unreal. My son is slowly dying in my arms. F~ck…
F~ck…
F~ck…
This can’t be real. This has to be a nightmare, right?
***************
***************
Do you think I wanted things to go this way? They played out the way they did for a reason.
You found success while I fell off and lived off of my reputation. You achieved what I didn’t. You weren’t anchored down by the same things as me. You were free while I trapped myself in a prison.
Do you want me to admit I was jealous of your success after I broke your back? I was…I am.
I will never meet the accomplishments you had here.
I will never reach the heights you have.
You came back motivated after what I did to you.
What happened to me after that? Not a whole lot.
The decline may have started when I lost to Schneider but it doesn’t matter…
This is my last shot. This is my chance to wipe the slate clean and start over.
This is my chance to forgive myself for what happened to Gavin.
And my chance to forgive myself for what I did to you…not that I regret it or any of my actions afterwards. But it is my chance to forgive myself for dragging this out for so long.
We are long overdue.
This is the biggest moment in the history of the company regardless of everything.
No one has bigger reputations than us. Are you ready to put it all on the line? Are you ready to walk away if you lose?
Because I am.
I want to win; I want to finally put all this to rest. I want to move on from you and all the bullsh~t that exists between us. But I am ready to walk away if I don’t.
The moment that bell rings…the history is gone...
Once that match starts…the achievements mean nothing...
It will be just me and you…
The rest of the world will cease to exist until one of us is dead…
There is only one last thing to say then there is nothing to do but fight…
F~ck Drakz….