Post by Evan De Parker on Jun 30, 2012 11:57:23 GMT -4
Darkness.
Our scene opens up to an abrupt and startlingly hollow darkness. Walking through the room, one wouldn’t even be able to see their fingers in front of their face.
”I’ve waited a long time for this moment. I mean, I don’t think I understood the gravity of the situation until very recently… I always knew that I had to face you at Test for the Best. During the number one contender’s match, I knew you were going to walk away the winner. I never had a doubt that the next North American Championship match was going to be Evan Envi versus Carmen Rivera.”
Light pours into the room from a partially open doorway. Evan’s left eye and the bridge of his nose become visible. We see the corners of his mouth tilt upward into a smirk, masked by the darkness.
”But I never looked at it the way I started looking at it tonight. You’re trying to take my title away from me. You want to end the most talked-about reign in APW history and there are some people out there that think you’re gonna do it. Couple that with the proclamation you made last week… Somethin’ about being the fastest-rising star in the company?”
The door is nudged open a little wider, though our cameraman conveniently misses the culprit in action. However our new lighting casts a glow over a majority of Evan’s face, upper torso, and the North American Championship that hangs over his right shoulder. He glances at the belt for a few seconds, a warm smile crossing his face as he does.
This quickly fades once he rolls his eyes toward the camera and shakes his head, disapprovingly.
”Really? You are? I beg to differ, but I don’t think this is the time for such an argument. We both know what the truth is. And to put the exclamation point on that, I’m going to beat you at Test for the Best to take this championship to a whole new level.
“You see, several people have put all these doubts in my head over the weeks; Stryker, Lively, and even you. The North American Title’s seemed like a blessing and a curse at the same time because it’s known as Meltdown’s championship. It is exclusive property of APW’s Monday nights and I’m representing it every night. For all intents and purposes, I am Meltdown. And people have told me that it’s holding me back. It’s keeping me from going a little farther up the ladder and taking that next step in Megastardom to Overdrive or Asylum.”
Evan chuckles and shakes his head again.
”But that’s simply not true. I’ll go right ahead and take this belt to Overdrive with me. I’ll give it the exposure it deserves, and everyone on Meltdown will have to work ten times harder. Even you. Have fun at the back of the line, bitch.”
Evan leans forward, falling out of view for the time being, giving us an dimly lit view of the wooden chair he was sitting on.
”Let me remind you of something, Carmen: I’ve never put my hands on you. I’ve never had the urge to get into that ring and get violent with you. I’ll be the first to admit that I had every intention of using Yarmouth to take you out—and it was a damn good idea that almost worked. But nonetheless, it wasn’t me. It’s not until July 8th in Chicago that I’m gonna be able to touch you.
“What I’m trying to say is… Don’t let my recent mildness toward you comfort you. I am one-hundred percent over your bullshit and there will be violence in Chicago.”
The door is shoved open completely, smacking against the apparent drywall as it does so. More than half of our room is illuminated with brilliant white and we see our hero Evan in his entirety; a white polo, thinly striped with black over pants too dark against the mutual darkness of the latter half of the room to distinguish. He holds a black-and-white photo up for the camera to see.
It is of a woman. She is naked in her entirety, with the bottom half of her face crushed. Caved in. Stab wounds are visible slightly below the left side of the abdomen. A cut runs from her throat, clear past her waist and to her inner thigh. Her hair is blood-matted and pressed to and behind her cranium… Despite the photograph itself literally lacking color, it is evident that the woman lost any sort of bronze her skin may have possessed.
A historian may recognize the woman as Catherine Eddowes, an English woman that fell victim to Jack the Ripper in 1888.
Evan clears his throat and lowers the photo after a few moments, leaning back in the chair and gazing off into the distance, a thoughtful look upon his features.
”Instead of telling you explicitly what’s going to happen to you, I thought you’d enjoy figuring it out for yourself. And I know you’re a great wrestler, ya know? I know it’s not going to be particularly easy to take you out… So don’t count on me letting my guard down. I have one specific goal in mind and it’s to turn you into a spectacle. We’ll make headlines together. By the time I’m done with you, medical experts all over the world will get a boner over trying to figure out how to put you back together.
“To make you better… Faster… STRONGER! You should THANK me, bitch! I’m about to put you on the map. I’m about to rejuvenate your whole career. The typical comeback-kid story: You suffer a life-threatening injury at the hands of your superior arch-nemesis and you struggle through rehabilitation, learning how to walk again—learning how to resume life as a normal human being, finding yourself humbled and clawing your way back to the top. You’ll be the biggest success story EVER. And it’s gonna be all because of me, baby.”
Evan smiles, fond of his own little internal creation.
”I’ve got so much momentum going into this thing. I know what it takes to be a winner-- I just do. And you’re so damn inconsistent, ya know? If I were to go out there on July 8th and lose that championship, I feel that my heart would sink for one reason and one reason only… You would take all my hard work and completely blow it. You’d lose the damn thing to Stefan Raab within two weeks because you’d get cocky, and you’d choke.
“And you know what you’d do? You would write it off like it never happened. You’d pretend that the decision was a mistake and you’ll never learn from it. Because that’s what you do. And you’ll be one of the very few ’MegaStars’ stuck on Meltdown for the entire duration of your career, right here with Dita Morgan.
“I am going to do everything in my power to keep this title away from your waist, and I have full confidence that I can do it.
“I plan on hurting you… Because when I see you out there, I get this feeling that you didn’t get fucked up enough when you were learning how to get here… Y’know? I don’t think you took enough fists to your face. You didn’t have to because you were firmly riding the three-inch dick of Mr. Monotonous himself, Michael Harris. Which probably explains why you’re so inconsistent, now that I think about it. Look at the company you surround yourself with. You can’t expect to contend with the best when you’re learning from the mediocre.”
Evan pauses for a long moment. His eyes drift toward the floor and oddly, there seems to be the ever-slightest change in his appearance. As if he had gotten a chill, he shivers slightly and his eyes widen before he shoots the camera a wildly amused grin.
”Now let’s talk about how your parents are fucking drug addicts and you gladly advertise it for the world to see. I mean, heroin, really?”
Evan’s face turns slightly more serious-- he feigns being concerned.
”What in the hell makes you think exploiting your family is any sort of way to prepare for a match? And in such a graphic fashion. But you know what they say… Addictive personalities? They run in the family. So who’s to say you’re not up in San Diego shooting up with your dope-head parents and your future drug-slinging, aspiring-prostitute little sister?”
Evan gives the camera a challenging look. He gives Carmen Rivera a challenging look from behind the lens. His mouth is partially open in another crooked grin. He laughs loudly, having to wait a few seconds before he continues.
”And while I was digging up more shit to fling at you, I decided I was gonna search the San Diego area for you and your graduating class. Surely someone with YOUR home-life wasn’t home-schooled. So I searched. And I searched. And I called every public school contact I had in California before I started digging up the private schools. I just wanted a name. Just a name attached to a graduating class… And… Nothing.
“I didn’t find a thing, Carmen. Did you even graduate? Do you even have a diploma? Can you finish anything?
“It brings us back to what I said weeks ago in that six-man tag team match when I thought you weren’t hungry anymore. You’re NOT hungry like I’m hungry! You started slipping, and you got lucky to pick up the win in that match. You were only able to do so because your opponent was a punching bag and I was nowhere to be found. You showed your true colors a week later in the Battle Royal where you got eliminated simply based on lack of common sense. That would have never happened to me. I don’t lose. I don’t let my guard down. This the wrong sport to do that in.”
Evan pauses to let all of this register for a moment before continuing.
”Marisol. Marisol Rivera, I know you’re watching this because you love your big sister so much. I want to let you know what’s going to happen to your parents, mkay? They’re injecting heroin. Do you understand? It’s not weed. It’s not coke. They didn’t just ‘try’ heroin. They’re in. Heroin’s got ‘em now. And they’re physically going to be forced to do more… And more… And more. And one day-- probably soon-- shit’s gonna get risky. They’re gonna go a little overboard and try a speedball. Or they’ll just overdose on some black tar and their hearts are going to explode.
“Then you’ll be left with big sister Carmen. She’ll try to take care of you, but she’ll be so broken after Test for the Best that she’ll be forced to drop out of the game completely. And if she doesn’t have the success I suggested in my comeback story… Well, there’s the other option. The darker option.
“She’ll resort to the same drugs that soothed her parents. Because I broke her.”
Evan snickers, leaning forward into the darkness again.
”So you’d better hope your sister puts up enough of a fight to avoid disaster on July 8th in Chicago, Marisol.”
He sits upright, looking down at his hands for a moment before holding up an envelope. The address isn’t quite visible from here, but we can see that the person that will be receiving the mail is none other than Marisol Rivera herself.
”I even got you a front row ticket.”
Evan’s tone has fallen dull at this point. His eyes gaze eerily into the camera with a completely freezing stare. His jaw muscles tighten for a moment before he lowers the envelope back onto his lap.
”So Carmen… Bring it. Please, bring it. When I’ve got you in the Breathtaking Triangle Choke, I’d love to see you find the courage to go on when your sister is in the front row, screaming for you to tap so I don’t snap your neck. I wanna hear her scream when I hit that top rope to hit you with Helter Skelter. And you can get mad Carmen. I encourage it. Let’s make this match absolute warfare.
“But that’s not going to be enough. I’m just too damn good. I’ve beaten people that have proven to be better than you claim to be. Who, of note, have you defeated? When have you ever had to put everything you had on the line? When the HELL have you NOT cracked under pressure?! You don’t know what it takes to win the North American Championship. You’re not a champion.
“I am.
“And I’m the best in the game today. I’m the brick wall that you’re running head-first into. I think I can bring out the absolute best in you though. I know that’s what’s going to happen. You have no other choice if you wanna hold this.”
Evan turns and gazes at his championship once more. He shoots another amused glance toward the camera before the door is pulled shut again, shrouding us in darkness yet again.
”So all that was necessary?”
Sienna Harrison pushes open the door of a Dallas hotel suite. Despite not being booked for the Meltdown event, Evan and Sienna had agreed they wanted to visit Dallas again. As far as Evan was concerned, it was just a huge opportunity for Sienna to collect a quick check since she would be at an autograph signing on Monday morning… She had spent months in an independent circuit that ran through Texas years ago. Evan, however, didn’t have a positive following in Texas. This is the thing that is predominantly on his mind as he mindlessly follows Sienna into the suite.
”Are you listening?!”
”What? Was what necessary?”
”Bringing a kid into your high-school drama battle with Carmen Rivera?”
”SHE brought the kid into it. You saw what she put out there a few weeks back, didn’t you?!”
”Let her be a dumbass. I swear, you two are so juvenile. You’re better than her and you know it, so--”
”You’re damn right I know it!”
”--So I don’t see why you had to go ahead and bring an innocent little girl into it. What if she were to bring up Jonah or Jay?”
”Well, she could. But I don’t exploit my four-year-olds on national television. I also don’t have heroin-addict parents, but if I did, you can bet I wouldn’t be airing their dirty laundry on TV while they’re too brain-dead to protest.
“I don’t put my business out there like that, Sienna. But I don’t have to hide anything. I’m not ashamed of the way I live my life, but Carmen uses her disgusting family as some sort of excuse to explain why she’s such a bitch. Or maybe they’re there to make her look better. Because compared to them, anyone would feel a lot better about themselves.”
”I recall a few years back in AWA, Ev… When you let this feud with Jason Storm get to your head so bad that you offered your pregnant girlfriend’s valet services to him if he could beat you in a match. And he did. You gave him free reign to bring the woman bearing your children down to ringside every week. And you don’t air dirty laundry?”
”But at the end of the day, I got my kids. I got my girl back, and I got my championship.”
”Being a better wrestler ‘at the end of the day’ doesn’t excuse what you did.”
”Buuuuut you DO admit I’m the better wrestler!”
Sienna gives Evan a look that suggests that she’s completely discouraged-- disgusted, even, by his actions. Her eyes widen, however, as he removes something from his bag-- a poster. He unrolls it and moves past her, into one of the two bedrooms that the loft-esque Texan suite provides.
”What the hell was that?!”
”Motivation.”
”Motivation for what?! Are we a butcher now?”
Evan walks out of the room, stopping about three inches in front of his sister.
”As a matter of fact, we are.”
”You’re really taking this match---”
”Seriously? Too seriously? What exactly am I doing wrong, sis? Please let me know.”
Sienna looks into his eyes with her own glimmering, as if she wants to cry. This simply does not happen though. She throws her hands up, shaking her head and giving an exasperated laugh.
”You’re turning it into something much more than a wrestling match. You know you’re good. I just think you’re better than what you’ve started.”
”Again… I didn’t start anything.”
”Alright, baby brother. Well, I’m gonna get sleep. We’ll go sight-seeing in the morning or something after Michelle’s flight gets in, I guess. Hm?”
Her tone is cold and distant. Sienna drags her suitcase into the second bedroom, right next-door to Evan’s. Evan sighs loudly, making his way into his own bedroom… The place he’d be calling home until Tuesday morning.
Our cameraman follows him inside, pausing at the doorway. We see Evan peel his shirt off, throwing it onto the bed, and our camera can see the poster he brought inside; the same gnarly, mutilated body of Catherine Eddowes. Evan looks up at it for a few seconds, seemingly unaware of the presence of our camera. The camera man zooms in on the picture, with our North American Champion falling out of frame in the effort. For seconds, we get a good glimpse of it…
Before our startled camera-man points downward. Evan Envi’s face encompasses the lens with a devious, pale smirk that almost looks as if it doesn’t belong on his face. He shuts the door in our face, loudly.
We return to darkness.
