hellraiser.

[chaos lite]

i keep saying that it’s getting too much
but i know i’m a liar

unspecified.unspecified

”So I went a little crazy.

I haven’t been around. I haven’t been there for my friends, or my boyfriend, or my tag team partner lately because I’ve been so overwhelmed by everything and all of these expectations of me... like, I don’t think people understand what it’s like to be this amazing in your everyday life, so I usually try not to blame anyone else for my stress, but- in wrestling, there’s only one rule that we all abide by: Never let the business beat you.

For a second there, I did. So I got away from everything and I got some crazy fucking thoughts- like I thought about putting a hose in my exhaust and pumping it in through my trunk and closing all my windows. I considered dousing some rags in gasoline in my apartment and leaving the gas oven on for a few hours, and- it’s weird. Here I am, living you peoples’ dreams... here I am, everything you aspire to be, and yet I feel so unhappy sometimes.

And I think I know why that is.

It’s because even though I know that I’m already the best, I have nothing to validate that. I don’t have the Tag Team Championships- I don’t even have the Suicidal Championship.

And in APW, when I’m getting pulled in every which direction, and even outside of APW, I lose a sense of... myself. I do this all the time... I get so caught up in what everybody else is expecting, that I forget who the fuck I am.

…

I’m Aubrey J. Parker, and I’m...

I’m not the most stable human being in the world.

So at a time like this when I feel like everything in the universe is crashing down on my fucking shoulders, the last thing I need is to find out that my boss is playing games.

Reginald fucking Schmidt, that piece of trash, useless excuse for a figurehead has decided that it would be a GREAT IDEA to place Logan and I against one another in the second round of Test for the Best qualifying matches. I don’t know if he was going for shock value or pushing for ratings, but he succeeded. I’m shocked that Asylum’s ratings are going to skyrocket at the New Sindicate’s expense.

I shouldn’t be surprised by this, though. When people look at the New Sindicate, they see power, because they see APW’s present and APW’s future standing before them and there’s not a damned thing anyone can do about it. We are the glory hogs. We are those creeps in the night that want to take anything they can get their hands on. And I’ve grown accustomed to that...

I want it all. I want what Terry Marvin has, and he knows it.

I want what Level One has. I want what Anthony Bailey has. Jair Hopkins.

A.C. Smith. Evan Envi. Guv’Nor.

Logan.

Kaylyn.

I want everything. I want all of it, and I deserve all of it, because I’m the best thing that’s ever happened, and it needs to be validated. I could win every championship in this company, and it would be a huge deal someday, but I want to be the best right now. I want to win Test for the Best, because I can taste it. I know I can do that right now if I can get past... my next opponent... my tag team partner.

And I know I can beat Logan Alexander, even if the history books say otherwise. I know that without other opponents, or management in the ring with us to distract us, we can put on the billion-dollar match Reginald wants, and I can come out on top. And when I say that, I don’t fear the worst for Logan and I and I don’t feel that it’s gonna drive some kind of wedge between us... because we’re stronger than that.

This is about the spirit of competition, and that’s something Logan and I have always appreciated. When I first came into this business, it wasn’t because I had idolized wrestling and played with action figures since I was a little girl or anything, but it was because I’d been pushed down and stepped on by girls and guys I didn’t even know, and I wanted the chance to hurt all of them the same way they hurt me.

I became a wrestler to spite all the motherfuckers that said I couldn’t do it, and now I want to win Test for the Best as the ultimate exclamation point.

I want Christian Kane and Logan Alexander to have a chance out there and prove that the best lies within the New Sindicate, but we all know that there can only be one winner...

Fuck everyone that thinks it’s going to be CJ Gates, getting his eighteen-thousandth shot at redemption against Level One. It’s going to be me

I am the ONE winner of Test for the Best, and after Terry embarrasses Kaylyn at Test for the Best, I will go onto Shockwave to challenge him- to knock the great one off of his throne after a year of supremacy, and become the new... your new APW Undisputed Champion. And not even Logan Alexander is going to be able to stop me.

I live to be the best.

When I’m not the best, I’m not happy. When I’m not the best, I lose it a little bit, and I’ve been climbing to the top for so long, and my patience is wearing so thin, so HELP ME GOD, if I’m not the best, then this isn’t a life worth fucking living. If I’m not the best, then Logan Alexander hasn’t done his job, so in honor of YOU, Logan, I’m going to make sure you represent the New Sindicate in that second-chance Battle Royal and show the entire world that no matter how many Megastars are in the ring, none of them are a match for the New Sindicate. Not a single one. Not Bailey... Mannie... Legion... McDonald... nobody holds a candle to us.

...but I’m not the one that’s going in there. I’m gonna get the job done the first time, by any means necessary, and I know you can respect that. I also know that you’ll do everything you can to prevent that, out of respect.

So I might go a little crazy.

…

I’m the best, love.

Help me prove it.”

jun.08.thirteen11:05am

My name is Dr. Norman N. Nemo. It had been a few days since I’d last seen Aubrey J. Parker, but I was pleased at the progress we were making- she was opening up to me, at least a little bit, which was leaps and bounds ahead of where we were just a week ago.

But it wouldn’t be a fun job if there wasn’t a catch... this time, the catch was Aubrey J. Parker had succumbed to the stress. Something had snapped, and I was slowly beginning to lose the patient that I’d spent the better part of two months trying my best to understand.

”So you stole your ex-boyfriend’s car, you exiled yourself from Twitter and from all communications for over seventy-two hours, and when you returned to social media... you began to berate your rival, Kaylyn James Evans. Did I miss anything or-?”

”Ha, no, I think that covers pretty much all of it.”

”Does that strike you as healthy behavior?”

There was a gleam in her eye that I could describe to you in vivid detail, I’m sure, until my elder years. She didn’t seem to ponder what I said, but hesitated in her response for dramatic effect.

”I do what I want to do. Is that not healthy?”

”I’m asking you that question.”

”...FINE, Norm, no, it isn’t healthy to shut all of my friends and family out of my life for friends at a time- and I shouldn’t go after Kaylyn, even if she is a sack of shit that owes her entire career to ME and-”

”Right, that’s enough.”

She looked at me unapologetically, and I took note of that. The girl seemed to prove my diagnosis right more and more, each day. It was truly astounding, looking at her, and feeling the coldness that took the place of remorse or humility.

”You said in front of APW cameras that you thought about killing yourself.”

”I played around with some ideas.”

”Why?”

”What do you mean, why? It was just- you know- a thought. Came, and went. No big deal.”

My heart skipped a beat, and my ears grew warm. It was an alarming response.

”Aubrey, I’m fairly certain that thoughts of suicide classify as a ‘big deal’, especially when somebody does what you do. Your co-worker, Jair Hopkins, was hospitalized just a month ago for-”

”I’m unhappy because I have nothing to show for being the best, Norm. But I didn’t think about doing it because I was unhappy.”

I watched nervously as her hand floated upward toward the edge of my desk. I wasn’t over there to guard my pens, and I watched her fingers glide over every single one. I feared a live demonstration, and I tensed up, prepared to lunge forward should anything happen.

”Being ‘the best’ is important to me. It means more than any one championship I’ve held in the papst. It even means more than belonging to any... one group...”

Her hands moved over to the stapler, and I met her eyes for a moment, but she slid her hand across the wooden top of the desk...

”It means that I’m at the top of my game, and nobody can take it away. It means that at one point, there was nobody that could touch Aubrey J. Parker... not even her tag team partner. Not even you, Dr. Norman.”

And my heart sunk. She grabbed my keys, and I stood up, panicked, but she found it-

She found the Swiss army knife attached to the keyring and flipped it open, holding the blade toward me with a devilish smile twisted across that endearing face. I sank back into my seat, and the look that she gave me wasn’t threatening, but inviting in the oddest, most agonizing kind of way.

”See that?”

She plunged the knife forward, and I gasped. I gasped for precious, shallow air.

But there was nothing. I looked down, and the knife was closed, safely into its home, while my keys were pressed against my heart. She giggled and moved her fingers up to my neck, lifting my head up to meet her eyes, speaking just above a whisper, with the only sound accompanying her being the consistent and delicate humming of the fan.

”That’s how the whole world should react to Aubrey J. Parker. Holding their breath, saying their prayers... I want the world at my mercy. I want the WHOLE FUCKING WORLD at my fingertips, and I’m going to have it! Right?”

I didn’t know what to say.

”Yes.”

Damnit.

”Yeah!”

She backed away from me and fell into her seat again, giggling at me.

”I’ll raise Hell to be the best, Norman, and I don’t care what anybody thinks about it. I know that I have to fight my best friend this week, and I might have to hurt him, but that’s... a risk... you take, when your authenticity is on the line, and for me, it is. For me, if I can’t prove that I’m what I say I am, then-”

”...then what? You kill yourself like you described to the cameras?”

She gave me an artificial simper, speaking innocently, but lowly.

”What’s bigger than dying?”

”Surviving.”

It was more straightforward than I’d have liked, and soon, it was just me and that fan, me quiet, him humming somewhere in the distance, waiting for Aubrey to speak, or join us in taciturnity.

”You’re right...

But don’t tell me that you’ve never hurt somebody you considered a friend to survive... I mean, how did you get this job anyway? Do you know how many people are in the psychology field and have historically been in the field? How many of your friends wanted the kushy home you have, with the white-picket fence, and the golden retriever, and the willfully-oblivious wife that has no idea that the only reason you’re throwing money in her face is because you’re aware that you’re more fucking in love with your job, and skull-fucking your patients than mending your own broken marriage, because I see the ring on your finger, but I see you in my business more than I’ve ever heard you mention your family, so let’s talk about it.

Let’s talk about how you’re a hypocrite, making me feel like I should feel bad for trying to be better than my friends in a competition-driven world while you’re the worst.”

Amazing. I’d gone my entire life without getting beat up, and here I am, nearly forty years old, and I finally know what it feels like.

We ended early that day.

Mistake.

No further notes.

slicing up eyeballs

jun.08.thirteen12:13pm

”¡Fuera! ¡Fuera! Date prisa, tenemos clientes!”

Kids. I let them hang around until I saw a customer coming, and then I made them leave. This isn’t a place for kids. It’s bad for business.

My name is Raquel Otero-Zayas. I work in Brooklyn, New York, inside of Willowdale Liquors- we see ridiculous things on a daily basis. I can write you a script for a feature-length film just based on the shit I’ve seen this week. Blind men, drug dealers, men on drugs, pregnant women smoking cigars as big as my arm... no, it wasn’t all bad, not hardly, but I guess that’s the shit that sticks out. None of that shit surprises you.

But then I saw this pretty bitch walk in, and I knew... I knew immediately where I recognized her- from TV. From wrestling.

And I knew something wasn’t right. I could tell by how she was walking that she might’ve already had a few drinks in her, and her hands were cut, and red, as if they had been resting in boiling water. Beneath her nails were dried, caked specks of blood.

”Qué le pasó... are you okay?”

She leaned across the counter and laughed at me, looking up at me, and I remember her smiling, repeating one phrase over... and over... and it haunted me.

It haunts me.

”I’m going to hurt all my friends.

I’m going to hurt all my friends.

I’m going to hurt all my friends.”

I called the ambulance.


unspecified.unspecified

”...and I just have this same, dream... this nightmare... where everyone is just pulling me, and pulling me, and I’m slipping away from my goal, and what I want, and I’m losing myself. And they’re pulling me apart. All of them, from every direction, pulling me apart.”

fin.