Post by Kyle on Feb 26, 2017 14:35:31 GMT -5
Sebastian Knight sat alone in an empty room with a mind that raced like a river that had flooded over its banks. Comatose yet moving faster than he had moved in a long time. Like a current, he felt himself being dragged along with no clear direction in sight, and only certain death awaiting him at the end. What else, in a way, described life itself? Man perpetually struggling to stay afloat, capable only of thrashing about and, if he was lucky, snag a piece of driftwood to hold onto along the way. That was his role in it all. He couldn’t stop his forward progression, but he could latch onto the world around him, and change his experience by the things he put between his hands. He could mold it, shape it, as he saw fit.
“Break it.”
The command that had, like an explosion, blew away the dam and allowed these thoughts of his burst through the hole in the first place. It had been his voice he had heard when he held the future in his hands. Cold steel and warm flesh, with no clear direction in sight. Until he heard the voice. He heard it even now, though it was not the same. It rang louder, truer, and it spoke in a voice that was not his own. A voice that, when it spoke, changed him. The adrenaline had worn out, but the exhilaration remained, stoked by the voice like it was a campfire and the voice the soft breathe to fuel the flames.
“Break it.”
A declaration of an interdependence that Sebastian Knight was only just beginning to understand. A bond, rooted deep within him, that surfaced tonight. People saw that. Some may have made a connection, glimpsed this bond, but most did not. Most people see only what they are shown, which is in this situation not very much at all.
A man alone, silent; who truly can read what goes through his head?
He needed to tell them.
Sebastian Knight practically explodes out of his chair and pushes through the door. He shouts at the first person he sees, a backstage hand directing the breakdown of the catering area.
“Where is Hank Brown?”
The tone struck a chord in the man, who didn’t even bother to answer Knight; he ran off, leaving him alone with the single overwhelming thought.
”Break it. . ."
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Adam, by not taking the time to do more than produce this here audio recording as our fateful reunion at Timebomb draws closer. I’m sure you probably thought that given our history, I’d take the effort to do more than I’ve done in recent weeks. ‘He may not bother to do much when wrestling Captain Rump, or Justin Turner, but I’m different. I’m not just some other opponent. He’ll look me in the eye this week.’ But here I am, but a voice playing through your speakers or your headphones, treating you all the same. Not because I’m being disrespectful, Adam, but actually in an attempt to save you. You’ll look into these eyes come Sunday night, believe me.
They may very well be the last thing you see at all.
But until then, I want you to just listen. Words are powerful constructs, Adam, with the capability of manipulating man far more than sight alone. Actions bring change, I will not deny, but words define our understanding of the very world itself. You didn’t just look at me, Adam, and decide you didn’t like me, nor could you describe it to another without words. In the same way, words can change our understanding in ways that what we see cannot. They just have of way of sliding through the cracks of the walls we’ve built that everything else just fails to do. So just close your eyes, Adam, and listen to the sound of my voice. Listen, and answer the summons.
Answer like you answered to poor Stephen Anderson’s screams, Adam Burnett.
Wordless they were. Guttural cries of a man who just knew his world had changed in a single moment. Will he walk again? Is his career over? Inquiries lacing his primal, raw outburst, questions only heard when one choose to look past the surface. I heard it, Adam, and you did too, though by then you were late. You couldn’t save him, and found yourself challenge by one last question: where was he? Where was my friend?
I want these questions fresh in your mind as we draw closer to Timebomb, Adam. Ask these questions to yourself as you wait to step through their curtain, know their answers—he may not walk, his career is probably over, and I was too late—and then forget about it all. Walk through the curtains, let them wash over you like a cleansing waterfall; be washed, absolved, of your shortcomings in regards to your friend Adam. Because the thing is this: it was never about him.
Its always been about you.
Stephen Anderson was but a plot device in the story of fate and inevitability. You were always the protagonist of our little tale, and it did not seem fair to have these loose ends lying around come Sunday night. No more interruptions of your interviews with Hank Brown. No more pesky gym rats clinging to friend’s coattails as they try to climb higher in this company. There could not be any room for doubt in our match at Timebomb. Two men will walk into that ring, and one will walk out. Decisive. Final.
You want to guess who I think that man will be?
This isn’t about being a champion this week, Adam, or the momentum I’m developed with my win streak. No, I’m predicting my victory because of what I represent, and what you do as well. That’s the thing people have probably forgotten; they’ve overlooked why you and I have even come this far in the first place. Our distaste from one another has stemmed from our experiences, or backgrounds. You disliked me because I appear to just buy my success in this company, didn’t have to earn my place here. I didn’t like you because you wanted me to lower myself to your miniscule level and not use the advantages I had been blessed with, just as you had been blessed in your own right. You were the idealist, the dreamer, and I was the reason men have to dream in the first place.
I am reality, Adam Burnett.
I am the reminder that life is not a fairy tale, that the endings are not always good and the heroes not always the victor. I showed you that once at Rise Up, and if not for the timely save from your recently-departed friend, the lesson would’ve been a lasting one for you. But no, you were spared the same fate Anderson would soon suffer himself, and have now adopted more themes out of the story books. Vengeance. Justice. These are the things you hope to represent at Timebomb in Burnett letter-v Knight, Roman numeral two. You look at yourself, see the good in you, and then you look at me and see the bad. Black and white, light and dark. But I’m urging you to listen. Hear my words, Adam, and heed them.
You will not win this Sunday.
And to be anything other than that is just setting yourself up to even further failure. No once upon a time. No happily ever after. There isn’t even a moral lesson to be learned from this, because our reality is not one to judge good and evil. Men do that, and not all men can be right. But oh they try, always try, to define the rights and wrongs of the world. Act, and they will follow; they never realize that thoughts cannot be heard by others. Prayer, meditation, contemplation . . . they all just look like men sitting alone in the room to me. Gods. It takes the words of a god to change the world.
So hear me, Adam!
You are but a man pressing against a divine force you’re incapable of overcoming. You thought you had achieved something when you got that golden ticket to join the ranks of the WCF. You thought that when you faced your first opposing view point, you had what it took to conquer it. You thought wrong, Adam. Ever since that first fateful encounter, you have done nothing but follow behind me, knowing that I was the answer. Your golden ticket pales in comparison to the gold around my waist. I am what you were looking to be, Adam, and what you will never truly achieve. Not while I’m around. You’re but a part, a role, to be played in my story; all I expect from you is to answer the cue.
Hear, Adam, and obey.”
Hank Brown looked nervous as he stood beside Sebastian Knight, who seemed to stare without seeing anything at all while the cameraman checked over his equipment one last time. Hank didn’t understand why this was even necessary—Knight had, in vague terms, already told him how this ‘interview’ would go—but there he was anything. What he didn’t realize is that he had always been there, in a way. The looming shadow in the weekly conflict between black and white, light and dark. This story would not have been possible otherwise; it made the most sense to have him there to witness the prelude to the final act.
The camera was ready. “Are you?” Hank asked.
Knight nodded as the camera began to roll. The red dot beside the lens matched the fire behind his eyes as Hank held to mic up to them both. “I have a question for you, Sebastian Knight: what are you thinking right now?”
Sebastian closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and spoke:
Sebastian opens his eyes and grins a feral grin.
“I am that monster, father. And a champion, too. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. Just watch this Sunday night, see it for yourself. Look into my eyes, and the eyes of the man who will soon be but another body. Watch as I finally put on display who I am, and what you will all soon be.
Broken.”
The scene fades out after this final statement with a close-up on Sebastian Knight’s face. His eyes were the last to disappear, and in that darkness, they looked so eerily similar to the eyes of another.
Darkness.
“Break it.”
The command that had, like an explosion, blew away the dam and allowed these thoughts of his burst through the hole in the first place. It had been his voice he had heard when he held the future in his hands. Cold steel and warm flesh, with no clear direction in sight. Until he heard the voice. He heard it even now, though it was not the same. It rang louder, truer, and it spoke in a voice that was not his own. A voice that, when it spoke, changed him. The adrenaline had worn out, but the exhilaration remained, stoked by the voice like it was a campfire and the voice the soft breathe to fuel the flames.
“Break it.”
A declaration of an interdependence that Sebastian Knight was only just beginning to understand. A bond, rooted deep within him, that surfaced tonight. People saw that. Some may have made a connection, glimpsed this bond, but most did not. Most people see only what they are shown, which is in this situation not very much at all.
A man alone, silent; who truly can read what goes through his head?
He needed to tell them.
Sebastian Knight practically explodes out of his chair and pushes through the door. He shouts at the first person he sees, a backstage hand directing the breakdown of the catering area.
“Where is Hank Brown?”
The tone struck a chord in the man, who didn’t even bother to answer Knight; he ran off, leaving him alone with the single overwhelming thought.
”Break it. . ."
[Static]
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Adam, by not taking the time to do more than produce this here audio recording as our fateful reunion at Timebomb draws closer. I’m sure you probably thought that given our history, I’d take the effort to do more than I’ve done in recent weeks. ‘He may not bother to do much when wrestling Captain Rump, or Justin Turner, but I’m different. I’m not just some other opponent. He’ll look me in the eye this week.’ But here I am, but a voice playing through your speakers or your headphones, treating you all the same. Not because I’m being disrespectful, Adam, but actually in an attempt to save you. You’ll look into these eyes come Sunday night, believe me.
They may very well be the last thing you see at all.
But until then, I want you to just listen. Words are powerful constructs, Adam, with the capability of manipulating man far more than sight alone. Actions bring change, I will not deny, but words define our understanding of the very world itself. You didn’t just look at me, Adam, and decide you didn’t like me, nor could you describe it to another without words. In the same way, words can change our understanding in ways that what we see cannot. They just have of way of sliding through the cracks of the walls we’ve built that everything else just fails to do. So just close your eyes, Adam, and listen to the sound of my voice. Listen, and answer the summons.
Answer like you answered to poor Stephen Anderson’s screams, Adam Burnett.
Wordless they were. Guttural cries of a man who just knew his world had changed in a single moment. Will he walk again? Is his career over? Inquiries lacing his primal, raw outburst, questions only heard when one choose to look past the surface. I heard it, Adam, and you did too, though by then you were late. You couldn’t save him, and found yourself challenge by one last question: where was he? Where was my friend?
I want these questions fresh in your mind as we draw closer to Timebomb, Adam. Ask these questions to yourself as you wait to step through their curtain, know their answers—he may not walk, his career is probably over, and I was too late—and then forget about it all. Walk through the curtains, let them wash over you like a cleansing waterfall; be washed, absolved, of your shortcomings in regards to your friend Adam. Because the thing is this: it was never about him.
Its always been about you.
Stephen Anderson was but a plot device in the story of fate and inevitability. You were always the protagonist of our little tale, and it did not seem fair to have these loose ends lying around come Sunday night. No more interruptions of your interviews with Hank Brown. No more pesky gym rats clinging to friend’s coattails as they try to climb higher in this company. There could not be any room for doubt in our match at Timebomb. Two men will walk into that ring, and one will walk out. Decisive. Final.
You want to guess who I think that man will be?
This isn’t about being a champion this week, Adam, or the momentum I’m developed with my win streak. No, I’m predicting my victory because of what I represent, and what you do as well. That’s the thing people have probably forgotten; they’ve overlooked why you and I have even come this far in the first place. Our distaste from one another has stemmed from our experiences, or backgrounds. You disliked me because I appear to just buy my success in this company, didn’t have to earn my place here. I didn’t like you because you wanted me to lower myself to your miniscule level and not use the advantages I had been blessed with, just as you had been blessed in your own right. You were the idealist, the dreamer, and I was the reason men have to dream in the first place.
I am reality, Adam Burnett.
I am the reminder that life is not a fairy tale, that the endings are not always good and the heroes not always the victor. I showed you that once at Rise Up, and if not for the timely save from your recently-departed friend, the lesson would’ve been a lasting one for you. But no, you were spared the same fate Anderson would soon suffer himself, and have now adopted more themes out of the story books. Vengeance. Justice. These are the things you hope to represent at Timebomb in Burnett letter-v Knight, Roman numeral two. You look at yourself, see the good in you, and then you look at me and see the bad. Black and white, light and dark. But I’m urging you to listen. Hear my words, Adam, and heed them.
You will not win this Sunday.
And to be anything other than that is just setting yourself up to even further failure. No once upon a time. No happily ever after. There isn’t even a moral lesson to be learned from this, because our reality is not one to judge good and evil. Men do that, and not all men can be right. But oh they try, always try, to define the rights and wrongs of the world. Act, and they will follow; they never realize that thoughts cannot be heard by others. Prayer, meditation, contemplation . . . they all just look like men sitting alone in the room to me. Gods. It takes the words of a god to change the world.
So hear me, Adam!
You are but a man pressing against a divine force you’re incapable of overcoming. You thought you had achieved something when you got that golden ticket to join the ranks of the WCF. You thought that when you faced your first opposing view point, you had what it took to conquer it. You thought wrong, Adam. Ever since that first fateful encounter, you have done nothing but follow behind me, knowing that I was the answer. Your golden ticket pales in comparison to the gold around my waist. I am what you were looking to be, Adam, and what you will never truly achieve. Not while I’m around. You’re but a part, a role, to be played in my story; all I expect from you is to answer the cue.
Hear, Adam, and obey.”
[Static]
Hank Brown looked nervous as he stood beside Sebastian Knight, who seemed to stare without seeing anything at all while the cameraman checked over his equipment one last time. Hank didn’t understand why this was even necessary—Knight had, in vague terms, already told him how this ‘interview’ would go—but there he was anything. What he didn’t realize is that he had always been there, in a way. The looming shadow in the weekly conflict between black and white, light and dark. This story would not have been possible otherwise; it made the most sense to have him there to witness the prelude to the final act.
The camera was ready. “Are you?” Hank asked.
Knight nodded as the camera began to roll. The red dot beside the lens matched the fire behind his eyes as Hank held to mic up to them both. “I have a question for you, Sebastian Knight: what are you thinking right now?”
Sebastian closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and spoke:
“Bones
Shattered Reminders of the
Mistakes of our past,
Present,
And future.
Scars, marring body and soul
A patchwork of failures
And broken dreams.
Bones and Dreams
Imagination rampant
Rampaging, ravaging
Until our bodies are left
Incapable, our shortcomings
Innumerable, our fates
Inescapable.
Bones, and dreams, and you
Adam.
Burnett, burnt out,
Snuffed by my ever-expanding
Fire.
Flames that purify gold
And swallow men whole.
Adam.
Poor, poor Adam.”
Shattered Reminders of the
Mistakes of our past,
Present,
And future.
Scars, marring body and soul
A patchwork of failures
And broken dreams.
Bones and Dreams
Imagination rampant
Rampaging, ravaging
Until our bodies are left
Incapable, our shortcomings
Innumerable, our fates
Inescapable.
Bones, and dreams, and you
Adam.
Burnett, burnt out,
Snuffed by my ever-expanding
Fire.
Flames that purify gold
And swallow men whole.
Adam.
Poor, poor Adam.”
Sebastian opens his eyes and grins a feral grin.
“I am that monster, father. And a champion, too. It doesn’t have to be one or the other. Just watch this Sunday night, see it for yourself. Look into my eyes, and the eyes of the man who will soon be but another body. Watch as I finally put on display who I am, and what you will all soon be.
Broken.”
The scene fades out after this final statement with a close-up on Sebastian Knight’s face. His eyes were the last to disappear, and in that darkness, they looked so eerily similar to the eyes of another.
Darkness.
