Post by Kyle on Feb 20, 2014 22:39:44 GMT -5
Darkness.
The viewers are met with the resounding emptiness of a black screen. This absence continues for a few moments before a single sound begins to fill the void. It was a scratching, seconds of the repetitive noise followed by a pause, a single second, before it begins again. And then, suddenly, a voice. It was not a voice viewers had ever heard before on videos by this man. It was deep, professional, a voice full of intelligence and wisdom. It the voice of a man, but of whom . . . what that too is revealed within seconds.
"My name is Doctor Samuel Cooler, medical psychologist and Professor at the University of Virginia, preparing for my first medical examination with one Nathan von Liebert, who currently styles himself as Mark Dillinger. The man has shown up to my office on his own accord, requesting my assistance in helping him cope with the struggles he faced in . . . in combat. War, he kept saying. His records, which I had to find on my own --he has no recollection of his own identity -- shows he has never served in the military. In fact, he spent most of his life in a mental institute in western Virginia. Multiple-personality disorder, anger issues, murder . . . why this man is walking free at all, let alone seeking medical help on his own accord, I haven't a clue."
The flow of words are broken by a pause, a genuine sigh from the voice.
"I know no one will probably ever hear this recording, but I'll say this anyway . . . wish me luck."
A slight shaft of light appears, revealing a body in the darkness. For any hardcore WCF fan, they would notice the similarities of this scene and the video of Mark Dillinger that aired at Payback. It is Dillinger seated on the bench, the tears still fresh on his cheeks.
"Tell me a little bit about yourself, mister Dillinger. What brings you to my office?"
"What brings anybody to your office, doc? To have their past back. To be fixed, whole. To be something other than what they've become."
"And what was your past, Mark? Can I call you Mark?"
On screen, Dillinger looks up at the camera, suffering in those brown eyes that used to make other suffer.
"Of course. I mean, what else would you call me."
A pause in the audio. Dillinger wipes the tears away with a finger of his left cheek and his stump on the right.
"As to my past . . . well, I gotta say my past was damn good, doc. I was top of my class at West Point, untouchable by my peers. I was the best of the best, at least in that class of students. With great power, as they say, comes great responsibility. It wasn't long after my graduation that my regiment was called to War. And me being me, I was expected to lead the charge, to stand above everybody else. And I went out there thinking I could handle it all. But I was wrong."
"And what was it that brought your world crashing down, Mark?"
Another pause. Dillinger rises to his feet, the room starting to light up more. It seems he was in a locker room of some sort, possibly a locker room in the very arena that the video just aired in.
"Do you think you can give me my past back, doc?"
Dillinger arrives in front of a mirror. Viewers see the drastic change the man had undergone. The buzz cut, the weight loss, the absence of his hand . . . they see it all.
"Not all of it, no. But if you--"
Doctor Cooler is cut off by a gruff laugh, like the bark of a dog. Dillinger raises both hands in front of him, blocking his face in the mirror
"Well I can't say I expected you'd give me everything back."
A crash of glass is heard, but for the first time, its not from the audio; Dillinger smashed the mirror with his stump.
"With that said, I hope I can help you, Mark. But you must work with me. What brought you crashing down?"
Blood begins to seep out of his stump, dripping onto the shards of glass at his feet. Dillinger himself soon drops to his knees soon after, head bowed, body broken.
"A bomb."
The scene changed suddenly. Now, instead of a dim locker room, viewers found themselves at ringside on Slam. More people will recognize this scene: the impromptu match between Dillinger and Remus Micayle. Specially, this is after the match, where the two men are staring each other down.
"A bomb, Mark?"
"Yeah, a bomb. Bomb, explosives, IED. Call it what you want."
"Can you tell me how you came in contact with this bomb."
"At War, of course."
Dillinger rises to his feet, clutching at his ribs. He breaks eye contact with Micayle, looking around the arena at the crowd, who are all watching him.
"It was the middle of my regiment's tour, but I was just getting in the thick of things myself. I'm fighting, going at it, and then . . . bomb."
"And this bomb? It exploded with you within its radius?"
Dillinger makes his way up the ramp, ignoring the voices around him.
"You know I still had my hand after it. It mangled, beyond repair, worthless. All the power that it once possessed, everything it had done . . . that was gone. But the hand was still there. And now its not."
"One step at a time, Mark. Did the bomb explode?"
At the top of the ramp, Dillinger turns back to the crowd.
"No."
Dillinger shakes his head, his hands--hand and stump--to his face, a pose like Munch's Scream.
"No, I don't think it has, doc. Because when's all is quiet, when the voices have me a respite from their torments, I can still hear it. In fact, I can hear it now. And you wanna know what its saying?"
Dillinger drops onto his back, muttering to himself inaudibly. Anyone competent enough at reading lips could tell that the words he's mumbling are the same words heard over the audio. The camera zooms in on his face, his confused, twisted face.
"Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick . . ."
" . . . Tick, Tick motherfucking Tick."
The first thing viewers notice is that the words weren't coming from audio anymore, but from Dillinger's mouth itself. Then, as the camera pans out, viewers realize that while Dillinger is still on the ramp, its not the same one; in fact, its not even the same arena. The American Airlines Center is already ready for the WCF PPV to be held there three days from now, with the ring already erected in the center.
"You know, I thought it was all over that night, months and months ago. I was looking up to the sky, dazed and confused, wondering why it had happened to me. Why would anyone, man or god, give me all that success, only to rip it out of my grasp so quickly. And not just my success, either. My body, my mind, my life was taken away from me. And the cruelest joke of all? I was left with these voices in my head."
Dillinger stands up, making his way down the ramp.
"But I'll be honest, these voices are the reason I'm here today. Not just here, in Dallas, days before my debut in the WCF against the . . . shall I say experienced tag team of Biohazard and Tyler Walker. No, its because of these voices in my head that I'm still alive at all. I was truly and utterly broken, but they were always there, urging me on to listen, to do as they said. And in the beginning, I ignored them. Then, when they never stopped, I sought help on my own. The military specialists wouldn't give me the time of day; seems when you're discharged, they act as if you never served in the first place. After that, I sought private doctors. They at least played along with my struggles. They'd ask the questions, make me repeat all the things I knew, and then nothing. After pouring my heart and soul out, these doctors did nothing for me.
And the voices continued."
Dillinger has finally arrived at the ring, which he rolls into like he would be doing Sunday night.
"WCF, WCF, WCF. It was like a chant, a monotonous rhythm that I finally decided to fall into. Once I agreed that I would join this organization, the tone remained the same, but the tune changed. Now, instead of WCF, the voices kept saying Remus Micayle. The mighty doctor, the Herald of Science, the God in a field where God doesn't exist. I was still wary of the whole situation, but I decided I would finally, finally listen. I sought Doctor Remus out. I can't say our interactions have been normal, but I can say this.
I've been saved.
Doctor Remus and Team Science hold the answers to my questions. Why am I like this? Can I come back from it? All of the things I need to know, Remus will answer. The questions the voices ignore, Remus. Will. Answer. And all I have to do in return is prove myself. Each week from here on out is going to be a test of my worth to Doctor Remus. My ability in this ring is really all I have to offer. My mind? Crippled. My finances? Non-existent. My love? Not worth it. No, Remus seeks a strong disciple, a role I am more than willing to fill.
And BioWalker will be my proof that I do deserve the position."
Dillinger looks around the ring.
"I asked the voices about you two and all I got in return was laughter. That's it. The voices heard the names Biohazard and Tyler Walker and they fucking laughed. And who can blame them? Because you see, I've seen your type before. The chumps at boot camp who think they can do everything better than anyone else. You give them a simple role and they fuck it up. You give them the leadership position in drill and they fuck it up. Anything they do, I guarantee you that it will be . . . well you get the picture."
Dillinger tests the ropes with his good hand, pausing his personal reflection.
"I emphasize my point with this: several months ago, you two were given a chance against the World Champion, a man by the name of Nathan von Liebert. You had the numbers advantage, plus Nathan was just coming off a brutal match the week before. Either one you could've won, should've won, but you failed to capitalize. He steamrolled over you two, leaving you battered and bruised. And if he could do it alone, imagine what I could do with the help of the United States Champion Remus Micayle. Technically, I'll come at you half as hard as Nathan did." Nathan holds up his missing hand "But half is still more than enough to beat you this week."
Nathan stops pacing and taps his skull with his index finger.
"The voices have stopped speaking for now, Team BioWalker, and I can hear the new tune. And let me tell you this: I figured it out. I figured out why I'm still hearing the bomb, months after I lost everything.
I hear it because I am the bomb.
The incessant ticking is there to remind me that not all is lost. The bomb is telling me what I lost at War can be regained in an Explosion or a Blast. I only have to keep listening."
The camera begins to pan in, zooming in on Dillinger's face.
"I am a ticking timebomb, and eventually, I will detonate, catching all of the WCF within my radius. That includes you two, Biohazard and Tyler Walker; you'll find that out soon enough."
Boom, Static
The viewers are met with the resounding emptiness of a black screen. This absence continues for a few moments before a single sound begins to fill the void. It was a scratching, seconds of the repetitive noise followed by a pause, a single second, before it begins again. And then, suddenly, a voice. It was not a voice viewers had ever heard before on videos by this man. It was deep, professional, a voice full of intelligence and wisdom. It the voice of a man, but of whom . . . what that too is revealed within seconds.
"My name is Doctor Samuel Cooler, medical psychologist and Professor at the University of Virginia, preparing for my first medical examination with one Nathan von Liebert, who currently styles himself as Mark Dillinger. The man has shown up to my office on his own accord, requesting my assistance in helping him cope with the struggles he faced in . . . in combat. War, he kept saying. His records, which I had to find on my own --he has no recollection of his own identity -- shows he has never served in the military. In fact, he spent most of his life in a mental institute in western Virginia. Multiple-personality disorder, anger issues, murder . . . why this man is walking free at all, let alone seeking medical help on his own accord, I haven't a clue."
The flow of words are broken by a pause, a genuine sigh from the voice.
"I know no one will probably ever hear this recording, but I'll say this anyway . . . wish me luck."
A slight shaft of light appears, revealing a body in the darkness. For any hardcore WCF fan, they would notice the similarities of this scene and the video of Mark Dillinger that aired at Payback. It is Dillinger seated on the bench, the tears still fresh on his cheeks.
"Tell me a little bit about yourself, mister Dillinger. What brings you to my office?"
"What brings anybody to your office, doc? To have their past back. To be fixed, whole. To be something other than what they've become."
"And what was your past, Mark? Can I call you Mark?"
On screen, Dillinger looks up at the camera, suffering in those brown eyes that used to make other suffer.
"Of course. I mean, what else would you call me."
A pause in the audio. Dillinger wipes the tears away with a finger of his left cheek and his stump on the right.
"As to my past . . . well, I gotta say my past was damn good, doc. I was top of my class at West Point, untouchable by my peers. I was the best of the best, at least in that class of students. With great power, as they say, comes great responsibility. It wasn't long after my graduation that my regiment was called to War. And me being me, I was expected to lead the charge, to stand above everybody else. And I went out there thinking I could handle it all. But I was wrong."
"And what was it that brought your world crashing down, Mark?"
Another pause. Dillinger rises to his feet, the room starting to light up more. It seems he was in a locker room of some sort, possibly a locker room in the very arena that the video just aired in.
"Do you think you can give me my past back, doc?"
Dillinger arrives in front of a mirror. Viewers see the drastic change the man had undergone. The buzz cut, the weight loss, the absence of his hand . . . they see it all.
"Not all of it, no. But if you--"
Doctor Cooler is cut off by a gruff laugh, like the bark of a dog. Dillinger raises both hands in front of him, blocking his face in the mirror
"Well I can't say I expected you'd give me everything back."
A crash of glass is heard, but for the first time, its not from the audio; Dillinger smashed the mirror with his stump.
"With that said, I hope I can help you, Mark. But you must work with me. What brought you crashing down?"
Blood begins to seep out of his stump, dripping onto the shards of glass at his feet. Dillinger himself soon drops to his knees soon after, head bowed, body broken.
"A bomb."
The scene changed suddenly. Now, instead of a dim locker room, viewers found themselves at ringside on Slam. More people will recognize this scene: the impromptu match between Dillinger and Remus Micayle. Specially, this is after the match, where the two men are staring each other down.
"A bomb, Mark?"
"Yeah, a bomb. Bomb, explosives, IED. Call it what you want."
"Can you tell me how you came in contact with this bomb."
"At War, of course."
Dillinger rises to his feet, clutching at his ribs. He breaks eye contact with Micayle, looking around the arena at the crowd, who are all watching him.
"It was the middle of my regiment's tour, but I was just getting in the thick of things myself. I'm fighting, going at it, and then . . . bomb."
"And this bomb? It exploded with you within its radius?"
Dillinger makes his way up the ramp, ignoring the voices around him.
"You know I still had my hand after it. It mangled, beyond repair, worthless. All the power that it once possessed, everything it had done . . . that was gone. But the hand was still there. And now its not."
"One step at a time, Mark. Did the bomb explode?"
At the top of the ramp, Dillinger turns back to the crowd.
"No."
Dillinger shakes his head, his hands--hand and stump--to his face, a pose like Munch's Scream.
"No, I don't think it has, doc. Because when's all is quiet, when the voices have me a respite from their torments, I can still hear it. In fact, I can hear it now. And you wanna know what its saying?"
Dillinger drops onto his back, muttering to himself inaudibly. Anyone competent enough at reading lips could tell that the words he's mumbling are the same words heard over the audio. The camera zooms in on his face, his confused, twisted face.
"Tick, Tick, Tick, Tick . . ."
" . . . Tick, Tick motherfucking Tick."
The first thing viewers notice is that the words weren't coming from audio anymore, but from Dillinger's mouth itself. Then, as the camera pans out, viewers realize that while Dillinger is still on the ramp, its not the same one; in fact, its not even the same arena. The American Airlines Center is already ready for the WCF PPV to be held there three days from now, with the ring already erected in the center.
"You know, I thought it was all over that night, months and months ago. I was looking up to the sky, dazed and confused, wondering why it had happened to me. Why would anyone, man or god, give me all that success, only to rip it out of my grasp so quickly. And not just my success, either. My body, my mind, my life was taken away from me. And the cruelest joke of all? I was left with these voices in my head."
Dillinger stands up, making his way down the ramp.
"But I'll be honest, these voices are the reason I'm here today. Not just here, in Dallas, days before my debut in the WCF against the . . . shall I say experienced tag team of Biohazard and Tyler Walker. No, its because of these voices in my head that I'm still alive at all. I was truly and utterly broken, but they were always there, urging me on to listen, to do as they said. And in the beginning, I ignored them. Then, when they never stopped, I sought help on my own. The military specialists wouldn't give me the time of day; seems when you're discharged, they act as if you never served in the first place. After that, I sought private doctors. They at least played along with my struggles. They'd ask the questions, make me repeat all the things I knew, and then nothing. After pouring my heart and soul out, these doctors did nothing for me.
And the voices continued."
Dillinger has finally arrived at the ring, which he rolls into like he would be doing Sunday night.
"WCF, WCF, WCF. It was like a chant, a monotonous rhythm that I finally decided to fall into. Once I agreed that I would join this organization, the tone remained the same, but the tune changed. Now, instead of WCF, the voices kept saying Remus Micayle. The mighty doctor, the Herald of Science, the God in a field where God doesn't exist. I was still wary of the whole situation, but I decided I would finally, finally listen. I sought Doctor Remus out. I can't say our interactions have been normal, but I can say this.
I've been saved.
Doctor Remus and Team Science hold the answers to my questions. Why am I like this? Can I come back from it? All of the things I need to know, Remus will answer. The questions the voices ignore, Remus. Will. Answer. And all I have to do in return is prove myself. Each week from here on out is going to be a test of my worth to Doctor Remus. My ability in this ring is really all I have to offer. My mind? Crippled. My finances? Non-existent. My love? Not worth it. No, Remus seeks a strong disciple, a role I am more than willing to fill.
And BioWalker will be my proof that I do deserve the position."
Dillinger looks around the ring.
"I asked the voices about you two and all I got in return was laughter. That's it. The voices heard the names Biohazard and Tyler Walker and they fucking laughed. And who can blame them? Because you see, I've seen your type before. The chumps at boot camp who think they can do everything better than anyone else. You give them a simple role and they fuck it up. You give them the leadership position in drill and they fuck it up. Anything they do, I guarantee you that it will be . . . well you get the picture."
Dillinger tests the ropes with his good hand, pausing his personal reflection.
"I emphasize my point with this: several months ago, you two were given a chance against the World Champion, a man by the name of Nathan von Liebert. You had the numbers advantage, plus Nathan was just coming off a brutal match the week before. Either one you could've won, should've won, but you failed to capitalize. He steamrolled over you two, leaving you battered and bruised. And if he could do it alone, imagine what I could do with the help of the United States Champion Remus Micayle. Technically, I'll come at you half as hard as Nathan did." Nathan holds up his missing hand "But half is still more than enough to beat you this week."
Nathan stops pacing and taps his skull with his index finger.
"The voices have stopped speaking for now, Team BioWalker, and I can hear the new tune. And let me tell you this: I figured it out. I figured out why I'm still hearing the bomb, months after I lost everything.
I hear it because I am the bomb.
The incessant ticking is there to remind me that not all is lost. The bomb is telling me what I lost at War can be regained in an Explosion or a Blast. I only have to keep listening."
The camera begins to pan in, zooming in on Dillinger's face.
"I am a ticking timebomb, and eventually, I will detonate, catching all of the WCF within my radius. That includes you two, Biohazard and Tyler Walker; you'll find that out soon enough."
