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The face of a young woman resting on a pillow, her eyes closed, mouth slightly open as though she were sleeping and breathing slightly. Cut. The scruffy face of Cyrus O’Haire, hair fallen down over his eyes and nose, his face contorted into a psychotic smile. His eyes, though covered, staring straight into the camera. Cut. Cyrus O’Haire sitting in his bedroom, sitting just on the edge of his bed, a nine millimeter pistol in his hand. Cut. The woman working diligently at a night club, pouring drinks. Her smile lighting up the room as she makes small talk with her customers. Cut. Cyrus behind the wheel of a car, his facial expressions not changing, his hair still in his eyes. Cut. The woman walking to her apartment, jangling her keys by her side, her mouth still in a smile. Cut. Cyrus O’Haire sitting in his car across the street from the woman’s apartment, watching as she unlocks her door. Cut. The face of a young woman resting on a pillow, her eyes closed, mouth slightly open as though she were sleeping and breathing slightly. The same image as before… Cut. Cyrus standing at the foot of the woman’s bed, his scruffy face, his hair over his eyes and nose. A widened version of the image shown before. Cut. The nine millimeter pistol just above the woman’s temple, a finger resting on the trigger. The sound of the hammer being pulled back. Cut. The woman looking straight down the barrel of the gun, Cyrus O’Haire standing behind the pistol. Cut. Cyrus throws his body up. He runs his hands over his face, feeling a moist texture to it. He draws his hand back… blood. “What the fuck?!” He yells as he bounces out of bed. Staring down at the pillow, also covered with blood. As Cyrus looks at his hands, he realizes that the blood isn’t his from the splatters. Cyrus panics, rushing towards the bathroom. Cyrus falls, just a few feet from the bathroom, rolling over to his back, his chest pumping up and down, up and down, and with out warning… stops. Cyrus’ eyes open, he looks towards his alarm clock. He sits up, running his hands over his face, feeling the moisture… sweat. He shakes his head, as he throws his legs off of his bed, and walks calmly over to his bathroom… the scene faded. Cyrus walked towards the mirror, fixing his tie. The suit he wore looked expensive, though the tailor was unidentifiable. Cyrus looked at himself, and then reached for the jar of lotion to rub over his peeling face. He turned around, looking at the dozen red roses that lay on his bed. Turning back to the mirror, he quickly covered his face with the lotion, staring deep into his own eyes, pondering what he was doing… why he was doing it… But he knew it had to be done. Cyrus sighed, walking towards the flowers. He looked around the room, everything he owned… and then back to the flowers. His hand reached down. The bed began to shake. Cyrus stepped back, against the wall. Harder it shook, banging against the wall at the headboard. Cyrus didn’t know what was going on. He started to strafe towards the desk, the bed seemed to follow him. His eyes snapped to the brown bottle which held his sanity… he lunged towards the bottle, smacking his chin on the desk as he fell to the ground, the bottle in his hand. As blood began to trickle down onto his white shirt, Cyrus ripped the cap off of the bottle, and threw it towards his face, expecting a stream of pills to roll into his mouth… But none did. Cyrus looked horrified as the bed continued to rock and roll. He stood up, screaming, and grabbed the roses, quickly, before turning and running out of the room. The pictures on the wall began to fall, the glass shattering under his dress shoes. The house began to shake, to rock back and forth. Dishes and trophies and plants and pictures all came crashing to the ground, Cyrus ran as quickly as he could towards the door. Cyrus was petrified as the door slammed shut on him, just before he could reach it. He threw his body into it, trying to rip it from the hinges. Try as he might, nothing happened. A bulge in the hardwood floors was moving towards him, Cyrus was screaming out bloody murder, though nothing could be heard. Finally, Cyrus ran towards the bulge, leaping into the air, tucking his knees to his chest, and came crashing back down on it. He fell over, but the bulge had vanished. He looked around the room, feeling the vibrations still, his face now almost on ground level. Then… a voice. “Where are your precious pills now, Cyrus?” Cyrus looked around... “Who… who the fuck are you?” The voice cackled. “You know damn well who I am, Cyrus. I’m the one you fear at night, the one you hide under your pillows from. I’m the Boogeyman, Cyrus, and you’re out of pills.” Cyrus pushed himself up, over to the wall. “The Boogeyman isn’t real – you’re not real. You’re just a figment of my delusional imagination.” The voice again cackled. “Oh, is that so, Cyrus? Then why are you crying like a little girl right now, if you know I’m not real? You don’t know if I’m real or not. You’re still wondering if those pills are even working, aren’t you? You’re having nightmares; you’re still seeing… this. You know who I am, you know what I am to you.” Cyrus leaned his head back against the wall, and closed eyes. A hand covered his mouth, from the wall. Cyrus’ eyes shot open as he felt the hand, then pulled his head back. A face came forth from the wall. “You’ve got 8-Ball this week, right Cyrus? Cyrus ‘The Vyrus’? You’re going one-on-one with the Southern States champion, right? Street fight, so you can get some knowledge as to what’s going on with you, why you’re seeing me and the things I do? I’ll tell you right now, Azrael’s not going to tell you… you can keep on fighting it, you can keep denying it… but Azrael will never tell you what’s going on, and you know it…” Cyrus slid his head from under the grasp of the hand. The hand disappeared; Cyrus rushed to his feet, as the house stopped shaking. His chin was still bleeding; his shirt and tie were blood stained. Cyrus wiped off his face, picked up the flowers, and took a deep breath. He walked slowly towards the door of the house. The scene faded. The scene now picks up with Cyrus sitting in front of a headstone, though the name isn’t visible as the camera is behind the stone. “Years ago I came into the business thinking I was tough shit, 8-Ball. I thought I was the best thing to wrestling since the steel cage. I took pride in my ability to take a kendo stick, or a pane of glass. I took pride in my ability to open a man up with brass knuckles, I thought I was something special, you know what I mean? Now I realize that any punk kid can do just that, pain is a mental thing, anyone can block it out.” Cyrus looked down at the headstone, before dabbing his hand on his chin, collecting some of the still dripping blood. He looked at his hand, before rubbing it on the headstone. He looked back to the camera. “This match isn’t about pride, 8-Ball. Don’t make it out to be. Don’t tell me you’re in this match because I tested your manhood. Don’t tell me it’s because you have something against me. We both know you don’t. You have nothing against me, I have nothing against you. You’ve got something against Azrael, and I’m his stand in. I’ve got problems with pills, and you’re standing in the way of me getting to them. Call me addicted, call me what you will, you’re still standing there, and like a fucking moron you decided to step between a junkie and his fix, instead of playing it smart and going back home.” Cyrus looked at the headstone for a second, sighing to himself. “Now it’s you and I in a Street Fight for the Southern States Championship. You know, I don’t even want the fucking title, man, but so long as I have that title, Azrael’s happy because YOU don’t, nor does anyone else. When you won that title from HantaKira, Azrael choked a little. Having you with that title, is like Monica Lewinski and Bill Clinton, you’re blowing the power, 8-Ball.” Cyrus squatted on his calves now, his hands dangling in front of him. “You got that title from a three way battle, you should be proud of it. Be proud of the title, but don’t be proud of this match, proud that you got put in this match. This match isn’t about pride, it’s about one man trying to show another that he’s not going to stand for people doing shit to the company he loves, and one man trying to get what he NEEDS.” He paused. “You don’t need that fucking title, 8-Ball, and Azrael doesn’t believe you deserve it, either. You don’t use it to show the world that you’re better than most of the men and, in Vicki’s comatose state, women that you’re better than people. You’re a good man, you know how good you are. You know why you have that title, because you wanted to show HantaKira up. You said it yourself, you’re not afraid of anything, not anyone, not even HantaKira.” Cyrus looked to the headstone, then back to the camera. “But I am, 8-Ball. I’m fucking terrified of that Japanese bastard. I’m afraid of him in every sense of the word, I don’t want him coming after me, I don’t want to have a run in with that damn spike. I don’t want to be dangling from a noose from the top of the rafters, or the fucking entrance ramp. I don’t want that. That’s not who I am, or what I’m here for. I’m not here to die, I’m here to get what I need, so that I don’t have to deal with bullshit like that. “And I don’t plan on losing this match, 8-Ball. If I have to rip your strength out, hair follicle by hair follicle, I will. If I have to rip every stitch from your grape, I will. If I have to break both of your legs… I will… I’m not going to end up like you, with Azrael on my ass, sending delusional psychopaths on drugs after me. “If I have to disfigure you so badly your wife doesn’t recognize you in the morgue… so be it…” Cyrus dropped his head. “But I am not going to end up like you. I’m going to do what I have to do to you, get what I want, and wait until my next match. Because that’s what I do, that’s who I am.” Cyrus sighed. “I don’t have anything against you, Ty. I don’t, man… but that doesn’t change the fact that I have a loaded pistol against the back of my head with the hammer cocked. And I’m not about to take this bullet.” Cyrus reached behind him, grabbing the roses. He set them down in front of the headstone, stood up, and calmly walked away. As the camera panned around the headstone, it slowly began to fade. R.I.P. Damien ‘The Maverick’ Roy |