OOC: Formatting later. I opera'd tonight.

Lost in the Dark



December 13th, 2021
12:03 AM

Florence shot awake, a scream bellowing from his lungs his clothes clinging to his skin from the sweat on his body. Nightmares had once again invaded, fluid in form, yet unshifting in the ways that they could linger. As the memory began to blur, all that remained was the sight of blood in his hands, scarlet coated turmoil dripping from his palms.

His eyes adjusted to the dark, gaze set on his hands, fingers rubbing against his palms just to ascertain whether the vision was as illusory as he’d hoped.

No trace of blood.

Florence’s racing heart began to ease, the adrenaline of fear attempting to wane in the dim glow of a matching moon outside. Rehab had been hell for him. When he wasn’t having to hide a part of himself away to not be viewed as superstitious or delusional, the steady call of heroin hummed through his veins. His dreams had always been more vivid. He recalled a time when young where he dreamt of floating far above the ground, like a stray wind had carried him until he carefully descended back onto the ground. A peaceful trip.

At least until he stood on the balcony of their apartment and ended up snapping his leg in half due to the fall. Even after her death, he could feel his mother lambasting him for that mistake.

The droning of the various medical machines in the other rooms stung, plucking at the thin strings of his sobriety even further. Sleep felt like an impossibility, even beyond the eyes staring at him on the other side of the room. He hadn’t noticed them at first, too panicked into checking his faculties and condition, but now he could clearly see the silhouette of a figure, hands squeezing at its skull, gently trembling in the darkness. Unlike the vision, Florence was sure of the explanation for its presence.

It was his roommate.

His roommate didn’t talk much. Just a man in his mid twenties or so who had been dragged into the facility by an older man of failing health. It took over a day for him to detox all of the alcohol swimming in his body and he hadn’t adjusted well at all. The violent tremors were what most took note of, but Florence’s attention had always shifted to the man’s gaze. What he sacrificed in conversation, he more than made up for in his quiet analysis.

Always watching, studying, either forcing his brain to intake every bit of information as a distraction or instead dragged along for the ride by his inability to shut off the skill. It must have worsened in the state of the withdrawals because this man was supposedly quite verbose at one point.

That’s the shame in little comforts. You’re always at risk of giving as much as you take.

“Sorry,” Florence finally apologized for the scream, pressing his hands together and warming them between his knees. His roommate took deep breaths, forcing himself to be more calm.

“It’s… fine. I just can’t handle that kind of noise right now,” the roommate answered, saying the most Florence had ever heard out of him. It never occurred to him prior that he might just be the closest thing the man had to a friend in this place. The other patients largely avoided him. It was hard to blame them. He wasn’t much for conversation.

“Headache, right?” Florence asked, noticing the subtle shifts in the silhouette that fixated on its head.

“Yeah.”

Again, not much for conversation.

“Try making a small triangle with your fingers as you rub your temples. That’s how my mom taught me and it works pretty well,” Florence offered, finding some comfort in the company, despite their shared afflictions. After a short moment of massaging his temples, the figure responded.

“Thanks.”

Florence responded quickly, doing his best to slay the droning silence before it could return, “What got you in here?”

The silhouette was far less concerned with replying hastily.

“Booze. You?”

“Dope,” he answered, noticing a small smirk in the faint moonlight.

“That’s rough. You shouldn’t mess around with that stuff, man. It’ll kill you.”

“Right,” Florence chuckled softly, “I’ve been told.”

The silhouette turned away, seemingly content with the interaction, shoving his head into the cheap pillow provided for him. Florence’s head slung back into his own, staring up at the ceiling, eyes scanning the little creases of the paint like lines on a face. He glanced over, deciding to ask the question no one else had bothered.

“You got a name?”

Nothing. Only the whirr of the machines filled the air. Florence considered asking again, considering that maybe his roommate hadn’t heard him before letting the matter rest. With the whirring setting in again, he had to accept that he had been rebuffed. There were no friends here. Only sleep, if it would ever come.

“Ned.”

Florence’s head shot up again, slightly in disbelief. As if the wind had just plucked him up in a dream again.

“My name’s Ned.”

“Nice to meet you, Ned,” Florence smiled, his head retreating to the soft grasp of the pillow behind him, “what do you do?”

“Hm?”

“Like, for work?” He clarified, adding, “I’ve done a lot myself, but I tell fortunes.”

“Honest work,” Ned replied, his voice as chalky as his comment.

“You say that, but it’s a family thing for me. Tradition. It might not mean much, but it’s something that’s mine and I can treat it right,” Florence exhaled, feeling more weight in his deflated lungs. He could never really talk about his culture and practices without people assuming the worst. Nuance was the tool of the informed and if people didn’t bother to learn what really comprised you, then you were the same as the cheap parlor tricks and scams they’d grown accustomed to.

Ned’s voice, despite how dry it sounded, was oddly reassuring as he replied, “It’s good you can have that connection with your roots. It’s something a lot of people would sacrifice tons for.”

Florence chuckled slightly, still bewildered at the virtual stranger on the other side of the room, “You’ve got some insight for a man who won’t talk. How’d you get here anyway?”

Ned’s response was not nearly as light sounding this time.

“Bad choices.”

The machines filled the air once more, Florence at a loss for words. It was Ned who broke the silence.

“You wanted to know what I do for a living?”

The empty sound of humming technology answered for Florence.

“I hurt people.”

----------

February 13th, 2024
1:08 PM



Ned’s eyes peered upwards at an advertisement for XWF Warfare. It was still bizarre to see himself staring back, confidence radiating from every shot they chose. A small part of him felt like an old man, lamenting the days when billboards stood still. Instead, he saw himself flying across the ring in highlight after highlight, culminating in his victory over his tag team partner, Isaiah King.

Isaiah stepped up to his side, taking a gander at the familiar sight above as well.

“They could use some better footage,” Ned remarked, his displeasure at the image of him beating on his friend being immortalized already.

“They can’t change the wack-ass haircut,” Isaiah replied, giving a smirk to Ned before nudging his shoulder, “C’mon now, we gotta check this murder scene out.”

The uneasy air around the first murder they had learned about hadn’t cleared. In an attempt to stop NYC’s resident kingpin, they had just laid the groundwork for a handful of wannabe usurpers. Vultures who saw the corpse of Jeremiah’s empire and couldn’t wait to feast on its body. And despite finding evidence that could implicate Ned’s sponsoree, Amelia, they’d been unable to contact her. Worse still…

The murders continued.

Despite the belief of authorities that Mark Flynn’s friend/companion/manservant Irwin had masterminded this killing spree, he had been in custody for over a week. It was only through asking for a favor from an old contact that Ned even managed to learn about this murder. One matching the methods of the “so-called” Irwin killings, but the target was bizarre. No one in power or in a position to help a criminal operation. Just a nurse, throat unfurled as she slept. Her husband woke up to see her body. To feel the last bits of warmth dry on his hands.

The wind picked up, lifting Ned’s hair as the two approached the last corner they needed to pass. Just out of the corner of his eye, Ned watched two kids play fighting on the streets. Jumping and kicking at each other, announcing melodramatic designations for moves that were only composed of a few flailing limbs. He watched as one of the boys charged forward, sending his knee cap into the jaw of the others. Even in this crude state, he recognized it just the same even if the kid hadn't called its name out.

The Notorious Knee.

A move he used now inspiring a child to bust open the lip of another. They seemed fine, but the image stuck out in Ned’s mind even as he and Isaiah approached a site of greater carnage. A brief moment of brutality to color his thoughts.

The scene of the murder itself was a humble looking abode in Queens. Some small, out of the way home, grass yellowed from the cold, specks of blood like dew from where the body was transported. Some Isaiah had noted in passing on their last walkthrough a crime scene was how professional the song and dance of the occasion tended to be. Even when cops caused big messes, they had a way of organizing them cleanly. Like filing a folder with a broken pen inside. Eventually, this case would be filed away, locked in some desk as the unfortunate addition to a horrific spree. No mind paid to its victims. Even less to catching its killers.

For homicides, murder was routine. Morning dew on the lawn.

While Isaiah spoke with some of the police, reiterating their right to be there, Ned slipped past the yellow tape and looked at the man sitting on the concrete steps of his house, eyes stained from tears, and hands with rosy paint across his fingers.

It was a familiar face.

“Florence?”

The man looked up, in quiet awe of the face standing before him. The wind hummed around them, sounding almost electrical. Nearly manufactured.

“Ned?”

-

It was only a few minutes for them to catch up. The years had been kind to Ned despite his insistence on putting himself through physical hell week in and week out. The same couldn't be said for Florence. Three years looked like a decade on his face, wear and tear from places. The wounds from a past life plain on him now. Seeing Ned again almost made him feel normal.

The illusion may have stuck if only he didn't glance down from time to time.

“What was her name?” Ned asked, his voice as reassuring as Florence recalled.

“Lavinia.”

The air hung heavy above them, pulling the two further down. Dragging against them like a swallowing abyss. Ned had an aura to him. One that caught the darkness and held it back through sheer force of will. Or maybe simply naiveté. Florence had never met a cynic so idealistic, but perhaps that's what made him remarkable. Made him worth remembering.

“I woke up… and she was gone. Her… Her blood had seeped into the sheets. I was able to change clothes, but it stuck to my hands. I tried to get it off, but I guess it'll leave when it's ready,” Florence’s words stuck in his throat, but he forced each one out, hoping that acknowledging it would make it a little less real.

It didn't.

“Why would someone want to do this to your wife?” Ned inquired, placing some of his pleasant demeanor to the side. He mourned for her as best he could, but he was here to ensure there would be no further corpses to mourn in this matter.

“I don't know,” Florence admitted, scrying the far reaches of his mind for some hint, some unturned stone that would click the random nature of this pain together. To make it hurt, but at least make sense.

Reality was never so kind.

Ned looked over his old friend, barely keeping himself together after the intense loss. He tried to think of something to say, but decided against it. He let his friend soak in the loss and merely mourn.

“You know,” Florence added through the subsiding tears, “I saw this happening. The blood fresh on my hands. It's not always the same, but nightmares take different forms. I-”

“Florence,” Ned cut him off before he fell further into feeling cursed, “I'd like to cover the funeral expenses. It's only right.”

Florence looked at him in utter disbelief before shaking his head profusely.

“I can't. I can't take your charity.”

“It's alright. Truly,” Ned reassured, even as Florence refused as steadfast as he could.

“If you want to give me something, then I should give you something in return, please.”

Ned attempted to refuse, but before he could, Florence offered something small. Something agreeable.

“You could let me read your fortune.”

Ned sighed before nodding--putting on a smile for his friend.

“Alright. How do you tell it?”

“I just need a palm,” Florence replied, softly grabbing Ned's hand and tracing the soft creases. It was a simple palm reading at first. The Heart, Life, and Head lines seeming to be in order. It was the Fate line that concerned him. The color drained from Florence’s face as he looked upwards at Ned.

“It… it isn't good,” He put it mildly, clearly not trying to spook his friend after so many years apart. Most men would've been terrified. Most would have shown some concern.

Ned was not most men.

“Well, then I'll just have to make it better, right?” Ned stated, “My luck hasn't ever been fine on its own.”

“And if it's not now?”

Ned began to walk back towards Isaiah, looking over his shoulder at his friend.

“Then it isn't.”

Isaiah scoffed slightly as Ned stepped towards him, “You gonna keep playing around here?”

“It's not playing,” Ned spat back sternly, “the man just lost his wife. Could you at least let me help him mourn a bit without acting so sour about it? I help people.”

Ned looked back at Florence, seeing his body language calm somewhat even in the face of everything swirling around him.

“That's what I do. Besides, I just got an important lead.”

“And what's that? Some lottery numbers?”

“No. A name. Lavinia Adams.”

“What’s so important about that?” King questioned, seeing Ned's demeanor shift slightly.

“I know that name.”

-------



“There are two words that send dread down the spine of many. A single question that brings with it a foundational discomfort. A core fear.”

“What’s next?”

“The fact is that so many people absolutely fear what is to come. They need to be able to prepare for it, to mitigate it, to stop the future from happening. And the paradoxical part of it all is that living in fear of the future is easy. We can constantly find some reason to dissuade ourselves, to not give our all. It’s committing to the here and now that’s hard. And if you want a perfect example of it, you need only find Dolly Waters.”

“Dolly has so much potential, so much opportunity. She’s charming and persuasive, hell, enough so that she got an entire organization of Seers to stand behind her, but then she half-asses a match against Mark Flynn, throws a tantrum and attacks him after the match, and now prepares to fly out to Las Vegas to face me. What the hell is going on with you? I mean that, Dolly? How come you can only find that fire in your belly AFTER you’ve lost? I recall you being so annoyed that I compared you to Madison Dyson, so your great idea to prove me wrong was to see how many microaggressions you could fit into your screen time. Truly, a rousing rebuttal.”

“The fact is that Dolly is someone who’s always reacting to the actions of others. She’s passive, even in the microcosm of her own life. And the few times she does choose to stand for something, it’s stereotyping a culture and wearing it like a Halloween costume or losing to the most depraved man in this company, Michael Graves. A loss isn’t a setback, Dolly, but you won’t even take initiative when someone hurts the people you love to get at you. You crumble. A wrestler with a will of sand in a sea of competition. And it’s heartbreaking because I can see the person you could be, like creased lines in the skin of your palm. But you want to wait for destiny to happen to you, not forge it yourself.”

“You tear into so many people with juvenile little tangents because that’s all you really have. You’ve denied yourself the opportunity to grow and kicked the can so far down the street that you can only hope to stumble into a championship reign from time to time. You did the number one thing most addicts do, you sacrificed later for now. And as much as I could mock you over it or look down on you, I can’t. Because there was a time when I did, too. It took time for me to find myself. I didn’t try to outsource my self-growth, I faced it head on and now I hold the most important piece of gold in professional wrestling. But this belt doesn’t mean anything in a vacuum. You held the Television Title, Dolly, but you weren’t a champion. Your reign was as short-lived as your attention span and it spiraled you into this downpour of failure. And now, again, you’re relying on fate. Content to watch the flow of time rather than stand defiant in the rapids, looking at Walmart branded Tarot cards and Quija boards. Cheap and plastic versions of culture for a woman who’s become a counterfeit version of herself. Dollar-store Waters, wasting away in the bargain bin as her value shrinks. You’re the insufferable opposite of “just happy to be here.” You’re miserable and you won’t fucking leave.”

“You could get help. You could try to do better, but that would impact your ability to be a cynical jackass who can go on twenty minute rants about people and then decide Corey Smith is an appropriate ally. Dolly applies other people’s symbols to her own superstitions to make them feel more valid. More legitimate. Because only someone living in a fantasy world would think the cult-leader inventor of the self-harm match stipulation is a positive influence. And the more you put effort into building this illusion around yourself, the more it's the only thing you’re prepared to live in. You’re a tragedy, Dolly. Like if Charlie Nickles had a soul.”

“Wearing this title is paving the path forward. It’s taking the reins of the XWF and stepping forward without fear, nor hesitation. Being a leader, not the golden calf of a few future-obsessed opportunists. I may not know what will happen to me, but I am certain. I told Sebestian to his face that he would be facing me at March Madness and it is a promise I intend to keep. Because my words mean something. The example I set gets passed onto everyone else here, including you. So, for once in a long-time, you will have to face the future and hear those dreaded words without the comfort of a bunch of yes men giving you the outcome you want. You have one question and I have the answer.”

“What’s next?”

“You are.”

"You can't run from yourself."