Luca stood, frozen like a deer in the headlights, staring with mouth agape at the world around him. His clothes were ragged and torn, caked with dirt and blood, and reeked of booze and piss. The rest of him wasn't much better. His hands were shaking, teeth relentlessly chattering. Dried blood was smeared across his nose and his bare skin shone red. Wind burned.
He sniffled, wiping away a trickle of snot and wiping it on his already tattered shirt before taking a couple of steps forward.
He was in a forest in Oregon without any recollection whatsoever of how he got there. The world around him seemed to spin; the once vibrant greens of the tree tops above him were nothing more than a blurred, grotesque orgy of bare branches faintly illuminated by the moon.
The world felt frozen in time. Like a photograph that he'd been placed into. He could feel an ice cold wind battering his face, but when he looked at the branches he saw no motion. As if there wasn't any wind. He coughed, but despite the temperature his breath was invisible.
Then he heard the howl. A high-pitched, whiny screech that forced him to grit his teeth and press his shaky fingers into his ears.
Then the light.
A blindingly bright line shone down from the sky to a spot deeper in the forest, in the direction that the noise came from.
The sky felt darker as the light shone down. He couldn't see the moon anymore. The gnarled, twisted branches seemed to wrap around each other in the darkness. He blinked and rubbed his eyes, convinced he was seeing things.
The howl came once more.
Closer.
Louder.
The light moved.
Closer.
Brighter.
The mangled union of branches had extended from just one tree to every single one. Roots poked through the earth and grew upwards, trying to reach the treetops.
Louder howl.
Brighter light.
Trees, unable to support their weight, collapsed to the forest floor, branches still wrapping around each other. Each landed silently.
Then he saw it.
A man in an impeccable three piece suit with the head of a coyote.
The Coyote Man pointed down at the ground, silently urging Luca to look. He hesitated, unwilling to take his eyes off the abomination standing before him, but ultimately, he did.
The muddy brown hue of the ground turned to black slowly as he watched. Vines emerged from the earth and wrapped around Luca's feet, tying him to the dirt. His feet sunk into the dirt, shoes filled with ice cold black mud.
The Coyote Man spoke in a warbled, barely comprehensible monotone. It stepped closer to Luca, reaching into its jacket pocket before embracing the trapped man and leaning in close.
The vines wrapped around Luca's legs and dug into his calves like bear traps.
Luca's voice was frantic. Panicked. He struggled to slip out of the Coyote Man's grasp, but with each movement he made the vines slithered upwards and dug into his exposed, raw flesh.
The Coyote Man dug his blade into Luca's stomach. Luca opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came out as the vines worked their way up past his chest, around his throat, choking the air out of him as his blood leaked from the wound, shimmering in the light of the moon on the pitch black ground.
Pete, you're embarrassing yourself. I of course say this like you don't do this every time you open your mouth but for some reason every time I face you I hold some modicum of hope that maybe, just maybe, you'll do something to prove that you have a functioning brain. In reality, I'd chalk it up to having an addiction to being disappointed (which is the only reason I've seen almost 2 full seasons of American Horror Story), but even that addiction has its limits (which is why I've never finished a season of that fuckin' show).
So when I heard that Pete had said some more shit about me, I smiled. Sure, it could easily be schadenfreude. Hell, I'm sure that was at least part of the reason. But, whatever other reasons there are I will admit that once again, I was guilty of thinking you were capable of improvement.
But you don't do that, do you Pete?
No, of course you don't.
You stagnate. You've plateaued a long time ago and you're desperately trying to keep people from noticing.
I noticed.
I noticed it when we first faced each other.
You're really bad at hiding it, Pete.
But that's neither here nor there. Let's talk about what you had to say about me because I admire it Pete. I really do. I admire that despite the fact that Pest runs around acting like he's so far above everyone else in this match, his own partner included, he's so fucking scared to talk about me. Meanwhile, Peter, who is the butt of all our jokes has no issue addressing me head on.
Well done Pete.
Gold star.
That doesn't mean you said anything worth a damn, just that you said something. Anything. At all. Which, despite being more than #kingfuccboi could muster, isn't much better. But hey, figured you could use yet another victory over Pest, even if this one will have to be moral, because, and I'm sorry to tell you this Pete, you're not going to win.
If Austin and I weren't in this match, you'd have this in the bag. Hell, I'd lend a hand like I did to get you in this match in the first place, just to see you and Dim walk out with the titles again. With another win over #kingfuccboi. Because that'd be fun as all hell. Watching Pest flounder around trying to justify that one when, as always, he talked more shit than he could back up.
But, the fact of the matter is we are in the match.
We were the first people confirmed to be in this match.
In other words, your chances of winning flat lined before it was even established you'd be competing.
But, what has Pete actually been saying? Better yet, does it stray from the typical Peter promo?
Because, as we've established, everyone loves checklists (shoutout to Robbie, the miserable, false-bravado flexing cunt).
Does he contradict himself?
You bet your fucking ass he does. Him and Dim are the big bad bullies but then all of a sudden I'm the one trying to bully him around? Like, how does that even work? Can't handle a taste of your own hypothetical medicine? Get some thicker skin bro for realsies.
Is he just straight up wrong?
Of course. I did this the last time I talked about him, didn't I? Like I said there, it's all become so routine when dealing with Gilmour. You can see everything he says from a mile. A contradiction here, obvious bullshit there, threats of severe, career ending injuries all over the place despite the fact that none of them have ever come to fruition.
Also hey Pete, fun fact. The last time we faced off, I beat you completely clean. No bullshit from Theo or Maddy. Hell, it was your own buddy Dim who attacked me after I finished fucking your whole life up for the millionth time. Nice revisionist history there man. One of these days someone will buy it.
Peter doesn't understand anything I say and it's obvious by the way he still brings up his one moral victory over me like it didn't help me out in the end. Way to go Pete, you fucked up my ankle two years ago and inadvertently helped me to cash in my 24/7 briefcase on your buddy Sid Feder.
Great work.
Please, injure me again so I can swoop down and fuck up another one of your dwindling number of friends' lives.
I could keep on going and going, pointing out all the inconsistencies in his words like I would do any other week, but it's overkill at this point and I'm saving all my overkill for when the #kingfuccboi finally decides to open his mouth about me.
I could talk about how Pete thinks he and Dim are both the strongest link and the underdog.
Or how he's acting like he won't be stuck in the same place he is now when he's in his sixties.
I just want to focus on one more thing, Pete.
You have never beaten me. Not once. Nadda. Nil. Your record against me in 0 - like five million at this point.
You're not going to beat me "again".
You're not going to beat me at all.
Blame whoever you want to for that. Hell, blame me. I'll take it. I don't give a fuck.
Just remember that you're just outclassed.
This is the natural order of things.
"Fuck me," Luca muttered, tossing the burner phone onto the bed before allowing himself to collapse face first into the mattress. His head throbbed and ached; he felt he couldn't trust his vision. His perception. He was in a run down motel now, but in the blink of an eye he could be halfway across the world. He could be dead in a heartbeat.
"What the fuck, Austin?"
He pounded the mattress. It felt like a stone slab. Not that he particularly minded; he'd slept on worse things.
His heart exploded with joy when he closed his eyes and all he could see was Victoria's corpse atop his supine body. After the night he had, it was, somehow, a welcome relief. Still, it carried with it the same sorrow it always had, as he swallowed hard to suppress the knot in his throat.
"Sorry," he muttered into the mattress.
He could feel her presence; like she was in the room with him. He'd felt it since the party. Always watching over. Judging. Her eyes felt cold, and chilled him to the bone.
He took it that he wasn't forgiven.
An open bottle of Jack Daniel's sat on the dresser by the bed. He pushed himself off the mattress and grabbed the bottle by the neck before filling his mouth with the amber liquid. He swished it around in his mouth before swallowing.
Then he grabbed the phone again.
He remembered the Coyote Man. The chorus of voices. The sight of a version of himself he thought long buried. Falling to his apparent death.
He remembered it all.
What he wasn't sure of, was the reality of it.
Still, he heard the cold mocking of the chorus echoing in his ears.
"Go on Luca. Prove it."
Once again, the Coyote Man had taken Victoria's place behind his eyelids.
He felt the weightlessness he'd felt during his freefall.
He tasted the bile that formed in the back of his throat at the sight of his past self.
Most importantly, he smelled victory.
So he flipped the phone open and shot a text to the number he'd just tried to reach.
dont worry bout finding a new partner. ill b there.
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