Early spring 2016 - Las Vegas, Nevada


No no no no no no no...


The soft, gold undertones of the early morning sun peeked through the barely drawn curtains of the elongated hotel room window. A cacophony of sound filled the stale room. The wailing alarm from his phone. The white noise from whichever mindless sitcom plays at seven thirty in the morning on a sleepy Sunday. Their favorite song playing on repeat became the soundtrack of the worst day of his life and the last day of hers. 


Holly, baby, please wake up...


He said through a pained scream as he clutched her lifeless body against his. Tears crashing down like tidal waves on the now blue hue of her once porcelain skin, that is slowly turning a haunting shade of gray. Her jet black hair splayed across his lap and the marble floor.


HOL


He bellowed in desperation, trying to shake her awake. 


Holly PLEASE


Her limp body told a story the he regrettably already knew. She was gone. The love of his life. The only person he ever opened himself up to truly and genuinely. 


She was gone and he was the reason why...


Present day - June 14th 2024


Razor Blade. The American Nightmare. I almost feel sorry for what I'm going to do. 


Syns voice booms as he walks into the frame. The vibrant stars illuminate the backdrop of the early summer Rocky Mountain skyline. Light pollution is non-existent still in some small corners of the world. Pure, raw nature at its most serene. Uncontaminated and flawless in its beauty yet sharp and biting at its core. 


Places like this are where he felt most alive.


The little engine that can't. You land on the spectrum somewhere between a massive stroke victim and a make a wish kid. Closer to Billy Bob Thornton in Sling Blade than a razor blade. You consistently, week after week come out here and stare at the lights as whoever the fuck you're wrestling that nights music hits for the second time. 


You ramble incoherently through promos like you just rolled off the table from a lobotomy. Anytime that you walk through it, no curtain in the history of curtains has ever been jerked harder. You're a lamb being led to slaughter anytime your name shows up on a card. This week will  be no different. 


However, unlike most of that locker room, my intentions are purely violent. Matthias Syn doesn't do this for the love of the sport. I do this because I love the sound of my fist meeting someone else's face. I love making little kids cry because their hero couldn't beat the three count. I live for the chorus of boo's that drown out an arena every single time I walk through that curtain. 


I wont lick the boots of those that came before me. Nostalgia is so boring. 


I am here to change the landscape. A wrecking ball through your front door.


Syn says with a measured confidence in his voice. 


I do this for the control and the power that comes with having my name at the top of the marquee and on Monday night I can punch my ticket to Leap of Faith where I am one step closer to the absolute power that comes with that briefcase. 




He called an ambulance what seemed like a lifetime ago. As the minutes ticked away so did any chance of her survival. 


The stranded wire of the copper lamp cord settled just inches away. He wept staring at it. Wiping tears from his panicked eyes.


Where the fuck are they, he roared.


This isn't really happening.


He said out loud trying to convince himself. 


I'm just dreaming. This is just a dream. I'll wake up any time now and she will be right beside me. 


He yearned for reassurance from the emptiness of the hushed room. But no such solace was coming. The weight of his crime was settling in as he fell deeper into a manic state of madness. 


I'm not here. This isn't happening.


He thought to himself as he tore through the room. Baptizing the walls with her favorite perfume. How she felt in her final moments running on repeat in his head. How terrified she must have been. Shaking violently as the lamp cord, wrapped around the hands of HER man, her favorite person, stole her final breath. 


Feet first into a fever dream. A numbing sense of dread overcame him as he sat with his head resting on his knees. His entire body shutting down under the weight of his regret. 




Razor, I am the prevailing wind that pierces and bites through your skin. The veiling shadow that stalks your American Nightmare. Always ready and willing to tear through your sense of purpose. 


Your lack of wins is a surprise to only you. You have gone as high up the mountain as you will ever go. Aspirations are a funny thing. You spend your days dreaming up best case scenarios where you become the hero of your own story only to have reality leave you in a pile of your own piss and blood. I am not like anything you've ever been in the ring with before. There is no mercy from me. There will be no respite once that bell rings on Monday night. 


You stand between the Saint and a rocket ship strapped to my spine. There's no world, no universe, no multiverse in existence that has your hand getting raised over mine. I really wish violence didn't solve anything. But it does. It solves everything. 


I am a mercenary Razor. I don't play fair. You'll never reach your full potential until you understand that those people out there, Syn points through the camera, they use you. Use you for an autograph or a photograph after a show that they'll sell for peanuts on some shitty marketplace to some basement dwelling weirdo for nothing more than a cheap story that they can tell their cheap friends. They will use you for as long as your useful and your expiration date Razor is June seventeenth.  


You don't need them. They are NPC's floating lazily through life, victims in their own minds. No drive. No focus. Lacking any sense of real purpose. Entitled and hopeless. The dregs of society. A society that because of them is not worth saving. A society that needs to be burned to the ground and left in a pile of ember and ash. 


With someone like me standing across from you Razor, you're going to have to find that violent part of you, that violent part of everybody that is brimming to explode from the depths of your gut and begging to be unleashed. 




Patient Name: Matthias *redacted*


Initial Diagnosis: Catatonic 


DR. Fowlston: I have been seeing Matthias off and on since he was eight years old. Initially he was brought to me by his mother for concerns with violent nightmares and intensely disturbing dreams. The boy would wake in cold sweats, screaming. Lashing out at whatever monsters nature vs nurture developed for him in his mind. It wasn't until later that I would piece together the why behind his eyes. 


Today, sitting in front of me was the shell of the boy I met all those years ago. This was not the untamed horse that would never be broken in, that the man became before this heinous act. He murdered his girlfriend...in his sleep. The formless shape he takes in his dreams bled into reality.  


I knew Holly. I met her a few times with Matthias. They had dinner at my house. She knows my wife and kids. They were in love. Deeply in love. He is back there somewhere. I can see it behind his eyes and its my job to bring him back. I will start him on medication tomorrow. We will run some more tests. This man has an internal reckoning that he must deal with. But first, I must bring him back.