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Prince Adeyemi · (01-24-2023)

Never the same again.

He couldn’t believe his eyes.

He couldn’t believe his ears.

He couldn’t believe his heart.

He couldn’t believe the cheers.

So, he didn’t.

||

Startling to a wake, Isaiah’s fingers grasped at his bedside table only to feel it’s emptiness welcome him like it had for every morning since that day. Every day a little emptier. Every day a little hungrier.

Click.

The lights come on and pound against Isaiah’s photoreceptors and sending waves of physical pain to match his emotional ones. Chae rolls over from her side of the bed, and comes up close to Isaiah, wrapping an uncovered leg across his waist.

”You really have to stop doing this hun.”

Isaiah grunts in response, eyes squeezed shut to settle them to the light. Chaeryoung runs a finger lazily across his chest. She sniffs with exaggeration, like a cartoon puppy.

”The self-pity doesn’t smell good on you.”

She slaps him lightly across the face, her cool hand only reminding Isaiah of the dramatic emptiness in his chest. Dramatic. That’s what it was. It was a loss, a big loss, a loss to end the year, a loss to usher in his career… A loss.

Just a loss.

Just a loss?

Just a loss.

”But since you woke me up… Breakfast in bed? It’s freezing and a nice cup of coffee would reeeeally hit the spot.”

Isaiah takes a deep breath in, the air didn’t smell any sweeter today. Running a hand along Chae’s leg, he eases it off his waist before rolling out of the bed and onto his feet. His body ached all over, forcing a wince onto his beautiful face.

He’d been in the gym, nonstop everyday since that last Warfare, through New Years, through the first week of January, all the way till he got a call from Theo Pryce. He’d missed the first Weekend Warfare show and hadn’t even realized it. Until he got a call from Theo Pryce. All he wanted to do was break his body down and rebuild it into something worth… Something – until he got a call from Theo Pryce.

Actually it was Chae that had picked up, he’d left his phone by the ringside while doing rolls and shadow boxing in the ring. Chae had been lying on the apron, one leg hanging off it and scrolling through Twitter when the phone started to vibrate next to her head. Without a thought, she’d picked it up.

”He doesn’t wanna talk to you, but what’s up?”

She hadn’t even looked at the who called. Her eyes widened and her lips grinned when the velvety voice of Theo Pryce had come through the speakers.

”Well, ain’t it the big boss man, to what does Mr King owe the pleasure?”

Her grin only grew wider.

”Heh, he’d love that. Yup, trust me, he’s right here… Just a little preoccupied. Yes, it’s completely understandable that you’d want a draw like him to spice things up… Yes, he’s recovered wonderfully… Yup, Thank you – Ciao.”

Click.

”Baby, it’s camp time, let’s get you training with some… Direction, shall we?”

She had clapped her hands together and sprung into action. The self-abusive overtraining was done, that was all there was to it, it was time to chase gold once again – whether he was ready or not. He would be.

”Breakfast. Coffee.”

His own voice felt foreign to him. He’d barely heard it in the last few weeks, there wasn’t that much to say. Plenty to do, not that much to say. Disappointment and silence were best friends after all.

Isaiah slips his feet into some cushioned slippers with fluffy bunny ears, the kind you’d find at Hot Topic for someone’s Secret Santa event with a twenty-dollar budget. The floors were too cold to walk barefoot on, he didn’t believe in carpets either. You do know they trap all the grime and bacteria and are just… Eugh, right?.

As he walks down the hall an electric clock lets him know it’s just over freezing in New York, but is deep in the frozen pits of hell in Green Bay. A shiver runs up his spine as he thinks about having to travel to the middle of nowhere to regain his glory.

Wisconsin. Ugh.

As he gets to his modest kitchen counter, his eyes glance from the clock to the calendar on the wall, tracking his training regime for the week. Today he’d bleed. The blisters on his hands and feet were already raw from the weeks of strike training and endurance training – today he’d be striking bamboo, Muay Thai style to make sure his bones were ready for a beating. Blood is good, scarring is good – makes things strong.

His hands move on their own, grinding Ethiopian beans with his ceramic grinder, getting the kettle started, weighing out the coffee and timing the brew. Soon, the fresh smell of coffee wafts through the apartment.

”Isaiah, Zeke-“

The pain in her voice was clear, the crack only added to her exasperation. Chaeryoung runs through the corridor, still in nothing but her barely-clothes-sleepwear. In her hand is Isaiah’s phone, the line still engaged to a call. Isaiah’s eyes dart up to meet hers, and that one look communicates enough.

”He-he’s right by Public! St-st-fuck.”

She can’t get the words out, her face is drained of blood. Isaiah darts towards the door, ripping a coat off it’s hook and slipping into a pair of shoes. Throwing the coat over his bare skin, he’s out the door before Chae can say anything else.

Ezekiel had been off the drink for awhile, ever since he’d started training again with Isaiah. The King’s Court, victory, getting his and Isaiah’s shit together. That was the plan, that had given him something to focus on.

Harlem Public was a fairly nice establishment down the road, it sold craft beers and cocktails. Nothing close to a divebar you’d expect a hulking man off his wagon to find himself in. But alcohol was alcohol. And with Isaiah’s newfound success, his coaches were getting paid a pretty penny.

Isaiah practically flies down the two flights of stairs that separated him from the ice-cold streets of Harlem. Hopping and trying to get his shoes on right so that he wouldn’t slip and smash his face in the moment he got out onto the pavement. His eyes meet those of a man, huddled on the cold street with blankets wrapped around him. Most of his is covered, but what little Isaiah could see, looked cold and frostbitten. Isaiah peels his eyes away – his friend was in danger.

The next few seconds are a blur, and Isaiah thanks his perfect body for allowing him to get there quite so fast.

And then he wished he hadn’t.

There’s an alley out back, right behind Harlem Public where the smokers would congregate to have a chat or continue drinking past the Public’s opening hours. It was there that Isaiah sees his childhood friend and rival. It was there that bile began to rise up Isaiah’s throat. It was there that he saw blood upon the snow.

Ezekiel is sprawled up against a wall, a few beer bottles laying on their side behind him and distinct pint of some cheap whiskey dangerously close by. In one hand he has his phone, still on the line to presumably Chae, while the other is clutching to his abdomen, desperately trying to keep him from bleeding out.

Blood upon the snow.

Drop by drop, leaking from the fabric of his coat onto the muddy, frozen-piss filled excuse for snow New York boasted. Leaking his friend’s life onto his city’s floor.

”Ze-zeke-“

His voice still sounds foreign to him.

”F-fucking help me.”

Isaiah’s body moves on it’s own again, dropping to Zeke’s side and slipping his arms under the larger man. With a heave, Isaiah pulls him up onto his feet, his brain was on fire, his heart ice-cold.

”Have you called the ambulance?”

”F-fuck no, I ain’t getting shot up by no government vac-vaccines, t-take me home.”

Isaiah didn’t even have it in him to roll his eyes. With another heave, he somehow manages to get Ezekiel in his arms, cradled like a supersized baby. He can still hear Chaer’s exasperated voice squeaking out of Ezekiel’s phone, though it did sound like it was getting louder…

”What the fuck Zeke!”

She came sliding to a stop, dressed and heaving. A pink flush was creeping up her pale face. Chaer stops beside them and helps Isaiah out, her thin arms showing surprising strength as she gets them around Ezekiel’s tree-trunk calves.

“I’m sorry, I sh-shouldn’t have b-b-b-been here b-but, t-they found ne Iz.”

Ezekiel’s hand drops from his side as he starts to lose consciousness, in his hand is a scrunched up piece of purple fabric, covered in his own blood. Isaiah’s eyes flicker to it, and his face morphs from confusion to realization.

”Fuck, Chaer. We have to get him back now.”

Your screen flickers to life, on a close up of Isaiah. He stares up straight into the camera as it pans out, to reveal him lying on his back. He’s still in his thick dark winter coat, the hood up behind his head, in stark contrast to the soft white snow beneath him.

”Winter has come. And with it, it is has brought the end to a year, the end to a reign, the end to relationships, the end of a chapter.

The cold winter chill really takes no prisoner’s does it? It sweeps across the land and consumes everything in its wake. Did you know, that about 15 people die in this city alone… every winter?

Probably doesn’t sound like much to you maniacs – but when that’s Jack from the corner who you say hi to every morning and once helped you pick up groceries from a torn paper bag… It kinda sucks.

I’ve never really liked the cold, nor the winter. This is a pretty horrible place to live when you hate the cold – all this steel and concrete makes it, VERY, cold.

Christmas sucks because everyone’s with family while the lonely work-slaves of New York either blow all their income on too expensive dinners or rot alone in their apartments with broken heating.

The New Year is no better, just reminding us of rent due and tax increases and another year to suffer under our employers.

In light of all of that – losing a title from just some wrestling business is arguably… Inconsequential.

In light of the yearly suffering and torment winter brings to this world – a lose to Ned Kaye on the final Warfare of the year, perhaps ever… Is alright.
In light of the rest of life – what happened three weeks ago… I should get over it.

But I can’t.

And I haven’t.

And I won’t.

Because this is it for me – this is all I have.

This is all I have worked my entire life for, this is all I have staked everything on – this is me.

My fists took me off these cold streets years ago, they gave me a family in the King’s Court and they gave me a purpose when I felt that first rush from knocking someone out cold.

I am Isaiah King, and this winter will not be my last.”

The camera further pans up, and you see more of Isaiah, now his bare chest. Specks of snow continue to fall on it, melting as it meets his warmer skin.

“When winter comes it chokes out life, and it freezes over water. The snow means sure death for many but not I.

Not I.

Ned Kaye got one thing right – and that it is vital a fighter knows when its time to get up. When it’s time to look forward, and when its time to grow.

I’m not sure I know what that’s supposed to feel like. If I’m just supposed to be over the humiliation of losing before millions, or of the feelings of inadequacy before an insurmountable opponent. Am I just supposed to suck it up and go just because Theo’s called and needs name on the card?

Is that what it means to withstand the cold summer? To blindly, regardless of the emptiness…. Keep moving forward?

Maybe. Perhaps.

My career will not die. My journey to the top will not relent. I will not die.

Because I cannot – there are people whose lives are in these hands. There are communities these hands holds up, there is a revolution only these hands can lead.

Chaeryoung, Ezekiel…. Jeremiah – need me.

The kids of Harlem need me.

Jack’s cornermate Parker who lost his job in February need me.

I need… This. To feel useful, to feel good… To feel alive.

So, I will march on. In this snow, through this cold until Spring arrives.

My spring… not yours Jenny.”

The camera continues to pan upwards and you see all of Isaiah’s body. Your attention drifts particularly to his outstretched hands, covered in blood, bleeding into the snow around him.

“You see, there’s blood in the snow.

And it looks quite beautiful.

Because only the strong survive the winter. Only the truly resilient make it through to March, to Spring.

And you Jenny… while you’ve certainly been strong… I’m not so sure you still are.

You talk a lot and you do so much, really your mouth won’t stop running.

But one thing is for sure – you’re not all there up there… Are you?

One day you’re this maniacal, unhinged high-school girl stuck in an adults body.

The next you’re this clear-headed, Queen’s Court hosting backstage leader? I don’t know Jenny… have you found clarity or are the walls between your million different personalities fracturing more than ever?

It’s understandable though, isn’t it?

You’ve been through so much. You’re in love with this abusive… Legend? Who hides in the shadows and does your dirty bidding, your very own Frankenstein’s monster? Oh and then you have Elijah Martin too. There’s clearly a type that you have… A type that must take a toll on your grasp of reality.

You’ve also been through so much pain. Holding up the X-Treme Title, calling yourself the Queen of Xtreme, that’s… a lot isn’t it? How much blood have you had to spill Jenny? How many grotesque scenes have you had to drenched in? How much brain-damage has that… face had to endure?

Enough that you could drop the title to… Marf? And then have it stolen from your fingers by Goth? You’re obviously slipping… Queen.

And winter is ideal for that is it not? The end of one chapter before the start of a new spring.

The death of the old before the new comes to life.

The death of a has been before the birth of an heir.

I’ll be honest, this title wasn’t the first on my list when I signed to this company. The X-Treme wrestling style isn’t my endure of purity, but when I said I was coming for everything in this industry I meant it.

I got my hands on that TV title – I defended it, and I dropped it… perhaps that was not the hibernation meant for me. Perhaps my first steps to glory were supposed to be soaked in blood and snow, not weekly glory and the adoration of the people.

Perhaps what truly makes an heir into a king is the forsaking of ideals of purity and technical ability… An embracing the sweet darkness of pain and suffering.

There is blood in the snow, and I am going to end to it. I’m going to sniff it out and spill you all across the ring next week. I will sacrifice you to the winter gods so that they’re hands of blessing will be on me.

I will walk into my newfound glory drenched in your disgusting insides Jenny – because that is what will make me King. The death of one monarch for the rise of the other.”

Isaiah rises up into a seating position, and smears the blood on his left hand across his face.

”I will claim your throne because I am Isaiah King. I am the future. I am the Spring. I am the shoot that rises out of the cold ground. I am the heir apparent…

And don’t worry about yourself Goth – I haven’t forgotten about you, you’ll have your prize soon. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around how you’ve stayed in the title picture while suffering from… Less than mediocrity.”

Black.

To Be Continued.

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