[#003] DEAD SILENCE.

❝ DEAD SILENCE. ❞
vs Wraith⠀//⠀VICTORY XV.⠀//⠀#003

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‘You failed me.’

He could hear that voice echoing inside of his head over and over again.

‘You failed at everything about what you were meant to be.’

No matter how hard he could try to knock it out of his head, it always seemed to return stronger and louder than before, always coming back to haunt him over and over again. Over and over again. Over and over again.

‘You failed at what you could have achieved, you failed at becoming excellence like you promised, you failed at becoming someone who you thought you could’ve become once again.’

Over and over again. Over and over again. Over and over again. Over and over again. Over and over again. Over and over again. Over and over again. Over and over again. Over and over again. Over and over again. Over and over again. Over and over— Then? Silence.

He could hear that silence so loudly inside of his head. It felt weird to hear—and feel—the silence inside of his head, from inside of his home, from just about anywhere that he walked. Jason sat there in his dining room, closing down his Macbook and looking around the home, his slow steps almost sounded like they echo throughout the home. That dead silence is strong. What was happening? What was going on? Where was everyone?

‘They’re gone.’

That voice quickly returned, that sent Jason into a panic, all he could think about was where Kore was. He searched through the first floor of the home, then onto the second floor of the home, and yet, there was nobody home. He swore she was there just fifteen minutes ago, just before these voices began echoing inside of his head, and it’s not like her to disappear without notice.

“Kore,” he exclaimed loudly through the house. “Where are you, darling?”

No answer.

“Kore, where the hell are you?!”

Again, no answer. He ran down the stairs and right out the front door, and as soon as he had gotten outside? The street was emptied, there was nobody around at all, but what was the weirdest of them all? The sky was pure red, a dark shade of red just like the colour of blood. This wasn’t his world, this wasn’t what his world should’ve been. In the span of those fifteen to twenty minutes, something happened—something went wrong.

“You allowed yourself to be brought here again, haven’t you?” The voice came from behind him and immediately he turned right back around, snapping around and spotting where the voice came from, it came from a familiar face. “I know, you probably didn’t expect me to be seen again, or even be heard from again. But, trust me, something’s gone wrong in our world too. The second that you become into a trance-like state, or ‘dreaming’ in a way, then you’re teleporting yourself back into this world and it’s corrupting the realms just a little bit more.”

There wasn’t a way for him to be standing right there in front of him. The chills rushed up along his spine as he watched the figure just slowly step closer toward him, their head leaned to the right and an eyebrow raised, wondering why they could feel the fear oozing from him as his glare just never broke from them. “I thought you’d have remembered me by now, Jason. Or, were you really not expecting to have been seeing me here after everything that happened the last time?” They questioned, shaking their head from side to side and tutting to themselves. “Such an interesting take to have, isn’t it? To have thought that I’d be gone for good, you’d never have to see me ever again, and thinking that your life would’ve gone on and remained in the good graces.”

If only he could punch them, if only he had the strength that he used to have to put up a decent amount of a fight against them, but he knew that there was no use to get violent against someone like them, and so did they. They could see his hands curling up into the shape of fists and that brought out a smirk out of them.

“You know that’s not a good idea anymore, Jason—”

“Fuck you, Meli.”

A harsh exclamation from Jason as he turned right back around and began to walk down the street, trying to find at least someone else along these houses, but each of them seemed to have been emptied. He didn’t want to turn right back around, he didn’t want to even face Meliodas any more, but he had to, and he did.

“What do you want from me? You fucking got rid of me when you had the chance, so why now? What is it that you fucking need me for again, eh?” He loudly questioned as he stomped his way right back onto his front lawn where Meliodas was, and as he got to where they stood, he shoved them back and it took them by surprise. “I came back into the fucking realms again, you said that I fucked up somehow, so how about fucking telling me what’s happening right now? Tell me how I, somehow and without any clue on doing so, fucked up the gateway from the real world and the realms once again?”

“You know that I wish it was that simple to really connect the pieces with, and to understand what is really happening right now, but as of this moment?” They questioned, stepping up closer to Jason. “I really haven’t got the faintest of an idea, and it’s really pissing me off because this world is about to fucking collapse on itself. It’s about to corrupt because of what’s in the sky. Nobody around knows what’s happening, nobody knows what it is, but we’ve all calculated on what kind of damage it could do if it hits here.”

For once, he could sense — and even hear — the worry that came from their voice, they were telling the truth. A glance up from Jason as he looked up into the sky, the dark shade was already suspicious enough but to know something on the other side of it was about to break free and destroy this alternate earth? It sent fear running through his body, goosebumps growing along his limbs. The sense of panic grew in him, his breaths getting heavier and deeper as he rushed into the home and went right back to the dining room where he had first experienced the moment. Though, he stopped right at the chair, looking down onto it, an eyebrow raised as they seemed to have been taken aback.

And as he hovered over the chair he had been seated in before, he felt an overgrowing cold chill in the air. Meliodas had followed him into the home and stood in the sitting room, they watched as Jason reached out to this cold chill in the air and felt around it.

“That’s where you woke up, right?”

“Woke up?” He questioned, “I was never asleep to begin with. At least… I don’t think that I was anyway. But, I– I don’t know what happened around here and what truly caused all of this but I need to get back to my world, because if me being here is corrupting this world even more and allowing whatever that thing is you were talking about to break through more? I need to wake the fuck back up.” Jason began to shake his head, sighing as he slammed his fist down onto the table. “At least, to figure out what the fuck is going on around here, you know? Might save you some time, might save me some time, might save everyone some time.”

Jason looked down at the table below him, his hands gripped along the side of the table and holding on tight, and taking a deep breath before he could continuously bash his head into the oak wood—again and again and again he went and all it caused was blood to drip down from the massive gash in his head onto the table. His attempts to wake up didn’t seem to work and it wasn’t until Meliodas stepped in and pushed him away from the table did he finally stop, and the blood poured down his face, almost gushing down along his jawline like a waterfall.

“If you do more of that, you’d kill yourself before that does the job on you.” Jason sighed as he brought his hand along his face, taking notice of the blood pouring down his head and realising the kind of damage that he had done to himself. “Here,” they took their hand and hovered it over the large cut in their head. Seconds go by and the cut on his head seemed to heal overtime, closing itself up and leaving the blood to dry up along his skin, slowly turning into a darkened black colour. “You’re lucky that I could still do that, and next time? Just ask me to send you back. There comes a time where you really don’t need to damage yourself more than you have already done.”

“Wait,” his arms extended out before Meliodas could snap their fingers. “I’ve been hearing voices inside of my head, and they sound like me– is this causing all of that to happen too or what the fuck am I even hearing then?”

Meliodas looked down onto Jason and their eyes just seemed to show more worry breaking through, the more that he looked up at them? The more that he seems to just be staring up at someone completely different, someone that he doesn’t even seem to recognise with the complete fear running through their body. They began to shake their head side to side once again, but without even a word spoken between the two, they snapped their fingers and Jason was brought back to his own world. Back to where he was seated, back to a brightened California sky, back to where people were. Kore stepped into the living room and looked at Jason with concern, her eyebrow raised up.

“Falling asleep again?” She seemed to have questioned, coming closer toward Jason and walking around the dining room table to bring her arm around him, slowly pulling him in closer as the look of fear rested along his face. “Love, you need to get someone to check that out. You’ve been spontaneously falling asleep all over the place, and you always wake up sweating like you’ve been a part of a nightmare. Are you sure that you’re feeling alright?”

No, he didn’t feel alright. It seemed like fate was about to rear it’s head right through both worlds. That kind of concern made Jason feel sick to his stomach, and to even be aware of what had just happened in the alternate universe, in the realms, that became a whole new concern to be worrying about.

“I need help.”

This was all on him, he’s the reason that worlds are colliding with one another. And to be quite frank? He needed all of the help that he could get to try and get back into the realms and fix what was about to break through, even if the risks seemed too dangerous to take.

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We’ve been here before.

Maybe not for you, the viewers watching at home, but for those that aren’t new to what Jason Long produces for those that watch any of his many vignettes. The brightened set up and the lighting shining down onto the in-home bar where we’re greeted with the sight of Long standing right behind the bar.

There were no facial expressions or anything like such, just the casual swirling of a whiskey glass that was in his right hand. He seemed to have been solely focused on the glass itself, not on the camera or anything else around the area, but just the glass itself. That’s when we get a glimpse of the bar itself, the contents laid out right in front of us, shards of glass spread out along the marble counter top. And as the count began, it was four glasses broken down into the piles that they were in right now.

Long continued to swirl around the glass before we heard his voice speaking.

“I’m sure many are asking what has gone wrong, and a lot of other questions as well.”

“However, I’m not so sure as to how I could even possibly answer those kinds of questions, it’s been rough enough to try and accomplish a start here in Pro Wrestling Excellence but to be heading out of it’s first pay-per-view and have a tally of about zero to three? Four maybe?” He questioned himself, shaking his head from side to side. “It’s hard to tell, I’ve lost count at this rate. See what I mean? I want to begin by having my time here be memorable in some way, to have something to be remembered by, and yet, here I stand before everyone as just some other guy around here. A man that’s just here, losing match after match after god damn match, and has nothing to show for around here if he really wants to be proving himself. That’s just how things have gone and I don’t know how to show anything for it or if there is a way to even show for it, it’s a rough time to think about.”

“From the very beginning, The Upside Down, to right now and the aftermath of Rebirth. It’s been a rough couple of days, weeks, months—you name it, it’s always been rough. It’s not a nice thing to be admitting to all of you right now but I really don’t have a choice – or a say even – in the matter at hand.”

Long took the moment to stop swirling the glass around, placing it down gently onto the counter top and adjusting his body position to be fully facing toward the direction of the camera recording him, his focus – however – stayed with the glass in front of him. Nothing inside of the glass, nothing special about the glass is notable, but he keeps it there and he keeps his eye on the glass itself.

“Loss after loss,” he paused for a moment and took a deep inhale. “All that has been constant about my time here in Pro Wrestling Excellence, and what could be positive about any of this? Sure, the chance to face others that I’ve never done? That’s a good thing, to say the least. The chance to be thrown into a bunch of others on this roster and give every ounce of a fight that I could possibly give? Sure, that’s a good thing. But when you see how little that I’ve adapted to this roster? You’ll notice nothing, because all that there’s been are losses to my name. When Paul Montouri eliminated me and… her, it added a tick to the loss side of my record here. When I had the chance to prove myself again with someone like Isaak Otto, he put me down with ease and beat me—another tick to the loss side of the record. When it came to facing Paul’s overly creepy and perverted brother? Yeah, I had the shit kicked out of me. Another fucking tick.”

“And just a couple of weeks ago, you saw how it came to be.” Another pause, he picked up the glass once again and examined it closely, glimpsing right through and spotting the camera recording him, the first time that his eyes even laid onto the camera since it began rolling. “Submitted inside the middle of the ring, Isaak Otto with another win over me and for myself? Nothing to show for it, nothing to prove from it, nothing gained and… nothing even lost because of it. But all it gave me, at the time, was a moment of reflection – in a way – because it made me slowly remember what it was I was trying to fight for. And in that moment of reflection came realisation. See, when I first came here after the doors shut to one place, I came in here trying to pick up the pieces of what I once had and tried to continue on from there. Little was I preparing for everything to fall right underneath me because I was trying to revive something that had died a long time ago.”

“All of that time was wasted because I tried to bring back a version of myself that was good, that was worth giving a fuck about at the time, and a version of myself that people actually spoke about with good reasoning behind it—compared to what is spoken about me now? I’d take the past over anything I feel right now. That fucking sucks to even say to any of you watching right now but it’s the truth, I’d rather have the old me back but I can’t have it because it died a long time ago, like it should’ve, and it fucking sucks to admit it.”

The deep tone within his voice echoed throughout the room, the grip he had on the glass in his hand seemed to have gotten much tighter than before, but he finally brought the glass back down onto the counter and kept his eyes on the camera ahead of him. Finally, one to one with the us, the viewers, and we could see the intense look within his eyes as he stared right into the lens of the camera.

“So what now? Another chance to bounce back? Another chance to reinvent myself—to try and revive a good thing of the past?” He began to question himself, tutting away as he shook his head and glanced away at the camera for a moment. “No, I can’t bring myself to do it again. I really cannot bring myself to put so much pressure onto myself again. That’s how we got here, with all of the losses to my name and not a single win to show for it, because it’s proven that shit is just meant to be dead, but what isn’t meant to be dead is a way to revive something. A way to truly give myself the moment that I’ve been awaiting a long time to get back onto. Wraith is just a name to me, I don’t know who he is or what his deal is but I’ve done enough research on him. Enough to care, at least. The kind of dude that wants to rule shit, become some kind of monarch in a way, all because he’s got the background to do something of the sort.”

“Whilst I do appreciate the kind gesture that you’re willing to pull onto this sport, Sabin– what I cannot allow is someone like yourself to rule and to become something like what I was. See, the old me would’ve loved the thought of someone — much like yourself — coming to his throne and challenging for it, he would’ve adored that moment. However, our meeting came way too late. That kind of man is long gone and all that I want to fight for, at this current moment, is to save professional wrestling—my only passion left alive—from people like you and the older version of myself.” A pause, a beat followed as he pointed towards the lens of the camera. “And I am sure that you picking up a win over me could really guarantee your name being shouted out louder than ever before, much like it has done for so many here, but again– what does that mean for me? What does it prove when you’re the name being shouted out and I stand here drinking my sorrows down once again? If your name gets out there and you fail to make that name for yourself like you really want, then it all comes back to me because I was beaten by a kid who didn’t have what it takes and didn’t have the reputation needed to carry himself further.”

“You’ve won one World Championship and that’s all nice, but what the fuck does it mean for me? What does it mean to anyone here right now? What does it mean for everyone that’s going to be watching us out there in the ring on Monday night, Sabin?” He questioned, the harsh tone in his voice took over and he took in a deep inhale, a soft exhale came back out. “And your relatives, why should I care about who you are or where you’ve come from? In this light, I couldn’t care less about your mother or what kind of fucking mistake of a son that she’s made you become. Your loss matters a whole lot to those around you and you might not even be aware of that, Sabin. And I’m sure that even calling you by your real name is pissing you off much more than it might do if I had called you Wraith. I shouldn’t, and will not, care for some pathetic name that might intimidate others but not me.” Long began to chuckle to himself. “So when it comes down to myself and you inside of that ring on Monday night? I want you to be able to look in my eyes and show me the kind of man you can become. You’ve so much to gain for in just this one match, and yet, you could lose so much if your head is stomped down into the mat and every bit of fucking vanity that rests inside of your soul is killed.”

“And in the silence that you’ll lay in once the match is over, the bell has rung and an arm is raised, only then you’ll come to the quick realisation that trying to become a ruler never ever works out in the end. All rulers of the past are overthrown, broken down and beaten, and you’ll only have a shell of what you were left to carry around.” A pause. “Luckily for me, I grew out of the phase and I found a new breath of life left in me. As is the case of being The Last Breathing Mercenary.”

“I’ll see you on Monday night.”

Long turns and steps out of the shot, leaving the shards of glass to be left on the marble counter top and in the centre of it all was that one whiskey glass, standing tall and unshattered, not even a single crack along the surface. The camera panned down, slowly zooming in on this singular whiskey glass, before the feed soon faded to black.

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