Post by Khaos on Sept 13, 2021 14:09:18 GMT -5
Damien Carter lay on the couch, readjusting his body, trying to get comfortable, but having no success. Cerise perused the many books that lined the shelves, looking for one that may actually catch her eye. As uncomfortable and award as these two were, it paled in comparison to the elderly man strapped to his desk chair, bound together by jumper cables and – when that ran out – duct tape.
“Are you going to k-kill me?” the elderly man stammered.
“Why does everyone always ask us that?” Damien frowned, looking over at Cerise.
“Oh look! Nietzsche!” Cerise exclaimed, pulling the book from the shelf and ignoring Damien’s inquiry.
“P-please, take whatever you want,” the man pleaded, tears beginning to stream down his cheeks.
“We don’t want your stuff,” Damien retorted, before looking over at Cerise as she began pocketing random trinkets and things that caught her fancy. “Well… I don’t want your stuff.”
“What...?” Cerise responded, pretending to be hurt by his assumptions of her true meaning for being here.
Her fingers fumbled over a diamond paperweight, before she realized that it wasn’t an actual diamond and tossed it to the side. Cerise continued to rifle through the man’s belongings as Damien sat up from the couch, trying to crack his neck.
“People really lay here for an hour and talk about their ‘feelings’?” Damien asked, rubbing out the soreness in his shoulders. “All I feel right now is that this has been a big waste of time.”
“Give it a chance,” Cerise teased, before her focus went to a shiny letter opener that was a replica of the sword in the stone.
“Fine…” Damien rolled his eyes, repositioning himself on the couch. “Are you going to give us some…?”
Damien didn’t even have to finish his question before Cerise was halfway out the door, more than willing to give the two their privacy, especially if it meant that she got to further explore the psychiatrist’s home. Damien cleared his throat a few times, trying to find his voice, as the elderly man looked around, praying someone would save him.
“Now then, where do I begin…?” Damien mused, scratching at his bearded face.
The time passed as Damien began telling his life story to the psychiatrist, most of the time the elderly man believing him either delusional or speaking in metaphors. Regardless, the more Damien talked the more at ease the man became, as if he were in just another one of his therapy appointments.
“Sometimes I feel like I’m living two different lives…” Damien concluded.
“That’s because, in a way, you are,” the psychologist rationalized, no longer struggling against his restraints.
“What do you mean?” Damien asked, intrigued.
“Well…” the psychologist began, clearing his throat. “In your very elaborate and detailed storytelling, the points I picked up on were that you are happy doing what you’re doing in Revo1; that it seems to be a ‘safe’ place for you to shed this second-layer of your skin. Piece-by-piece, you reveal more and more of yourself and, thus far, no one has run off screaming in terror. You enjoy the fight because it’s a true test of strength but, also, there’s no fear in failure resulting in death. Unlike this other job of yours, this ‘Reaper’ side of you.”
“Is this the part where you tell me that I need to make a choice?” Damien groaned, leaning back into the couch.
“Absolutely not,” the psychologist corrected. “Both of these pieces are as much a part of you as any vital organ. You cannot separate one from the other, not without a piece of you dying in the process.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve died and come back from the dead…” Damien groaned.
“Yes, you’ll need to explain that part to me again I’m afraid,” the psychologist deliberated, scrunching his eyes together as he tried to understand the metaphor.
“Maybe next time doc, it seems that our ‘hour’ is up,” Damien answered, rising to his feet as Cerise came clambering into the room, her pockets jingling with all the “free” stuff she had acquired during this home visit.
“You done yet?” Cerise probed, a twisted smile appearing on her lips. “Good! Because there’s a safe upstairs with your name all over it ‘Muscles’.”
Damien did his best to conceal the grin on his face as he went over to the psychologist, knelt down, and began freeing him from his bonding. Once the ropes and tape were completely removed, he began rubbing his wrists in an attempt to restore blood-flow to his fingers. Damien stood up, towering over the psychologist.
“Consider me NOT robbing you my payment for today’s session,” Damien informed, pulling his hood up and over his head. “Same time next week?”
“Y-ya know…” the psychologist tried to find his voice. “I do have an office space. If you just call and schedule and appointment…”
“I don’t do appointments,” Damien interrupted, turning and walking out.
“You have a very lovely place,” Cerise flashed a polite smile, a few keepsakes overflowing from her pockets and falling to the floor.
She raced after Damien as the two exited the isolated mansion and briskly walked over to his ’99 Ford Lightning. He shifted into the driver seat as Cerise settled in next to him, having to attempt to close the door a few times before it actually shut in place. Damien turned the ignition on but stood staring at the house for a long while as Cerise finally took her eyes off her newly acquired prizes to notice him spacing out.
“Hey; you okay?” Cerise asked, sincerely.
“Do you believe in fate?” Damien suddenly blurted out, shifting his focus from the exquisite house before them to the quirky female next to him. “Like, no matter what we do, we’re always destined to walk a certain path.”
“I’m not sure,” Cerise answered, honestly. “I’d like to believe that we have some say in the things we do. Otherwise, what’s the point in all of this?”
“As far back as I can remember,” Damien began, recalling specific parts of his adventure that he had – moments earlier – shared in confidentially with the psychologist. “It seemed like I was always running from something. Like there was this constant dark cloud over my head and no matter what I did, I could never escape it. It was always there, waiting for me. When I turned away from the ‘darkness’, I finally felt free. For almost a year, I didn’t have the urges within me to hurt others; I just wanted to live my life… in peace… isolation… I just wanted to be ‘free’.”
“Do you not feel free now?” Cerise inquired, her full attention now firmly on her friend.
Damien opened his mouth to answer but then his hand instinctively went over his heart, his fingers tracing off the all-too-familiar scar that would never fully heal.
“Yes and no,” Damien resolved. “When I came back from the ‘In-Between’, I felt… different. Almost like I had finally embraced who I was meant to be all along. Truthfully, I had missed having the powers of the ‘Reaper’. I didn’t want to admit that to myself – or to anyone for that matter, but there’s this sense of security that comes with this power. Almost like, so long as I embrace the darkness, I’m invincible; but if I turn my back on it…”
Damien’s words trailed off as he recalled the moment he woke up on that rock slab in that hidden cavern, Lycana having returned him from the “dead”. Despite all the horrors he had faced as a “Reaper”, he had never once felt the fear of mortality. Now here he was, with a second chance, and it was if he was making the same mistakes all over again…
After the loss of his family, he had found a “home” in the Silver Oaks Orphanage. With the exception of Sister La Rosa, Damien had no true attachment to that place. Not until Kaiya Fox showed up, that is. From that moment on, his whole world revolved around her; ensuring he kept her safe. In reality, he should’ve been trying to protect the rest of them from her. Her unchecked rage consumed her and, with it, everyone else inside those hallowed halls. He had saved them, gotten them to safety, and she had abandoned him on the side of the road in pursuit of her “higher” purpose. She had betrayed him and yet, he still had sought her out; convinced she had to be under some spell, that the friend he knew would never willingly turn her back on him like that. And we all saw how that ended up…
Since that day, very few people ever cracked the outer-shell of his armor. He seemed to prefer it that way, kept himself disconnected from any human emotion that might compromise his role as “Reaper”. That was, until she came into his life…
“You know,” Cerise’s words cut through his brooding. “If this guy had any sensibility whatsoever, he’d probably call the authorities…”
As if on cue, sirens in the distance could be heard as Damien sighed, shook his head, and peeled out, turning the truck off road and away from the scene of the crime.
Days later, Damien knelt in the empty plot of land that had – at one point – contained what most would’ve considered being his childhood home. This place had been anything but that, just a prison to keep him in until society could officially cast him aside. He could’ve died in this blaze and not a single tear would’ve been shed for him. Instead, he was one of two people to survive the arson. He thought that meant they would forever be entwined within each other’s lives; that their bond was forever forged in the fire and they would never break. It lasted all of a few hours…
Damien picked up a pebble and threw it across the ground, watching it skip against the dirt until it, too, sunk into its surface, disappearing out of sight. Jerika Mason stood patiently behind him, her camera man recording and at the ready as they patiently waited for the Heavyweight Champion to initiate the conversation…
“Remembrance seems to carry a different meaning for everyone,” Damien began, his back still to the camera, his fingers feeling the soiled ground before him. “For me, it’s about looking back at my past. It’s about dissecting my life; combing over every inch of it, analyzing it, reflecting on it.”
Damien rose to his feet, slightly turning his body as he first looked to Jerika, and then into the camera’s lens.
“From a young age, I’ve had this thought repeatedly drilled into my head,” Damien declared, rubbing the side of his temple as if – at this very moment – he was experiencing physical anguish. “Didn’t matter where I was or who I was with, they all had the same philosophy. They all believed that ‘there’s no fighting fate’.”
Damien shook his head as he turned and looked back at ground, its surface still ashen and gray even after all these years. The fire had been unnatural in source and, thus, the Earth never recovered. Since then, many believed this land to be haunted by those that the blaze had consumed. Another urban legend, another false idea planted into the minds of the weak so as to “control” them.
“I didn’t believe it then,” Damien continued, his eyes burning with a mysterious darkness within. “But I do now. I’ve spent years trying to deny who I am; hide in the shadows. But a recent revelation has me thinking that life is, indeed, too short. So here I am, giving you and the Revolution fans a rare look into the “Life of Khaos’.”
Damien opened his arms as if this was some amazing grand reveal. Instead, it was just another graveyard. This was where his turn to the darkness began.
“It’s not much to see, I know,” Damien nodded his head, reading the reaction of Jerika’s face and realizing that most would share in her sentiment. “But it used to be ‘home’, for me and dozens of other children. Didn’t matter what the reason was for why we were here, we were here and that’s all that mattered. Some of us had a ‘second chance’ at a family – a ‘second chance’ to live again. Most of us didn’t get the opportunity. Those of us that stayed behind simply went through the motions, trying to keep that pesky inner-voice silent that always taunted us, always told us that ‘we weren’t good enough’. And when the world burned, this place along with it, they all died meaningless deaths. Some might call it an act of mercy, a fiery form of euthanization. Others might refer to it as murder. No one caught the arsonist that burned down this Orphanage but I assure you, they’re still out there. And like I’ve come to realize that no matter where they are, their fate is already sealed.”
Damien seemed a bit saddened by this, almost as if this revelation brought him no enjoyment.
“So what does all of this have to do with Anya Coyle, you might ask,” Damien continued, clearing his throat. “I could be all contrived and declare that ‘at Remembrance, I’ll destroy Anya so badly that all that will be left of her are the ashes I leave in my wake’. It seems like a very visual and forced prediction, as if she were just another opponent that I had to defend my title against. But we all know that to not be true. Anya first fell onto my radar way back in March, following her after-match assault of Cerise at Allegiance. In many ways, that was the beginning of this long and arduous battle with the Left Hand that I unwillingly became subjected to. I had challenged Anya back then, not for her International Title, not for some chivalrous way of defending Cerise’s honor, but because I wanted her blood. It was the ‘eye for an eye’ approach that I’ve lived my whole life by. When someone does something that hurts someone else, especially someone I care about, I take offense to it. I sense the evil within them and I snuff it out, simple as that. In terms of the Left Hand though, they were never really a threat. Time and time again, I proved that. When it came for them to step up and put their money where their mouth was, I wrapped my hand around their throat and subsequently made them choke on their own filth.”
Damien half-smiled at that reminder, his latest victim – Daniel Dream – having scurried back into the soil like a cockroach.
“This match has been months in the making, Anya,” Damien looked back at the camera, the flicker of the “Reaper” showing behind his eyes. “I’ve waited patiently for this opportunity to have you one-on-one and now, here it is. I don’t care that I had to put my World Heavyweight title on the line just to lure you in, because you’ll just be like everyone else that I’ve faced over the last 175 days, just… another… victim.”
Damien lowered his head as he stepped closer towards the camera, reactively making Jerika step back a few feet. His gaze remained focused on the cameraman as he, too, wanted nothing more to move but he was frozen in fear.
“You’re a pretender, Anya,” Damien growled. “I’ve seen true darkness, I’ve witnessed ritualistic cults. You are a mere infant playing with things beyond your understanding. The Baphomet poisoned your mind and then left you to fend for yourselves. He expected the Left Hand to carry on his work amidst his absence, but you were all nothing more than sheep… sheep left to the slaughter. You and Dream tried to carry on, even going so far as to turn Cerise against me the moment that Dorian saw through all the bullshit and left to embrace his own nightmares. But, I wonder, did Cerise really turn against me…?”
Damien flashed a wicked smirk as he stared deeply into the lens; staring directly into Anya’s soul.
“Or was she simply a double-agent, working with me and the ‘darkness’ to root all of you out and, one-by-one, decimate you… destroy you… leave you floundering in your demise,” Damien grinned. “You think that someone that has a history with me like Cerise would simply toss it away because of what… jealousy? It was all a ruse, Anya. She joined your ragtag group of cultists, she fed me information from the inside, and we went to war with each other, all to make it look ‘real’. You Left Handers did exactly what I thought you would; you bought into it… you believed the lie. And why wouldn’t you? You blindly followed the Baphomet, never questioned who he was or what he was all about. You made it too easy. You reached for the stars and instead, found the sun. And like Icarus, you burnt up in the atmosphere. However, sacrifices had to be made of course, R.I.P. Twisty…”
Damien kissed his fingers and pointed up to the sky.
“But it was all for the greater good,” Damien turned back and looked, once more, at the camera. “And now here we are, the last of the Left Hand facing off against the man that single-handedly destroyed your indestructible force. Seems almost poetic, don’t you think? That we should finally be facing off against each other at Remembrance. Because this is the night you take your last breath, Anya. This will be the night that fans ‘remember’ for the rest of their lives. I put the final nail in the Left Hand’s coffin, I finally close this chapter of my story, and I leave you to wallow in ‘Eternal Darkness’. Come for my blood if you dare, because your soul… is mine.”