[The scene opens in a familiar gym. The gleaming metal machines sit in neat rows, and every one of them is obsolete. The old steel plates are piled on top of one another in their stacks pierced through by a long metal spike, held in place by a thin metal pin.]
Narrator:
“There is something special about them, even though there are far better pieces of equipment on the market than these decrepit old things. Some of those machines have been used by the forefathers of modern combat sports. The men who built the foundations for your profession sat on these very benches, and lifted these same iron plates, and sweat on this very floor… and let me tell you… this floor has seen some things.”
[The camera pans across the gym floor skimming over the rows of historic machinery, and over an open padded floor used for sparring. On this open ring, lie three sleeping men. They are all sprawled out in various disarray, limbs all akimbo, each sort of covered by a thin blanket.]
Narrator:
“Tonight was the last night of training before we head out for the Battle Royal tomorrow. They were all in here late. John and Andra have intensified their training schedules. John learned to train from his foster father… and he too… was painfully patient. The third was really not that far away. In just a few days Soda Popinski would face Johnathan Cable in his professional wrestling debut on XWF Wednesday Warfare. Tomorrow Johnathan would find himself in a ring with God only knows how many of the XWF Superstars for the chance to win the very first XWF European Championship on a brand new XWF Show. Trouble had been brewing between the XWF and that other company… you know, the ****ty one. It was supposed to have worked itself out by now, but the boys from over there upped the ante. THE Tristan Slater was rapidly becoming A Tristan Slater as our very beautiful, very new, recruit to the New Breed had claimed before. The ‘men’ Cable was actually referring too before STILL hadn’t showed their faces to answer for their transgressions of apathy while innocents were being made an example of all to cause pain to another… one of your own. And here tonight, on this floor that could tell stories even better than I were it only given voice, five men very far from home lay resting for a short time before it was time to rise once more and make way to our destiny.”
[The camera pans across the antique ring that has withstood ages of men engaged in primitive combat, and swings onto the stairs headed up to Johnathan and Jessica’s home. After a moment, the scene takes us onto the balcony and through the single door that leads inside. The scene shifts to a narrow hall with several doors on either side. A single dim light burns in the darkness from down the hallway casting long shadows along the pale walls. The camera slides slowly down the hall to one of the many doors, and turns, entering the room. We see Andra Punchadorov sleeping soundly in his bed here at the Cable’s house. He is clutching a soda bottle in his hand, and is smiling sweetly. The camera slides back into the hallway and to a different door. The camera enters here too, and we see Andrea Romero asleep in her bed in a cute pink cami top and boy shorts. The camera hesitates a moment looking her over, and then moves back into the hallway. Once more it goes to a door on the hall, and enters, but here, is a far different scene.]
Narrator:
“The night of the party in Vegas started as a really good night. That lasted just about as long as it took for Jessica to spot Kimberleigh Alves having the time of her life, celebrating with her new man. She felt like Kimberleigh didn’t deserve to celebrate… and meant to prove it. When she lit out to go start the biggest brawl Cross’ hotel had ever seen, John grabbed her up and tried to talk some sense into her, but she wasn’t interested. Jessica was hell bent on destroying Kimberleigh Alves, and she meant to take John apart to get to her. He had never seen her like that before, and he was terrified for her. He wanted to figure out what he could do to get his wife back, the way she was before the world ignored the truth, and she cracked like a china plate. He sat with her when he could, but his only outlet to try to funnel the rage away was getting into the ring. There were more than enough opponents here now, what with Andra and the five winners from the tournament in the Bahamas. He had taken advantage of them all, and was still super charged, stressed out, and needing to really hurt someone. Good thing he would have his chance tomorrow.”
[As the camera makes its way into Johnathan and Jessica’s room, we see Johnathan sitting in a wooden rocking chair in the corner of the dimly lit room. The light from three dozen candles flickered and flashed across the walls, but was enough to light up the room well enough. He is without his mask tonight, and the orange glow of the candle fires his scars cast shadows across his features. As the camera moves into the room further, it spins to see Jessica, lying asleep, with her hands bound to the bed frame and her ankles tied off to the foot board. Her skin is pale and tinged with a strange blue pall. Spittle has dried on the corners of her mouth, and a white crust has formed around her lips. Her hair is stringy, and wet with sweat. Her face is sunken and her breathing is labored and ragged. Johnathan sits nearby trying hard in his struggle against the monster known as sleep. His eyes droop, and his head sways first one way then the other before sinking towards his chest. Just before his chin sinks down into his chest for good, his head snaps up and he rubs his eyes bit his hands trying to fight off the inevitable. Moments later, his head sinks into his chest for just a moment, and he snaps awake once more.]
Narrator:
“But where is Jessica? Where has she gone?”
[John looks across the room to where his wife was just bound hand and foot to their bed, but she was gone. He leaps from the chair in an instant, and searched the bed for the tethers, but found them torn to shreds still attached to the bedposts. He rises from his knees quickly, and throws open the door to the hallway outside, and freezes in his tracks staring in disgust at the scene before him. He leaned heavily against the door frame to his room as the horror set into his soul. His narrow pale walled hallway was coated in large splashes of blood. The trails of feet being dragged through the puddles of the sticky liquid on the wooden floors went back and forth, and finger tracks were smeared up and down the length of the hall. At the end, the little light flickered and flared to life intermittently, flashing at an irregular interval. The doors had all been smashed out of their frames, and shards of wood lay strewn everywhere the eye could see. Parts of the door frames were ripped bodily from the wall, and the damage done to the walls was severe.]
Narrator:
“What the hell is going on? Where is Jessica? Who could have done this?”
[In a frantic panic, john dashes across the hall to Andra’s door, and sees the same scene here. Blood splashes across the walls and pools form across the floor. Bits of meat dangle from sharp corner of smashed furniture. A large mirror that once stood in the corner of the room was reduced to shards spread out across the floor, the pieces glinting in the light from the pools of blood as Johnathan turns on the lights. Immediately, Cable flips the switchback off. He leans the side of his head against the door frame shielding his eyes from the sight. The horror of it all was astounding. John pulled himself together, and made his way down the hall to Andrea’s room hoping that things would be different there, but they weren’t. Here too, blood dripped from every surface, and bits of something hung from the sharp ends of a busted wooden dresser. John was distraught, but there was hope. He had not found any bodies in his house yet… so the people that were closest to him must be here somewhere. He prayed that was true.]
Narrator:
“John’s mind raced. Had THAT GUY gotten into his house and killed them all for fun? Had Cody Stonne come to gain revenge for the example he made of his face? Had the boogerman… I mean the boogey man come with his silly Elvira look alike and made it look like a horrible murder happened here? Where was his wife? Where was Andrea? Where was SODA POPINSKI?”
[Johnathan moves back into the hallway and turns down the hall towards the door to the gym. The bloody puddles reach through the hall, into the living room and through the smashed open front door. John moves onto the balcony, and catches himself as his knees get weak from the shock of what he sees. Below him, amid a pile of bodies of the men and women who were safe and warm inside his four walls earlier tonight, but now were merely piles of parts, dismembered, and oozing the remnants of the blood that once filled them right onto the center of his antique ring, sat his wife, her hair slick and matted with blood, her skin smeared with the red fluid, calmly gnawing on what appeared to be Andra’s right hand. John had no words as he knelt there weeping to himself. He finally pulled himself up on the bars of the railing, and crept down the metal steps as quietly as he could. Just before the bottom stair, John slipped on a pool of blood, and went down hard on the staircase. He got up as fast as he could, and peered over the railing to see if Jessica had heard him, and he came face to dripping bloody face with her looking him right in the eye with this crazed expression of joy… and then his head snapped up, and his eyes shot open as he gasped for air. He was still sitting, awkwardly sleeping, in the wooden rocking chair in the corner of his bedroom. Immediately, he looked over to where his wife still lay, bound hand and foot to the posts of their bed. The horror of it all had just been a dream. His mind had been playing tricks on him. He got up from the chair and moved next to the bed beside his wife. He knelt down and took her hand into his own as a tear rolled down his disfigured face. He put her hand against his scarred skin, and closed his eyes praying she would recover soon, and be the woman he loved again. Suddenly, Jessica sprang up, sitting on the bed, straining against her bonds to claw and tear at Johnathan. Her face contorts into a monstrous visage, and she shrieks a horrible scream that fills your head with pain. John falls back onto the floor as screams in terror.]
Director:
“CUT! PRINT IT! JOHN… THAT WAS AMAZING BABY!”
[John gets up from the floor, and walks out of the room with the fake Jessica lying in a bed that was never actually in his room. He makes his way down the hallway that is suddenly flooded with light as giant lamps come on overhead, and the camera pans backwards to see a film set built to replicate John’s house in Jacksonville. He makes his way out of the kitchen of his “house” and walks through a line of techs holding boom mics and lighting shields, manning cameras, or staring intently at a monitor trying to find just the right angle for the scene. He walks towards the back of the warehouse as a large bay door is rolled up as big as one wall, and the sunlight pours into the dark film studio. Johnathan makes his way out into the bright light of day and moves steadily towards the camera rolling backwards into the studio parking lot.]
Johnathan Cable:
“You see… anyone can write a damned screenplay… and anyone can hire special effects people to make anything look any kind of way they want to. The superstars here in the XWF are, if nothing else, creative geniuses. I mean… all Hollywood needed to do to find the next big idea for their mega bucks billion dollar blockbuster was pick the brain of any one of us. We have more deranged fantasies than Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie’s lovechild. But you know what? NONE OF THAT BULL SHIT MATTERS!”
“You show the fans these twisted little oddities in a feeble attempt to gain some shock value out of it. You want the fans to sit on the edge of their seats and say OH MY GOD… I CAN’T BELIEVE HE JUST DID THAT!!!”
“You are all nothing more than the Howard Stern’s of wrestling… or maybe even he Bubba the Love Sponges of the XWF. Your silly little mind games and your creepy ****ing gimmicks will not save any of you come MY Monday night show. You think I am pretentious? You tell me I am presumptuous? You think that any of you have a prayer in Hell of walking out of MY new ring with MY new Title on MY new show? In a place where men talk to potatoes, pop pills like they are flying out of a Pez dispenser, and not only ****… but marry some dead blind bitch… you think any of you have any room to point fingers at ME??? You think you can tell me that I am holding myself to a higher level of expectation than I can achieve? You PRESUME to tell ME about how things are going to work on MY FUCKING SHOW???All your little parlor tricks and your misdirection won’t save your asses. All your weird fucking habits and your afflictions won’t matter. All of your incredible strengths and all the best of your skill that daddy’s money bought you won’t help you. The only thing that will matter come Monday night is that you come one come all, and waltz your monkey asses down to MY new ring on MY new Monday night show. Don’t make me wait to throw you over MY ropes onto MY floor… the Beast is hungry, and on MY new show… I am no mere LION… I am the only MAN walking away from MY new ring on MY own two legs… as the NEW XWF EUROPEAN CHAMPION! Hurry now… I’m waiting.”
[With that, the scene fades to black]