| RyanxShane | Date: Tuesday, 2011/07/12, 3:03 PM | Message # 1 |
 Survivor of the Failing Breed
Group: EWA Roster
Messages: 63
Status: Offline
| Journal entry #5
Title: "The Colors of Pain"
Date: 7/10/11
Do they not see?
Do they not see how I not just destroy my enemy, but make them destroy themselves?
Ronnie McNeil, the name brings a taste of iron to my mouth. Light and Darkness that represents the very being of McNeil haunt my dreams, and as so it seems, my reality. He is the living symbol of my past coming back to haunt me again and again and again, etcetera, etcetera. I wasn’t going to write about him, I really tried not to, but this resounding silence that enveloped me moments ago triggered my natural reaction. In went the headphones and here I am again.
It’s funny how things work, though. Not humorous funny, but more like a birthday clown. There’s a smile on his face, but inside he is broken, alone, and defeated in the game of life. It’s a sad, tragic humor, and that sums up my dear friend Ronald McNeil. Ron has only been here for about a month, maybe even less, I couldn’t care to check the date, and all of a sudden the members of the Empire have just forgotten what it is Ronnie is.
Ronnie is a thief.
Ronnie is the vulture encircling the professional wrestling landscape, ready to pick the unwilling, unknowing carcass clean. Yet here I sit writing in a diary like a seventeen year-old girl on prom night about her high school crush because, quite frankly, I have a crush. I have an obsession with McNeil. Ever since that one match. Ever since that fatal four-way that vermin had walked out of with the title that was calling my name.
And it was all my fault.
Ronnie did not rob me of the CZW Intercontinental Championship, I did. He didn’t defeat me, he didn’t out smart me, he didn’t utilize my strength against me, I did. A rare lapse of concentration and I found myself looking into the rafters, as McNeil covered the latest victim of the Murder Scene.
One.
Two.
Three.
I was too tied up with my systematic destruction of Youthful Aggression to respond. Actually, I was going to let him slide. Now we dance into the winds of time to find myself once again looking at the ceiling thanks to Ronnie. Ronnie’s like a bad case of herpes. Once I thought you were gone for good, you come back and ruin my life some more. What was it this time? Can’t stand to see me successful? Were my clothes too nice for you? No, I know how you think. You have some point to prove. Everyone knows you can’t beat me one on one, so now you have something to prove. Problem is you won’t get the chance. I’m not just some fucking wrestler you can call out for a quick win. Brian Kirkland once said that in the ring, we were all artists and that is very true, but some of us are the Davinci’s of our era, and the others finger paint. Pain is my art form, and the ring is my blank canvas awaiting my skillful touch.
“RN!”
I craft malicious masterpieces.
“RYN!”
And I will make you my greatest work to date.
“In My Own Hands”
“RYAN!”
Just as snap of camera focus changes within a second, so does the snap of a black hard-backed journal closing with the force of a hand. We pull back to find the hand that rocks the cradle of EWA, Ryan Shane, seated in a classically designed chair. The screams and melodies of “2nd Sucks” by A Day to Remember slam into his ear drums and echoed out into the open air, every word audible to the outside viewers. Dropping the journal to the green-rugged floor, Ryan removes the black headphones from his ears, curling them around an iPod touch and slipping it into the pocket of black cargo shorts. From under the brim of his black fitted baseball cap, Ryan’s mascara out-lined eyes locked to the source of the call behind aviator shades.
“What?”
We turn to find Ms. Cassidy Fontaine, feet curled under a twin chair, the newly revealed EWA Innovation Championship settled against her navy dress, distress settled on her face. With her eyes she motioned to her right, causing Ryan to do the same, meeting now with the glare of Frankie Manning. His eyes narrowed like the snake about to strike at Ryan, his arms crossed across his plump mid-section. As he does, so does Shane, tattooed arms crossed over a Shadows Fall band t-shirt.
“Why, thank you for joining us, Mr.Shane.”
There is no remorse, no means of regret for his clearly rude behavior. Manning’s only answer is an un-amused stare and a single sentence.
“’Bout time you showed up.”
“Excuse me?”
Satisfied with the annoyed response of his employer, Shane slips back into his seat further, his leg crossing ankle to knee as he did so, a smirk slithering onto his face.
“I wondered, were you just getting pretty for me, or were Alexander and Reid double-teaming you in the janitor’s closet again?”
If he could, the red-cowled Manning would have assaulted the arrogant prick before him, torturous memories of contracts and show times flashing back in an instant, seemingly bursting at the seam from the meltdown of a hard life’s ration of bullshit, triggered by the Curse. With a deep breath and slow exhale, Manning calms the rage to a controllable level.
“Did you set up this appointment just to mock me or does this have a point?”
The pace changes as Ryan uncrosses his legs, leaning in. With a fluid motion he grips the center of his sunglasses and places them
on top of his journal, raising up to look Manning eye to eye.
“McNeil.”
“What about him?”
“Don’t play dumb with me, Franklin! You got eyes and ears all over this building with that fucking headset! McNeil! Ronnie McNeil! I want his head on a plate!”
Manning’s head tilted as his lips puckered, a nodding to Ryan in the same way a parent would nod to a crying child.
“Awww, what’s da matter? Did wittle Wyan get a boo boo? Did he not wike what Wonnie did?”
As Ryan face began to contort, cheeks bulging with every breath more aggressive than the other as Manning crept closer and closer, white knuckles locked to the edge of his desk. He spoke with a booming authority.
“If you have a problem with him, take care of it yourself!”
With a wicked snarl, Ryan retorted, opting to use words to defeat Manning as opposed to breaking his neck, regretting his decision all the while.
“How dare you treat me like this? I’m your damn champion!”
“No. You’re. Not! Just because you play dress-up with twenty pounds of gold doesn’t mean you’re anything in the Empire!”
The blood rushes from Ryan’s hands as his death grip on the arm rests of his chair tightens, his inks laid on a pale white, his teeth gritted.
“I’m the best damn thing you got in this shithole!”
“PROVE IT THEN! You want to be a champion so bad, then you’re going to fight like one! Next Shatter Point you’re going to face a former champion! It’s going to be the self-proclaimed “Innovation Champion”, really stupid name by the way, Ryan Shane taking on the longest reigning Underground champion to date, Chris Johnson! What do you think of that?”
We return to Ryan’s face, expecting a battle plan to be formed or a look of his words coming back to haunt him to be there, but all that can be seen is annoyance. A click of the tongue against his palette and a rising of his eyebrow says it all.
“Really? You’re sicking the CEW refugees on me? Why don’t you just pay the fans five bucks to come get their heads kicked in? Why don’t you just……….”
Ryan is stopped mid-sentence on his own accord, eyes snapping to the floor and lips parting just slightly in a hypnotic thought pattern. His body sinks back into the chair, a slight nod accompanied by the constant mumble of “Yes”.
“I like that.”
He returned his attention to “the Fan’s Man”.
“Actually, I like that a lot. In one night I get to taste victory again, cripple a rising name, and cut the head off of the CEW snake. Excellent.”
Ryan reached down, picking up the shades he had removed with such care and placed them back over his eyes, then returning to the floor to take up his journal. With the use of his head, he motioned to the door to Ms.Fontaine. Both rise from their chairs, turn, and head for the exit. Half-way to the destination, Manning’s voice calls again.
“Snakes bite back, Shane, even after they’re dead!”
The only answer is silence from the both as the door is opened, Ms. Fontaine and the self-created championship leaving before Ryan.
“Oh, and Frankie.”
Ryan stopped in his tracks, looking back to his “boss” over his left shoulder.
“I’m leaving next week with somebody’s blood on my hands. It’s either McNeil’s…………………..or yours. The choice is up to you.”
A second click from his mouth teamed with a wink from behind the lens of his shades and Ryan was off, the door shutting behind him. Manning’s fist pounds his desk, the chaos in the EWA now catching up to him. With this, our footage fades to black, awaiting one last gracing appearance by the centerpiece.
“That Dark Place”
“Chris, I’m a fan…………”
Words generate a pulse of life into the video feed as the third and final segment begins. We do not find ourselves in the melancholic atmosphere of Ryan Shane’s hotel room, nor the bright lights and battleground of the Colosseum. We are welcomed by the glimmering sheen of a glass table, black metal frame holding it from the ground. The further the camera pulls back, the more of the location we can see, obviously a lavish penthouse suite inside the concrete jungle of New York. A fire simmers and roars within a fireplace lined with black marble that continued onto the floor, meeting hardwood and extending under black leather sofas. The open area seemed endless, the background wall composed of simple glass, the night time cityscape of the big apple twinkling like the night sky. We pull back out to find the deviant duo of Cassidy Fontaine and Ryan Shane taking center stage upon the sofa right ahead, on the table before them, the Innovation Championship was presented in full-view. Ditching his usual punk soldier gear for a more “Higher class” attire, Ryan popped the collar of a longer black shirt up under his ears and spoke.
“You know, they say a change of scene is good for the soul. Well, if you look around, you can see I take that to heart. Welcome!”
Ryan’s arms extended, black sleeves sliding just slightly down his decorated arms as he presented his surroundings.
“……to my new home. Chateau de Curse, if you will. It’s the best money could buy, and thanks to one man up in Connecticut…….”
Ryan took a moment to wave to the camera with his right hand, rested on the back of his couch.
“Hi Derek, I have plenty of that….but it was about time I spent some of it on me, so here we are. That goes hand in hand with the changing scene of the EWA in the past few weeks. Intergender competition, new faces, new names.”
A quick look down to his golden belt and a trademark smirk to the camera.
“New Champions. Among the tops of this new wave is Chris Johnson. “The A-Lister”, haha! Kid’s pretty good, isn’t he?”
Turning to Ms.Fontaine we catch an almost giggle from her soft lips.
“Numbers don’t lie.”
“Indeed they don’t. Like I said, Chris, I’m a fan. You have this swagger about you and it’s something people in this game lack. You’re a winner, but you know you’re a winner and that makes you even deadlier. Others can argue about your methods of victory but you and I both know that at the end of the day, a true winner will do whatever it takes to win. It’s just jealousy that clouds the little people’s judgment, but of course the unrelenting change of scene affects us all, and for you, it’s changing…….to the Murder Scene.”
A cross of the his legs set his body into full relaxation, enjoying the few moments before he would have to once again return to battle against a very “talented” individual and his flunkies. Thoughts passed him by as he took a minute to collect him, raising the left-side of his closed lips in self-protest before deciding to speak his mind.
“Your life in the EWA has kind of been……………………..like a movie, no? You debut with all the pomp and circumstance of a macho man, blind the dirty streets of New York with the bright lights of Hollywood, and become the greatest Underground Champion ever. Such a great story, it really is, but you and I both know how this one ends. It all dwindles down in tragedy as that glory is stripped by…”
Ryan struggles to hold back a chuckle, a rare crack in the mostly serious demeanor of the curse. This even appears to catch Ms.Fontaine off-guard, an “Are you serious?” eyebrow raise meeting the man who writes her paycheck.
“Waylon Krew of all people. Now I know that alone has to kill you, but sad to say, it only gets worse from there. I believe the saying goes “Out of the frying pan, into the fire”. I’m going to defeat you, Chris. There’s no changing that. There’s no bragging involved. It’s fact. I’m going to defeat you. I need to.”
The true side of Shane returns as his words grow slower and slower, his hidden gaze plastered to a corner of the room as he takes part in his inner-workings, ignoring the outside world. Everything had been built up for a moment like this, but then again, this was the story of his life. So is the life of the king when everyday a newer, stronger opponent rides into your court to dethrone you. So is the life of Ryan Shane, though, when that opponent is beaten within an inch of their life and left in their own secretions, as delivering the final blow would be an insult to his own skill.
“I need to defeat people like you. I need to defeat people like Chris Johnson to remain at the top of my game and at the top of the world. I have to destroy people like Chris Johnson to prove my ability, not just to those around me, but to myself. Above all else, I need to offer sacrifice.”
Ryan snaps out of his trance and reaches to the table, lifting from it the glimmering Innovation Championship. He holds it plate up in both hands, mesmerized by the lights that bend off of its light gold frame. Ryan had held many a championship in his short-lived career, but this one was special. It was his own. The only one which deserved his affectionate touch. The confusion of Fontaine returns to a solace of obvious understanding as she sees Ryan’s degeneration to the depressive self, her smile going flaccid.
“I need to offer sacrifice to my brain child. In order for it to grow and flourish, I need to feed it names like Chris Johnson. Chris Johnson is a star. Since day one you’ve been colliding with and destroying other stars like it wasn’t just a job but that you really enjoyed it. Hurting someone feels good, doesn’t it? Of course it does, I wouldn’t be in his profession if it didn’t. It’s hard the first time, seeing someone suffer……but in time you grow to enjoy it, you just learn to go to that….dark place.”
Ryan places the title back down on the table, this time with the name plate facing him so he could admire the beauty of the belt from his seat. Leaning back, he turns his focus back to the cameras which he had invented into his home.
“I used to have that. This state of mind that controlled everything I did. I didn’t just go to this “Dark Place” as others would tell you. I lived there. I didn’t leave. I couldn’t leave. I didn’t think while there, I just sort of acted. As cliché as it sounds I swear I could hear whispers in my ear pushing me forward, laughing at the unfortunate name of the week. I had lost control. There was no way I was getting myself out of that mindset. Lucky for me I never had to. I had help. My guardian angel in the form of the angel on my arm. Selena always helped me. Whenever I would reach the limit, get to the point I would do something that we would all regret she would just place her hand on my chest.”
Ryan mimicked this very motion, placing his have over his right pectoral muscle.
“And she’d whisper “Everything will work out.”……….Everything will work out.”
The somber memories leaked from his lips into the air, penetrating the emotional reservoir of those sharing the room with him. Ms.Fontaine held out a hand just past her personal space, stopping and fighting with herself, then retracting it. Ryan took a moment to collect his broken story, then brushed it off to continue.
“I’ve tried to hold it back on my own. Without her it’s been a battle, but I just can’t fight it anymore.”
In sorrow Ryan leans forward and drops his head, his shades actually falling from his face and smacking the floor, his ebon hair flowing down to conceal his features. With a passing second, he looks back up, blackened eyes gone wild and a blood thirsty smirk cracked.
“Because I don’t want to! I’m satisfied with what I am! I can’t run from the dark place because I am the dark place and the voices telling me to maul you are my own! I’ve been told for the better part of a year that I’m going crazy! I’m not crazy! I’m just a vile, vile human being, and I like that! So are you, Chris, and I like that too, but remember this. A wise man once said “You can’t out-evil Ryan Shane”, and that still stands today. Defeating a star like you will finally put my name on the lips of not just everyone in the wrestling community, but everyone in the world. “The man that crippled Chris Johnson”, oh how lovely that sounds. The lesson you’ll learn this Shatter Point is that stars may be the greatest power in the universe, but even the brightest of them die and are swallowed by the void. I plan on treating the Empire to an event rarely seen by the naked eye, because at Shatter Point, a star dies……..”
Ryan’s eyes grew wider as his arms sprang into action, slowly being brought up, hands gripping into fists with enough strength to send constant shockwaves through the limbs, blood rushing out of them from the pressure. The words “Stay Down” to which Ryan had taken great pride in covered the lower-half of his face as the camera zoomed in, recording only a single oath and looks to kill.
“In New York City.”
The same still shot remains as the edges of the feed begin to bend, distort, and are eventually reduced to static along with the rest of the video. Within the blizzard of energy we can somewhat make out a logo, faded and hidden by the commotion, vague curves and lines of three bolded letters or symbols the only clue. Whatever it is, it would have to wait, as the footage immediately cut to black, saving the energy for the public slaughtering of one Chris Johnson.
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