The Fish and The Lure: Chapter 1: The Megalodon and Immortal Jellyfish

The Megalodon

Click.

English Subtitles.

“Captain, is it safe to assume this is becoming a city-wide emergency?”

“I don’t want to cause any unneeded panic, but I recommend, and I emphasize this: do not take any medication for a headache or pain of any kind from someone you don’t know. Even then, I insist you only take something you yourself took from a bottle.”

“Captain, Captain…over here. Do you have any leads on who is manufacturing these to look like extra strength Tylenol?”

“We are working diligently on putting a halt to these pills and whoever is making them. I will not stop until the people responsible are put behind bars.”

Click

“Heh. You have a patsy lined up I assume…Captain?”

“We 'ave zumone een mind.”

“We will be in touch. Grab the envelope by the front door and be on your way.”

“Oui monsiéur, you are too kind.”

Creak.

Click.

“It was genius to mix some in with the civilians, boss.”

“It all depends on the mix. There will be those that become sick who we will use to confuse the press and law enforcement. There will be those that die because that was the plan all along. Then there will be those that will become addicted to it, because they can be useful for our plans. These are not to make us money, these are to give us more power without anyone questioning us.”

“Who is the next target?”

“I hate to obsess over this, but I want that son of bitch wrestler to be begging on his hands and knees for me to save his little friend. Hand me my phone.”

--

The Depths of Your Sea.

It was bright but I had no idea if I was floating or falling.

Am I dead?

Wait…is this heaven?

Hahahahahaha.

“What is so funny?”

“I am laughing at the thought of going to heaven,” I instantly said. I paused and then attempted to look around to find who I was talking to but there was nothing, just a blinding light.

“Here.”

“Here, what?”

“Reach out your hand.”

I slowly moved my hand and felt the small shoulder of someone. Suddenly the light flickered, and I was in a poorly lit room. My eyes were still trying to adjust after coming from the brightness. I looked down and saw a small hand. I followed the hand to his arm and then up his body to where a smiling child looked up at me.

“Hi.”

“Uh…hey. Do you know where we are?”

“Oh silly, we are home.”

“Home?”

My eyes, now adjusted to the new area, scanned the room. I recognized the room. It was my playroom when I was a kid. It looked like nobody had ever played in there before. The toy chest was closed with a lock making it impossible to get into. The TV was muted as it showed an old wrestling match between Jack Marley and La Raza from an indie fed back in 2000. “Are you me?”

The child let go of my hand and frowned at me, “of course not, I would never be this pathetic as a grown up. I am going to be the greatest wrestler ever. I am going to have millions of friends and have a lot of kids with someone I love. What do you have?”

I groaned. This was quickly becoming hell so maybe I had died I mused to myself. I looked back down, and the kid was still staring at me. “I…uh…am a famous wrestler!”

He rolled his eyes at me, “I am sure ALL your friends would back you up, right?”

“About that…”

He kept running over me, giving me no time to lie or catch my breath, “have your kids seen you compete?”

“I…”

“I bet your wife brings you whatever cookies you want when you come home from a big win.”

I could feel my face becoming hot. The embarrassment I felt was becoming an angry storm that I could no longer control, “LISTEN KID, I CAN EAT ANY COOKIE I WANT, WHENEVER I WANT!”

The kid shrugged, “it could be eating a cookie, it could be sitting down for dinner, it could be watching a movie, whatever IT IS, it is better doing it with someone else. A friend, a lover, a wife, or a child, life is not fulfilling if you are alone.”

I couldn’t respond. Sweat began to drip down my face and my hands began to shake. It was never a good sign when my hands became their own entities. I stared at them, and they slowly began to disappear. I looked past them but saw nothing. It wasn’t that anything was disappearing, it was my eyes that had decided to stop seeing. I blinked but nothing changed, so I took a deep breath and closed my eyes.

“Who is your friend, dear?”

“Friend? Do you think I would be friends with someone who cannot even open their eyes?”

I slowly opened my eyes, (as some kid wasn’t going to talk shit about me) to search for the new voice. The cheerful voice of this woman sounded familiar to me. I examined the room again and then jumped backwards when I saw the woman. She was faceless and held a tray of milk and double stuffed Oreos out in front of the kid. The kid grabbed his glass of milk and ALL the Oreos. “Don’t forget to share them with your new friend,” she said in a soothing voice that almost calmed me down. Unfortunately having no face means this voice was coming from someone with no mouth. The woman turned and walked towards the door and just vanished.

The kid laughed when he saw the look on my face, “it’s too bad you don’t remember what she looks like, huh?” He double dunked some Oreos in the milk and engulfed them with a wink as I watched with what I could only believe was a very confused look on my face.

“Just tell me…am I dead?”

He took a sip of his milk, “this is kind of sad. I am not surprised though because OUR life ended in 2010 and YOUR life began.”

I rubbed both of my hands down my face as this conversation started to confuse me. I connected my hands together and then stretched my arms out. I expected my fingers to crack but nothing happened, just another thing to make me go mad. “Wait…so you are ME?”

The kid sighed and shook his head, “I am how YOU see YOURSELF. How have you not realized what is going on?”

I gave out a worried laugh, “haha, uh…I see myself as a kid?”

He nodded, “Yes.” My hands began to shake again when he said that. “You ever wonder why your hands shake like that and you lose control?”

“I am not a kid…” I paused as my face began to twitch. I slapped both of my cheeks to make it stop but it didn’t. I stumbled towards the couch across from the muted TV and slumped down and stared at the floor. “One, two, three…” I softly mumbled as I counted every floorboard I could see.

The kid walked quickly over to me and stood in front of me, blocking the TV. He looked down at me as I used all my strength to look up at him. It didn’t last long though as my eyes went back down the floor as the shaking did not stop. “I will try to explain to you what YOU already know but can no longer access. First of all, I don’t think I need to explain why YOU would see yourself as a child. Second, the program isn’t entirely gone. You got your memories back, but the failsafe was never destroyed.”

I suddenly tipped over on the couch and rolled off it.

THUD

My whole body started to shake as the words from the kid felt like the stings of a Bullet Ant. I could not talk and began to drool from my mouth to the clean hardwood floor. The kid looked down at me with pity in his eyes, as I stared up at him from the floor unable to do a thing.

“This was never the dream, Steve. You need to stop blaming yourself though. Father took a kind child and used him as a test subject. It is all YOU that got you back your freedom. But it isn’t over, it will never be over until you are happy. Friends, children, and a woman you love you cannot ever give up on these. The day you do is the day you lose yourself…completely.”

Tears began to form in my eyes, and I began to sob uncontrollably. I wasn’t sure if it was his words or was the pain I was feeling but they persisted. He nodded to me with a little smile. “Take my hands.”

I was able to move them upwards like a T-Rex, but the shaking would not stop. He bent down and grasped both of my hands and smiled, “I am you and you are me.”

The shaking stopped.

--

“He’s opening his eyes!”

My eyes blinked several times as they got used to the light in the room. I stared at the ceiling as I attempted to come to terms with whatever I had just gone through. Doc was suddenly staring into my eyes from a foot away from my face. He moved his right hand and opened one after another and shined a small light into them. He was looking directly at me but not at me at the same time. It was beginning to feel like I was getting a physical.

“Next, you are going to ask me to cough.”

The Doc turned his light off and chuckled softly. “Glad to see you retained a sense of humor.”

I suppose I had but at the same time I didn’t feel like moving or taking my eyes off the ceiling. I felt like my brain was backing everything I had just experienced so nothing new could be done at that time. I gave The Doc a small smile to show him I registered what he said.

“Can you talk, Steve?”

I delicately, as much as one can, cleared my voice. I could feel the phlegm in my throat loosening and then that uncomfortable sensation of it trickling down the back of my throat. “Yes…” I stopped, I didn’t really want to say anything, but I felt relaxed with Doc being in the room with me.

I wasn’t dead was all that I cared about at that moment.

I seemed to be in the Hotel Room we had stayed in the night before the big show in Portland. The same ugly framed painting of a Dog Holding an Umbrella in a downpour of Cats was still staring at me like I owed it a compliment. I grunted and gave it a squinty eyed stare back. It wasn’t getting the better of me I said to myself.

Doc shrugged at me and then pointed towards the door to the room, “Jack went to get some ice when his friend Chaz got a phone call he had to take.”

I moved my eyes to the right to look at Doc, “who is Chaz?” As soon as I asked that question my eyes closed and the front of my head started pounding, I rubbed both my closed eyes carefully with the side of my index fingers. I breathed deeply and then let out a long breath.

“Chaz is someone to keep an eye on, Steve. I don’t trust him and the way Jack acts around him is really…(quietly) suspect.”

I was feeling weak and was having trouble keeping my eyes open, so I sensed it was time to get out of Portland. There was nothing left here for me but more questions that could very well be answered elsewhere. “Go tell Jack we are leaving, Doc. If he gets pouty because we are not bringing his friend, then he can go with him.”

Doc nodded, “understood.”

Doc headed out of the room, and I rolled over to my side. I stared at the peeling paint and sighed, the headache becoming unbearable. I rolled back onto my back when I heard the noise of paper from my back pocket.

The door began to open, and I stared back at the ceiling. I touched the back pocket of my jeans with only the worst circling in my head. I will remember to check this when I am alone.

Trust is earned…as WE say.

--

The Immortal Jellyfish.

Look at that move!

I saw, you don’t have to yell, we are using the same brain.

It had been several weeks since I returned to the Farmhouse in Montreal from Portland and was still getting used to having an internal dialogue with myself. It took a week to realize the dream was more than just a hallucination, but I was certain that what I experienced was just a side effect of losing control. When we were finally alone Doc had mentioned seeing a puncture spot on my neck from a needle. What was pumped into me was still unknown as finding that information out would take more time and resources then its worth.

The Doc daily checks my vitals, and everything has been fine other than…

That Coral Avalon has a forehead the size of the Grand Canyon and Cancer Jiles’s head is as empty as it is.

We…I mean I was watching the Main Event of the Day Two UltraViolence event and was just happy Jiles had lost. That expired loaf of bread can sprinkle his crumbs in his lonely cabin on the Octane and roll around in it while crying.

Why are we not on the card?

This unrelenting voice asks more questions than I have answers. Everyday though it seems I learn something new about myself. The last few years I have mentioned getting my memories back, but I have never once understood them or did anything to learn about them. My subconscious fought through a program and my own insecurities to teach ME a way forward.

But goddamnit, he is loud about wrestling.

Some say I am a shell of myself. Some say I don’t have the passion anymore. Truth is, both are probably accurate.

Pathetic.

I didn’t say I was proud of my position in PRIME. It is hard though because Clay Byrd and Lindsay Troy forced me back in the ring by denying my goofy disguised persona. Nobody asked why I was Stefan or what was going on. HELL, nobody even asked where I had been for over a year.

Sounds like they made the right decision though.

Did they? I mean…Lindsay Troy definitely did it out of spite. She will never accept me as anything but a member of the deepest and dankest pit. Clay Byrd though…it was something I was still struggling to come to terms with. In my drunkest state the ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you Donkey,’ tried to show me a different way to look at it. The only thing I know for sure is that Vae Victus is an elitist group of wrestlers who do everything in their power to prop themselves up as the best. They aren’t, you just have the resources to spread their propaganda.

You are looking at things in simple terms. Just like I have learned from you, you also need to see the wrestling world for what it is. The glitz and glam are only reserved for those with the power. If you fight against this power, expect the prospect of that to never shine a light on you.

Oh, I guess you are right: I do have a lot to learn. But regardless of the politics I will never give up on the dream though.

There is nothing but politics. Everyone has something they are trying to sell you and I am not talking about the amazing IHOP products. But...I guess your insistent love for wrestling can help push me through the hardest of times.

It was at this moment I turned the TV off as The Doc returned to the room with my phone in his hand. It has become a habit of mine to leave it in odd places but for an old guy he is rather handy when it comes to technology, and he always finds my phone.

“I cannot unlock your phone, Steve, but you have an alert from PRIME about the next card.”

YES!

I laughed loudly. This enthusiasm was starting to rub off on me. I turned my head and looked at The Doc with my hand out. He placed it in my hand, and I checked the alert. “Hmm.”

“Good news?”

I put my phone down and tapped my left index finger on the TV Remote. “It’s kismet, Doc.”

The gears in my head were spinning bringing forth a lot of questions and reasons for this match being made. I couldn’t keep back the grin from forming on my face though.

“Oh, that smile isn’t something I have seen in a while.”

I stood up from the couch and brushed and lint off my pants and looked at Doc, “looks like we are heading back to the west coast.”

“Should I inform Jack?”

“Tell him he has a drug test and I have already paid for his license.”

This was how I would have to move with him right now. Chaz had wormed his way into his life and Jack has been constantly asking about coming to the Farmhouse with Chaz. It seemed to get more desperate every time he asked as if Chaz had a gun against his head. At the same time though we had no proof that he had done anything but being there to help when I passed out in the pouring rain into a puddle.

Doc walked away leaving me with my thoughts and my grievances.

Kerry Kuroyama and the Alias Title.

TITLE MATCH!?!?

Heh.

I could make this all about how I earned this title match, but…I haven’t. I suppose I still have some name value that can make this match interesting to the fans.

Nah.

The more interesting aspect of this, is the anger I feel towards Vae Victus and his membership in said group.

I haven’t wrestled in a while so some could say I am being led to slaughter. The apathetic rusty wrestler against the streaking champion looking for the last win he needs as champ. This match is being set up to be your crowning achievement and another way to deflate me. That is what your little group does. It directs my friend to smarten me up and then directs you to finish the job.

That is how it feels to me, but even I know that you probably know nothing about me. It wouldn’t surprise me when you see the arrogance that just oozes off anyone who waves the flag for your bunch.

I respect your skills, champ.

Unfortunately for you, this job isn’t something you have the qualifications for. You don’t put any fear into me. If you were Dan Ryan (how’s your knee big fella?) coming for revenge, then maybe I would hesitate on walking towards the ring.

We have our own confidence now.

I suppose we do. I am not sure if it is confidence or a rediscovered desire to succeed in the wrestling business.

The Immortal Jellyfish can revert to a child from an adult and begin life again. I reckon, I am doing the same in different terms. I am not the same as I was a month ago, you could say I have reverted to a time I cared.

What I am trying to say is that: I am going to tear that title away from you by…

Any.

Means.

Necessary.

I don’t care if you have that clown Scott Hunter in your corner. He is only there to throw in the towel again anyway but don’t be mad, he will be doing your body a solid.

I only care about what you hold right now. I have never been one to put too much stock in holding a title but now I have this voice that won’t shut up about it.

TITLES!

I won’t lie…that voice is getting me excited.

Excited to walk down that ramp.

Excited to leave you wanting as I drop you repeatedly on your neck.

Excited to just fucking wrestle for the first time in a long time.

This is the first time in a long time that I feel like I can shout about being the Miracle Man without feeling disingenuous.

It isn't my moniker that you should fear though. Heh, nope, it's the Enlightenment you will feel when (ahem)...

Cough…

Cough…

…IT'S A HARRACLE RAINS DOWN UPON YOU!