Nature of the Beast

“How did we get here, Hayes?”

Endless black surrounds me in every direction -- thick as fog and deep as an abyss.

“How did we get to this place, over two years after your career peak in PRIME, where you now feel that everyone needs to be reminded of the athlete you used to be?”

I do not know where I am, nor why I am here.

Without purpose or direction, I trudge on through this world of shadows, compelled by an unnamed force.

“Perhaps you feel that too many people here in PRIME are beginning to overlook that first glorious year of ‘the Event Horizon’. That all you’ve accomplished is quietly being swept under the rug and forgotten.

“I know that can’t be easy, considering who you were back then.

“The OG fan turned aspiring wrestler, chasing after his childhood dream. Anointed by the old guard. Respected by the new blood. Recognized indisputably as one of this company’s premier talents.

“Rest assured, Hayes… I haven’t forgotten.”

I brace myself against a howling wind, marching further ahead.

“I merely choose to distinguish between then and now.

“Because flexing on what you were doesn’t mean jack shit compared to what I am.”

The only sounds are my steps squelching in the wet earth beneath my feet.

The only source of light comes from a lantern dangling from the arm extended out ahead of me, illuminating the path ahead.

Five flames are burning within.

“And unlike you, Hayes, I don’t need to give out any reminders of that. The fact that These Stars hang around my waist instead of yours should tell you all you need to know.”

All that I can see in the small halo of light encircling me is a terrain of gray mud beneath my feet, covered by a faint layer of crimson haze.

As I pass by the infrequent gaps in the mist, I can almost see faces staring back at me from the colorless mire. Faces with expressions ranging from agony, to despair, to rage, to sad, solemn complacence.

I shudder at the prospect of joining them.

“The harsh truth of this line of work we’re in is that regardless of the past, anyone in this industry is only as relevant as they are in the present.

“Just ask any random middle-aged slob, sitting in his living room and remembering his glory days while he looks longingly up at his high school and college sports trophies sitting on the mantle, collecting dust. He’ll tell you the same.

“Nature of the beast, I’m afraid.”

I long to once again be drifting aimlessly through the vastness of space. 

Cold and empty as it was, it at least afforded a sense of endless freedom. Distant as the stars appeared against the great black beyond, their faint sparkle offered at least a slight feeling of companionship.

In this unknown place, the void is as suffocating as it is constant.

“And the even harsher truth, Hayes, is that even the very unlikely scenario where you reclaim These Stars may not be the world-shattering ‘reminder’ you’re hoping for. It’s possible that the damage may already be done.

“Because the reality is, PRIME has evolved quite a bit since that first year.

“And judging by your insistence to remind people of who you were then instead of who you are now, it would seem to me that ‘the Event Horizon’ hasn’t evolved with it.”

For what feels like the first time since this timeless journey through a nameless limbo began, I come to a stop.

I never had reason to, until now.

“A man you couldn’t be bothered to respect enough as a legitimate contender bumped you from the Almasy. And only now are you coming to realize how much your credibility here in PRIME has waned over these past couple years.

“But just as with Scott’s upset victory over you in that tournament, you have no one to blame for your fall from relevancy other than yourself, Hayes.”

Some distance ahead, a faint glimmer of green light cuts through the wall of black.

A star? A torch?

A beacon of hope? Or a sign of inevitable catastrophe?

I have no way of knowing.

But I’ll be damned if anything keeps me from finding out.

“I can only hope that when you and I are finally between those ropes, battling over These Stars, you’ll somehow find the will to remind yourself of the spark you had within you back then.

“And if not…?”

I take two steps forward…

“Then at least you’ll always have your trophies on the mantle.”

…then from up high, the heavens thunder with the sound of my name.

“KERRY!!”

DAY 121 Goddamn, I hate Spooky Season.

Kerry Kuroyama returned to waking life with all the finesse of a band-aid being ripped off the surface of his brain.

Soaked in sweat, he was jerked awake, his mind in pieces and his eyes frantically darting around the room for anything recognizable to serve as an anchor for his grasping sense of reality. Slowly, his living room came into focus, along with the familiar grip of his sofa contoured to his slouched body.

As he recognized the safety and solace of his own home, the panic gradually subsided.

The empty black was gone. Nothing but a bad dream.

However, the sight of an irate Ami Troy looming over him was enough to make him think that he had inexplicably awoken into a much more terrifying reality.

“Did you stay up late drinking whisky, eating hot wings, and getting high on gummies while playing that stupid game again?”

Groggy, confused, and having no memory of how he ended up there, Kerry looked around and assessed his immediate surroundings.

A dead PS5 controller was on the floor by his feet, not far from an overturned tumbler. On the coffee table in front of him sat an orange-splattered plate of chicken bones, right next to an empty pouch of gummies.

“I’m no Sherlock Holmes,” said the voice from within. “But something tells me that’s exactly what happened here.”

Obviously, he had blacked out after an evening of heavy indulgence. But the lingering memories from the previous night remained fractured and blurred.

All his mind could dwell on were the images and sensations of the dream that continued to float past his eyes.

“I was trapped in a nightmare world, Ami!” he stammered, wiping away the drool glazed along his face with the sleeve of his bathrobe. “Everything was dark, and I had no idea where I was, but I had this lantern, so I just kept walking forward, and then I saw this--”

A sharp pimpslap to both of his cheeks swiftly plugged up the babbling stream of dumbassedry flowing from his lips and swiftly brought him to attention.

“Get your act together, champ!” chided Ami, plucking up his Five Star Title from the nearby loveseat. “You can deal with your unresolved insecurities through your weird, symbolic dream sequences later!”

She lobbed the belt to him. Even just shy of ten pounds, its weight smacking him in the chest felt like being struck by a cannonball.

“Right now, you’ve got a title defense to prepare for,” she continued.

Then she arched her eyebrow.

“And you know how Ioanna gets when you keep her waiting!”

Kerry knew well enough.

The last time he was late to a training session, the fearsome Ioanna Drakos had folded him up into a pretzel and straightened him back out in a way that left him convinced he had molars in his toes and phalanges in the back of his mouth.

“Then you better do as your queen commands,” counseled the voice from within.

Head pounding and stomach churning, Kuroyama found the will to rise to his feet.

“Thanks, babe,” he said with a belch. “Let’s get to work…”

DAY 126 I’ll take a nightmarish hellscape over an hour with a Cretan murder granny any day.

There was solace within the grind.

No anxiety. No uncertainty. No tough choices.

No weird indigestion-induced nightmares, for that matter.

Just the daily routine of pain, punishment, and pugilist bliss that kept the body tempered and the mind sharp. Where the only thing that mattered was preparing for the next match.

It helped to be out of the garage and back in the school, along with all of its useful amenities. And with Erik Black fully out of the picture, he felt he could finally work without the threat of distraction.

However, as with all things, settling into this new routine naturally came with a rough period of adjustment.

Kerry had been taking a break in the lounge they refitted from the dastardly man in white’s former office after a long day of getting his ass handed to him by a woman twice his age. Embedded there within his black leather armchair, he looked up to see the tandem of Zack Daymon and Leo Burnett standing before him.

“Um… what’s up, guys?”

Held within Burnett’s hands was the Milo Flynn Cup the two of them won earlier that year.

As he overturned the trophy, no fewer than half a dozen empty Four Loko cans tumbled out onto the floor.

Rubbing his chin, Kerry looked questionably down at the sight of the emptied aluminum cylinders pooled at his feet.

“Wow… how did all those get in there?”

Seeing right through his false naivety, Daymon and Burnett grimaced in near perfect synchronization.

“As if you don’t know…” said that voice from within.

With a groan, Kerry sat forward in his seat and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Look, I understand how you feel,” he said. “But Ami’s my manager, and you two are my partners in this place. At some point, we’re all going to have to be adults and get along, right?”

They answered with pointed stares and stark silence.

Getting annoyed, Kerry shook his head.

“Look, you beat her brother to win that cup,” he said. “Then you beat her mother and her best friend on the last ReVival. A little playful ribbing is to be expected. It’s still a small price to pay compared to the success you guys have had this year, don’t you think?”

More silence.

Reasoning with these two was like negotiating with a brick wall.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, what do you want me to do here?” asked Kerry in exasperation, throwing in the towel on the issue. “Just put a pot lid on it. Problem solved.”

Kerry’s cousin rolled his eyes. His tag partner likewise grunted indignantly.

Nevertheless, they turned and left the room.

“That could have been handled better…” suggested the voice from within.

Could have been, yes.

But Kerry wasn’t about to interject himself in the ongoing strife between Ami and his crew.

After a year of dealing with Whoresmen, Yakuza uncles, and the neverending schemes of that motherfucker in white, the last thing he needed was more drama being dumped upon his life.

Alone once more, a heavy sigh escaped the Emerald Apex.

Things were supposed to be better now that he was back with the old Seattle crew. At least on the surface, it seemed that way.

But deep down, he couldn’t shake the sensation that something was very off as of late.

“Just admit to yourself that you miss him,” said the voice of his father from within.

Again, he sighed.

Maybe he did miss Scott.

That beautiful bastard and his flowing mullet always knew how to light up the room.

But ever since he earned his title shot, their dynamic had been shifted. Nothing had been the same since they went their separate ways.

And despite the separation feeling completely necessary, all the whisky and hot wings and gummies and spooky video games in the world couldn’t fill the hole he left behind.

Nature of the beast, he thought to himself.

Then, his phone rang.

An unknown number flashed across his screen. Reluctantly, Kerry’s thumb pressed the green icon and he brought the phone to his ear.

“Speak.”

Someone sniffed on the other end.

“Kerry?”

The raspy voice was indistinguishable. Just hearing it brought a sneer to Kuroyama’s face.

“Hello, Laird…” he said, doing little to mask the repugnance bleeding through his voice. “I sincerely hope you have good news.”

“Well, I have news,” said the jittery voice on the other end. “I don’t know about any of it being ‘good’ though.”

Kerry rose to his feet, pressing the phone against his ear.

“Talk.”

Back in the dream, wandering through the dark.

A constant pursuit toward that green light in the distance.

But I can’t say I’m not making progress.

“Rest assured, Hayes… you will be remembered.

“But not in the way you’d prefer to be.”

I don’t recall how I came upon this temple.

It just seemed to gradually rise up around me, piece by piece.

The ground eventually gave way to crude paving.

A peristyle passage of broken columns gave way to a series of rusted walls.

At some point, I had wandered out of the unknown, and into a place lost to time and memory.

“In the future, children gathered around campfires will tell each other ghost stories of the once legendary ‘Event Horizon’.

“They’ll speak of you as a mythic bogeyman to all future aspiring wrestlers.

“A precautionary tale to anyone with the conviction to pursue a life of fame and glory… and all the potential consequences that come with it.”

The singular focus of my journey, a brazier of emerald fire, rests at the azimuth of this ungodly ziggurat before me.

A grade of broken steps lead me toward the apex.

“I’m certain there are many out there who would love to see you finally pull your head out of your ass and be the Hayes Hanlon of that first year. The icon that inspired other hopeful wrestlers like me to come to this company in the pursuit of similar fame.

“Except you’re not this company’s hero anymore.

“You traded that to become another accessory to the Glue racket.”

I reach the crest.

An altar is waiting for me.

A human figure lies upon it, obscured beneath a white sheet.

“These Stars don’t belong to you anymore.

“They don’t belong to anyone who has grown so complacent with their past, that they can’t visualize a future ahead of them.

“These Stars were made with the purpose of defining the very best of this sport.

“And regardless of what you were, Hayes, defining yourself as the best seems to be a forgotten memory to you.

“Because you’d rather point to the things you did years ago than do anything in the present to change the narrative.”

One hand holds a lantern.

Only now do I realize the other holds a ceremonial dagger of sacrifice.

“When your back is to the wall, will you actually conquer, Hayes?

“Or will you fall once more?”

I pull the sheet aside.

Scott is staring back at me.

“Is this because I wouldn’t give you my extra biscuit when we went to Cracker Barrel?”

The dagger falls from my hand.

The unnamed feeling that has pushed me to this point is suddenly gone.

As far as I’ve come to be here, I can’t go through with this.

I can’t.

“Leave the airs of conquest to me, Hayes.

“Because unlike you…”

The verdant light fades as an unseen force snuffs out the brazier.

The lantern in my hand flickers out.

I am left in endless, suffocating black.

“I was built for this.”