I Kill Moments

23:02 (2 Minutes After Meltdown.) 

Production Area, Talking Stick Resort Arena, 

Phoenix, Arizona.


 

David’s finger was still on the button, there was no denying he had done it. Not even to himself. Yet as he sat there in the swivel chair, aware that he had just ruined possibly the best moment in Alex Richards’ career with a heinous act that would probably top his list of personal wrongdoing, or at least serve as the most public indiscretion, he wasn’t happy; nor proud, nor even sure he had done the right thing. What was this feeling? Was this what it was like to feel guilt?





The mysterious figure that had been suggested at the end of Meltdown spoke once more, it’s mystery now foiled by an anti-climactic reveal as Samantha stood behind David, her hands massaging his shoulders as he sat motionless on the swivel chair, reliving what had just happened on a constant loop in his mind. Yet, it was both Knives and something else entirely that seemed to be comforting her husband. The voice was not her’s, it was a raspy voice that hung low in tone and seemed to tear through David’s eardrums like fingernails on a chalkboard. There was no love in her voice, no sparkle in her emerald green eyes and no real emotion to the way that her hands seemed to manipulate the mayor’s shoulder muscles more like one would sculpt clay than comfort a loved one.





He was physically shaking as she smiled a grin more devious than his own from behind her muse, strangely enough that was never something that had been known from Samantha Sanchez, as evil as her husband had been known, as many hateful acts as they had performed together; she never looked as though it was what she really wanted. Not until this moment. A sickening enjoyment was spreading across her face as she thought of what the damage might be to Alex’s complexion in the wake of the pyrotechnics disaster. Even if it hadn’t left him blinded though, even if it hadn’t scarred him beyond recognition; he would know soon enough who was responsible for this act, and the rest of the story would write itself. Richards was too proud, too good and just, too hard-headed to just let David get away with this, and when he came for revenge he would bring the title straight to them.

What if she remembers David?

Maybe she knows what you did?” 

His mind boggled with the various outcomes of this barter. He wanted to see her, to speak to her one last time like he thought he had been doing this whole time. Instead he was left speaking to her shell; a hermit crab of a much more sinister nature having taking residence inside the husk whilst her soul was trapped elsewhere. She may very well be able to remember that night better than he could, after-all she had been sober and he had been completely out of his mind; drunk on a cocktail of rage, envy and opiates. Did dying cause a hangover or memory lapses? He thought he had it all worked out a few months ago when Josef Danco had walked into City Hollow but alas, with what he knew now who was to say if what the doctor had told him was just what he wanted to hear? Another game being played by this defiler of mortal men? Another hoop he had to jump through before the real game could begin?





His expression hardened and now he was aware that the paradigm had shifted beyond his control. He might have been the mayor and considered himself to be the black king, but in this particular game of human chess he was not-but-a pawn. Samantha, or rather the being that had taken to using her as a human-puppet stood rigid, frozen to the spot as her eyes flitted around at the other occupants of the room. There were only a few technicians; still sedated and bound to their chairs by cable-ties. In truth they hadn’t even put up a fight but that was a given due to the fact that all three of them were skinny, bespectacled gentlemen in their early thirties who most likely lived with their mothers and suffered from lactose-intolerance as well as social anxieties. Then there was David, the picture of how an athlete was meant to look; perhaps the only thing more intimidating than his physique and combat experience was the look of being utterly dead inside that he carried with him everywhere he went. It had almost been too easy to select this man for the kind of games it liked, all it needed was a conduit, a way to bend David’s mind to it’s bidding; and in Samantha - his recently deceased wife - it had found this leverage. People were such fickle creatures, always becoming attached to the other animals around them. It thought of animals in a zoo and wondered if the penguins ever fell in love with the lions, he had no real context against which to compare its thoughts on human nature. It only knew what it had achieved already, and the results were unmistakable love is weakness leaving the body and it tasted better than anything else in this world, anything it would ever need to feed on.





It wasn’t often that David’s throat looked so swollen as he gulped, he could only hope that this entity in control of his wife was speaking metaphorically but based on what he had already been asked to do, the fear was just - he knew this was no play-on-words. He might as well just go buy a gallon of gasoline now and start pinging matches in Alex’s direction. David spun around in his chair and looked at the body he had fallen in love with all of those years ago. He had to believe she was still in there somewhere; beneath the mindgames, the smoke and the mirrors. Was this all just a parlor trick? Had he actually lost his mind when she had left him? In truth he began to hope for the latter but deep down he knew this to be real; he could feel her breath on his flesh, even if it wasn’t her that was breathing, it was still coming from her lungs. Even if it was speaking instead of her, it still moved her lips to do so. That was enough for him, and so he nodded. He would comply with this request by any means necessary, anything just to keep her by his side. He had been alone for too long, maybe it was lonely too?





She looked at him, perplexed almost by his naivety; as though she were waiting for the penny to drop. It was a slow race, but the last metaphorical horse finally crossed the finish line as David was left talking to a fourth and final technician who bore absolutely zero resemblance to his late wife. The man was pale though, more pale than any man should be. So pale infact that Sanchez knew he wasn’t talking to any mere mortal man. Whatever being had shown him the mirage of Samantha was still inside this scruffy and trembling twenty-something; defiling his body and using it to deliver a message.





He was half expecting the man to respond in a riddle: ‘a man has no name.’ Or something else to that effect but alas, there was no play-on-words. He straightened up, eyes rolling back in his head and spoke in a voice that was all too reminiscent of something he had heard before, but where he couldn’t recall… until he could, but by then it was over..





It breathed in heavily as it’s eyes locked on David’s and seemed to burn straight through them.

Jack.”