8R4V3 N3W W0R1D

Shrouded in torchlight, Wade begins his despicable diatribe, words uttered from his mouth floating off the air of a rancid corpse.

“Sister...I know you can hear me. I've done it. I've done it again. I've done it for YOU, Sister. I couldn't go without the soft comforting touch of your presence any longer. I grew increasingly isolated, but I found relief in the silence. I find more and more with each passing day. I feel the spirited child in me gradually growing stronger and stronger, it's golden smile glowing brighter with every success. I don't miss the old days, and I know you feel the same way. How could something so special ever been so far away? No, no...I feel like you've been with me all along.

“You were there, weren't you? You were there when it happened that night? Watching silently from the shadows? You saw him...breathe his final breath, didn't you? You did?! Oh, yes, yes, Sister! For something so violent, it was absolutely beautiful. It was vindication for me, in that moment...until I discovered the truth, the truth of what actually happened to my father. That...truth was the moment the looking glass finally shattered and my

EYES WERE OPENED

for the very first time.

“It was so important to me then...but I've grown and matured so much under your watchful eye and sure hand. Now...now it all seems so trivial. Why? Why do I fight him? Why do I WANT to fight him? Beyond our puerile rivalry, what draws me, what ATTRACTS me so deeply to Corey Cane? Maybe...maybe we're connected by something beyond flesh and bone? Maybe something much more spiritual, more cosmic, more ageless bonds the two of us?!”

Wade extends his arms out to the side and turns his head up towards the sky.

“The Leviathan and The Crow. Forged in ash and blood, bound by the stars to become them, replace them in that black lit canopy.”

Wade chuckles deep into the night, the torchlight playing against his marred face.

“Only, one of us is going to reach them sooner, and I'm going to make damn sure that it's you Crow. I don't know how you managed to crawl out of the murk and mire of certain death, but you can rest assured that I'm going to put you back in that shallow dirt hole. People like you? They belong dead! In this 8R4V3 N3W W0R1D, only the strongest and smartest survive...and I AM stronger and smarter than you.

“I proved it as soon as I stepped foot into the ring, Corey. In my debut match against you, where I stood with my best friend Jared 'Six God' Holmes, and outsmarted you in the most humiliating way. I didn't even need to pin you to get inside of your head, and after that night? BOI I was livin' there rent free. In that dank, musty, roach motel I staked my claim. I told you that I would end you, Crow. I told you that you would end up in the ground...

“And just as I was about to put the final nail in your coffin, that prima donna Bobby Cairo showed up to steal my thunder. His eyes full of fire, his chest filled with bravado, he flipped you over that railing and hogged all the glory. He might have said he did it for the Dub, but everything Bobby Cairo ever did was for himself, and you can believe that.

“He couldn't stand the fact that somebody was coming in fresh out of the water and becoming the shark the he never had the ability to be. He might have had grand notions of why he committed such a heinous act of murder, but when you boil it down and chuck away at that weak shell of an excuse? The truth was that he was simply jealous of me. Jealous that I would become everything he could only ever dream of.”

Wade smiles a Cheshire grin, licking his yellowing teeth and shaking his head in the glow of the torch. He pulls his hat up over his head, parts his hair down the middle, runs his fingers all the way to the split ends, and flips his hat back on to his head. He wags his meaty finger and points it directly at your soul.

“And for good reason, he was jealous. Oh yes, he was little brother Corey. He was as jealous as Lucifer in the Kingdom of God. He wanted the spoil and gold bounty that Kingdom promises, but only the almightiest has dominion...and when I PINNED JAY OMEGA IN THE CENTER OF THE RING, I CLAIMED THOSE GOLDEN BOUNTIES!!! THE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP...was mine.”

Wade looks towards the moon, holding his hands up to it to receive that sweet pale light. His face looks ready to peel away and bring that Godnilla skin to surface.

“That is something you're still to accomplish in any measure. You haven't felt the weight of a World Championship around your waist, and if I have anything to do with it? You never will, Corey. I can't kill you in any literal sense of the word, because you might just come back again. If I can't have that? Then you can't have a life. I will make it my mission, until I breathe my last lungful of air on this Earth, to make sure you lose everything in your immortal life.

“I only need a good sixty years until you realize that you're indeterminably fucked, right? Do you realize how deep down the rabbit hole you are, Corey? You're a McMorris, you should have a pretty firm understanding of it. This isn't Twitter, this is real, this is the ring! Inside of it? I am the immortal! You may have better friends and the ability to come back from the dead, but I DECIDE WHO LIVES AND DIES BY THIS GOLD. This tournament will be mine!

“Is this the part where you huff up like an inflated idiot, pretend you're more cerebral than initially meets the eye? Is this where you dissect my character, tear each appendage and organ out while I bleed out on the checkered floor of our past? That's cute, I guess. You can huff and puff all you want, but I'm the one who's going to blow the house down.

“This is the WAREHOUSE, and I'm the God Damned ring general. I don't have to tell you in too many fancy words that I'm going to destroy you come Sunday Night. I don't need to open an Oxford to tell you how I'm going to rip YOU apart piece by piece. I'm a man of science and nature, Corey, as you well know. Science and nature dictate I'm going to come out on top this weekend.

“We have a natural chemistry, you and I. I'm the man that takes you from being combustible to burning the house down. I'm the explosive element, Corey, and you? Well, you're just malleable. You can be built up to take this spot, but eventually, you'll shatter. It might take a few hits, but I will beat you into the form I deem fit. It all comes full circle at Overload.”

Wade chuckles again, running his fingers through the dirt on the ground.

“Overload...kind of fitting, isn't it? Really, and truly, it is. I'm going to give you more than you can handle in the ring, Corey. I'm going to pound your face until the ghost of my past is just an unrecognizable heap on the mat. I will metaphorically cover myself in your blood so that I may never again forget your existence, and you will never forget me. This cosmic bond keeps us together, but my fists and feet will bind us in blood.

“I really hope you had fun last week picking on poor baby Dustin...because this week will be an absolute nightmare. One you'll never wake up from. Just because you're the ghost doesn't mean I can't be the one who haunts you. I'm right behind you, Corey Cane. Always have been. Always will be.”

Wade picks up a pitcher of water and pours it over the torch. The smoldering ash of cloth and timber send the smoke up into the night air, passing over the skin of Wade's face, illuminated in the pale moon light. He laughs into the night air, sending his words on the wind to fall directly into Corey Cane's waiting ears. The camera tilts up and fades to black.


Chicago, even during it's Summer months, had a Godnilla-y whip of wind in the air. Down every tunnel like street, off of Lake Michigan the wind blew, even harder so now after “1he wav3”. That's why Wade wore a cut off leather vest over a black hoodie as he walked down the street, in an attempt to clear his head in the nippy night air. He pulled the hood over his flowing dark hair as he turned a corner and walked on.

So much was going through his mind, and Sister was conspicuously absent tonight. Usually, her soft, tender words were enough to alleviate Wade's guilt of any wrongdoings...but tonight, she would not let loose a syllable, or breathe any relief into his aching lungs. Not even the joint, thinly coiled between Wade's dry lips could do the trick.

He was left alone tonight, a slave to his own devices. His boots “thunka thunked” down the concrete sidewalk as he shambled passed boarded up business', or those on the verge of losing everything. Ever since “1he wav3”, the economy had been in even worse condition than it was before. Some countries couldn't keep up through the turmoil and completely collapsed, like the Roman Empire of old. That's how the Fight Cartel's were able to edge into their respective territories and corner the markets and townships.

Fight Cartel's ran everything from bus stations to gambling rings, and in the eyes of a failing government, were completely legal. The Cartels' flooded the government with ill gotten cash and in return they swept everything under the rug. Business as normal in the New Money States of America...but Wade knew that danger lurked around every corner, and it grew exponentially with each passing night.

That's why, when a pair of footsteps appeared heavy behind him, he didn't even shudder or blink. He kept walking, his head down, a pair of eyes burning through the three layers of clothing he wore over his back. Wade turned down another street, the boots behind him doing the exact same. They plopped down with fervor, predator desperately keeping up with it's prey.

But the foot falls behind him were unawares of who they were chasing. Rival Cartel's sent their own men, usually one's who had nothing to lose, to try and take out the competition. Wade imagined a rival member, another territory apart from UCI, mind high on a job well un-done. He'd probably slit Wade's throat and get a nice bonus for doing it...but he had no idea who he happened upon tonight. He probably just waited outside the WAREHOUSE for everyone to leave and got unlucky enough to catch Moor leaving.

Unlucky, indeed.

Wade turned another corner, the boots falling in rapid succession behind him. He saw his moment to strike, below an empty street light on a decrepit corner. The light flickered overhead as he passed underneath it and Wade whipped around, catching the man by the scruff of his long coat. He thrust him against the wall and raised his fist, poising to strike his head against the hard brick behind him...But the light flickered again, and Frank Patrick Venable's stony face glowed bright in the fluorescent light.

Wade released his grip and Frank dropped to his feet. FPV dusted off his coat and situated his collar, shaking his head as he did. He scoffed at Wade, who immediately turned to leave, but Frank grabbed his arm and halted his movement. Wade slowly turned his head towards Venable and wrenched his arm away.

“What the hell are you doing here, Frank?” Wade asked, that Floridian swamp tone drawing heavy on his voice.

“Just out for a midnight walk, you know. Seeing everything the Windy City has to offer”, FPV replied, a note of sarcasm in his tone, “I should ask you the same thing, Wade.”

Wade chuckled as he took another hit off the joint in his fingers.

“You shouldn't stalk people, Frank”, Wade snipped, “If you wanted an interview, then you should have just asked. You know where to find me.”

This time, FPV laughed.

“You know what happened the last time someone came to interview you”, Frank replied, “Poor Miles. He tendered his resignation, you know? He wanted to get as far away from you as possible. Any idea why?”

Wade shrugged and plastered a mock frown on his face.

“I don't know what you're talking about”, Wade said, “I thought Miles and I had a nice conversation.”

FPV jammed his stocky finger into Wade's chest, a stoic expression on his face. Wade kept his cool, though he wanted to smash Frank's skull into the curb. He let Frank have his fleeting moment in the face of adversity.

“Cut the shit, Moor!” Frank exclaimed, “There's something about you...I can't quite put my finger on it, but I'm going to find out what it is. I'm a reporter now. It's kind of my thing.”

Wade laughed, the slime nearly dripping from his mouth.

“I remember the last Venable that had an axe to grind with me”, Wade said, “It didn't end so well for him, either.”

Frank jammed his finger into Wade's thick chest once more.

“I'M NOT MY BROTHER”, Frank shouted under his breath, “And you won't push me around like you did with him. Speaking of that, you have a match with Scarecrow this week...”

Wade smiled, shaking his head at Frank.

“I knew you were searching for an interview”, Wade said, “Never can take that hat off, can you?”

Frank smiled and turned his arms up to the air.

“Well, when you teach an old dog new tricks, turns out he's really good at them”, Frank replied, “I know how to get what I want. Now you gonna give me an interview, or what?”

Wade rolled his fingers through the air, “Well, I can't turn down an opportunity to run Corey's name through the mud. You know? What the hell, Frank, they aren't paying you for nothing.”

Frank smiled and pulled a pen and notebook from his coat pocket.

“So, you're facing Scarecrow this week. What are your initial thoughts heading into this match, considering how your last one ended? Some people would call that the darkest moment in wrestling history, the turning point that moulded the business into what it is today. That was the day the world changed.”

Wade twisted his neck in his hands, producing a series of voluminous pops that resonated through the cold, dead night air.

“You think my actions had hand in that? You think this is the house that Godnilla built? That's very flattering Frank, but how do you think I am the way I am? Why do I do the things I do? Do you think I came out of the womb this way, rotten to the core? No, no, no, no, no...this wasn't predetermined. I was shaped into the man I am today by the human race at large.

“It was a fine game of cat and mouse, but eventually, the sunk their teeth into me. My father tried to warn me, tried to tell me that I would never be accepted, but I didn't listen to him. I was a foolish child, but a child none the less...and this world chewed me up and spit me out before the tender age of twelve. I was the swamp kid, the dirty one, the one who didn't have a future in this world.

“You see, everyone judges me by what they see on the surface. They don't see the man underneath, the man who could have turned into one of the most brilliant scientific minds in this world...but now instead I use brute strength cracking skulls and spilling blood. Why do you think I do that, Frank?”

“Population control?” Frank asks jokingly, but his smile dissipates when Wade laughs in response.

“Something like that, Franky. Something exactly like that. I could have been the man who discovered a free cure for cancer, I could have been a Nobel Prize winning chemist, a man highly lauded by the many critics this world had to offer...but instead I stand here charged with ushering in “1he wav3”. I bloody men to satiate this unquenchable thirst people have for it. I cover myself with leather and gold that mean very little when you're a corpse in the dirt instead of trying to save mankind.”

Wade shoves his hands in his pockets and looks Frank dead in the eye.

“The plain and simple truth of it? It's what gives me pleasure. It's how Papa Nilla gets his rocks off, Franky BOI. I have scores to settle, and just like the disenfranchised masses, I'm going to do it on the fringes of the law. A place where nobody can police my actions other than me. UCI is my temple. This is my WAREHOUSE. It's where I'm going to metaphorically end Scarecrow's life for the second time, and I'm going to get cheered for and paid to do it.”

Wade pops his back, the cracks resonating alongside the neck pops still hanging in the air.

“Because the world didn't change that day, Franky. It's always been like that, just buried somewhere deep, ready to be unleashed on people like me. “1he wav3” were just those qualities in people coming to light. Mankind created me, I created “1he wav3”...you see how everything comes full circle?”

Frank looked like he was chewing on Wade's words, as if maybe they were starting to make sense. He swallowed the lump in his throat and pressed forward.

“That sounds like a cop out, you know? Blaming it on society?”

Wade shakes his head back and forth.

“You don't get it, Frank. There is no such thing as society. People have only been pretending to be civilized, but you started to see it more and more with each passing generation. A disconnect to each other, faces shoved in smart phones, televisions, and computer screens. Social media is a joke, it only existed to tear people apart. Splitting fifity fifty on every issue until eventually everyone was divided. Then they started killing each other. It was the natural next step, because everything is going backwards in the face of technology.

“It's only fitting that I'm facing Scarecrow again. Going backwards in my career while he has a chance to take a giant leap forward. A win over me would be vindication for the hell I put him through last year...but the problem is? Hell is eternal. It never ends, Frank. Corey will find that out the hard way at Overload when he steps back into the ring of fire with his greatest rival, one that will get the one up on him each and every time.

“That's gotta be a hard pill to swallow, right? Knowing that no matter how hard he tries that I will always be better than him in every aspect? I wouldn't know, though. I'm not Scarecrow in this equation. I will never know what defeat tastes like at the hands of Corey. If you doubt that, Frank? Just ask your little brother Vic. I'm sure he'll tell you all about it.”

Frank jammed his finger into Wade's chest once more, prepping himself to shout, but Wade grabbed his hand and wrenched it into the air. He shoved Frank into the wall, where he dropped the pen and paper and came at Wade. He threw his arm over Wade's head and tried to drag him down, but Wade flipped him up and over. Frank did a full flip and landed on his feet behind Wade. He cocked back and launched a “BOOM! HEADSHOT! in Wade's direction, but he ducked underneath...and Frank connected with somebody else.

Wade turned quickly on his heels just in time to see a bald, bearded man fall to the ground in a heap. Behind him stood another stocky, bald man with facial hair and in front of him, a pitbull looking man with wavy brown hair down to his shoulders. The pitbull smiled and slapped the tall man on the chest.

“I told Ken to watch his ass”, the pitbull said, “Never sneak up on two men fighting, too much collateral damage. Right Luke?”

The tall man named Luke grunted “Yeah, AJ” in reply.

“What do you say we take these guys out?” the man named AJ commanded, “Get us a nice little summer bonus?”

Luke just grunted this time as they launched themselves at Wade and Frank. Frank started exchanging blows with AJ as Luke pushed Wade into the wall and drove his elbow into Wade's chest. AJ threw Frank to the ground and locked his arm around Frank's throat. Wade pushed Luke's hands away and shoved him back. As Luke charged Wade again, he kicked him just underneath his knee and felt the bone give way. A loud snap and a scream from Luke confirmed it.

Frank flipped around until he was behind AJ, where he used his new found leverage to wrench out of AJ's hold. Wade tackled himself into AJ, who barely stayed on his feet. Wade dug his boots into the ground and lifted AJ off his feet with a flapjack just as Frank wound back with a “BOOM! HEADSHOT!” and liberated the poor motherfucker from his mortal coil. Wade threw AJ to the ground next to Luke, who was holding his knee and howling in pain. Wade brushed off his leather cut and pointed at Luke.

“When your friend comes to, tell him to take you to the hospital. Leave AJ here. This is our turf...and if I ever see your face again?!”

He kicked Luke in the ribs, who nearly passed out in a mixture of pain and lack of oxygen.

“You'll end up just like him.”

Frank grabbed on to Wade's arm and spun him around, nostrils flaring and eyes red.

“...”

Wade puffed his chest out at Frank.

“...We'll finish this later, Wade”, Frank finally said, “And trust me, we'll finish it.”

He picked up his pad and paper, fixed his coat, and walked away in the opposite direction. Wade cracked his knuckles before turning on his heels and trailing off into the night, waiting for Sister to whisper sweetly into his ear.