|
Welcome to NEWera Wrestling. We hope you enjoy your visit.
You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free.
Join our community!
If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:
|
|
Wake Me Up II
|
|
Topic Started: Feb 7 2013, 05:26 AM (147 Views)
|
|
The Beast
|
Feb 7 2013, 05:26 AM
Post #1
|
- Posts:
- 972
- Group:
- Members
- Member
- #356
- Joined:
- March 6, 2012
|
---
~ WAKE ME UP II
---
The Wildebeest stretched his arms out wide, expanding his hands far apart, as he yawned deeply into the thin morning breeze. The sky was a dark, distant blue, and the vegetation around him was draped in darkness and crawling with creepy-crawly's making all sorts of noises. He rubbed at his eyes and walked forward, the sound of stream growing louder and louder with each step. Once he felt water rushing around his boot, he kneeled down and caught some in his hands. Enough to wash over his face a few times. As the water trailed down his face, through the jungle of facial hair, and off the last thread of his beard, he headed back to the camp with awoken eyes.
"Sleep good?" The mysterious women who'd apparently saved him from a deadly level of exhaustion fastened a bag of supplies around her back and gave him her stoic stare.
The Wildebeest nodded his head tenderly. It hurt, and he couldn't remember why it did, or anything else from the last few weeks for that matter. Perhaps he'd hurt it in a match recently, or in his travels through the wilderness. Or maybe it just hurt from all of the mental strain he'd been having lately.
"You didn't sleep long. After the last couple of weeks I thought that you would have took advantage of a warm rest. You are...fascinating." As she spoke, she held a torch made out up of a thick stick, rags and tar into the fire and let it ignite. She lifted the end of the stick out of the fire and it burnt brightly through the night's shadows. A light trail of smoke slipped away from it as sparks dropped out from under it.
"The Wildebeest has no time for sleep. Not as long as his most valued possession is lost. We find Wildebeest's North American championship NOW." his voice boomed through the forest, waking a few birds who flew off across the starry night sky.
The mystery woman said nothing more. She walked pass the Wildebeest, picking up a long, pointed stick on the way, and made her way toward the darkness. As she reach the nearest thick tree, she turned her head back and saw that Wildebeest was standing still.
With impatience, she spoke "Are you coming, no?" and then processed pass the thick tree and over some bush. The Wildebeest sighed again and followed her lead. His eyes focused on his sides more than anything else. He worried that something could snatch him out of the darkness, as it had in his nightmare, and he'd have no weapon to fight it off. Or championship to light the way to victory.
Some time passed. As they traveled through the darkness, deep in the center of the forest, the Wildebeest found himself wondering what had happened since that night at Denia's home away from home. What had happened during his daze? Who was this woman who'd found him? How did she find him? How did she even know where he was? All of these questions rattled about in his mind until he couldn't help but reach out for answers.
The Beast moved quicker until he was right behind her. The thin smoke rushed into his face, but it wasn't enough to bother him. As he approached, his footsteps loud as they crush twigs, she turned her head back toward him briefly.
"Having trouble keeping up?" her lips curled up playfully.
"Course not. The Beast has trouble with no feat." strong words, bulked up with confidence.
"Except heartbreak."
The Wildebeest's eyes pop wide at her words. His curiosity hit a peak and ascended it. The mystery leading him through the forest was driving him crazy.
"H...How do you know about that?"
They pass over a stream, splashing water with their boots, as they stomp down onto the rocks underneath it. She turned her head back to him, looking for some sign of sarcasm, but only found curiosity. Her lips peeled back over her teeth and she spoke up over the stream's flow.
"How could I not, when your name is all that I hear for months."
The Wildebeest's curiosity intensified. "What ...mean?"
She stopped and turned, almost igniting his beard with the torch as she swung it around. The smile had disappeared after she figured out that he was legitimately ignorant to the facts that she'd known. With a clear, indifferent voice, she explained with her eyes on his.
"Back home, you are a hero, Wildebeest."
Wildebeest's eyes squinted with uncertainty. "Beast ...hero?"
She nodded. "Yes. You are a hero to our tribe. To my family. To your people. They all watch you, closely. Every time you fight. They buy your t-shirt and your action figures and posters. They worship you, like the very god's you read about in the legendary Book of Wrestling."
Wildebeest looked into the distance. He imagined it. A small boy from his village hanging up a poster of him with the North American championship around his waist. A teenage girl wearing a t-shirt with his horned symbol across her chest. A large group of the men and women he'd grown up with chanting his name throughout the village that'd made him into the man he was today. And it felt good.
His eyes returned to the mystery woman, who was smiling at the amazed look in Beast's face. "You...fan of North American champion...Wildebeest?"
She stared for a second, indifference on her face. "Not really." and then she continued through the forest, leaving Wildebeest stunned with rejection.
"Then why come here? Why help Wildebeest?"
She ducked under a branch, watched as Wildebeest did the same, and proceeded onward. Wildebeest's duck wasn't as easy, as he somehow managed to crash through a spider web. As he pulled it off his face, she answered him.
"I did as my Elder's ordered. And because you are one of my people. I try not to watch your show. It's full of people with evil in their hearts. So much evil, that it sickens my heart." She paused briefly, as the sky began to grow brighter and brighter overhead. "I used to watch. When I did, I watched the champions of good. I clinched my fist and prayed that they'd travel through the darkness and drive out the evil within your company. But they could not. And I watched as they failed, over and over again. There are no longer any champions there that I can believe in."
They traveled through the dawn in silence for a few minutes. Wildebeest hung his head, remembering the condition NEW Era was in. He hadn't had much time to think about it for nearly a month. But now that he did, now that he remembered that James Storm, the man who bragged about beating women, the man that'd beat down his mentor, was still the reigning world champion...he remembered just how bad things really were.
"Wildebeest."
She stopped, turned her shoulder and glanced with confusion. "What."
"The Wildebeest...is a champion you can believe in."
She smiled at him. Her eyes looked into the torches gleam dancing in his. But she didn't agree, shaking her head to respond to him. She turned forward and continued through tree trunks and over bushes. The sun moved from behind a mountain and slowly began its daily supremacy of the sky.
"You do not believe Wildebeest is a champion of good?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "Maybe you are. Maybe not. Our people seem to think so. Or at least they did."
"What do you mean?" Wildebeest snapped back.
"I mean...there was a time, when all of us saw you as...the champion of good we've been hoping for. Me. My family. Friends. We thought it would be you that rose up through the darkness and fight off the evil corrupting your company. We were so excited. But then...some of us started to see through you."
"See through...Beast?"
"Yes..." they passed through a passage of vines and bushes and came to an opening. They moved toward the center of the opening and took in the entire scene. The sunshine peeked in over a cliff top that had a waterfall descending from it. The splashes illuminated with the sun's blaze toward the top, surrounded by greenery, and the water came crashing down a shadowy fall into a small lake. On the other end of the lake, behind the water's heavy fall, built into the cliff wall, a dark cave entrance awaited them.
The mystery woman turned to him. She nodded her head slowly. "That's right. At first, we watched you rise up and fight for the good we believe in. But then, somewhere along the way, you lost sight of that good, and began to worry more about the woman who broke your heart than the battles you were fighting. We THOUGHT they meant something to you. But they didn't. And I saw through you. Some others have, too. But don't worry too much. There are still tons of our people that adore you. If there weren't, I would not be here."
Her words were sharp. Sharp enough to leave Beast speechless.
"Come on." She waved for him to come along as she turned and took off for the cave entrance. She got a few steps in before realizing Wildebeest wasn't following.
"What is your name?" his voice boomed against the cliff's wall. She stopped. The breeze tugged on her hair as the waterfall crushed into the rocks at the bottom of the cliff. She slowly turned around and gave him her eyes, her hands at her hips and legs shoulder length apart. "I am Samira."
Somehow, as she spoke her name, and her light blue eyes stared at him in front of the sparkling splashes of water, he was taken back in time. ---
His name was Isa. And one day, he'd become the champion known as the Wildebeest.
He kneeled over the man that'd taught him everything he knew in life. The sun blinded him, sparkled in the tears rolling down his cheek, as he took his Elder's hand and squeezed it. Hoping that the pressure would somehow make him okay. Blood poured out of the bullet hole in his chest, through the rags a young woman had pressed over it, and formed a puddle around his frame.
"Elder...elder...no, please...please speak to me, Elder..."
Both Isa and the girl who'd been shoved aside by the gunman cried as the Elder gasped for breath. He turned his head slowly, dirt clinging to his long grey hair, as he tried to find his wits. Isa placed a hand over his forehead, covering his eyes from the sun, and looked into his Elder's eyes.
"Elder...I'm...sorry. I couldn't..."
The Elder saw the fear in his eyes. And when he turned his pupils toward the girl, he saw the pain in hers. He licked over his lips and weakly nodded his head. "Do not be...afraid, young one's."
The Elder groined in pain and coughed up blood. His eyes went from the young woman by side to Isa. "Stand tall...and be all that you are, always."
And with that, he took his last breath, and the hand in Isa's fell limp.
The two young one's hung their heads and cried. For sometime, they kneeled over him and cried. The sun burned them, but they refused to leave his side, under any circumstance. Finally, after much nagging from the others, Wildebeest sat up and looked down at his Elder once more. He reach out over his face and closed his eyes so that he may rest. And with that, he looked over at the girl with his blood on her hands. The girl who felt so bad that she couldn't save him.
The girl with light blue eyes. ---
Samira's torch glowed brightly deep inside the dark, wet cave. The Wildebeest thought about those memories throughout the journey. As they passed piles of rubble and small streams and other obstacles. As they walked deeper and deeper into the cave that somehow came to be the resting place of his most precious possession. Throughout it all, Wildebeest thought about that day.
He thought about it so intensely, it felt real. He felt the touch of that blazing sun, that watched over the events of that day. The thick blood of his Elder stuck to his fingertips again. The dusty, dirt ground crunched against his feet and he had to look into those sad, hurt blue eyes all over again.
He thought about it so much, that he told himself that he had to stop. That he had to snap out of it. That he could not afford to enter another daze, not with his North America championship lost somewhere in the dark. And the only way he could stop thinking about it, was to start talking about it.
"It was you..."
Samira turned her neck and gave him a brief glance. "It was me?"
"Yeah...you were the girl that sat next to me the day that my Elder was killed..." Samira stopped upon hearing those words. "...it was you that stood up to the men with the guns, it was you who tried to save my Elder..." She turned around and faced him. The torch made her face a bright orange and the world behind her was dark.
"I want you to listen to me very, very carefully. Do not speak of that day, ever again." And with that, she wasted no time turning back around and picking up her pace down the dark, mysterious cave's gut.
Wildebeest chased after. "So it was you then! It was you that sat with Wildebeest as Elder spoke his final words!"
Samira swooped back and grabbed at the Wildebeest's t-shirt to force him back up against a wall. She held the torch dangerously close to his face and glared at the green of his eyes. Her mouth snarled and her nose twitched and anger dripped down her face like saliva from a angry animal's mouth.
"You will not be warned again. Do not speak of that day ever again." There was a pause. "Do you understand?" Wildebeest didn't understand what the problem was. But he wasn't going to risk having his face burnt by asking. He nodded his head. "Good...now let's go."
She continued toward her goal. Wildebeest followed after her, slower than before, and as he was about to say something more, she interrupted him as if she had eyes in the back of her head. "And no more talking." And so there wasn't. ---
"I think I see it..." And with that, the silence finally ended. The Wildebeest had grown so tired of hearing nothing but his curiosity drenched thoughts and the who-know's-what's creeping throughout the cave. Samira's voice wasn't beautiful. It was just okay. Nothing like Denia's. But any voice could be beautiful when breaking that goddamned silence and providing hopefulness about the location of the North American Championship.
She pointed forward. Wildebeest couldn't see anything. He moved closer, and nearly fell into the darkness beneath him. He backed up just in time, having nearly stumbled, and then peeked down into the reflective, shadowy flooring. A small hole in the roof of the cave shot down a beam of light that gleamed into it enough to reveal it's true nature.
"Wildebeest...sees nothing."
She glanced his way, waited for him to look back at her, and pointed again. This time, upon looking closer, he could see...nothing but a sparkle of light.
"How do you know that's it?"
"You entered this cave with the championship two days ago. You came out of it without the championship. We're at the end of the cave now. And there's nowhere else to look. Either that is it, or it is gone for good. Now go, go fetch your championship."
The Wildebeest looked around. For some sort of direction or path he could take to reach the championship. But all he found was darkness. Quiet, deep darkness that showed no movement or structure. The gleam of the supposed championship was well off into the distance and his skin became goose bumped as he realized he was facing his nightmare once again.
Samira noticed his hesitation. "What's the matter?"
Wildebeest didn't notice it, but he backed away as he stared out into the darkness. The longer he stared, the larger it seemed to become. And the heavier it became against the will of his courage. He couldn't imagine going out there, becoming lost in the darkness, allowing the whispers to fight him down again. And no matter how much he wanted to believe in the strength he'd used to become the champion or the encouragement of the God's he worshiped, the darkness chased those thoughts away quicker than they could get in.
"Wildebeest...can't...do it." the words felt like a dagger he slipped into his own body.
"What do you mean you can't do it? You must do it."
He couldn't look at her. "Wildebeest...just can't."
Samira can't believed what she was hearing. "But you NEED to." the word echoed throughout the cave, sending a pack of bats soaring across the gleam of light that crashed over the lake between them and their destination. "This is what I mean. You tell me that you are a champion of good, and you have many tricked into believing that you are, but that is YOUR championship sitting out there and you refuse to do what you must to take it back!"
The Wildebeest finally glanced her way. The torch lit up her face as she spoke with a passion that he hadn't heard from her before. The shadows he feared wrapped themselves around some of her facial features, but her eyes shined through.
"Wildebeest...know of bad things that wait for him...in the dark."
"And you must FACE them. Without me. Without this torch. Because that's what a champion of good does. He faces his fears, and he faces the darkness, and he chases down his enemies, and he becomes the light that leads the way. You must not back away from that responsibility. Not now. Not ever. If you are to truly become the champion of good you claim to be.
My family look up to you. As does our people. And many others around the world. They BELIEVE in you. And for months, instead of rewarding their belief with the passion and the faith they provided, you let the evil within your company run rapid as you chased a woman across the country.
If it were her across the water, through that darkness, would you hesitate to run to her?"
Wildebeest glanced out into the darkness again and imaged Deina standing out there, lost and confused, just like he was. He wanted to believe that he'd leave her to suffer like he had. He wanted to believe that he'd let the darkness rot her mind like it had him. But his heart wouldn't allow it, and he knew he would run through the very fires of hell if it meant saving the woman who'd stole his heart.
"Exactly. She is gone now, Wildebeest. It is now time that you became the champion of good you claim to be. Put that championship and everything it stands for at the top of your list, like she was, and put the struggle between good and evil right behind it. Because while she might not need you anymore, there are many that do. They need you to fight. They need you for strength. They need you...to believe."
She pointed out at the championship. "And that all starts by tearing down the walls of your fears and taking back what is yours. Show the world who you really are. Show all the evil that wish to take away your championship and your will to fight that you will not be frightened. Show them that you'll lead this fight right down their faces and do so believing in what your Elder told you. Believing that fear cannot defeat you."
And with one final word, she finished. "Go."
Wildebeest stared into her blue eyes for a second longer before nodding and moving toward the water. A chill rushed up his spine as he dropped into it, falling until it reach his waist. The cold couldn't stop him. He pressed forward, slowly pushing through the water and the darkness toward the gleam that'd light his way through the biggest battle of his life.
At first, it was easy. Her words were still ringing through his head, providing him with the strength and courage to take each step forward. Everything she said played over and over again, and each time it did, he believed in it more and more. And at first, it felt good. Knowing that he was fighting off the cancer that had been eating at his mind. And for a while, he even felt proud. Proud, knowing that if his Elder was still alive, he'd be happy with Wildebeest's courage.
But the darkness whispered. And it's tongue had a way of breaking strength down.
He tried to fight it off. But it was impossible. The further he moved into it, the louder the whispers became, and the heavier the darkness pressed down on his back. There were times that he didn't feel like he was in a cave anymore. Times where he felt like he was in nothing. Nothing but a world of shadow. And that fogged up his brain like a thick, dark smoke.
The whispers reminded him of what had happened with Denia and Joey. They reminded him of what had happened with James Stall. They reminded him of the pain and the suffering. And all of the people he'd been letting down. They told stories about the life Denia and Joey would spend together. The kids they'd create. And how she'd be so much happier without him.
He fought. And fought. And fought.
But his knees grew weak and shaky. He felt like they'd give out on him at any moment. That he'd be swallowed up by the freezing water and deep darkness and never be saved. He felt like the shadows were pushing down on him, trying to drown him deep within their dwelling.
One second. He felt like dropping. It'd be over so quickly. And he wouldn't have to worry about pain or fear or letting anyone down ever again. He'd be at peace, or at least he'd be no more, and then he could forget about all of the things that had hurt him in his life.
"Stand tall...and be all that you are...always..." Wildebeest whispered after glancing back at the woman holding the torch a distance away. Although he spoke the words, in his head, it was his Elder whispering them by his side.
And that was enough. His speed quickened. His muscles strengthen. The water splashed about his frame as he moved closer and closer to his destination, his darkest nightmare surrounding him unable to do a damned thing about it. And when he reach the stone, he climbed up onto it and moved toward the gleam. He looked down at it and brushed over it's gold plate.
And smiled.
"Wildebeest found it!" he shouted, echoing the cave, and shattering the whispers.
He stood up and held the championship belt up over his head. It gleamed brightly across the cave and on the other side the woman who'd lead him to it smiled. She wasn't sure just yet, if she'd saved the Wildebeest's journey to becoming a champion of good, but she felt like she'd took a big step in the right direction. And she felt good for doing so. Very good. As she was one step closer to fulfilling her Elder's last wish, to keep Isa strong.
The nightmare had been defeated and Wildebeest shouted and cheered the entire way back toward the torch. And as the two of them traveled out of the cave, he hugged the championship tightly and felt refreshed in a way he hadn't in weeks.
He felt stronger. And confident. That one day he'd be strong enough to drive out the evil. Starting with another nightmare that'd crossed one too many lines in his time in NEW Era. A nightmare who'd crossed his last by agreeing to attempt to take away the championship belt Wildebeest cared so greatly about. A nightmare that was about to come to an end.
|
|
| |
| 1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
|
|