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Post by onyxnightfur on Jan 29, 2010 6:10:26 GMT -5
OOC Note: Flashbacks are Teal, Current is Red. Thanks!
Darkness. Paul Deatheridge’s voice over laps the shot as the camera fades in.
“Are you nervous?”
Flash. Close up of Onyx’s strange golden eyes, dilated, intense. A sweat drop runs down her forehead but her voice is level, calm, and almost monotone. She is not invincible. She has several fears, the most prominent being rafter matches and guns. But this isn’t about that.
“About?”
“Coming back...”
“To the ring? I died once before…coming out of retirement isn’t much of a challenge compared to coming back from the dead...”
Flashback. These are seen in grainy, black and white footage. They move in vaguely delayed slow motion and the voices echo, like wails of the damned in the walls of a crypt. Onyx’s first locker room, her home away from home before things came together…then shattered into a million sharp shards that pierced her soul. She is in the midst of taping up a couple of HIM posters. A worn burgundy sofa from goodwill sits in one corner with blankets and pillows folded on it, a makeshift closet made from stringing up a across from wall to wall, compassionless black and white faces staring at her from flat pictures on the wall, her only companions. End flashback.
Present.
Paul and Onyx stand by a pier, leaning on weather worn wooden fencing, watching the water. Both have aged in time and experience since they entered this challenging, and sometimes brutal world they call their careers. Paul has silvery gray hints in his hair, though his smile is as youthful as ever. Onyx’s face is still lineless and lovely, but her gaze is haunted.
Flashback. Onyx smiles up at Melanie Morgan, Paul’s future wife, serene face following the Pay Per View she claimed her first title in. The younger woman is clearly troubled, though trying not to show it as she puts her elbow on the lush couch and rests her forehead on her hand, closing her eyes, “I tell you I got confronted by Dane Slade?"
"No," Mel looks up, her stormy blue eyes concerned.
"Yeah…that run with Roary has him a bit paranoid...he thinks our stable's out to get him. I tried to tell him I wasn't in one the chair bit…” she shrugs slightly resting her head on one couch cushion. The Stable was her fault, her idea, doomed to failure despite having real talent in it. She knows that now. Back then, “The Seven Deadly Sins” seemed like such a witty stroke of genius. But their first introduction left a cold stone of regret in Onyx’s gut.
"Yeah, people get ideas in their head."
"He said I'm gonna end up getting hurt…I don't think that was an idle threat. I really pissed some people off with Izzy running interference for me…” she murmurs softly
"You made a decision Onyx, can't back out now." No, life never gave you second chances. Not really.
"I know…it's just...I didn't think I could win on my own. But at least I would have done it on my own even if I lost…you know? No one's going to remember the matches I did win now. It was pretty much for nothing." She sighs and looks down ,"I'm not trying to whine. Sorry."
"We gotta do what we gotta do, to get where were going in the company." End Flashback
Present.
“I made a lot of mistakes when I followed you into this sport, Paul. A LOT of mistakes. Letting Isabella interfere in my title match for Women’s Championship…that was the first in a long list.” Onyx sighs, “After that, I worked harder than ever to earn back the respect I lost taking that title unfairly. I thought it was just a game… but I lost my self respect. I was a glorified auditioner for months…all the little wanna-be divas, they got shoved my way, talked trash about me, and I broke them in or sent them running.” She laughs softly, humorlessly, “Same shit every match…my gimmick. My tattoo. Stereotypical werewolf legends and myths tossed in my face about uni-brows and hairy palms…Are you asking if I’m up for that again? Honestly...I’m hoping for something better, for opponents with class that do their research and don’t try to make me cringe with lame little taunts and insults. But if it’s just gonna be more of that...sure, I can take it.”
She smiles at him, a Pacific breeze coming in off the ocean, making her hair flutter and billow like a storm cloud. The distant sound of sea lions barking can be heard, likely from a pier below.
“I’ve lived through better...and worse…”
Flashback. This one of lighting fast flickers of images blending into each other. A montage of joy and suffering. Paul grinning as he hold up a cell phone displaying 62 missed calls. Picking out a get well soon card with Mel after an ill-fated Diva Gauntlet. Sitting by a hospital bed holding someone’s hand, tears in her eyes. The images move across the screen faster and faster, a blur, Onyx smiling, Onyx swept into a whirlwind kiss, all the while the pictures moving took fast for the face of her lover to be seen. Maybe cut because of what comes next. Then it slows the next images are taken from a security camera, with some scenes added in as dramatic reeanactments.
Scene opens on a pale and pensive Onyx Nightfur, her hands stuffed in her pockets, the first leaves of Autumn crackling under her feet. The streets of Columbus, Ohio, are as populated as usual but she seems off in her own world. Her eyes are haunted with her own new reality which most likely has only too much to do with the doctor's appointment from which she has come about three hours ago.
After walking alone for several hours she leaves the growing shadows of dusk in favor of fluorescent lighting and the soft twang of country music from a radio behind the checkout counter. There's only one other customer, a woman just about her age carrying a young baby swaddled in pink terrycloth blankets, and Onyx looks away from her quickly and the pimply faced redheaded clerk who looks like he should still be in high school. She's starting to wish she'd just kept walking no matter how good a cold soda sounds right now. Her throat is unusually parched and achy.
Onyx chews her lip as she stands in an aisle between two shelves stacked six feet high with junk food at the far end of the small store. She steps out of the aisle to the end of the row of display cases as the door swings open and a third customer enters. And here her life, or what is left of it, will change dramatically; even more so than the paper in her pocket has already changed it today.
This man wears a long black trench coat with the collar upturned so as most of his face is not visible from her point of view down by the freezer containing a wealth of Pepsi and Coca-Cola products but he sets off an internal alarm in her and she crouches as if to retie her shoe, now complete out of his range of vision before he has spotted her. The woman with the baby is busy selecting fifty cent diapers from a large open box and does not share Onyx's sense of foreboding as she lightly bounces her fussy little bundle.
On the radio Garth Brooks sings "Thunder Rolls".
From her hiding place, one hand instinctively clutching her stomach, Onyx bites her lip so hard she tastes blood. She isn't aware when the new customer draws the gun because there is no conversation before hand, no time to shot warnings, just the sudden explosion of bullets leaving a chamber.
Each shot fired is thunderous in the confines of the convenience store. The killer's flamboyance and savagery means he is most likely on drugs, or just genuinely psychotic. The gun is a Browning 9mm from the sound of it. The cashier, eyes wide, mouth agape, crashes back off his stool into a display of cigarettes, unbalancing it so the cancerous packs rain down on him as he slides onto the floor, twitching spasmodically.
The young woman with the baby is not screaming because it is frozen in her throat as she clutches her precious bundle against her, shielding the infant with her own body. She is shaking, however, so violently, she can barely stay standing, and occasionally unintelligible sounds of fear, almost animalistic sounds of terror escape her.
Huddled with her back against the panel of the shelves, Onyx defensively covers her face with her free hand at the roar of the gunshot. Her stomach rolls as a bitter taste floods her mouth but she suppresses the urge to vomit as the killer might hear her retching. Her heart hammers in her ears so loud she is certain it must be audible to others in the store too.
She lifts her head and risks taking a bullet to the skull long enough to catch a glimpse of the man with the gun. He is tall, burly, his mane of hair disordered, his tangled beard flecked with unidentifiable bits and chunks of matter. His nose is large and crooked and when he smiles his teeth are yellow/black mottled and rotting. When he speaks to the young mother his voice is deep and gravely yet wet sounding like something infected in his chest is about to break loose and fall away. She can not hear what he is saying, is not sure she wants to, but takes note of several telling traits of his condition. His breathing is shallow; he is pale but flushed, profusely sweating. His eyes flick up and down in a spasmodic way and he seems vaguely unsteady on his feet. In the florescent lighting she can make out a string of drool running down his face, and all this, while she has never done recreational drugs, shrieks at her of a bad PCP trip.
Now the woman's temporary muteness has broken and she screams and cries as he aims the fire arm at her head and fires point-blank, caving in her skull. Gore splatters on the pink blanket in her lax arms as the baby sobs lustfully from the noise and violence. The killer crouches, fingering a lock of silken hair on the baby's head and it wails.
Something about his grimy hands touching the baby sets her off. It offends her morally in such a way her whole body seems on fire from it, this man, this THING, touching that poor innocent child whose mother he has just murdered. Although a secret reason, a new fear, has kept her prone and hiding to this point, Onyx is suddenly no longer able to stay still. She reaches up, fumbling along a shelf, searching for a weapon, any weapon from a nail file to a box cutter. She locates a smooth round can that feels shaving and draws it off the shelf carefully so as not to rattle it against anything else. It is a can of WD-40.
She digs in her pocket and takes out a scratched up orange lighter that she found on the sidewalk and absently picked up this afternoon, fingering the switch grimly. Maybe it's out of fluid, maybe not. In any case it is a suicide mission and she knows it. She silently as possible flips the cap off the WD-40. Then rolls onto her knees then gets her feet under her, staying in a crouch as she tenses her legs. All her training is about to pay off or not. Either way before she can reconsider she is charging the killer down the aisle, keeping low, the lighter held out at the full reach of her arm in front of the can, her finger on the nozzle.
The killer either hers her coming or has unusually heightened senses in this state because he turns to face her just as she reaches the end of the aisle. She flickers the lighter, once, twice, and a small flame comes to life then bursts into a blaze as she sprays the lubricant through it right into the man's face which is instantly set ablaze. This all happens in a matter of seconds but seems to play out in slow motion. The man shrieks and automatically squeezes off three shots that take her high in the chest as he spins around, a Human torch, and crashes into the glass display of the counter, thrashing as he tries to slap his face out, only managing to set his hands and coat on fire as well.
Onyx herself stumbled back then goes down, dropping the can and the lighter. The lighter clatters as it slides across the floor and the can is sent rolling away as the killer's thrashing feet kick it away before going still.
Silence. There are no final gasp rattles, no whimpers, no movement. Even the baby is quiet. Just long, unnerving silence.
As the faint sound of sirens slowly grows in approaching volume we look down, focusing not on a gun, a killer, or a body, but rather on a growing pool of blood that seems almost obscenely red as it creeps along the linoleum, seeping into cracks and staining a piece of folded, wrinkled white paper that litters the ground from our fallen heroine's pocket. As the paper blossoms rich ruby stains we can just make out the words "Nightfur, Onyx" as her legal name has been changed. Under her birthdate and doctor's name are the words as resonantingly loud as the backfire of any gun which leaves us speechless: Pregnancy Test Results: Positive End Flashback.
Present.
On Onyx’s eyes, distant, clouded with remembrance. “Sometimes I think I should have died that day…or...stayed dead. After they restarted my heart, I felt...empty, knowing I’d lost the baby. The doctors said there was so much damage to my body, I wouldn’t ever be able to carry a child to full term…”
She flips her wallet open and Paul smiles, looking at baby pictures of Marlow, growing from a tiny, premature wrinkly red newborn whom he had personally held within hours of birth, to more recent shots of a smiling, dark-haired brown eyed toddler hugging a plus Bumblebee transformer. “He’s my little miracle…”
“Yeah, I know what you mean.”
“No…no one does. I’d given up...”
Flashback. She stands at the door to the main arena, her hand resting on it, not putting any pressure on it. She waits for a long moment, then chews on her lip and pushes it out, vanishing inside. Not long after she stands in the ring with her back to one post, rubbing her face. For a moment, at least, it's too much coming back. She blows out a breath and pulls the hoodie off which she was wearing over a loose tank top, running her fingers through her hair. In her head she can hear the crowds, the cheering. She takes another deep breath and climbs the ropes to execute her favored move, a 360 moonsault, then in the back of her mind she hears the commentators over the loudspeakers and she misses her landing. Badly. One ankle bends in the wrong direction and she drops to her knees with a hiss of pain, tears blurring her vision for more than one reason.
Cut to a promo of sorts. Perhaps Confession is more accurate for what follows. The scene opens as a camera recorder is being turned on to record and readjusted for angle about six times on a nasty burnt orange couch with a cracked window behind it overlooking traffic. Finally Onyx sits on the couch. She's cleaned herself up a bit. At least her hair is brushed. She's wearing all black as usual but nothing showy, t-shirt and sweats. She hugs her legs against her chest, chewing on her lip.
"So..." she shrugs, looking down," Hi…again. God, I don't even know where to start...I have no idea what anyone's said or...this is going on TV so I guess I better start from the beginning. About six months ago I was in a convenience store looking for a pregnancy test because I was trying to convince myself that the one I already took was just a mistake. Because the idea of being a mom…scared me shitless. Not that I didn't want the baby, I did...I just...I fuck up everything I touch so doing that to the entire life of another tiny Human Being, not a great prospect, you know?"
"So...store got held up, I got shot three times...and I was laying there in the back of an ambulance suddenly thinking "God, please don't let my baby die because I'm a stupid bitch and I can't even protect my own child.." Paul and Mel were there and...They were talking to the paramedics...I caught bits and pieces about blood lose and miscarriage…and everything just faded out to gray."
She runs her fingers through her,"I just...want everyone to know not to blame Paul and Mel...and Steve too. I made them lie for me. I didn't really want to be alive anymore, not after that, so I told them to pretend I was dead. In some way I guess I thought that was better... for everyone. Start of my mental breakdown, huh? As soon as I was out of the hospital they moved me to the mental ward. And I started the suicide attempts. Fuck. "
She looks at the camera, "There was never a day I didn't think of you and want to take it back. But you deserve better than me. This isn't some whiney ass attempt to get you back because...because someone once told me I was a 9 and you were a 5 and they had that switched around. You're a 10 and above. I never stopped loving you and I never will but I want you to be happy. Even if it's not with me. You deserve to be happy. I'm sorry...I'm so so sorry...”
She bites her lip and looks down as tears run down her face. "I miss you so much...I always will. And I didn't come back to hurt you because I know the last face you ever wanted to see again is mine...but if this match, if hurting me, is going to help you, I'll accept it, I'll do it. I'm not gonna fight you but I'll show. I'll be there. "
Onyx sighs, wiping at her tears, “I really do love you. I wish there was someway I could let you know that, that I never meant to hurt you the way I have and I'd give anything to take it back." She pauses, trying to think of something else to say, then sighs and turns off the camera. End Flashback.
Present.
Onyx’s brow furrows as she stares out to sea, “Sometimes I still hear that voice in my head...saying “You don't belong anywhere near a wrestling ring. You don't belong anywhere near the sport itself.” After Marlow was born, maybe I let myself believe it. But I went back after the shooting. And this is...sort of the same thing. I needed to come back. This sport…this job…it’s a part of me, deep down. It’s imprinted in my soul. It’s who I am. I wanted my son to know that I that his mother, is not a quitter, that I hurt and bleed, but it made me stronger. It made me strong enough to raise him. And it’s why I’m here now, not running away.”
Paul looks at her, taking his trademark shades off so he can meet her eyes, “You are strong. You’re a winner. I always knew that. A champion and you’ll prove it again. You will. You’re so much braver than even you know, Nyx. I’m gonna be proud to walk in that arena with you and walk down to the ring with you. You’re what this sport’s all about.”
She smiles softly, “You’re pushing it, Paul. All I want is a fair chance to prove myself. Not to anyone else but to me and my son. No one else’s opinion matters. My opponents can say whatever the hell they want, call me weak, call me a drama queen…but the past is in the past, I can’t change it but I don’t have to let it define me. I’ve held two titles, gone on two world tours, clinically died once, and lost everything that mattered to me. That’s who I WAS. This is who I am, and whoever faces me in the ring better bring their best game, because I intend to win.”
He grins his sweet country-boy lope-sided grin and pats her on the back, “Okay, future champ, can we go grab something to eat? All this reminisance made me remember something very important, and that is that I skipped breakfast!”
She laughs as she tucks her wallet away and walks away from the pier with him, his arm around her. The camera lingers on the hopeful horizon, full of promise, as we Fade To Black.
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