Post by Sicko on Jul 3, 2024 12:55:41 GMT -5
His fingers brushed over his unmasked face, tentatively, in the mirror.
He's in some dingy hole now, a tiled bathroom covered in black and green film, disgusting and nauseating smells coming from a backed-up toilet. He didn't even remember getting the key from the attendant, not that it mattered. What registered as he came awake, was pain.
His hand shakes and jitters as fingertips skate over what is surely a broken cheekbone, then pull back as if touching a hot wire. He swam to awareness, as he generally does, as the Jester submerges, back into the recesses of the Mind Palace to slumber, recharge energy, and awake.
Ephrain Aspect exits the dingy, flickering bathroom in this shitty, out-of-the way filling station out on Route 66, and trots out into the hot desert sun. It's over 110 degrees out here, somewhere in the southwestern quadrant of Arizona, and he flinches back with a gasp, shading his eyes.
Finally adjusting to being out in the world, he grimaces. He tries to assess what he does know. He knows the Jester decimated a man named Jody Madrox at Evolution, and then he retreated back into the ice cream truck and took off. Then... it was a blur, as if the Jester let another alter drive for a while, but still maintained control. But now, the Jester's hold seemed to've slipped... and, while he was out, he needed to plan. His first option, was to wait. Of course, the Jester would awaken, of course, he would bend and sublimate the body to his will, painfully breaking the limits as he scratched his way out, even committing unspeakable acts of body-horror mutilation to ascend to the forefront of consciousness.
But the Jester let go after Evolution. And now, based on some dim recollection, he knew that the time of Evolution, of Action Wrestling, was ending... if he wanted, he could sever ties while Jester slept on.
He began to get giddy, as Ephrain Aspect re-entered the gas station, holding the key in his hand, to give to the attendant. The possibilities whirred, now that AW was closing it's doors, he could take control of his life, he could - could sell the ice-cream truck! Yeah, that's it, cut off Jester's base of power; Then, he would check himself back into the rehabilitation center, demand to speak to Daniel Shomron, and be fed a drip of the sweetest Klonopin. If he drove through the night, he could make it to St. Louis, and be there tomorrow... it would be -
He felt rejuvenated, the tickling, titillating thought of cutting off The Jester and hospitalizing himself, of, ironically, being FREE, and saving this new, Discovery Pro Wrestling (that was the name, right?) of the blight of the Jester's dark influence.
So wrapped-up in his plans to pounce on while Jester was under, he noticed a little girl, standing at the soft-drink case. Her round, moon face under a mop of blonde hair, she turned to face him, not registering shock at his still-wounded face or the size of him. She was maybe 5?
From the front of the store, a female voice, harsh and rasped by cigarettes, called, there was a woman with a Walmart graphic shirt (something about do NOT speak to me until I've finished this wine glass) and a matching blonde haircut; forty years of hard wear and tear aside, their faces were similar enough that this was clearly the child's mother. She scowled, an ugly, nasty, mad-at-the-world scowl, "Kaylee, you pick a bug juice from that case and bring it up here! We don't have all day!"
The little girl was obviously torn between two flavors of "bug juice", and Ephrain Aspect, dutifully and nicely, held the cold case door open. Little Kaylee, deciding, plucked one out, then beamed up at the body, a sunny, gap-toothed grin. "Tank yew!" said Kaylee.
Ephrain Aspect, charmed, marvelled at being outside, and encountering good things like this. This is what he wanted to preserve in his life, this is why he needed to get away. Sell the ice cream truck, hock that ugly, cursed, Omega championship belt for money, and leave the newly-forming DPW in the ice cream truck's rear-view... save them ALL from the Jester.
He reflects on this all as he steps in line to the cashier, behind the Karen, and behind a nervous, twitchy man in a bandanna. He registers nothing, just thinking of his freedom.
Kaylee's smile told him loads, it told him there was kindnesses and softnesses out there. He wanted to experience them, even if he needed to hospitalize for a while. He wanted...
To live...
And not to darken this new and promising fed with HIS influence...
He just wanted... freed-
A gun's hammer clicks.
A greasy thug elbows past the blonde-haired woman in the Walmart graphic tee, his voice shaking as he pulls out a .45 and aims it at the ceiling, letting fire, a thunderclap, smashing cork ceiling above into pieces.
Then he brings the gun down, his voice trembling, a desperate young man's voice and you can sense in it's shakiness that this is the latest in a long line of bad decisions, it hitches in his throat and his adams apple moves up and down, "O-open the register and gimme all the money in it... D- do it. Now, man..."
The clerk, a fat boy with coke bottle glasses and curly, Mediterranean hair goggles at him stupidly, holding his hands up, even though he is behind a flimsy plexigass with a square opening, his fat jowls quiver, "All the money's in the safe, man, the safe! I don't have the combo, come on, man..."
"Shut up! I know you have SOME money, open the register I said!"
"Mommy?" little Kaylee whines, scared, and she steps back from the young man with the gun. Ephrain Aspect, aware of his size and his looming presence, holds his arms out.
"Don't TRY anything, you big fat asshole," the young man yells at Ephrain Aspect, "I - I'll let fly, I'll fucking do it, man!"
"Mommyyy, I'm scared!" Kaylee whines, and she twists away from her mother's clutching hand, banging into the racks full of Utz chips and knocking them over.
The robber's .45 goes off in a flat report, whirling in the direction of the spilling chips. The mother, and Ephrain Aspect, both react with quicktime surprise, NO!
Kaylee slumps down, pierced right through her graphic tee, and immediately falls, bags of chips all around her.
Ephrain Aspect's grimace twisted his face into an ugly snarl, he slowly looked up at the robber gunman, a sunken-cheeked boy of probably twenty with telltale signs of drug use, probably meth, way out here in the boonies. A local roughneck fallen on hard times desperate for a quick payday, a new score.
Ephrain felt heat ramping up in his bulging throat, he felt HIM starting to stir, deep within the Mind Palace. He felt a white-hot eye open, and turn. He ignored it all, staring at the robber with incensed, incandescent rage growing, the kind of rage HE'D feel. It occurred to Ephrain Aspect that maybe he wasn't so different from the Jester.
His giant form loomed as he approached the tweaker, who's baggy eyes widened. "S-STAY BACK!"
"You shot that little girl, now you're going to p-"
The gun's flat report went off again, a metallic crash, and Ephrain stopped. The punk's eyes widened, not even sure how he had handled that, but he stared in awe, as Ephrain held his hand over a gunshot wound on his chest, which struck true. Blood began gushing freely. Ephrain Aspect stared at his hand.
The mother was wailing, as Ephrain slumped to the floor, his head juddering on impact.
All he heard was the ranting, now urgent voice of the tweaker robber, demanding the cashier open his register NOW.
Ephrain lay there, bleeding profusely from his chest, as the lights began to grow dim. He felt that eye, searching, frantically, but he no longer had the will to cloak anything from it. "I'm sorry," he whispered to it, but why was he sorry? Because he was disloyal? Because he had contemplated selling the ice cream truck? Because he dared to dream of a life of not crippling and mangling people for sick pleasure?
Because he wanted freedom?
Or was it not to the Jester, to which he apologized, but perhaps Kaylee, and the reminder of the Inner Child as she was?
He didn't have answers; Everything was going dark. He was losing blood, and starting to feel number, and cold.
Except for a white-hot center of heat, growing from within the middle of him, starting as little more than a cherry pit that grew with the heat of a wildfire. And then, dimly, he felt ripping, tearing, and he sleepily thought, bleeding out and dying, Oh, fuck, that's me.
Then he was rebirthing himself in pain, anew; His body began to contort, grotesquely, as is bones were shifting, and his mouth stretched wide, wider still, with a SCREAM.
"W- what- no, man, what chu doing, stop that crazy shit, stop," the tweaker, burned-out senses not believing this spectacle...
And the heaving form, Ephrain Aspect's lights dimming and twinkling out, began to rip itself out, as if an arm entire was emerging from a throat with a sickening tear.
There were screams, a mother's scream, a cashier's scream, a tweaker's scream.
There were gunshots, three consecutive wild bursts.
Then there was silence. The lights had gone out in the gas station.
It is night when the gas station's doors open again, and a naked giant bangs the door open, emerging with a large trash bag filled with dripping meat. He growls, hauling the heavy bag along, and takes it over to the parked ice cream truck. No other visitors dared enter the gas station in the intervening time, best for them.
The Jester stared back at the gas station, then at the ice cream truck. He loaded the bag into the back cabin of it, and then, he began to dress himself. As he did, he scooped up the old championship belt, the Omega title, and he threw it out of the cabin, onto the sandy parking lot. He didn't need that one anymore.
He thought about Discovery Pro Wrestling, his mindseye turning eagerly towards it. Towards the prospect of folding bones like paper napkins, just as he'd done in there. It made him smile, and he grinned wider, knowing that, deep down, Ephrain wanted to save DPW from just this, save all of you from just such a thing happening, but Ephrain was too weak. He couldn't save DPW from what was coming.
"Sorry, Ephrain," said the Jester, as he slid behind the wheel. "But it's time we got back on the road, don't you think?"
He's in some dingy hole now, a tiled bathroom covered in black and green film, disgusting and nauseating smells coming from a backed-up toilet. He didn't even remember getting the key from the attendant, not that it mattered. What registered as he came awake, was pain.
His hand shakes and jitters as fingertips skate over what is surely a broken cheekbone, then pull back as if touching a hot wire. He swam to awareness, as he generally does, as the Jester submerges, back into the recesses of the Mind Palace to slumber, recharge energy, and awake.
Ephrain Aspect exits the dingy, flickering bathroom in this shitty, out-of-the way filling station out on Route 66, and trots out into the hot desert sun. It's over 110 degrees out here, somewhere in the southwestern quadrant of Arizona, and he flinches back with a gasp, shading his eyes.
Finally adjusting to being out in the world, he grimaces. He tries to assess what he does know. He knows the Jester decimated a man named Jody Madrox at Evolution, and then he retreated back into the ice cream truck and took off. Then... it was a blur, as if the Jester let another alter drive for a while, but still maintained control. But now, the Jester's hold seemed to've slipped... and, while he was out, he needed to plan. His first option, was to wait. Of course, the Jester would awaken, of course, he would bend and sublimate the body to his will, painfully breaking the limits as he scratched his way out, even committing unspeakable acts of body-horror mutilation to ascend to the forefront of consciousness.
But the Jester let go after Evolution. And now, based on some dim recollection, he knew that the time of Evolution, of Action Wrestling, was ending... if he wanted, he could sever ties while Jester slept on.
He began to get giddy, as Ephrain Aspect re-entered the gas station, holding the key in his hand, to give to the attendant. The possibilities whirred, now that AW was closing it's doors, he could take control of his life, he could - could sell the ice-cream truck! Yeah, that's it, cut off Jester's base of power; Then, he would check himself back into the rehabilitation center, demand to speak to Daniel Shomron, and be fed a drip of the sweetest Klonopin. If he drove through the night, he could make it to St. Louis, and be there tomorrow... it would be -
He felt rejuvenated, the tickling, titillating thought of cutting off The Jester and hospitalizing himself, of, ironically, being FREE, and saving this new, Discovery Pro Wrestling (that was the name, right?) of the blight of the Jester's dark influence.
So wrapped-up in his plans to pounce on while Jester was under, he noticed a little girl, standing at the soft-drink case. Her round, moon face under a mop of blonde hair, she turned to face him, not registering shock at his still-wounded face or the size of him. She was maybe 5?
From the front of the store, a female voice, harsh and rasped by cigarettes, called, there was a woman with a Walmart graphic shirt (something about do NOT speak to me until I've finished this wine glass) and a matching blonde haircut; forty years of hard wear and tear aside, their faces were similar enough that this was clearly the child's mother. She scowled, an ugly, nasty, mad-at-the-world scowl, "Kaylee, you pick a bug juice from that case and bring it up here! We don't have all day!"
The little girl was obviously torn between two flavors of "bug juice", and Ephrain Aspect, dutifully and nicely, held the cold case door open. Little Kaylee, deciding, plucked one out, then beamed up at the body, a sunny, gap-toothed grin. "Tank yew!" said Kaylee.
Ephrain Aspect, charmed, marvelled at being outside, and encountering good things like this. This is what he wanted to preserve in his life, this is why he needed to get away. Sell the ice cream truck, hock that ugly, cursed, Omega championship belt for money, and leave the newly-forming DPW in the ice cream truck's rear-view... save them ALL from the Jester.
He reflects on this all as he steps in line to the cashier, behind the Karen, and behind a nervous, twitchy man in a bandanna. He registers nothing, just thinking of his freedom.
Kaylee's smile told him loads, it told him there was kindnesses and softnesses out there. He wanted to experience them, even if he needed to hospitalize for a while. He wanted...
To live...
And not to darken this new and promising fed with HIS influence...
He just wanted... freed-
A gun's hammer clicks.
A greasy thug elbows past the blonde-haired woman in the Walmart graphic tee, his voice shaking as he pulls out a .45 and aims it at the ceiling, letting fire, a thunderclap, smashing cork ceiling above into pieces.
Then he brings the gun down, his voice trembling, a desperate young man's voice and you can sense in it's shakiness that this is the latest in a long line of bad decisions, it hitches in his throat and his adams apple moves up and down, "O-open the register and gimme all the money in it... D- do it. Now, man..."
The clerk, a fat boy with coke bottle glasses and curly, Mediterranean hair goggles at him stupidly, holding his hands up, even though he is behind a flimsy plexigass with a square opening, his fat jowls quiver, "All the money's in the safe, man, the safe! I don't have the combo, come on, man..."
"Shut up! I know you have SOME money, open the register I said!"
"Mommy?" little Kaylee whines, scared, and she steps back from the young man with the gun. Ephrain Aspect, aware of his size and his looming presence, holds his arms out.
"Don't TRY anything, you big fat asshole," the young man yells at Ephrain Aspect, "I - I'll let fly, I'll fucking do it, man!"
"Mommyyy, I'm scared!" Kaylee whines, and she twists away from her mother's clutching hand, banging into the racks full of Utz chips and knocking them over.
The robber's .45 goes off in a flat report, whirling in the direction of the spilling chips. The mother, and Ephrain Aspect, both react with quicktime surprise, NO!
Kaylee slumps down, pierced right through her graphic tee, and immediately falls, bags of chips all around her.
Ephrain Aspect's grimace twisted his face into an ugly snarl, he slowly looked up at the robber gunman, a sunken-cheeked boy of probably twenty with telltale signs of drug use, probably meth, way out here in the boonies. A local roughneck fallen on hard times desperate for a quick payday, a new score.
Ephrain felt heat ramping up in his bulging throat, he felt HIM starting to stir, deep within the Mind Palace. He felt a white-hot eye open, and turn. He ignored it all, staring at the robber with incensed, incandescent rage growing, the kind of rage HE'D feel. It occurred to Ephrain Aspect that maybe he wasn't so different from the Jester.
His giant form loomed as he approached the tweaker, who's baggy eyes widened. "S-STAY BACK!"
"You shot that little girl, now you're going to p-"
The gun's flat report went off again, a metallic crash, and Ephrain stopped. The punk's eyes widened, not even sure how he had handled that, but he stared in awe, as Ephrain held his hand over a gunshot wound on his chest, which struck true. Blood began gushing freely. Ephrain Aspect stared at his hand.
The mother was wailing, as Ephrain slumped to the floor, his head juddering on impact.
All he heard was the ranting, now urgent voice of the tweaker robber, demanding the cashier open his register NOW.
Ephrain lay there, bleeding profusely from his chest, as the lights began to grow dim. He felt that eye, searching, frantically, but he no longer had the will to cloak anything from it. "I'm sorry," he whispered to it, but why was he sorry? Because he was disloyal? Because he had contemplated selling the ice cream truck? Because he dared to dream of a life of not crippling and mangling people for sick pleasure?
Because he wanted freedom?
Or was it not to the Jester, to which he apologized, but perhaps Kaylee, and the reminder of the Inner Child as she was?
He didn't have answers; Everything was going dark. He was losing blood, and starting to feel number, and cold.
Except for a white-hot center of heat, growing from within the middle of him, starting as little more than a cherry pit that grew with the heat of a wildfire. And then, dimly, he felt ripping, tearing, and he sleepily thought, bleeding out and dying, Oh, fuck, that's me.
Then he was rebirthing himself in pain, anew; His body began to contort, grotesquely, as is bones were shifting, and his mouth stretched wide, wider still, with a SCREAM.
"W- what- no, man, what chu doing, stop that crazy shit, stop," the tweaker, burned-out senses not believing this spectacle...
And the heaving form, Ephrain Aspect's lights dimming and twinkling out, began to rip itself out, as if an arm entire was emerging from a throat with a sickening tear.
There were screams, a mother's scream, a cashier's scream, a tweaker's scream.
There were gunshots, three consecutive wild bursts.
Then there was silence. The lights had gone out in the gas station.
It is night when the gas station's doors open again, and a naked giant bangs the door open, emerging with a large trash bag filled with dripping meat. He growls, hauling the heavy bag along, and takes it over to the parked ice cream truck. No other visitors dared enter the gas station in the intervening time, best for them.
The Jester stared back at the gas station, then at the ice cream truck. He loaded the bag into the back cabin of it, and then, he began to dress himself. As he did, he scooped up the old championship belt, the Omega title, and he threw it out of the cabin, onto the sandy parking lot. He didn't need that one anymore.
He thought about Discovery Pro Wrestling, his mindseye turning eagerly towards it. Towards the prospect of folding bones like paper napkins, just as he'd done in there. It made him smile, and he grinned wider, knowing that, deep down, Ephrain wanted to save DPW from just this, save all of you from just such a thing happening, but Ephrain was too weak. He couldn't save DPW from what was coming.
"Sorry, Ephrain," said the Jester, as he slid behind the wheel. "But it's time we got back on the road, don't you think?"