Trial by Fire Part 4 - Where There's Smoke...
Feb 9, 2020 22:33:33 GMT -5
Addy A and Dagvald Riddik like this
Post by Teo Blaze on Feb 9, 2020 22:33:33 GMT -5
“It’s hard being the hero, isn’t it?”
The voice that echoes from the darkened room is one that seems to emanate from the air itself, devoid of origin and hovering in the darkened quiet of the nondescript room. In the night air, only the vague reflection of moonlight serves to illuminate what is otherwise a near invisible but still very run-down hotel room, the type of room that one might expect to find charging an hourly rate. But in the dark and dirty silence the voice seems to dominate the proceedings, at once hauntingly familiar, and yet alien.
“So many people looking up at you in your ivory fucking tower, like a beautiful role model for the world to follow. Look at how high and mighty the conquering hero is.
But you know what? Screw him, and his tower. Who is he to think that he’s something special? Just because he keeps himself away from the so-called “evils” of the world? Big deal, give the man a goddamned medal.
But that’s not it, is it? That’s the irony. Look at how proud they are, look at how they carry themselves. They can tell themselves how much better they are than you, how impure your motives are, how much you deserve a crack in the fuckin’ teeth for even daring to try and be a good person.
But they just don’t get it. They don’t. Fucking. Get it.
You want to hurt him, don’t ya? From the moment he called you down the ramp, every single thing about him made you want to grab that oily rat’s nest of a beard and slam his face into the ground until that ugly mug of his was unrecognizable as anything more than a tragedy... not that it would take very long. That's why you lock yourself in the Ivory tower...because they're not safe if you're on the ground.
But you wanted to hurt him.
Don’t you lie to me, now.
Say it.
Say you wanted to hurt him.”
In the silence, the eyes of the sleeper twist shut even further, shutting out the noise in the room, the voice that is his own, the truth sounding in his mind like a hand grenade, a concussive message that strikes him to his very core.
“That’s right...try and hide from it, take the coward’s road. It’s worked so well for you thus far.
Each and every time, no matter what the opponent, you keep on hiding in that ivory tower. Like you’re so goddamned smart. Telling people how nice it is, how you’re going to hold back for them.
Telling them that they’re safe.
You’re a liar, Teo Blaze.
Because so long as you’re drawing air..?
Nobody is safe.”
His eyes snap open, a roar of air sucking into his lips, but what has been hidden is no darkness, but a roar of flame! The room is engulfed, a roaring and shuddering inferno. Teo’s lungs cry out in his chest as he sucks in the smoke, desperately searching for the source of the fire, confusion giving way quickly to panic.
Desperation, pain- the sucking dryness mixing with the heat as he looks around, his first thought is to grab some kind of alarm, to look for a smoke detector, but there is no luck for the poor man, as he rolls, frantically reaching out, but the flames simply reach back at him, grabbing at his hand. A jolt of searing pain and he recoils, looking desperately as the flames grow closer and closer- the heat becoming nothing short of unbearable. His mind gives way to animal instincts, every nerve, every neuron in his mind crying out for him to run!
But there is nowhere to go. There are flames on all sides, closing in, ever more, the heat growing in intensity to levels that seem impossible. And with each sucking breath, yet more black miasma is drawn into his lungs, his heart pounding, a death march, counting down the moments till there is no more room in his lungs, till there is only smoke.
His vision is fading now, all is a rush of orange a crackle of burning wood; with nothing to do, he falls back against the wall. There is nowhere for him to go- the flames are upon him. His vision is consumed once more by darkness.
And then…
A flash of white light consumes the scene as sound begins to emanate once more from the picture, but it is something entirely different; not the orange flames that moments ago filled the scene, but a searing white hot ball of fire against a liquid blue sky; though it is only February, the heat that emanates from it is palpable.
But something is different about the scene; there is a filter over the screen, as if someone is holding a camera. The screen shakes lazily as the view swings around, and there is Teo Blaze, his arm held out, pointing it directly at himself. He smiles and waves with his free hand, a glint of playfulness present in the red-tinted lenses that cover his eyes.
“Hello Wesley. Been a while, hasn't it? But then, life has a funny way of going differently than you might expect.
I'm sure Ariel Shadows can attest to that.
I know this is a tad unorthodox, but I wanted to send you this well in advance; call it an exclusive. Let me put this quite simply- I have been waiting so long to kick your fuckin’ ass that I’ve almost forgotten why I was so mad at you in the first place.
Oh, don’t get me wrong, seeing your greasy, talentless ass week in and week out on Action Wrestling TV is enough to give any sane person homicidal tendencies, but it’s more than that, ya know?
It’s just...something about you that for the longest time I couldn’t put my finger on. When you were on screen, it didn’t make me clench my fists and want to kick your teeth in, I wanted to unplug the set and throw it out of a third story window, because no device should have to live with the fact that it had “The Guru Daddy” on its screen.
It’s that kind of feeling I get when I look at you. In fact, I heard that Femdom had to dunk the Tag Titles in bleach just to get your stench off of them...it had soaked into the leather.
Because that’s your big claim to fame, right? That you were part of a run of dominance in the tag team division! That people will look back on Illumignarly’s time with the tag team championship and say just how great you-”
Teo suddenly stops mid-sentence, bursting out into a fit of wicked and sharp laughter, the camera jostling in his hand as he tries to maintain his balance.
“I’m sorry, I tried, I really did.
Wesley, that reign was so embarrassing, so forgettable, so meaningless that you had to bring in a dancing alien for people to pay attention. The only. Let me repeat, the ONLY reason that you were able to hold onto those belts for as long as you did was because you happened to be in the right place at the right time. Kidsgrove was focused on that Chamber match, and it cost him.
But you know the funny part? You didn’t even get the pin, Guru Daddy. Ariel Shadows? The very one who you tried to distance yourself from? She’s the reason that you got to carry that gold around at all.
And that’s when I realized it. That’s when it all started to hit me. It wasn’t your nonstop, unwarranted arrogance- it wasn’t your insistence on making every moment of screentime into a comedy sketch so awful it would make Tom Green shake his head...no.
It was the constant and disgusting hypocrisy.
I know you may have thought you would shock the world this week when you turned on Ariel, and frankly there may have been more than a few heads turned.
But not me.”
Teo taps his fingers against his glasses. There, though a smile may be etched across his face, the true emotion shines through. He is staring daggers, eyelids barely squinting over sharp pupils. It is a calculated look, as though Teo is holding himself back from breaking into full-on anger.
“The thing about you, Guru Daddy? Is that you want the whole show to be about you. You cling to that camera like a petulant child wanting attention. You have a deep-seated and neurotic obsession with being recognized. With being seen.”
His eyes focus to the side for a moment, as though he is lost momentarily in thought, but he quickly refocuses on the camera.
“No matter what the moment, you have to make it about you. Ariel was your friend, Wesley. Do you understand that? She did something that I have long considered completely impossible. She liked you. Hell, she trusted you.
And what did you do?
You spit it right back in her face. You sacrificed her on the altar of television, a devil’s bargain to get the world talking about you once again. Because without your precious and ill-gotten gold? People don’t care about you. You don’t matter.
You’re nothing.
And Ariel paid the price for five more minutes of fame. You gave up everything that she had given you in the name of your obsession. Because if people aren’t watching the Illumidaddy? The Guru Daddy? The Illumignarly? If you aren’t constantly showing the world your true self...then maybe...maybe what, Wesley?”
Teo reaches up with his spare hand, and removes his glasses. He seems to stare at them for a moment, then, slowly, he puts them into his pocket. He stares up at the camera- his lensless face seeming a strange sight. Upon close inspection, the camera illuminates multiple scars across his skin, deep cuts from wars fought over years. Mere moments ago the glasses may have distracted, but in their absence, every mark becomes illuminated in the white sun.
“Afraid that maybe they’ll see the real you?”
Any semblance of a smile is gone from Teo’s face. His words are fiery as they pour into existence from his mouth.
“Because Wesley...the reason I’ve hated you the moment I met you. The reason that I’ve wanted to kick your teeth down your throat?
Is because the real you is all I’ve ever seen.
And quite frankly...That’s reason enough.”
The camera feed hangs on Teo’s eyes for a moment longer before snapping off to black.
A rush of air, cold and perfumed swells in his chest, and his eyes open.
He is on the floor of his hotel room. In the darkness of the night, his breathing is amplified, filling the room with sound. He glances around, trying to gather his bearings. There is no sign of the inferno that mere moments ago filled the room. Instead, there is a small beam of sunlight peeking through the dirty window.
As he starts to sit up, a peculiar feeling washes over him. He seemed to have fallen from the bed, and landed roughly on a pair of torn jeans. He picks them up, and a small tinkling sound fills his ears. Slowly, he reaches into the pocket. With a barely perceptible quiver, his hands remove an object from the pocket.
He turns them over in his hand, considering them, before letting them drop from his hand. A wicked smile comes over his face as he turns towards the bedside table. There, on the bedside table, is a small silver lighter.
And etched on one side is a smiling face.
He picks it up, and considers it for a moment. As he lifts the lid and his thumb moves towards the switch, the smile on the lighter and the smile upon his face seem almost identical.
The voice that echoes from the darkened room is one that seems to emanate from the air itself, devoid of origin and hovering in the darkened quiet of the nondescript room. In the night air, only the vague reflection of moonlight serves to illuminate what is otherwise a near invisible but still very run-down hotel room, the type of room that one might expect to find charging an hourly rate. But in the dark and dirty silence the voice seems to dominate the proceedings, at once hauntingly familiar, and yet alien.
“So many people looking up at you in your ivory fucking tower, like a beautiful role model for the world to follow. Look at how high and mighty the conquering hero is.
But you know what? Screw him, and his tower. Who is he to think that he’s something special? Just because he keeps himself away from the so-called “evils” of the world? Big deal, give the man a goddamned medal.
But that’s not it, is it? That’s the irony. Look at how proud they are, look at how they carry themselves. They can tell themselves how much better they are than you, how impure your motives are, how much you deserve a crack in the fuckin’ teeth for even daring to try and be a good person.
But they just don’t get it. They don’t. Fucking. Get it.
You want to hurt him, don’t ya? From the moment he called you down the ramp, every single thing about him made you want to grab that oily rat’s nest of a beard and slam his face into the ground until that ugly mug of his was unrecognizable as anything more than a tragedy... not that it would take very long. That's why you lock yourself in the Ivory tower...because they're not safe if you're on the ground.
But you wanted to hurt him.
Don’t you lie to me, now.
Say it.
Say you wanted to hurt him.”
In the silence, the eyes of the sleeper twist shut even further, shutting out the noise in the room, the voice that is his own, the truth sounding in his mind like a hand grenade, a concussive message that strikes him to his very core.
“That’s right...try and hide from it, take the coward’s road. It’s worked so well for you thus far.
Each and every time, no matter what the opponent, you keep on hiding in that ivory tower. Like you’re so goddamned smart. Telling people how nice it is, how you’re going to hold back for them.
Telling them that they’re safe.
You’re a liar, Teo Blaze.
Because so long as you’re drawing air..?
Nobody is safe.”
His eyes snap open, a roar of air sucking into his lips, but what has been hidden is no darkness, but a roar of flame! The room is engulfed, a roaring and shuddering inferno. Teo’s lungs cry out in his chest as he sucks in the smoke, desperately searching for the source of the fire, confusion giving way quickly to panic.
Desperation, pain- the sucking dryness mixing with the heat as he looks around, his first thought is to grab some kind of alarm, to look for a smoke detector, but there is no luck for the poor man, as he rolls, frantically reaching out, but the flames simply reach back at him, grabbing at his hand. A jolt of searing pain and he recoils, looking desperately as the flames grow closer and closer- the heat becoming nothing short of unbearable. His mind gives way to animal instincts, every nerve, every neuron in his mind crying out for him to run!
But there is nowhere to go. There are flames on all sides, closing in, ever more, the heat growing in intensity to levels that seem impossible. And with each sucking breath, yet more black miasma is drawn into his lungs, his heart pounding, a death march, counting down the moments till there is no more room in his lungs, till there is only smoke.
His vision is fading now, all is a rush of orange a crackle of burning wood; with nothing to do, he falls back against the wall. There is nowhere for him to go- the flames are upon him. His vision is consumed once more by darkness.
And then…
Nothing.
===
A flash of white light consumes the scene as sound begins to emanate once more from the picture, but it is something entirely different; not the orange flames that moments ago filled the scene, but a searing white hot ball of fire against a liquid blue sky; though it is only February, the heat that emanates from it is palpable.
But something is different about the scene; there is a filter over the screen, as if someone is holding a camera. The screen shakes lazily as the view swings around, and there is Teo Blaze, his arm held out, pointing it directly at himself. He smiles and waves with his free hand, a glint of playfulness present in the red-tinted lenses that cover his eyes.
“Hello Wesley. Been a while, hasn't it? But then, life has a funny way of going differently than you might expect.
I'm sure Ariel Shadows can attest to that.
I know this is a tad unorthodox, but I wanted to send you this well in advance; call it an exclusive. Let me put this quite simply- I have been waiting so long to kick your fuckin’ ass that I’ve almost forgotten why I was so mad at you in the first place.
Oh, don’t get me wrong, seeing your greasy, talentless ass week in and week out on Action Wrestling TV is enough to give any sane person homicidal tendencies, but it’s more than that, ya know?
It’s just...something about you that for the longest time I couldn’t put my finger on. When you were on screen, it didn’t make me clench my fists and want to kick your teeth in, I wanted to unplug the set and throw it out of a third story window, because no device should have to live with the fact that it had “The Guru Daddy” on its screen.
It’s that kind of feeling I get when I look at you. In fact, I heard that Femdom had to dunk the Tag Titles in bleach just to get your stench off of them...it had soaked into the leather.
Because that’s your big claim to fame, right? That you were part of a run of dominance in the tag team division! That people will look back on Illumignarly’s time with the tag team championship and say just how great you-”
Teo suddenly stops mid-sentence, bursting out into a fit of wicked and sharp laughter, the camera jostling in his hand as he tries to maintain his balance.
“I’m sorry, I tried, I really did.
Wesley, that reign was so embarrassing, so forgettable, so meaningless that you had to bring in a dancing alien for people to pay attention. The only. Let me repeat, the ONLY reason that you were able to hold onto those belts for as long as you did was because you happened to be in the right place at the right time. Kidsgrove was focused on that Chamber match, and it cost him.
But you know the funny part? You didn’t even get the pin, Guru Daddy. Ariel Shadows? The very one who you tried to distance yourself from? She’s the reason that you got to carry that gold around at all.
And that’s when I realized it. That’s when it all started to hit me. It wasn’t your nonstop, unwarranted arrogance- it wasn’t your insistence on making every moment of screentime into a comedy sketch so awful it would make Tom Green shake his head...no.
It was the constant and disgusting hypocrisy.
I know you may have thought you would shock the world this week when you turned on Ariel, and frankly there may have been more than a few heads turned.
But not me.”
Teo taps his fingers against his glasses. There, though a smile may be etched across his face, the true emotion shines through. He is staring daggers, eyelids barely squinting over sharp pupils. It is a calculated look, as though Teo is holding himself back from breaking into full-on anger.
“The thing about you, Guru Daddy? Is that you want the whole show to be about you. You cling to that camera like a petulant child wanting attention. You have a deep-seated and neurotic obsession with being recognized. With being seen.”
His eyes focus to the side for a moment, as though he is lost momentarily in thought, but he quickly refocuses on the camera.
“No matter what the moment, you have to make it about you. Ariel was your friend, Wesley. Do you understand that? She did something that I have long considered completely impossible. She liked you. Hell, she trusted you.
And what did you do?
You spit it right back in her face. You sacrificed her on the altar of television, a devil’s bargain to get the world talking about you once again. Because without your precious and ill-gotten gold? People don’t care about you. You don’t matter.
You’re nothing.
And Ariel paid the price for five more minutes of fame. You gave up everything that she had given you in the name of your obsession. Because if people aren’t watching the Illumidaddy? The Guru Daddy? The Illumignarly? If you aren’t constantly showing the world your true self...then maybe...maybe what, Wesley?”
Teo reaches up with his spare hand, and removes his glasses. He seems to stare at them for a moment, then, slowly, he puts them into his pocket. He stares up at the camera- his lensless face seeming a strange sight. Upon close inspection, the camera illuminates multiple scars across his skin, deep cuts from wars fought over years. Mere moments ago the glasses may have distracted, but in their absence, every mark becomes illuminated in the white sun.
“Afraid that maybe they’ll see the real you?”
Any semblance of a smile is gone from Teo’s face. His words are fiery as they pour into existence from his mouth.
“Because Wesley...the reason I’ve hated you the moment I met you. The reason that I’ve wanted to kick your teeth down your throat?
Is because the real you is all I’ve ever seen.
And quite frankly...That’s reason enough.”
The camera feed hangs on Teo’s eyes for a moment longer before snapping off to black.
===
A rush of air, cold and perfumed swells in his chest, and his eyes open.
He is on the floor of his hotel room. In the darkness of the night, his breathing is amplified, filling the room with sound. He glances around, trying to gather his bearings. There is no sign of the inferno that mere moments ago filled the room. Instead, there is a small beam of sunlight peeking through the dirty window.
As he starts to sit up, a peculiar feeling washes over him. He seemed to have fallen from the bed, and landed roughly on a pair of torn jeans. He picks them up, and a small tinkling sound fills his ears. Slowly, he reaches into the pocket. With a barely perceptible quiver, his hands remove an object from the pocket.
A small pair of red-lensed glasses, cracked from his landing.
He turns them over in his hand, considering them, before letting them drop from his hand. A wicked smile comes over his face as he turns towards the bedside table. There, on the bedside table, is a small silver lighter.
And etched on one side is a smiling face.
He picks it up, and considers it for a moment. As he lifts the lid and his thumb moves towards the switch, the smile on the lighter and the smile upon his face seem almost identical.
