Post by Eternity on Jan 30, 2016 23:13:06 GMT
A much too familiar sense of fear rises within you as you are once again brought into my world riding wisps of yellow smoke. Yellow, like the fever, it grips you and it makes you sick as you see Eliza Valentine sat on a simple wooden chair in the middle of the darkened room under a single purple spotlight. She is wearing an orange paper crown on her head, the kind you find in Christmas crackers.
You hear my footsteps approach her before you see me dressed in a nurse's uniform, complete with surgical mask over my face and perhaps most terrifyingly a syringe in my right hand.
Now, this takes us back, doesn't it, Eliza?
Do you remember it as fondly as I do? Two months ago, the 25th of November, it was a Wednesday, the middle of the week, just like you were when I found you, remember?
Eliza: Wh-wh-who are you?
Who? Who? Hoohoo are you? I love that song. it's a real classic, don't you think?
Eliza: Wh-wh-where am I?
Don't worry, it'll all come flooding back, it always does.
Eliza: Wh-wh-what do you want from me?
Ultimately? Your eyes opened to the ways of the world. Immediately? Well, a challenge would be nice, wouldn't it? We do have a match at Metamorphosis on Sunday after all, and as much as I could simplify things by leaving you paralysed, I'm sure the referee would have an even bigger problem with it than you do.
Eliza: Sunday? When's that?
After Saturday, obviously. Oh sorry, you mean in relation to now don't you?
You see me look at my wrist to consult a watch that wasn't there.
Let's see, both hands on the eight, carry the three, divide by point five. Umm Less than twenty four hours from now, I think.
You see Eliza slowly reach up and take the paper crown from her head, her hands still twitching. She drops it in her lap.
Eliza: What's this?
Oh, it is many things. It can be whatever you want it to be. A symbol of what's at stake this Sunday, a representation of how fragile your hopes are, maybe it's to show you the kind of wisdom I hope you get from all of this in the end, or maybe just maybe it's just some stupid little thing that belongs inside a cracker and that's why you have it.
Let it be whatever it is to you, Lizzie.
Eliza: You're crazy, I'm getting out of here...
And just how far do you think you'll get without me? Where will you go? Back to Austin? Kayla, maybe? They don't care about you, not like I do.
Eliza: I don't care. Anywhere has got to be better than here...with you...
Eliza then tries to stand on her own.
Uh, I wouldn't do that...
Eliza: Watch me...
A defiant and determined Eliza slowly rises out of her chair, the crown falls from her lap. She's a little wobbly but standing, she lets out a chuckle as she takes two steps towards me and is suddenly overcome with dizziness and double vision. Eliza collapses in front of me, her right hip hitting the ground first.
You see me sigh and shake my head before I squat before a fallen Eliza as she lays next to her crown.
I knew you weren't ready for this...
Eliza: The room's spinning. Help me...please...
What do you think I'm trying to do?
You see me then stand, sigh and turn away from Eliza and walk into the shadows.
Mommy always said that there was no rest for the wicked.
Eliza: Hey! Where are you going? You can't leave me here like this!
Moments later you see me return, a fresh syringe in hand, you see me drop to my knees over Eliza. I then jab the syringe directly into her neck. I then stroke her hair gently.
Don't worry Lizzie, I've sent them in again. They'll help you...
Eliza: Who?
The clowns, of course! THE CLOWNS!
Eliza's blue eyes then dilate as fear paints itself across her face and she screams, held hostage once more by her darkest fears. She starts flailing helplessly as she lays on the floor, trying to escape the grip terror now held over her mind.
There they are...
You see me clap my hands excitedly.
I always did love the circus.
HuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHA!
You hear my footsteps approach her before you see me dressed in a nurse's uniform, complete with surgical mask over my face and perhaps most terrifyingly a syringe in my right hand.
Now, this takes us back, doesn't it, Eliza?
Do you remember it as fondly as I do? Two months ago, the 25th of November, it was a Wednesday, the middle of the week, just like you were when I found you, remember?
~~~~
A particularly cautious nurse in a surgical mask enters the room where the comatose pretty young blonde girl slept.
She looked so peaceful, just laying there, no longer bothered by the clowns she'd been wrestling with before she was brought here four weeks ago.
How does such a pretty little thing get mixed up in a world as strange and as fabricated as professional wrestling anyway?
The nurse wondered as she wandered over to the girl's bedside.
Better not get too close, she reminded herself, you could never be too careful around the sick and the dying.
And this young girl was dying, even if all her doctors could not see it, the nurse had seen it all before.
Nothing kills a person faster than a broken heart, that much the nurse knew even without her degree. There really was no substitute for first hand experience when it came to things like this.
The nurse checked to see the door was closed behind her before she pulled out a syringe and injected some life back into the young girl.
"Wakey, wakey, sleeping beauty..." whispered the nurse, as she leant in close enough to take in Eliza's scent, reminding herself of how her mother used to wake her up for school every morning, so many years ago.
Those were the days.
Moments later Eliza's beautiful blue eyes fluttered open and she locked eyes with the brown-eyed nurse.
"Good afternoon, my little butterfly," whispered the nurse. "Don't scream."
Eliza Valentine looked confused for a moment.
"Wh-Why would I?" stammered a still groggy Eliza.
"Because that's what people do when they face their fears," said the nurse.
"Wh-who are you?"
"Your salvation," answered the nurse, dropping her mask to reveal a face that Eliza didn't immediately recognise. Until the nurse smiled and brought it all back.
Eliza focused on those full crimson lips for a moment before her eyes darted up to the tattooed heart under the nurse's dusky eyes and then her heart started to race as her fear gripped her. Her scream barely escaped as a squeal as I placed my hand firmly across her mouth.
"I wouldn't waste your breath darling," I said. "We don't know how many you have left, understand?"
Eliza nods, as I shake my head and sigh, removing my hand from her mouth.
"No, you don't. If you did, we wouldn't be here right now and I wouldn't have to do any of this."
"Do what?"
"See? You really don't understand why I'm here, do you?"
"You put me in here, which means you're here because you feel guilty...or you're here to gloat, either way I'm not interested in anything you're selling," said Eliza.
"Selling, no. You can never sell anyone anything they don't already want, and I know what you want Lizzie. I know what you've always wanted..."
"And what's that?"
"Control. Control over your own life, your own destiny, your emotions. Control over everything that makes you so tragically human. Control over how much you still love her and miss her deep down inside your heart, no matter how much you try to convince yourself or her that you really don't."
"Kayla," whispered Eliza. "Did she? Did she ever come to see me?"
"No."
"Why should I believe you?"
"You shouldn't, you should ask the nurses. Shall we get them in here? You can ask them yourself exactly who came to see you in the last month. I'm sure it's a long list..."
I reach up to press the call nurse button at Eliza's bedside, but she reaches up and lightly grasps my wrist, barely holding on.
"Nobody really cares about me, do they?" reasoned Eliza.
"I do, or I wouldn't be here."
"Why are you here?"
"I've asked myself that so many times. I wish I had all the answers, but I don't. All I have is a gift. One I'm willing to share with you."
"What kind of gift?"
"Oh, it's a wonderful gift, don't worry. It's the best, I promise."
I smile, producing another syringe, grinning.
"What's that?"
"Control. Absolute control in its purest form. Just what the doctor ordered."
I pull the mask back over my face and the nurse injects Eliza again, in total control.
"In about five minutes, you're going to feel an itch, in ten, your skin will feel like it's on fire and in fifteen you'll be in so much pain that they'll have no choice but to put you back in a coma while they try to figure out what your latest symptom means..."
"What?! What do you mean latest symptom?"
"You didn't think this was my first time doing this, did you?"
"You bitch!"
"Trust me, it's better this way."
"This is your plan to give me back control of my life? Leaving me in pain?"
"Your pain will bring people to you. They'll come in droves, all desperate to help you,because they're only human, because that's their job. That's what they're trained to do. Knowing that gives you control over their most base emotions and once you learn to manipulate that, you're in control forever. You'll see..." said the nurse, before she turned away and left the room.
~~~~
It really is such a terrible place to be, isn't it? Stuck in the middle of the weak like that. It's no place for a bright, young woman like you. It's no place for Eliza Valentine. No, it's no place for someone even the roughest Diamond of the whole of last year hails the brightest and best future of an entire Division.
Wow, Lizzie, if even your arrogant bitch of an ex can still hold you in such high regard after everything that went down between you not so long ago, it means that either you really are that damn special or it means that Kayla Richards is just that damn stupid.
If it's the former, I have yet to see it. If it's the latter, well good on you for dumping her, you deserve so much better.
You need somebody in your life who knows how to give you more than they take.
You see me lean in close to Eliza, her eyes glazed over.
You need me in your life, don't you Eliza? If for no other reason than that I am nothing like her. She hurt you. I could never do that. Kayla has already taken so much from you, the Diamond in the Rough 2015 award, the Shieldmaiden, and most unforgivably of all she took your heart.
Took your heart and left you a hollow and empty shell of everything you once were.
I know what that's like, Eliza, believe me.
Believe in me, because I know what it's like to be abandoned.
If I didn't, I wouldn't be trying so hard to put the pieces back together. If I didn't know exactly what you were going through right now, I wouldn't be trying so hard to refill the shell and rebuild the wall they shattered when they left us both behind, sisters from different misters. Unwanted, unloved, bound only by a sense of sorrow that we really should be over by now.
Or so they tell us.
But what do they know? What do any of them really know about people like us Eliza?
Not as much as they think they do, that's for damn sure.
They don't know your pain, they don't know your fear and they don't know just how much you've already overcome just to be here today. They don't know you like I do, Lizzie. They look at you and all they see is a zombie at best and a puppet at worst, but we both know that you're neither.
You can't be a puppet because you just don't have the stings for it, sorry.
You can't be a zombie because that insatiable hunger that drives you isn't for the brain, but it is for the head.
The head of the Diamonds Division.
The head of my daughter.
You hear me sigh and see me shake my head, before I finally inject Eliza in her exposed left thigh with the syringe, Eliza doesn't react.
It's a damned shame. I really thought the two of you might get on. The last few months have been rough on both of you, haven't they?
Things haven't been the same for me either ever since she left, you know. You try your best, you try to raise them right, you give them everything you possibly can, including the world - twice, and in the end they soon forget you. Even more than that, they start to act like you never existed, never did anything for them.
Do you know how much something like that hurts?
Suddenly Eliza's muscles start to twitch and spasm, the effect rippling slowly through each of her four limbs as she gradually regains control of them, Eliza's jaw opens slowly as she starts to speak.
Wow, Lizzie, if even your arrogant bitch of an ex can still hold you in such high regard after everything that went down between you not so long ago, it means that either you really are that damn special or it means that Kayla Richards is just that damn stupid.
If it's the former, I have yet to see it. If it's the latter, well good on you for dumping her, you deserve so much better.
You need somebody in your life who knows how to give you more than they take.
You see me lean in close to Eliza, her eyes glazed over.
You need me in your life, don't you Eliza? If for no other reason than that I am nothing like her. She hurt you. I could never do that. Kayla has already taken so much from you, the Diamond in the Rough 2015 award, the Shieldmaiden, and most unforgivably of all she took your heart.
Took your heart and left you a hollow and empty shell of everything you once were.
I know what that's like, Eliza, believe me.
Believe in me, because I know what it's like to be abandoned.
If I didn't, I wouldn't be trying so hard to put the pieces back together. If I didn't know exactly what you were going through right now, I wouldn't be trying so hard to refill the shell and rebuild the wall they shattered when they left us both behind, sisters from different misters. Unwanted, unloved, bound only by a sense of sorrow that we really should be over by now.
Or so they tell us.
But what do they know? What do any of them really know about people like us Eliza?
Not as much as they think they do, that's for damn sure.
They don't know your pain, they don't know your fear and they don't know just how much you've already overcome just to be here today. They don't know you like I do, Lizzie. They look at you and all they see is a zombie at best and a puppet at worst, but we both know that you're neither.
You can't be a puppet because you just don't have the stings for it, sorry.
You can't be a zombie because that insatiable hunger that drives you isn't for the brain, but it is for the head.
The head of the Diamonds Division.
The head of my daughter.
You hear me sigh and see me shake my head, before I finally inject Eliza in her exposed left thigh with the syringe, Eliza doesn't react.
It's a damned shame. I really thought the two of you might get on. The last few months have been rough on both of you, haven't they?
Things haven't been the same for me either ever since she left, you know. You try your best, you try to raise them right, you give them everything you possibly can, including the world - twice, and in the end they soon forget you. Even more than that, they start to act like you never existed, never did anything for them.
Do you know how much something like that hurts?
Suddenly Eliza's muscles start to twitch and spasm, the effect rippling slowly through each of her four limbs as she gradually regains control of them, Eliza's jaw opens slowly as she starts to speak.
Eliza: Wh-wh-who are you?
Who? Who? Hoohoo are you? I love that song. it's a real classic, don't you think?
Eliza: Wh-wh-where am I?
Don't worry, it'll all come flooding back, it always does.
Eliza: Wh-wh-what do you want from me?
Ultimately? Your eyes opened to the ways of the world. Immediately? Well, a challenge would be nice, wouldn't it? We do have a match at Metamorphosis on Sunday after all, and as much as I could simplify things by leaving you paralysed, I'm sure the referee would have an even bigger problem with it than you do.
Eliza: Sunday? When's that?
After Saturday, obviously. Oh sorry, you mean in relation to now don't you?
You see me look at my wrist to consult a watch that wasn't there.
Let's see, both hands on the eight, carry the three, divide by point five. Umm Less than twenty four hours from now, I think.
You see Eliza slowly reach up and take the paper crown from her head, her hands still twitching. She drops it in her lap.
Eliza: What's this?
Oh, it is many things. It can be whatever you want it to be. A symbol of what's at stake this Sunday, a representation of how fragile your hopes are, maybe it's to show you the kind of wisdom I hope you get from all of this in the end, or maybe just maybe it's just some stupid little thing that belongs inside a cracker and that's why you have it.
Let it be whatever it is to you, Lizzie.
Eliza: You're crazy, I'm getting out of here...
And just how far do you think you'll get without me? Where will you go? Back to Austin? Kayla, maybe? They don't care about you, not like I do.
Eliza: I don't care. Anywhere has got to be better than here...with you...
Eliza then tries to stand on her own.
Uh, I wouldn't do that...
Eliza: Watch me...
A defiant and determined Eliza slowly rises out of her chair, the crown falls from her lap. She's a little wobbly but standing, she lets out a chuckle as she takes two steps towards me and is suddenly overcome with dizziness and double vision. Eliza collapses in front of me, her right hip hitting the ground first.
You see me sigh and shake my head before I squat before a fallen Eliza as she lays next to her crown.
I knew you weren't ready for this...
Eliza: The room's spinning. Help me...please...
What do you think I'm trying to do?
You see me then stand, sigh and turn away from Eliza and walk into the shadows.
Mommy always said that there was no rest for the wicked.
Eliza: Hey! Where are you going? You can't leave me here like this!
Moments later you see me return, a fresh syringe in hand, you see me drop to my knees over Eliza. I then jab the syringe directly into her neck. I then stroke her hair gently.
Don't worry Lizzie, I've sent them in again. They'll help you...
Eliza: Who?
The clowns, of course! THE CLOWNS!
Eliza's blue eyes then dilate as fear paints itself across her face and she screams, held hostage once more by her darkest fears. She starts flailing helplessly as she lays on the floor, trying to escape the grip terror now held over her mind.
There they are...
You see me clap my hands excitedly.
I always did love the circus.
HuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Well howdy there pardner.