Post by Valiant_ESQ on Mar 18, 2017 4:55:56 GMT
Dear everyone who sent nasty messages my way r.e. my match at The Awakening - firstly, how the hell did you get my contact deets, and second, boy do I have a story for you!
Picture the scene if you will: it's just after the match. I'm aching, I'm sweaty, but I'm pretty pleased with how it all worked out and now just need to focus on finding an unoccupied shower so I don't stink when I'm irritating Seth Black. Oh, sure, the smell would likely annoy him more but it's not worth the sacrifice of my professional image. So I turn to Melanie and say:
"Nice work out there - gotta admit, I didn't think you'd go through with it all the way, what with you invariably supporting the people I'm fighting against at these shows. But, I'm glad you saw sense. It means a lot, really - in fact mostly everything you do for me is greatly appreciated, Melanie. I don't really say that enough. Thankyou."
...except I only actually say half of that because it turns out I'm not talking to Melanie. She's not even in the building.
Which begs the question, delicately asked thusly:
"...who the fuck are you?"
This man - this man - goes red in his makeup-encrusted face, and shifts his balance awkwardly from one heel to the other. Heels which, from the relative size of his ankles, must be absolute murder on his feet. Then you've got the denim jacket stretched over too-broad shoulders, the camisole stuffed with...I shudder to think what makes such an alarmingly convincing chest, and the crowning horror of the miniskirt. At least he had his legs waxed. That's dedication right there.
Now he's talking, though I may be misremembering his words. Too bemused by his pasty thighs.
"I'm, uh, I-I'm Doug. From I.T.? In Minneapolis? You hired me last year..."
I have no memory of this. Doesn't make it a lie, though - I hire more people than I ever need. It's like collecting Pokémon, if the eventual goal was to later cut the Pokémon loose without a cent to its name and have a glass of champagne while it stumbles out into the wilderness, naked, to die in miserable solitude.
"And you're cross-dressing as my PA because why?"
"I'm due a performance appraisal soon, so I - so I wanted to do something kinda meaningful that would set me apart from the crowd, and you'd left instructions behind for Melanie, but she's not been picking up her phone, and some guy told someone about it, who told me about it, and then I had the idea and...uhm."
I just let him trail off there, since the self-awareness seemed to be kicking in.
"...can...can I go change?"
Believe me, it was tempting to just say 'no'.
"Look...you wanna make a good impression, find Melanie. Nobody's replacing her."
And with that, I stormed off, and for a while I left my nagging secretary-related thoughts back in that hallway with Miss Doug and his paint-on tan. After all, I had more immediate concerns...
It's been a week since then, and I'm starting to worry. I know this, because it's past 3AM right now and I haven't gotten even a minute of my recommended 6 hours sleep.
Still no answer from her phone. I visited her room at the hotel back in Portland, and found it swept clean, the staff insisting she checked out the afternoon of the show. So then I tried her Miami Beach apartment; it was a slovenly heap inside, but only to the degree that she likes it, still no evidence of recent activity or foul play. Tried her family's old digs in Mexico City, the new girlfriend's place (while she was out, don't want to bring her into this), still nothing. No credit card or social media activity. Even calling in a few favours from the FBI for a little extra-legal peeks through metropolitan CCTV networks yielded a big heap of nada.
How does someone fall off the grid so convincingly? And why?
My first thought was kidnapping, naturally, but I've been involved with plenty of those over the years, and never once seen one pulled off with so little trace. And then my second thought hit and I've been mulling over it all night: did she run away from me? Disappearing this convincingly isn't something I'd expect Melanie to be capable of, but...well, dismissive comments like that might give her ample reason to try, and it's not like she hasn't surprised me before. Said surprises used to be the only reason I kept her around.
Used to be. Now it's more -
I sit up, sharply, at the sound. A soft scratching from somewhere near the lounge.
Could be nothing, but...the timing. Feels too fortuitous. Plus, I'm not checked into a hotel right now, I'm at one of my own flats, and a discreet one at that. No-one should know I'm here, not even my driver, since I took a chance and used the self-driving limousine this evening. Last evening? I guess it's tomorrow morning now. Whatever. I am owed the benefit of privacy.
The scratching comes again, like a direct challenge to my assertions. My breath comes quicker now. Gently I push the sheets aside and slip my feet down into a waiting pair of slippers before standing, moving to the bedroom door and picking up a white silk nightgown on the way - actually, y'know what? Let's pick up the chair it was resting on, too. It's an elegantly-woven wooden piece, cumbersome to carry, but it's heavy enough to be a viable weapon. Just in case.
Not a creak from the door when I pull it open, and between the slippers and the luxury carpeting my careful footfalls are almost completely silent. Too bad my every breath sounds like it's rushing through an underground tunnel, at least to my ears. A few more steps down from the landing and I push open a second door, equally quiet. This is the lounge. If it's gonna kick off, it's gonna kick off here...count to three, raise the chair and step through confidently -
"Hhhhhhahhhh!"
And I let my breath go with a sigh. Nothing. Not a single item out of place from where I left them, no lights turned on, no doors or cupboards ajar. I put the chair down and lean heavily against it, taking deep, gulping breaths, telling myself it's okay, though my heart rate isn't buying it. Maybe I could try going out to the balcony for some fresh...air...
The balcony. And there's that scratching again, right on cue. From behind the curtains covering the screen door.
My heart - hell, most of my organs sink to somewhere around my knees as I walk across to the curtains with a calmness I don't in the least bit feel and YES I know I forgot to bring the fucking chair over with me but that just doesn't matter anymore, and when I'm close I can see something in silhouette thanks to the moonlight but I don't know what it is, or why it isn't breaking through the glass to end me right now. So I pull, and the curtains part, and there's a bird there. A crow, or a raven.
...I mean, it's spooky and all but I expected ninjas with machine guns.
It rests on the railing, staring at me with its head cocked to the side, and as it shifts one foot that familiar scratching reaches my ears, the sound of talons scraping on metal. With a sigh, I unlatch the screen door - it's dumb, but if I'm getting any sleep tonight it'll only be with this thing gone. The sounds of the city below - mild traffic, whispering wind, a dull electrical hum underneath it all - greet me as the door opens and I step out, shivering a bit from the night's chill. The bird - pretty sure it is a raven - doesn't move, even when I step to within 5 feet of the thing. It just keeps staring with its beady little eye.
"You better not be expecting food after all this."
No reaction. Figures.
But then I notice why only one of its feet moved earlier. There's something pinned beneath the other, something small and thin, pink and yellow - it's a phone, and unless I'm very much mistaken...please let me be mistaken...I reach for it, and the bird still doesn't move, not until I give the thing a tug and the animal has to shuffle irritably to the side for fear of falling off its perch.
There's a few scrapes on the phone I don't remember, but it's got the same flowery strap as Melanie's, and when turned on it has a long backlog of unread messages and mixed calls. Stabbing at the screen with numb fingers, I bring up the first message - it's actually a photo, a photo of Melanie. She's laid out in some room I don't recognize, asleep, and there are bruises around her wrists. No other details beyond the date, telling me this picture is 3 days old already.
No ransom demand. No needless taunting. And when the raven takes off with a sudden rustle of feathers, heading back to wherever it calls home, I slump weakly to my knees, overcome by the understanding of who it is I'm dealing with here, and the very real likelihood that the next time I see Melanie, she'll be in bloody pieces. And all just to punish her for knowing me.
I...I need to think about anything else right now.
Look, 'Fin-Isher' or however you choose to spell your dumbass name: I've not had a great time this past couple of weeks. There's a not-insignificant part of me that wants to bail on Redemption 106 and just go crawl into a bottle - or more likely a whole wine cellar - until I can't remember my own name. And it's hell trying to ignore that voice in my head. So you have to understand that I've not been quite so thorough in my study of you as I have been with past opposition.
That being said: I'm choosing to ignore that little voice and keep on working. That, to me, is the mark of a healthy mind. Plus - and this is the part where you come in - something dear was taken from me recently. So now I desire nothing more than to tear away something important from someone else, for the sake of my blackhearted amusement.
Not that you have a lot to shout about, Fin-boy. You've got a YouTube show, a string of successive shock victories, and a dumb outfit to your name. And since I don't want your sweaty clothes, and in all likelihood Google will sell off YouTube in the near future and completely ruin it for amateurs like you, that leaves me with no recourse but to end your winning streak. Too bad. So sad! But that's just the way it has to be. Look on the bright side, though - when you're stuck at home, nursing yourself back to health after we're through, you'll have plenty of time for more vlogs. See? Squint a little bit and we all get what we want. It's a win-win scenario.
And fuck Seth Black.
Total: 1900 words according to wordcounter.net (not including this bit here)
Picture the scene if you will: it's just after the match. I'm aching, I'm sweaty, but I'm pretty pleased with how it all worked out and now just need to focus on finding an unoccupied shower so I don't stink when I'm irritating Seth Black. Oh, sure, the smell would likely annoy him more but it's not worth the sacrifice of my professional image. So I turn to Melanie and say:
"Nice work out there - gotta admit, I didn't think you'd go through with it all the way, what with you invariably supporting the people I'm fighting against at these shows. But, I'm glad you saw sense. It means a lot, really - in fact mostly everything you do for me is greatly appreciated, Melanie. I don't really say that enough. Thankyou."
...except I only actually say half of that because it turns out I'm not talking to Melanie. She's not even in the building.
Which begs the question, delicately asked thusly:
"...who the fuck are you?"
This man - this man - goes red in his makeup-encrusted face, and shifts his balance awkwardly from one heel to the other. Heels which, from the relative size of his ankles, must be absolute murder on his feet. Then you've got the denim jacket stretched over too-broad shoulders, the camisole stuffed with...I shudder to think what makes such an alarmingly convincing chest, and the crowning horror of the miniskirt. At least he had his legs waxed. That's dedication right there.
Now he's talking, though I may be misremembering his words. Too bemused by his pasty thighs.
"I'm, uh, I-I'm Doug. From I.T.? In Minneapolis? You hired me last year..."
I have no memory of this. Doesn't make it a lie, though - I hire more people than I ever need. It's like collecting Pokémon, if the eventual goal was to later cut the Pokémon loose without a cent to its name and have a glass of champagne while it stumbles out into the wilderness, naked, to die in miserable solitude.
"And you're cross-dressing as my PA because why?"
"I'm due a performance appraisal soon, so I - so I wanted to do something kinda meaningful that would set me apart from the crowd, and you'd left instructions behind for Melanie, but she's not been picking up her phone, and some guy told someone about it, who told me about it, and then I had the idea and...uhm."
I just let him trail off there, since the self-awareness seemed to be kicking in.
"...can...can I go change?"
Believe me, it was tempting to just say 'no'.
"Look...you wanna make a good impression, find Melanie. Nobody's replacing her."
And with that, I stormed off, and for a while I left my nagging secretary-related thoughts back in that hallway with Miss Doug and his paint-on tan. After all, I had more immediate concerns...
~V~
It's been a week since then, and I'm starting to worry. I know this, because it's past 3AM right now and I haven't gotten even a minute of my recommended 6 hours sleep.
Still no answer from her phone. I visited her room at the hotel back in Portland, and found it swept clean, the staff insisting she checked out the afternoon of the show. So then I tried her Miami Beach apartment; it was a slovenly heap inside, but only to the degree that she likes it, still no evidence of recent activity or foul play. Tried her family's old digs in Mexico City, the new girlfriend's place (while she was out, don't want to bring her into this), still nothing. No credit card or social media activity. Even calling in a few favours from the FBI for a little extra-legal peeks through metropolitan CCTV networks yielded a big heap of nada.
How does someone fall off the grid so convincingly? And why?
My first thought was kidnapping, naturally, but I've been involved with plenty of those over the years, and never once seen one pulled off with so little trace. And then my second thought hit and I've been mulling over it all night: did she run away from me? Disappearing this convincingly isn't something I'd expect Melanie to be capable of, but...well, dismissive comments like that might give her ample reason to try, and it's not like she hasn't surprised me before. Said surprises used to be the only reason I kept her around.
Used to be. Now it's more -
I sit up, sharply, at the sound. A soft scratching from somewhere near the lounge.
Could be nothing, but...the timing. Feels too fortuitous. Plus, I'm not checked into a hotel right now, I'm at one of my own flats, and a discreet one at that. No-one should know I'm here, not even my driver, since I took a chance and used the self-driving limousine this evening. Last evening? I guess it's tomorrow morning now. Whatever. I am owed the benefit of privacy.
The scratching comes again, like a direct challenge to my assertions. My breath comes quicker now. Gently I push the sheets aside and slip my feet down into a waiting pair of slippers before standing, moving to the bedroom door and picking up a white silk nightgown on the way - actually, y'know what? Let's pick up the chair it was resting on, too. It's an elegantly-woven wooden piece, cumbersome to carry, but it's heavy enough to be a viable weapon. Just in case.
Not a creak from the door when I pull it open, and between the slippers and the luxury carpeting my careful footfalls are almost completely silent. Too bad my every breath sounds like it's rushing through an underground tunnel, at least to my ears. A few more steps down from the landing and I push open a second door, equally quiet. This is the lounge. If it's gonna kick off, it's gonna kick off here...count to three, raise the chair and step through confidently -
"Hhhhhhahhhh!"
And I let my breath go with a sigh. Nothing. Not a single item out of place from where I left them, no lights turned on, no doors or cupboards ajar. I put the chair down and lean heavily against it, taking deep, gulping breaths, telling myself it's okay, though my heart rate isn't buying it. Maybe I could try going out to the balcony for some fresh...air...
The balcony. And there's that scratching again, right on cue. From behind the curtains covering the screen door.
My heart - hell, most of my organs sink to somewhere around my knees as I walk across to the curtains with a calmness I don't in the least bit feel and YES I know I forgot to bring the fucking chair over with me but that just doesn't matter anymore, and when I'm close I can see something in silhouette thanks to the moonlight but I don't know what it is, or why it isn't breaking through the glass to end me right now. So I pull, and the curtains part, and there's a bird there. A crow, or a raven.
...I mean, it's spooky and all but I expected ninjas with machine guns.
It rests on the railing, staring at me with its head cocked to the side, and as it shifts one foot that familiar scratching reaches my ears, the sound of talons scraping on metal. With a sigh, I unlatch the screen door - it's dumb, but if I'm getting any sleep tonight it'll only be with this thing gone. The sounds of the city below - mild traffic, whispering wind, a dull electrical hum underneath it all - greet me as the door opens and I step out, shivering a bit from the night's chill. The bird - pretty sure it is a raven - doesn't move, even when I step to within 5 feet of the thing. It just keeps staring with its beady little eye.
"You better not be expecting food after all this."
No reaction. Figures.
But then I notice why only one of its feet moved earlier. There's something pinned beneath the other, something small and thin, pink and yellow - it's a phone, and unless I'm very much mistaken...please let me be mistaken...I reach for it, and the bird still doesn't move, not until I give the thing a tug and the animal has to shuffle irritably to the side for fear of falling off its perch.
There's a few scrapes on the phone I don't remember, but it's got the same flowery strap as Melanie's, and when turned on it has a long backlog of unread messages and mixed calls. Stabbing at the screen with numb fingers, I bring up the first message - it's actually a photo, a photo of Melanie. She's laid out in some room I don't recognize, asleep, and there are bruises around her wrists. No other details beyond the date, telling me this picture is 3 days old already.
No ransom demand. No needless taunting. And when the raven takes off with a sudden rustle of feathers, heading back to wherever it calls home, I slump weakly to my knees, overcome by the understanding of who it is I'm dealing with here, and the very real likelihood that the next time I see Melanie, she'll be in bloody pieces. And all just to punish her for knowing me.
I...I need to think about anything else right now.
~V~
Look, 'Fin-Isher' or however you choose to spell your dumbass name: I've not had a great time this past couple of weeks. There's a not-insignificant part of me that wants to bail on Redemption 106 and just go crawl into a bottle - or more likely a whole wine cellar - until I can't remember my own name. And it's hell trying to ignore that voice in my head. So you have to understand that I've not been quite so thorough in my study of you as I have been with past opposition.
That being said: I'm choosing to ignore that little voice and keep on working. That, to me, is the mark of a healthy mind. Plus - and this is the part where you come in - something dear was taken from me recently. So now I desire nothing more than to tear away something important from someone else, for the sake of my blackhearted amusement.
Not that you have a lot to shout about, Fin-boy. You've got a YouTube show, a string of successive shock victories, and a dumb outfit to your name. And since I don't want your sweaty clothes, and in all likelihood Google will sell off YouTube in the near future and completely ruin it for amateurs like you, that leaves me with no recourse but to end your winning streak. Too bad. So sad! But that's just the way it has to be. Look on the bright side, though - when you're stuck at home, nursing yourself back to health after we're through, you'll have plenty of time for more vlogs. See? Squint a little bit and we all get what we want. It's a win-win scenario.
And fuck Seth Black.
~V~
Total: 1900 words according to wordcounter.net (not including this bit here)