The Old Gods Slumber

[baron]

The Old Gods Slumber

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I shouldn’t be here, he kept thinking to himself.

Scott Reave shouldn’t be here. He should be up there, up in the clouds, high as a kite and worshipped by millions across the world. He most certainly deserved better than… whatever the hell this was.

Was he even supposed to be considered a veteran?

All around him, he saw ancient relics of a bygone age. A time long forgotten, only remembered by old men and their desperate, virginal grandchildren. Fat, ugly, out of shape, and all around ostracized remnants of a society that had long ago forgotten the name of Scott Reave, let alone what he looked like.

“And who do I make this out to?” He heard another say. He turned his eyes to the sound, and saw an older gentleman. A man like he was, so broken down and twisted into a shape barely resembling a man. This was his future, he thought to himself. This is where the old gods go to die.

And that’s exactly what it was, he thought. The Old Gods, the ones who had come before, the ones who had lived their adult years sleeping in cars just to hear their names chanted by ten thousand—fifteen thousand people every night. Every night they yearned for that high. That feeling of electricity that rippled through their veins when the music hit, and they made their walk to the ring.

Are they this desperate? He thinks.

They can’t be, they can’t be, he repeats over and over in his head. He rolls it around like loose cargo on a swaying ship. They can’t be so desperate as to feed on the attention, however little it is, that these remnants offer. Worship, is it? Is it worship they crave? So craven a desire as to want the worship of those who had not forgotten, those who remembered, those who didn’t matter anymore.

It was a sick, cyclical, symbiotic thing. Like a mewling babe fresh from the womb, discarded amongst the afterbirth, struggling for breath in the harsh, bitter winds. They had been discarded for a reason, Scott thought. Survival of the fittest. All he saw as he looked around the shitty convention, was sad, miserable old men catch a glimpse of an age long since past.

“Hey there,” Scott hears, and his attention is snapped back to reality. Back to the present. Back to the fourty-something woman in front of him. She’s wearing a low-cut v-neck t-shirt, something she had done herself. It does her no favours, since the handle bars on the side of her gut expose the stretch marks of birth. No doubt, at one point in time, she was something else. She might’ve been interesting. All Scott saw right now, was a sad attempt to hold onto the past.

Just like him.

“Hi, what can I do you for?” He says. He always liked that phrase.

“Oh um, I’d like an autograph,” she says, and reaches into her purse. Scott doesn’t bother looking for the 8x10’s lost somewhere in his stack of homemade merchandise. What for? This was someone who had loved him. Appreciated him. Had worshipped him.

She pulls out her own memento. A token of a time when she was still young, when she was still pretty. It’s a poster. A poster that ran for one night outside some bingo hall in Topeka, Kansas. The memory hit Scott like a hammer.

“Wow,” he says, “I haven’t seen this since—“

“Ace Borger’s last match, yeah. You took him out with a Street Spirit and then broke his arm anyway. He hasn’t been the same since.”

She smiles as she recalls the night. Scott barely even remembered that much, and it disturbed him. To think that such a trivial thing, such an unimportant night could be stuck in this woman’s memory forever.

“Yeah, that was it,” he says, forcing a smile.

He’s caught in the moment, just like that. All the way back to the beginning of 2007. All the way back to February, when he finally shut the mouth of Ace Borger, the biggest blow-hard he had ever seen.

“Hey, Scott?” She says, but she sounds distant. Somewhere else. He’s back in the arena. He can smell the stale popcorn, the piss and shit from the bathroom stalls. He’s waiting for Heather to call his name, to introduce him as the Heavyweight Champion of the World. He’s—

“Scott?”

--Back in another bingo hall. Selling autographs like pieces of himself for ten dollars a pop.

“I’m sorry, what was your name?”

It’s Vivian, he learns. He asks what she wants it to say, what’s the personal message? Scott always wondered about that. Why fans always wanted a personalized memento, something to hold onto, to make them think that somehow, someway, they had gotten The Old God’s attention, however brief. They’d cherish this, Scott thought. They’d cherish this token like it was a holy treasure. They’d mount it, frame it, keep it safe. To remind them of a better time, in a better world.

All the while, through all the autographs, the mementos, the pieces of himself he sold for another hit, another rail, another needle in his arm, Scott kept coming back to that one night. That one night where the world was his, where the world watched, where the world knew and accepted Scott Reave.

It was a bitter memory. One he couldn’t wait to burn away, when he pumped the heroin into his veins later that night.

---

I look in your eyes and I see an earnestness I haven’t felt since… shit, since I started myself. I look in your eyes, kid, and I see that you have the desire. Passion motivates you. You think that by sheer force of will you will somehow make a dent in this business, perhaps even make your bones off of Scott Reave. A new kid. A rookie. Some kid from England with a heart full of pride who bleeds piss and vinegar. I like the idea of that. I’m quite fond of story books, “Rogue,” but the problem with story books… they’re not real.

If anything, they’re cautionary by nature. They’re tales meant to inspire the young ones to fall in line, to think about their actions, to make them dependent on the authority in their lives, and like all good fairytales, yours needs a villain. Well, “Rogue,” I’m your huckleberry.

I’ll be your beast. I’ll be your monster. I’ll be the dragon sleeping in his cave. I’ll be whatever this story needs me to be. Think about it, for a moment. You’re so eager for the storybook beginning, so eager to prove yourself and make your bones on Scott Reave, you’re not stopping to think just what kind of hell you’re stepping into. You’re like a delusional knight in his shining armour, riding toward the cave of the dragon. You’ll arrive, thinking you’re ready. You’ll draw your sword and hold your shield high, but when the ground quakes beneath your feet, and when the shadow that the dragon casts blocks the sun, and your entire world falls to darkness, maybe then you’ll realize that this isn’t a fucking storybook.

Maybe then you’ll realize, that pissing off a sleeping dragon was the worst thing you could do.

But I do hope to see that look in your eye, “Rogue,” when you’re in the ring, waiting for the lights to dim, waiting for the war cry of my entrance music, waiting for the fans to welcome me with anticipation so fierce, their knees quake. You’ll look at them and wonder, ‘why are they cheering him on, when I’m the good guy?’ and the answer will be striking you down so fast, so fiercely, that you’ll have barely a moment to answer your own question, “Rogue.”

They’ll be on my side not because I’m good at what I do, not because they like seeing young kids get hurt, but because, and this is the simple truth now, but because they like seeing people built up, and then torn the fuck down.

That’s what I do, kid. I tear people down.

Your trainer, your whoever, made the simple mistake of agreeing to this match. He should’ve protected you. He should’ve honoured you. But instead of that, his own greed and determination to push you as far and as fast as he can to make the money he wants to make put your career in danger. If anything, you should looking at him and asking him, why? Ask him why he put you here. Ask him if he really thinks you’re ready for this. Ask him, right before this dragon takes a deep breath and burns your life away, ask him why he chose to sacrifice you to earn that extra dollar?

You can walk into Combat and think whatever you want. Believe that with the power of Will on your side, you can overcome anything. Believe that if you say your prayers and eat your vitamins, you can body slam mountains. Believe that you’re twelve feet tall and bulletproof all you want, but at the end of the day, the truth of the matter is that this is no fucking storybook. This is life. And in real life, Scott Reave is the big bad wolf. And Scott Reave is sitting outside your house of cards, kid, and he’s getting ready to huff and puff.

So when you’re left holding your battered, broken arm, when you’re trying to piece together what just happened, when you’re on your back, staring up at those lights blurred through tears and sweat, I want you to ask yourself one thing, kid. I want you to ask yourself one, simple, question.

Was it worth it?