END.MP4 - "This is a story about hurting people"

[Izzy Anders]

“I believe in one thing only, the power of human will.”

If you looked at this quote, you’d believe it to belong to some humanitarian. 

It’s a quote from Joseph Stalin. 

I heard this from school once, which led me to believe in the power of human will. I never knew who said it, I never cared. It was a sweet enough thought. Human beings were capable of so much when they pushed themselves to win. They will stand against any adversity and any foe. They’ll rally with a bright smile on their face and a fire in their hearts. I always imagined the gutsy army of warriors standing before the indomitable army. They know they’ll lose, but they’ll surely go out fighting. They’ll take as many bastards down as they humanely can. 

When I found out who spoke the words, I didn’t perceive in any other light. Stalin was a man, just like all of us. He was cruel, but he knew what he was about. I still took the words as motivation. I still saw the army of few standing against the perils of the many. I never saw past that fantasy. I never knew how fearsome the will of humanity truly was.

Until I felt it in its rawest essence myself.

“Get up, bitch,” I thought I had escaped my past long enough. My past came back into my life with a pistol butt to the side of my face. I hit the pavement roughly, tried to get to my feet, and received a steel plated kick to the ribs. I couldn’t get up if I kept getting a boot to the rib every time I did. I simply laid on the ground, trying not to cough. My breathing was faulty at this point, but it wasn’t anything too bad.

Another kick struck right in my spin, but it was so misplaced that it only gave me a jolt. I rolled over to get some sort of advantage and made it to my feet. “You want another shot at that?” I asked coyly. Before me stood several guys, four in number. They all outsized me, but one of them was already injured. I broke his arm when he threw a sloppy haymaker. Don’t bring amateurs to a beat down.

As I stood in front of these men, I knew that I wouldn’t leave unscathed. I just knew that if I didn’t take at least one of them down, I would not be able to run away. Something in my mind snapped. Maybe it was tension after all this time. I coped myself in a room for what felt like forever. When I didn’t have a show, I would sit in my room and play video games. Overwatch was my life for the most part, but there was no violence. 

The first guy came at me, throwing a haymaker. I let him hit me. It didn’t hurt. I fell into the wall. When he rushed in for more, I laughed hard. He stopped which let me get the drop on him. I threw a front kick at his knee. It made him buckle, which allowed me to knee him in the face. Again. And again. And again. It was fantastic. Blood almost sprayed from his nose. 

The third guy ran in only to get taken down by a sweep kick. When he landed, I jumped up and stomped his head with full intent to maim. I kept stomping away until the second guy got up. He hit me in the side with a metal pipe. I lost my breath. I fell to the ground, but as I sat there, I felt no pain again. I felt numbness. I kept trying to make it to my feet, but he kicked me again. The last kick was the perfect time for me to get up. 

When he came at me again, I knew right then and there that I had to put him down. I threw another kick to the knee. The first one didn’t break it, but I knew the second one would. When he fell, because his knee caved in, I heard the roar of the anxious crowd. While I stood there, I grinned and pointed at the man with the broken arm. I ran up and kicked the second man in the face. 

It was a gift from me to him.

---

“Dom, let me tell you the story of when you first came back.”

“You ran in and saved Annie Zellor’s new reign from me. You kept her dreams alive while dashing my hopes. I bet you felt like a hero, if you could feel like one,” sniffle, “I bet you can’t. You know yourself pretty well, I admit. As of late you’ve revealed to me that you’re not ignorant. You’re perceptive of things. Even at that, you’re…kinda caring. But I digress on that matter.”

“Back to the story, the camera saw how stunned I was when you stood in front of me. Now it didn’t catch the smirk that came on my face almost immediately after.”

“I felt this latent emptiness lately. I’ve stopped caring about wrestling after I injured you. Yes, I still had my championship reign, but after I broke almost every record imaginable, I began to feel empty on that too. At the end of my championship reign, I felt a universal desolation towards what I thought was my passion. I was furious at first about losing the Mid-Atlantic Legacy Championship. As any good champion should be.”

“But right as you stared at me, I felt my heart flutter,” pause, “Not in that way.”

“Flutter in regards to getting a second chance. I didn’t care about the Mid-Atlantic Legacy Championship. I did everything a person could go do with that belt. I wanted to experience something new. I wanted to see if I could end a man’s career right this time. And you gave me the chance. I followed the script. I did exactly what you did. I even got someone bigger and badder to stand up to you. It was great.”

“I did it mostly to give back to you the same trauma you gave back to me. I wanted you to feel the fear that I felt every night, rounding corners and getting ready for another match. Yet, when I gave it back to you, you just shrugged and pushed it to the side. I guess that was another rookie mistake, huh?” laughter.

Silence.

“I did it to kind of emulate you.”

“Dom Harter, I won’t say I like you or anything like that, but I do love the work you’ve put out. I even loved the fact that you targeted me. It might have been because I have the championship, but you came back just to stop me,” giggle, “I feel so important.”

“If it’s because you hate me, then good. Because I hate you too. I hate you more than I hate myself.”

“I hate you so much that I’d ditch championship dreams to hurt you. I hate you so much that I wouldn’t want to do anything more than hurt you. Nothing else brightens my day, nothing else makes my emotions toss and turn. Nothing else wakes me up to drag myself out to another FGA event. I thought I’d test myself one last time when I came out to fight the WORLD CHAMPION, but nothing. I didn’t feel a damn thing. But when GRENDEL held me up after you outsmarted me…I felt warmth.”

“Dom Harter, I want you dead. Those words were true. Outside of my hatred just for you, I want you dead for many reasons. I want you dead to rectify Annie Zellor’s horrible actions of saving you. She’ll have to watch it because she’ll be too busy trying to defend the MAL championship from her best friend. Boy, Molly should wish we were coming on before them, then maybe she’d have an easy win.”

“I…I’ve had quite some time to think about everything.”

“You told me some nice words when you held a baseball bat to me. There, I just knew what had to happen.”

“This is the end, Dom.”

Silence again.

“There’s no more after this. I want to end your career. You want to beat me and move along. In order for us to do anything else, we need to end this. I know I started it, but you fueled the fire. The forest is gone. It’s only cinders now. All that is left is the two of us fighting in what remains.”

“But you need to know that I’m coming at you with the full intention of ending your career and ending your life. Not killing you. No, I meant, attacking your neck or your spine. I want to paralyze you. I want to make sure you have to look at a screen for the next twenty years of your life, watching me win and win. WATCHING ME BECOME GREAT. While you have only memories and imagination to go off of.”

“No more championships.”

“No more Triple Crowns or Grand Slams.”

“No more sex with random Twitter bitches.”

“Only a life dedicated to waiting for death.”

“Come to me, Dom. Please come fight me. Because I need to ask you one last thing.”

Tears. Sobbing. Bitterness. Self-Hatred.

“Come and kill me already.”

Static.

Darkness.

---

I almost killed my ex-fiancé. I told her that I was going to leave for her own good. She kept me at bay with words that tore deep into my psyche, but I had to prove to her that I wanted her safe…from me. So I kicked her. I kicked her hard, just to make sure she understood. She got up and punched in my messed up ribs.

Our fight ended with me kicking her dead into a door. She hit her head hard, blood began to gush out of the back of it. I did what any good person should do, right? I dragged her to the bathroom, cleaned the wound, and stapled it shut. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough. Her body couldn’t WAIT for my friend, the doctor, to come on over and help her the right way. No, she had to go to the hospital.

When we get there, they tell her that her wounds were really bad. How did she get them? She lied, for my sake, and told them that it was a motorcycle accident. One, we didn’t owe a motorcycle. Two, she was dying! Emery Harrison was about to die and make a murderer all over again. But no, the doctors did their best and saved her from the brink.

Meanwhile, I snuck out to go find my doctor. Not one that could check on my ribs. No, the one that I talk to about hurting people. I reached the door, I banged on it, and when she opened up, Dr. Musgrave almost screamed. She saw the blood draining from my mouth to the ground. She saw my bruises. Most of all, she saw me fall into her hallway.

“And now that’s on tape, I can try to help you,” Dr. Musgrave said, standing over the bloodied Izzy with a questionable look. “Thanks for saying I screamed by the way.”

“I wanted to make it sound like you cared,” I said, making it to the closest wall with a pained hiss.

“So why exactly are you in my house, where my children sleep, bloody?” Dr. Musgrave, on record, is probably the sweetest woman I know. I should clarify my statement. ‘On record’, as in when she hits that big red button on her computer. She has everyone fooled, but to me, she’s my specialist.

Dr. Penelope Musgrave, Blackthorn Asylum Psychologist, and resident pain in my ass. Her silvery eyes narrowed at me, which made my skin crawl. That was her analyzing face. Her eyes landed on my shirt, which was stained with blood. “Why is there a pool of blood on your side?” she asked, stepping towards me.

“Fucked up ribs,” I hissed at her. She chuckled.

“Oh, really, so you come to me for that?”

“No, I came to you because you can sign a waiver.”

“A waiver?” Penelope’s eyebrow arched before heading towards her…kitchen?

I got up and followed her, making a thin trail towards her. When she turned and saw it, she made an annoyed face at me. She held her house phone in one hand while gesturing to my bloody self with the other. “I’m calling 911 if you want to know,” she said, about to do the deed. I had to react quickly. I snatched the phone from her hand and flung it away from her. It hit the ground hard, possibly breaking.

“No, sign this damn document. I need to go beat Dom Harter.”

There was a moment of silence between us. She lolled her tongue in her mouth, glaring at me like a mother who caught her daughter sneaking back into the house. “Dom Harter?” she asked, slowly.

“Yes?”

“You mean, the one who made you act so stupid?” she asked me, narrowing her eyes again. 

“Yes, that one,” I said.

“No,” Penelope said, walking back over to the fallen phone. As she did, I rushed her, tackling her to the ground. When she hit the ground, she yelped out as I manhandled the phone away from her. She threw petty slaps at me, striking me in fresh wounds. They hurt, but I had to win this scuffle. Eventually, we both stopped. 

“Isabella, get off me this instant. You’re lucky that I don’t just grab onto your ribs.”

“The screams would walk up your kids. You have to clean up some blood and sign a single paper before you’re free from me,” I murmured to her. “Now I can scream bloody murder and bring them down here or you can sign one paper for me.”

There was a moment of us just gazing at each other. I admit, she had pretty eyes. However, she narrowed them again at me.

“Do you know how much Harter has messed you up? He has made you this way and you don’t even know it really. You’re to the point of attacking innocent people who has done nothing but help you. To the point that you would try to kill your own fiancée?” she laughed to herself, “What a crying tragedy you are.”

She suddenly punched me dead in the ribs. I had to contain a yelp and fell onto my good side. “Fine,” she stood up, brushing herself off. “I’ll sign you a waiver, but remember this, Isabella.”

The good doctor hovered over me. “You have two weeks of freedom before you’re sent to Blackthorn. And there? You’re mine. We’re going to try to get this Dom Harter out of your head,” she tilted her head, “Among other things.”