SEVENTEEN SECONDS. [02: END OF DAYS.]

[Mav.]

The tide was turning in.

As the seas began to push toward his feet, the sound of the crushing waves collided with the shores and banks of this small undisclosed beach. Nothing ran through his mind after the events of the past week, nothing has been helping him clear his mind since learning of the tragic fate of his near future, but he needed something to kill the silence. He needed something to drown out the deep sorrow he feels within his heart.

For only a moment, he closed his eyes. A deep inhale and exhale through his nose. The feeling of peace was finally settling in strongly, the weight being lifted off of his shoulders. Though, all of his focus was shifted away from the sea in front of him and toward the voice that approached him from behind. The same voice of the old friend that saved him from speeding down the highway.

“Still thinking?” She spoke, stepping closer and closer until her hand could find his shoulder. “You need to really think about all of this, Jason. You’ve got a whole life ahead of you right now and there’s so much to live for outside of this sport.”

The woman paused for a second. She stepped past Jason and came face to face with the distressed man. “I know all of this is your life, you can’t stop thinking about wrestling, it’s what makes you who you are – but you’ve got to move forward, look after yourself, and make sure that your health is more improved than what it already is.”

Time and time again, it feels like the pressure was being applied. The past few weeks of telling those close to him that his time, inside of the ring, was coming to a near end has always been followed with ‘soundful advice’. He’s never asked for this advice, he’s never asked for a second opinion, but so many are very willing to push forward and give that advice. Jason, quite simply, has had enough of the delusion of others.

“That’s what I don’t get,” he responded softly. Jason slowly shook his head from side to side. “It seems like everyone wants to make sure that things are better, maybe brighter, for me than what it already is for me right now. Not a single cunt gives a shit though when there’s nothing jeopardising my own mental health.”

Jason scoffed away to himself, looking away from the woman in front of him.

“Why can’t people leave me to make my own decisions? Why can’t they? If I’m going out, then I’m doing it my own way. I want to go when it is right to do so, I’ve always said this. Nobody will beat me to retirement, nobody will force my hand to make a critical decision like such… I want to go out on my own way.” A deep sigh escapes through his breath, a small set of tears beginning to build up within his eyes. “They should’ve cared for me when I needed their help, not when they may feel like such.”

“I…”

She became speechless, unable to truly answer back. The woman seemed perplexed on how to respond to such a heartfelt cry for help, her head lowered in some form of shame, feeling like she was only adding onto the pressure already being applied.

“There’s no real way to make you understand how sorry I am that I can’t always be there with you in moments like these. You know just how much you mean to me and you know just how much I’d do anything for you.”

She paused. “I’m doing everything I can for you, Jace. That’s a promise.”

His eyes would soon close, trying to hide the tears from his eyes, but they soon fell down along his face. Though, as soon as he opened his eyes again, the woman was gone. There wasn’t any telling of her leaving, she simply vanished into thin air. Something inside of him, something with his emotions, made Jason snap. The tears were overflowing from his eyes and streamlining down his cheekbones, flowing like a waterfall, as he lowered his head to hide the pain seen in his eyes.

The connection was strong between the two, he couldn’t truly tell why he was able to see this woman or even hear this woman, but then it all came to his head. It all began to click in his mind. The state of depression, the pain rushing through his body, the hallucinations that’s tampering with what’s around him. He wasn’t himself, he knew he wasn’t, and seeing her had broken him down.

“I know you are, mam,” he soon muttered under his breath before walking back to the car.

—

Seventeen seconds.

Do you know how much you can do in such a very short amount of time?

I’ve been at the forefront of many battles in my time and I’ve seen many of them end all too differently from the last, whether in victory or in defeat, but if there’s one thing that I uphold as my biggest accomplishment? It’s being able to break apart someone within seventeen seconds. It’s being able to wrestle someone down to the ground, trap them within a submission, and choke them out within seventeen seconds. It’s not dangerous, per se, nor is it a violent outcome like one you’d expect throughout the End of Days tournament, but if we’re going to be talking about time around here? Then let’s talk about time, Esmerelda.

I have to say now that the threat of death sure does run within those holding the ‘Von Krauss’ name, because this is my second time facing someone with that surname and this is the second time that I’ve had to deal with a Von Krauss that threatens to murder me, slaughter me like a sheep, and it’s weird that it’s happened twice now, is it not? I mean, it must be though because as far as I remember correctly? Isabella is that petulant child you won’t accept into the family but she adopts your name. I remember her very well. She tried to be too smart for her own good but she got put down for being as good as a bag of rocks. The tales write themselves, and all of you sound the same, but then the jokes write themselves, and I’m quite fucking sick of this constant joke that I seem to stumble upon every so often.

Like, why am I meant to be here giving a shit about someone who claims to be an assassin? They’re more focused on ‘play fighting’ – shocker, I’ve heard that before from Isabella over a year ago – and wanting me dead, which they can do in the span of about thirty seconds. If that’s the case, then why haven’t you just done so? If that’s the case, then fucking do it already. I mean, what’s the point in waiting until you’re face to face with me inside of a damn wrestling ring when you’re a supposed notorious ‘secret’ assassin. You can literally fucking do it whenever you can, in my own home, or drag me to any fucking place you want. I’m sure it’s not clicking well into your head but do you not understand just how fucking ridiculous that it all sounds that I’ve got to be the one that has to deal with your bullshit here and now? All of this sounds like horrible fucking writing and character work from a two star rated Netflix show that they’ve just put out there, it’s despicable by any means.

And yet, here we are because you’ve fired the first shot. You said you wanted to take my life. I am, by no means, someone who’s a saint in that department either and I’m sure that it won’t be my last time ever doing such a thing either – but, at the very least, you could’ve gotten things right, couldn’t you? You said it would be very easy to murder me but I’ve been the target of many attempts to see me be put six feet under the earth and every attempt has taken much longer than thirty seconds – because I’m still fucking breathing – and whilst you could make short work of me, I know that you won’t. After all, you’ve made the excuses yourself. You’re dumbing yourself down to have your own standards be lowered to get involved with ‘play fighting’, right?

Well, that just sounds like someone that’ll much rather give up sooner rather than later, doesn’t it?

In the thirty seconds that I had to endure listening to you, Esmeralda – I’ve had my ears become murdered over the lack of sheer intelligence to form a couple of simple sentences, the lack of sheer intelligence to make sense of your own words whilst not trying to backtrack over them constantly, and the lack of sheer fucking intelligence to not make yourself sound like a fucking idiot. Thirty seconds that took to complete. In that same amount of time, you expect yourself to let that bell ring and see yourself murder me? Would you like to explain to me what takes you so long to murder someone that it only takes thirty seconds? I’m sure a bullet can only take about five seconds, a stab wound might take about five minutes waiting for them to bleed out, so what takes thirty seconds? A lethal injection? The common cold?

You leave my imagination wide open for what you might entail in your fantasy stories to write about, “The Tale of the Quick Death” would be a fantastic novel to be a part of – please make sure that I’m credited for being the inspiration for your story, darling. I’d like to make sure people will remember me after death for creating the perfect story to end it all out on.

Though, we’re only cracking away at the story. Let me paint you the perfect picture here, alright? The bell is about to ring and your fool-proof plan can commence, you’re now on the clock and time is very quickly running out, but then it all becomes clear that you’ve not planned for the death of someone because it was all just a ruse to put fear into someone. That’s when you’ve fucked up astonishingly. And whilst there’s almost half of the time gone, then the victim takes his place and just breaks through hell to beat the fucking shit out of the murderer. With elbows being driven into the side of the head, then towards the neck as if they’re trying to decapitate said murderer in self-defence, before the victim has found themselves choking out their attacker.

They begin to fight back but they can’t move. They begin to scramble their way out of the hold but they’re trapped, blood stops flowing into the head and the attacker begins to grow weak, and whilst the victim’s arm tightens around the attacker’s neck? The attacker has no choice but to give in and accept defeat. At least, in the tale of everyone’s eyes, that’s how the story should end. But I won’t be letting go until I see life flush from your eyes. And in that moment, you’ll come to realize that within those seventeen seconds it takes to manipulate, deconstruct, and leave you fighting for your life on the ground – you’ll come to learn of a real killer, a true assassin, a fucking mercenary. The Last Breathing Mercenary, to be more precise.

I knew that it would’ve been very easy to pick apart those within that four way last week and I did what I said I’d do – I’d make people walk through hell to get to where they are and I’ll take the grandest of pleasure in watching them suffer and fight like their life depended on it. Jesse Jamester was very lucky to be the first to step through and he got away with it, but providing that he can withstand Steve Awesome? I make that bastard sit through hell again. And if he doesn’t, then it’s much better for me because I’ve got some unfinished business to attend to with Mr. Awesome – and I don’t think he’d want to miss that for the world. I have a lot to make amends on if I want to reach the finals and the trail of blood continues as I collect another head for the shelf within the X*Crown vault, if it still lives wherever the fuck it might be.

In thirteen minutes, Esmeralda, I murdered any chance of you making it past me into the semi-finals. And on Sunday – in seventeen seconds – I take the life from your rotting carcass once and for all. I don’t lie. I don’t make up the tales. I don’t need to spew a fantasy for everyone to believe.

I just fucking act on it.