Christmas break was exactly what Ken Davison needed to get his head on straight. Still, there were things he needed to take care of to be able to move on from Ultimate Carnage 6. There were things that he needed to address that he wasn’t able to a month ago. He wasn’t in the right headspace to deal with them. At this moment he is sitting across from his friend and former student Alexi Madej.

“Dare are dings going on?” Alexi speaks with his thick Polish accent. “Dees dings, why day bodder you?”

Alexi Madej is a mountain of a man. At six foot two, he was taller than average. However, it was his sheer muscle mass that makes him seem intimidating, Truth be told, his image belied his actual demeanor. Alexi was a giant teddy bear to those people who had earned his trust.

“People don’t listen. They don’t understand me. I’ve leaned on my family because I haven’t had anyone else to talk to. I mean, I’ve got Kyra, sure. But who was I suppose to talk to when it was about Kyra?”

“Dat may be case. But dare are not people who are dare for you? I was always here.”

Ken looks at Alexi with a look that tells you that he knows Alexi is right.

“I’m not going to sit here and lie. You’re right.”

“Dat is right.”

“You’re not helping, big guy,” Ken says with a sigh. “The fact is I was so hyperfocused on winning the world championship. More than that, I was so focused on shutting up my doubters by any means necessary that I really thought the world was against me.”

“Bzdura! I am dare. Sean is dare. You have udder people dat are dare dis whole…”

“You’re right. Sean has been there, I’ve apparently leaned on him far too much. He’d never tell me that, but he’s got a wife and kids. I can’t be up his ass all the time.”

“Dis woman of yours. She is good for you?”

“Too good.”

“Den what is da problem?”

“I’m afraid I’m going to fuck it up.”

“Bałwan.”

“Did you just call me a moron?”

“Idiot. Same ding.”

“ARSCHGEIGE!”

“Dat is German!” Alexi bellows as both men break out into laughter.

“I needed that.”

“So, enough small talk. Dare is someding on your mind. What is it?”

“Well, it’s like I am trying to do this whole good guy thing, but it’s not like I’ve got a lot of experience doing it.”

“Is it dat hard to not kick someone in balls?”

“Depends… is the ref looking?”

Alexi can only give Ken a look.

“Here’s the thing. I’ve got a match against Trent Steel. Kyra and I went over there, but he’s… I don’t know. He’s just got so much going on. Last time I saw him he was talking to Zephyr about how he killed a man when he was nine years old, talking about how he was the most hated man in wrestling. Seriously, has he not seen what I’ve done the last year here in Carnage? He isn’t even the most hated man here.”

Ken emphatically taps on the table.

“He said something that really resonated with me. He said ‘Maybe I deserve to be happy!’ I feel that. For the first time in what seems like forever, I feel that. The thing is, I feel like Trent and I are going in different directions.”

“Why is dat?”

“If I’m being blunt, Trent is fucked in the head. The thing is, I get where he’s coming from. I’ve been there, although maybe not on the same level. He could find his kids, his family, hell, he could find his ex-wife. I didn’t have that chance. I never had that option. You know the story.”

“Dat I do, brudder,” Alexi nods solemnly. “Dat I do.”

“Like I said, Trent and I are two trains heading in opposite directions. I was hoping that we would end up passing each other, but instead, we’re on a collision course. If there is one person here that understands what he’s going through, what it’s like to lose everything, it’s me.”

“But now, you have Kyra. Do you dink you lost perspective?”

“No. Now that I have her, I’m scared that I will do something stupid, she’ll leave and I will be back at square one… with nothing.”

“NO! You cannot dink like dat. I may not have dings like you do, but I know dat nudding good comes from being like dat. If I was negative, I would not win Strongman. I would not come to dis great country. I would not have met you. For all problems dat you have, you always took care of me.”

“You’re a good kid, Alexi. You know what? You’re right. I could have just as easily stayed in the same place Trent is at now. I tell her all the time, but Kyra saved me. She says we saved each other.” Ken smiles as he gushes about Kyra. “Some idiot thought he was clever and had the nerve to tell her that I must be a ‘hell of a climber’ because her walls were so high. Thing is, mine were just as high. I didn’t have to climb. I just jumped.”

“So, your balls. Day are in her purse?”

“Dick.”

“Dat, too.”

“It’s a good thing I like you.”

“I want to ask you someding. Dis Trent, he is friend?”

“Not exactly. We know each other. We’ve got a decent amount of respect for one another, at least I think we do. We’ve run in a few of the same circles. But, no, we aren’t friends.”

“Den what is problem? How come you don’t just beat him?”

“Because I feel for him. Dude lost everything that’s important to him. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. Of course, I know what that means. Unless he hired the world’s best private detective, which I highly doubt, he’s going to come at me with everything he’s got, which is fine, to be honest. I’ve never asked for anything else from my opponents. To be the best, I have to beat the best at their best. That’s cliche as hell, but that doesn’t make it any less true.”

Ken pauses as Alexi nods his head in approval.

“Alexi, things are trending in the right direction for me. That’s not going to stop. Losing the Carnage World Heavyweight Championship is a set back, but not the end of the world. If I want to get to that level again, I am going to have to scratch and claw even harder than I did to get there in the first place and that’s fine. At the end of the day, I’m going to do what’s best for myself and my family.”

“Family?”

“Yeah. Kyra, Adina and I.”

“Damn. Sean wasn’t kidding.”

“No, he wasn’t. Life is good.”

Alexi stands up and Ken stands to meet him, Both men push their chairs in and Alexi walks around and clasps his giant hand on Ken’s shoulder.

“You got a good ding, man. Just remember, grass is not greener on other side. Grass is greener where you water it.”

“You know fortune cookies aren’t Polish.”

“Dis one is.”

Ken and Alexi say their goodbyes as Ken shows Alexi out. Almost as soon as the door closes, his mind turns back to his upcoming adversary, “The Son of a Bitch” Trent Steel.

_________________________________________________________
 

The moon hangs over the night sky, it’s glow finding its way through the branches of the trees overhead. The silhouette of a man walks methodically towards the camera. As he closes in, you can make out that he is wearing some kind of trench coat. Finally, he gets close enough to the camera that the glow reveals the face of “Godly” Ken Davison. He stops a couple of feet from the camera, stopping dead in his tracks. He doesn’t carry his normal look of arrogance, but still, confidence radiates from him.

“You know, Trent, we all need a haven, a sanctuary, a place to hide, a place to escape, a place to dream and hope, a place where the darkness won’t seem so frightening. We all need that, so what happens when we cannot find that? I have been where you are, Trent. I know exactly what happens when you are completely shrouded in darkness. For those of you who don’t know, the darkness is inescapable. Once the darkness senses your fear, once it senses your pain, it is never far behind, or ahead, of you. I can empathize with these people because I have been these people. I can understand their futility. I can feel their hopelessness. I feel their pain.”

Davison pauses, looking directly at the camera as if he were staring through someone’s soul.

“So, I ask you again. What happens when you cannot see the light? You become “Godly” Ken Davison. You become Trent Steel.”

“My earliest memories are not of anything specific, they are frankly, very vague. I remember the feelings, not what happened. My mother was never there. She was off chasing her next high or looking for her next buzz. That left me alone with not but my feelings of abandonment… loneliness…sadness. They say our fate is formed in these earliest moments. While I dealt with this in my personal experience, not always the case. Some people use these moments, as I did, to propel themselves to greatness. Others are more like Trent Steel. Those poor, unfortunate souls devour themselves, searching for self-inflicted annihilation. We’re all prisoners of our nature, locked in certain patterns of behavior. I was able to overcome those behaviors. However, Trent Steel is not as strong of a man as I am. He could no sooner change the path that he’s been placed upon than you could stop a swallow from migrating. If nothing else, Trent Steel is a creature of habit.”

The clouds roll in, blocking the moon and causing the darkness to cover most of Davison’s face.

“No one is clean. We all commit certain acts in our lives of an unsavory nature; some bad, some worse, some unspeakable. Sometimes we suffer in silence. Sometimes we seek redemption, much like I am. I am not where I want to be, but I recognize that there will be a debt to be paid, more than likely as a pound of flesh. One must give up a bit of one’s self. The road, or the end of the road as it is, may not be quite as, not quite what you expect. The glowing light at the end of the tunnel may not be some kind of guiding light. It may be an oncoming train.”

Davison lowers his head for a moment, folding his hands in front of his face as he carefully chooses the words he’s looking for.

“Christopher St. James, perhaps that ego of yours has gotten in the way of making smart business decisions. Perhaps that ego has made you slightly psychotic. What you’re doing is essentially asking Trent Steel to commit suicide by entering this match. You might be better off asking him to lay in the bathtub and throw a toaster in it because that would be far less painful than what I have planned for him. This business, especially in this company, takes its toll. There are casualties. We all understand this.”

“Trent Steel, you’ve hurt me. You’ve brutalized me. What you don’t seem to understand is that I enjoy pain. All you’ve done, and all CSJ has done by booking this match, is get me excited. In just a couple of days, I am going to beat you and batter you. I am going to bloody you so unmercifully that you are going to beg for the match to end. I suppose you could quit, but that’s not in your nature. That means the match, and in turn, your suffering will only be over when I decide to end you, which I may never decide to do. The only way I believe you are getting out of that ring is on a stretcher.”

Davison shakes his head, his face giving away the conflict going on in his head.

“I want to like you, Trent. I really do. You are everything that I was not. Where I was calculating, you were reckless. I lived a strictly regimented life where you lived life freely. Where we find our common ground is that we are fighters. We are willing to take three shots to deal one. That having been said, we are both of the mindset where will make certain that shot hits harder than all three of those combined. Napoleon once said that glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever. I am paraphrasing of course, but the point remains. Trent, you know this more than anyone. Your moment has passed. Since losing the Carnage Wrestling World Championship, you have been a threat. While you have come close to regaining the championship by facing Amber Ryan, I think we can all agree that you haven’t been remotely close to actually winning it. As similarly as we are wired, we are vastly different. The glory in my future will lead to the obscurity in yours.”

The wind picks up slightly, causing the leaves overhead to rustle. A singular leaf falls and lands on the ground in front of Davison.

“I know that speaking so bluntly to you could be a bad choice, especially when I take into consideration what you are capable of when you are angry. Be that as it may, I have a long history of making bad choices. Bad choices don’t always seem so bad when we’re making them… until you look back at them and wonder why the hell we made those choices in the first place. I know that you are going to hurt me just as much as you should know that I may not want to, but I AM going to hurt you.”

“When I was 12, I started hurting people. I left home and lashed out at the world. Understand this, I wanted to care. I still want to care but I have seen and done so much in my life that I am just as desensitized as you are, Trent. I’ve hurt and beat and battered not just opponents, but family… friends… even loved ones. I’m not proud of that, but I did what I had to do to get by. In the ring, caring is a luxury I can no longer afford. Against Silvio, I sat there, and after I had told everyone that I had turned over a new leaf, and I worried about how people perceived me. In the ring, I should have conducted business. But I lost because I cared. Outside of the ring, I will continue to be loyal to Kyra, to my friends, to you if you need it. Inside the ring, I will continue to do what needs to be done. Understand this, Trent. With the things I have seen and the things that I have done, there is no salvation for me. Where I’m going, there is no way to get ahead aside from inflicting more pain, creating more damage… causing more suffering. That is the nature of our business. Is it not?”

Davison smiles slyly as the shadows of the tree branches dance across his face.

“I know who and what I am. I live a life without illusions. Unfortunately, illusions are the one thing that comforts most people. People would rather live in the shadows of those illusions that stand in the light of the truth. The one good and selfless thing I have done since coming here to Carnage Wrestling was to show Kyra the light and now she is returning the favor, showing me the world for what it really is, not my skewed version of reality. Trent, I clearly see your world as well, and it is collapsing around you. You are one of the most ruthless men in the history of this sport. You are a human cancer. I can withstand that. I am a warrior… a career killer… I have slaughtered the souls of so many people in this industry. So much so that God, Allah, and Buddha working overtime are having a hard time keeping score. Yeah, Adrienne and Silvio, they caught me off guard, but I am not going to make that mistake again.”

“You understand that this business is a war of attrition. Some must proverbially die so that others may live. I have gotten to the point where I have a legacy to fulfill, much the same as you. You are standing on my path to immortality. We’ve done this before, but you need to know that once the bell rings, I don’t care about your family, your kids, your ex-wife… none of that. They are nothing more than collateral damage to the choices that YOU’VE made, just as you are going to be the collateral damage to the choices I am making. I want to comfort you with the words that my abusive, drunken, evil mother said to me. She said “This is going to hurt me a lot worse than it’s going to hurt you,” but that would be a lie and we both know it. Trent Steel… Chaos 104… prepare to be terminated with extreme prejudice.”

Davison holds his hands out, gesturing to the forest around him.

“That is why I am here, Trent. You and I know what it is like to walk in the darkness. This is a literal representation of what is going on in your life, and soon, your career at this very moment. It is up to you to change your situation and while I applaud your efforts, it will not be at my expense. Though I tread in the dark, Trent, I now walk in the light. I see things for how and what they really are. I recognize the fact that while I have found personal redemption, I feel that I need professional redemption. The first step in doing that is through you, it would seem. Afterward, once I return to glory, I will look down upon you, entering the pits of obscurity for perhaps the fine time. But rest assured, Trent, I will remember to forget you.”

The camera pans upward, focusing on the moon before fading to black.