Personal journal entry of

| Thursday July 3, 2003 Sorrow. I don’t know anyone on the planet who hasn’t felt this time or another. It’s part of being human I guess. What you do once the sorrow takes a hold of you is a different matter. I look at the EWF roster and I wonder if any of them have ever really known what it’s like to have their hearts ripped out of their chests. I’m sure some of them have, for others it’s still to come. For all the tough talk that men like Nick Hades and London Freemantle do, I know inside they are humans. They have souls, they have dreams and they have hopes. Others like Jag and Q2 are complete strangers to me. Therefore I do not know them or what kind of pain they have suffered. These are the men that I will one day soon have to stand toe to toe with. Men with honor. Men with pride. Men with souls. Then there are men like Oscar Ward. Or is it Monty Clark? Whatever he prefers to call himself I’ve only met him once. If you can call someone laughing at you though the door of your cage a “meeting.” He is the kind of man who would willingly sell his soul to the devil if it served his purpose. As a matter of fact I know that he has… and in doing so, he helped destroy another one of my lives. What he doesn’t know is that one day the devil may just come back to collect his due. This is a lesson that I have learned well through the years. I sit here in my room. Staring at this computer monitor, watching the little curser flash on and off. I think of how magical it all seems, this age of technology. This one magic box can instantly connect me to millions of people, information and products… On top of that it can balance your finances, do your homework for you and play the latest MP3’s from Kazaa. I sit here. Staring at this screen, this screen that can do so much. But it can’t do what I want it to do. It can’t dull the pain, it can’t turn back the clock and it can’t end my life... It seems nothing can do that. I remember the early times in the Dead Souls. When it all began. I guess you could say I was there for the birth, even though it would be years before I would know what exactly I had been witness too. I lay in that hospital bed for three days. Three days of nothing. I spoke to no one, not even the nurses who came in from time to time to check on my condition. Every so often a police officer would come into my room and try to question me. Even for the law I could not make myself speak. I kept trying to feel the pain, hoping that if I took it all in at once I could somehow become immune to it. It didn’t work. I was a murderer. I killed my wife. I killed my child. I was as responsible as if I had loaded a gun and shot them both. How could I face the world when I couldn’t even face myself? I thought of Trish’s mom. She trusted me with her only daughter. She told me to take care of her. I failed. To this day I can’t tell what was worse, the anguish or the regret. It is a comparison I wouldn’t wish on any person. As I say the police would visit me several times. However I wasn’t the only person they would come to talk to. My large roommate seemed to attract a lot of attention from them as well. I didn’t know this at the time but there was a reason we were in the same room. We were both in Police custody. I was being held for driving under the influence and he was wanted for questioning in an arson/bombing that has occurred a few days before. I could not answer their questions due to the fact that I had no yet come to terms with what it is that I had done. As for my roommate, he seemed to revel in driving the officers crazy. He would just lie there in his bed; not answering a single question. They couldn’t even get his name. All he would do is stare into the eyes of the cop talking to him until they couldn’t take it anymore and left the room. In fact I recall an instance when one of the cops got so frustrated that he inadvertently knocked over a tray of food, spilling it all over me. For three long days, that would be the pattern. However events were unfolding that would soon lead to me shedding my former life like a snake peeling out of his skin. I was asleep when he first entered the room. He moved so quietly I actually haven’t a clue how I noticed him. At first I thought it was a nightmare. A large man in a long dark cloak coming into your room at night will give you that illusion. However this was no dream. This man was standing four feet away from me. My eyes flashed open and my heart raced. Suddenly I forgot everything that had been happening in my life. I was totally immersed in what was going on around me. What happened to the men who where standing guard outside? How could they have let this man enter the room without any sort of struggle? The figure slowly drifted over to my roommate. He silently woke him up by placing a hand upon his shoulder. There was a brief pause that seemed last for hours, eventually the man in the cloak spoke. Before long the two men were involved in a long significant discussion. I strained my ears to listen but I could not make out a single word. I thought of the irony that for the past few days I had seemingly made an effort to not to hear all the noise around me, and now that I wanted to listen I could not. For the life of me I couldn’t tell how long they spoke for, time just sort of stood still for a while. Eventually there was a long pause. The man who was standing reached into his cloak and pulled something out. He handed it to my roommate, then turned and made his way towards the door. Suddenly he stopped. He stood there motionless for a split second, and then shot a look in my direction. I felt as if all the blood in my body had frozen in place. It was much too dark for me to get a look at his face, but those eyes… those hideous solid black eyes… he looked right at me. I was breathing harder then I ever did after any of my routines. I swallowed hard and my lips trembled as if I were trying to find something to say. From beneath the cloak I managed to detect a smirk. Then, without warning, he turned and walked out of the room as silently as he had entered. I lay in the darkness trembling for hours. I didn’t bother to look over at the other bed for fear that he might return. I’m not sure how, but I managed to fall asleep eventually… Reliving those night’s experiences over and over in my dreams. I awoke the next morning with a shock. My roommate was standing above me. My eyes must have been the size of saucers as I was filled with a sense of terror. He must have felt my panic because he reached out his hand and slowly began to caress my hair. Suddenly I felt something different… something warm… I felt comfort. For the first time in days I felt at piece. I slowly sat up and we embraced. The warmth of his body against mine somehow felt right, almost medicinal. We stayed that way for only a moment until he turned and began to gather his clothing. We still had never spoken one word to each other but somehow we now had a connection. I watched him as he got dressed and I marveled at the sheer size of him. This was truly the largest man I had ever seen. Just being in his presence made me feel safe. He finished up and then walked over to my closet and pulled out my clothes. He tossed them to me. I looked at him then started to get dressed. He walked over to his bed and began to remove the bandages that covered his head. Thoughts flowed to me like water… How are we going to get past the guards? Won’t the police come after us? What am I doing? Am I actually thinking of running off with this man I’ve only just met? How could I do this? I have to stay and face up to what I’ve done. I’m already a murderer… am I going to be a coward as well? As I slid my shirt on I glanced over at him. He had finished removing the gauze and he had his back to me. He reached down and picked up the object given to him by the man in the dark cloak. He then began to fasten it to his head. I finished dressing then sat on my bed. I lowered my head and didn’t look in his direction. I could hear the footsteps as he walked towards me. He reached down and lifted my chin with his index and forefinger. That is when I saw the mask… The face… of the man who would dominate my lives for the next several years… The man who would ultimately become my greatest devotion and my greatest distain… That is the first time I saw the face of Carnage. Once more we locked gazes. He paused before he spoke. All he said was one word. It wouldn’t be the word that changed me… it would be my response to it that would forever alter my path… the word was simply “Coming?” Without much hesitation I stood up and reached into my pocket. I pulled the wallet Trish had given me on my birthday, looked though it one last time, then tossed it on the bed. Carnage turned and walked out the door… I followed and never looked back. Thomas Sanders no longer existed. Now I was simply… A Dead Soul. |
