Broken
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Timo Bolamba fell into a deep darkness that enveloped his soul. A man who wanted nothing more than to buy a simple can of soda at the local market became something else that day. As he remembered the assorted bits and pieces of the robbery he foiled, The Samoan brought his hands to bear the burden of his worn face.
Muscles that had not ached in years now pained him. His knuckles were swollen from the pure brute force impact of striking the crook across his wicked jaw. He looked up to the imposing confinement around him and suddenly reality hit him all at once.
Steel bars surrounded the former wrestling superstar, and a cold hard concrete floor supported what he assumed to be years of criminals that had passed through this very cell. The Samoan who had at once in his life called himself a hero was now very much that which he stood against.
As he buried his head in his hands again, he felt apathetic, sullen, and remorseful for his actions. Little did he know that he was not alone.
Sympathy For The Burned Man
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A voice over Timo’s shoulder drew his attention and he turned to face it, but what he saw was barely within his description. Standing before him was his long time friend and former partner “Six Finger” Cisco Milloy. The eternally smiling good guy reached a hand out for Timo, and the Samoan glanced down warily.
“Why so glum chum?” came the voice of the former circus performer. The Samoan had no idea how in the world his partner had come to be in the cell with him, and quite frankly, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
“Wait…How can you be here Cisco, this is a jail cell, not some backstage to a OSW show. Hold on…Is this another one of my burrito induced dream sequences?” Timo replied, confused.
“Oh this isn’t a dream Samoan.”
A shadow moved in the corner and flicked a lighter nonchalantly, bringing the flame to life, then snuffing it out with a finger. The Samoan looked up to see another familiar, though much less welcome face. This wasn’t the jovial face of his former partner in crime.
This man was burned.
Harsh Reality
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There are many things that have graced Timo’s world. Some have been quite amazing, some have been really bad, and then there were the times like these that were just plain confusing.
Standing before Timo, barely lingering in the shadows was “The Burned Man”, Clyde. His long black wrappings barely whipped at the floor, leaving trails in the unkempt concrete as he turned to rest his blood red eyes on The Samoan.
The lighter flicked again, and his distorted face briefly illuminated against the dark backdrop.
“Hello Samoan, It’s been a while.”
Timo turned his vision left and then to the right, trying to discern exactly what he was looking at. The answer was this: Somehow two of the important figures from his past had shown up suddenly in a jail cell. A cell he had no idea why he was in as well.
“What the hell. I guess Dr. Swartsky is right, I must be losing it. Either that or you two are some of the stealthiest men alive.”
Cisco smiles again and pats his buddy on the shoulder. The Samoan briefly looks up, and for all the world believes his eyes. He reaches out and a hand wisps through the thin air, even as it should have stopped on his old friend.
“Oh, don’t kid yourself bud, we’re totally figments of your imagination. There is good news though.” Cisco smiled jovially.
“I am rapidly losing my mind in a jail cell, I have two sharply contrasting self manifestations of my persona standing in front of me, my body aches, and right now…I’m not entirely sure I didn’t accidentally try to drink battery acid last night. What on earth could you possibly have to say that is good?” Timo retorted.
The six fingered man laughs a little and raises a finger to his head, scratching it slowly.
“Well, now that you mention it, I don’t really remember. Though I think it had something to do with auto insurance.”
Even Clyde snickers a little as Cisco fumbles with the thought. Timo’s heads rests in his hands again and he begins to make a long and grating groaning noise. The sound escapes the cracks of his fingers and reverberates through the cell.
“What the hell is going on today?”
The Samoan looked up, and barely caught the glint of polished steel as Clyde’s blade whizzed through the air at him. He narrowly dodged the razor sharp implement of death, and had just enough time to see Cisco’s look of horror as The Burned Man flipped the knife over in his hand.
“What the hell indeed Samoan.”
Cutting Edge Technology
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Clyde grinned, his evil crooked teeth pointed in every direction. His tongue lolled thinking about the kill, and he drug the polished silver across it slowly, eliciting a trail of crimson. Cisco finally stepped forward and held a hand out at The Burned Man, keeping him distanced from The Samoan.
“Timo, we are your creations. Well, not literally, because I’m sure somewhere out there Cisco is actually using his sixth digit to open a sticky can of peanut butter, and Clyde…” He looks over his shoulder to see Clyde testing the waters by stabbing himself a little. “Okay, the real Clyde is probably doing that as well.”
He pauses and The Burned Man steps forward, waving the blade through the air nonchalantly, almost hitting Cisco as he does.
“You see Samoan, you view him as good, and me as evil. It’s part of the duality of man, along with other sociological disorders that college professors like to prattle on about. We are the proverbial angel and devil on your shoulder, so to speak.”
Timo looked up and blinked rapidly a few times.
“Yep. That’s it. I’ve finally lost that last marble.” he thought to himself.
Suddenly his vision flicked to the side and Clyde flicked his knife across Timo‘s cheek, drawing a bead of blood. The wicked man sneered and licked the knife clean slowly, much to the aghast Cisco’s amazement.
“Oh Samoan, you don’t even know how true that is.”
Challenging the System
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The Samoan stood up briskly, and put up his fists to defend against the man in black. He drew only a sharp piercing laugh that was littered with rasp.
“Oh this is precious,” Clyde mused. “Do you even know how stupid you look right now? You are standing all alone in a jail cell with your fists up as though you are preparing to fight Ivan Stanislav, but instead you get only thin air and partially skewed memories. How quaint.”
The Samoan looked to Cisco and his former partner began to open his mouth, only to have Clyde hold up a burned hand.
“Shut your hole freak show.” The abrupt statement took everyone in the cell by surprise. “The Samoan wants to know what is going on, how he ended up in this cell, and why we are standing here in front of him. I think it’s high time we told him.”
Tossing the knife casually in his free hand, he flicks his wrist up and then down. The Burned Man, looking for all the world like hell itself, brings his bloodshot red gaze up to Timo’s.
His mouth parted, his thin lips folded to reveal his yellow, crooked, and cracked teeth. His snakelike tongue flicked the words out of his mouth as he reveled in bringing bad news to a man who had more than his fair share recently.
A Great Many Things
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“We were sent here because there are forces at work inside you that want to be let out. Your mind wanted us to come and tell you that your “good guy” mentality isn’t alone.”
The Samoan looked back and forth, searching for the answer that he knew was already there. He looked to Cisco, and before he could open his mouth, the young man answered his question.
“Yes, no, she was 18, and yes.”
He smiled briefly.
“I kid of course. You must understand something Timo. We are only messengers, and you have a few friends that would like to talk to you.”
Clyde seemingly had retreated to his shadow again, and The Samoan let his guard down. The Burned Man spoke again, but this was cryptic, even for him.
“You see, last night at the store, you think you foiled a robbery…and you did…but you also did something else.”
Pausing briefly, he looked up to Cisco.
“Numbskull there saw a moment of hesitation in your current personality, and knew that you would be weak in the moment of judgment. So in a genuine act of wisdom, he opened “Pandora’s box” if you will, and what came out was…”
Timo’s mouth moved slowly and he heard the words, even though he hadn’t intended on speaking them.
“The Monster.”
Cisco looked sheepish, and his gaze drew nothing but concrete as Clyde continued on.
“You know then.” he followed. “And you also know what he is capable of doing. Well, thanks to you, that crook is now deep in a coma at the hospital. You know, real people aren’t built to sustain so much punishment Samoan.”
Timo looks down sullenly.
“You let the monster take over, and suddenly, that man became someone else. Someone who you have a deep seeded hatred for, and in one moment, the only thing you could see was what your eyes fooled you into believing.”
Only one word was uttered, and it was the only one that mattered. Timo’s voice sounded drawn and he felt a shudder roll down his spine.
“Gibson.”
Clyde revealed his yellow row of teeth again and held his blade at Cisco.
“He let The Monster out, and now it cant be put back in the box Timo. What’s worse is that now you have the other two wanting to play.”
Timo’s eyes snapped up quickly.
“Two?”
Insert Something About Not Seeing That One Coming Right Here.
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The Samoan flicked his eyes back and forth, not believing what he just heard. Clyde, after revealing that one of his personalities, the destructive and unremorseful “Monster” he had created to demolish Dave Gibson, was being joined by two more!
He knew one of them already. It was hardly a guess to know that it was “The Dastardly Bastard”, a manifestation of his wicked side created to join forces with Mike Marvelous in FSW.
What he didn’t understand though, is who the other persona Clyde had mentioned was. There was never another side of Timo that had surfaced itself, and quite frankly it was worrying the Samoan verily.
“The gates are open now Timo, I am truly sorry.” Cisco’s words rung true and sincere.
“He’s right Samoan.” Clyde interjected. “It is only a matter of time until they decide to come for you, and when it happens…well if I believed in god, I am sure only he would know what will occur.”
The Samoan sank to the floor, his head resting in his hands once again. He could hear a guard coming down the hall, his keys jauntily chiming, and with nary a smile or word, both Clyde and Cisco vanished as suddenly as they had came.
The Monster had already put one man in the hospital. The Dastardly Bastard was waiting in the wings to cause some havoc. On top of all that, a new mystery persona had emerged.
All that, and seemingly the only two allies he had left at this point were figments of his imagination. One of which had already tried to kill him.
This wasn’t good.