The memories returned this night – unwelcome guests banging on the door, demanding to be let inside so they could share their frosty gifts with those inside.
Buzi had asked the blob to open that door and so he now paid the price for his curiosity. Some doors are best left closed, no matter how hard the banging and the knocking.
The images played out over his mind now…
What a mess things have become. The godless and the lawless all risen up, showing their true colors – they burn cars, they burn homes, they burn the banks and the bankers in the banks, they rape, they steal...some even kill. Even those sworn to protect... Outside the compound, the police and the army have been unable to properly control the Rebels of Society Protestors that put the compound under siege. The place itself is in a state of heavy damage, its walls smashed and burning, acolytes running in all directions trying to repel the protestors. What started as a mere demonstration against the brotherhood’s oppulance turned into a massacre when the police and the local guards couldn’t keep their weapons in their holsters. As the first of the protestors were shot, it galvanized the mob.
Buzi closed his eyes and opened them again to shut out what the blob had shown him. He turned to the cell he was in.
Abishag and Abaddon were fast asleep on the filthy cots in the cell they were being held in here in the Democratic Republic of North Korea.
Brother Buzi though stood alone, unable to sleep. He stood at the bars at the front of the cell and listened as the others in captivity here snored, rolled over and farted their way into REM sleep.
One rattler had more amplitude than what could be expected from a sleeping man’s fart.
That had to be Sato…word was he was fed North Korean Taco’s today. The North’s interpretation of this Mexican dish didn’t sound like it went so well.
How did he get here?
That was the big question…his life to now leading to this?
The Blob didn’t burden his children with more than they could bear…that’s what they said anyway.
Still it wasn’t fair.
Buzi frowned in the darkness.
Was he not retired? Had he not done his duty? Was he not a champion and did he not bring Glory to the Blob as he destroyed all who stood in his way in the Kapow Wrestling Federation?
He did his service and retired as his body grew older and began to betray him.
…and here he was, forced back into Combat….
He was not long Abishag. He hadn’t been engaged in the rigors of training. Over the last few years, his conditioning had worsened. His body had grown softer…his limps less flexible, his eyesight not as sharp as it once was, the force of his blows lessened.
Earlier today, Abishag had asked him if he thought he could take his opponent in DeathSport – Kronin.
He answered in the affirmative but he wasn’t so sure.
Kronin was still in the game…and even though he wasn’t at his peak as he had been a few years ago, he still put in a workmanlike effort each and every time he stepped in the ring. He had earned respect over his years as a man who would never be an easy out.
Buzi would need the blob now more than ever.
His strength.
His power.
His wisdom.
The wisdom is what he sought an hour ago and so he had taken out the last capsule he had smuggled here. He kept them in a small baggie under his balls – taped against them. Kim’s people hadn’t gone looking there. He removed the last one, brushed it off…frowned as he smelled the stale sweat from his underwear and sack coming from the capsule…
…and he swallowed it down none the less.
Abishag had seen a vision earlier of himself in another time and what happened if he should fall into the Boiling Pool in his own match…
What could Buzi expect to be shown?
It wasn’t long before he found out…
As was already said…
Some doors were meant to be left shut.
Unlike Abishag who had been strengthened by the nature of the vision he was shown…Buzi was shattered and destroyed by his.
He was now full of self-doubt and a sense of finality.
After all – in the other life where Abishag had been resurrected by the Blob – Buzi had also died not too long after.
…only he was left too grow cold in the grave. His wound was too grievous – the damage too much.
With the walls ready to crumble, Summeroff sent both Buzi and Abishag out to lead an acolyte charge... It ended...in disaster. Abishag kneels over his dying brother and tells him to save his energy. “JANUS!!!” Abishag hollers to the acolyte “Bring the medical Acolytes here right away!!! RIGHT AWAY!! We need to get Buzi inside!” Buzi coughs weakly, thick gobs of blood spray from his mouth. Abishag begins to panic. He can’t believe all this is happening. Only a couple weeks ago, he won the ECWC World Championship. In America, there is the NFL and then there is the ECWC Champion. There he was after the match on the jet back to the compound. He and Buzi had celebrated along with Summeroff. Abaddon, once again, was at odds with Summeroff. He had been cast out for bringing shame to the brothers by losing to an inferior opponent. Only when he righted this wrong would he be allowed back - so Summeroff had proclaimed. They could have used Abaddon tonight.
“Do you wish to see more…to see how it ends?” The Blob’s voice cooed, imploring Buzi to the affirmative.
“Good….”
The images continued…
Abishag begins to accept the inevitable and it breaks a heart he wasn’t sure he even had anymore. The feeling hurts....it hurts and it brings back THAT scene again – the one where he lifts his head in a small home lost in the veils of time....and sees the boy with his neck broken and a bullet hole in his head. He sees his wife, dead...only after hours of rape and torture, things that Abishag was made to watch. He was Edwin Vasquez then. He knows that now. He also knows how he came to have that part of his life suppressed. He knows how he first got his revenge. He remembers it - parts of it anyway, with more of that old life merging with his current life everyday. ...and this scene here, watching as mighty Buzi was dying right in front of him...this brought even more of that back. It even brought some tears. Tears for his family, now long gone. Tears for the brother he gained in this new life – the brother now being taken from him. He speaks with Buzi in those last minutes, hears his brother's’ words as Buzi was the wisest of them and watches helplessly as the great man passes into the embrace of watery savior...
With that, the Blob showed him no more. He said no more. Buzi simply returned.
He was shown his own death through the eyes of Abishag…who in that other life had suffered a lot before becoming what he was.
In this life…how much of that was true? He’d need to ask him sometime if he lived past Death Sport. Who was Edwin Vasquez? Had those atrocities really happened to his wife and his children?
Buzi looked at the sleeping Abishag now.
The blob was opening all the books today it seemed.
To what purpose?
That was another life. For all of them.
What did that matter now?
But it did matter. Buzi could feel it. He felt in his bones he was not meant to be here…it was an awful feeling. He was shown his death. A death. Was he going to suffer a similar fate here? Would it be at the hands of Kronin of all people?
Buzi envied Abaddon and Abishag. They could sleep.
There would be no such escape for Buzi tonight.