"The Man Who Sold The World - Part Two." — Character Dev.

How much more did he have left in the tank to continue?

For once, this question doesn’t apply to his career but to his life. For once, the lifestyle that he’s living as a professional wrestler and what people see on the cameras and on the shows is gone. Completely wiped away. The slate is cleaned. There’s nothing left for him right now. All that’s left is just a broken down man on the verge of life and death. All that’s left is a man who contemplates if living is worth the risks that comes with life anymore. All that’s left is a man who has nothing left to lose and nothing more to gain. After all, considering what had happened earlier in the day between himself and his own brother, was anything worth it after being disowned by your own family member as they hoped you bit the bullet and not someone else? Was anything really worth it at that point?

He should’ve done it when he had the chance, he should have done it when he had the moment right there, right in front of him. Just so he could have proved his point to be right? Would it have really proved his point to be right? A deal with the devil to make sure that everything is reversed would feel so good right now, having his life to be taken away from him and to have his mother’s life be brought back so she could live out the rest of hers with her family. Her husband, her son, her daughter. It would make everything in the world right again. And the sacrifice would have been worth it. He’d do anything to have her back. He’d do anything to bring her back to life.

Jason hadn’t moved from the bathroom since walking in the first time and finding himself crouched down into the fetal position that he’s in right now, the day had turned to night and Jason had finally awoken from the deep sleep he was in. He woke up in a daze, completely left confused about how he had even gotten to the bathroom. As he brought himself up to his feet, he felt heavily unbalanced, and staggering out of the bathroom. There’s a sharp pain right near his liver, placing his hand down onto where the sharp pain resided, it was like a knife being lunged into his body, and even then - as he looked down to where he pain was - he noticed the scarring from his attack with Arik only a few months ago. The knife lunged right below his liver and it was odd feeling that pain in his liver -- but then again, that might have been from the copious amounts of paracetamol that he had took earlier in the morning before being downed with however many glasses of Jack Daniels he had -- as he tried to crawl his way towards the bedroom, slowly making his way inside and stumbling over onto the bed. Jason laid there and rested, still feeling that sharp pain in his liver, before rolling over down onto his back and looking upward toward the ceiling. Through the skylight, seeing the stars amongst the night sky, and expecting the worst to come.

Hell, he should make it quick before going out like how it’s planning to be right now. Make it quick and painless, not slowly dying and watching the night sky fade to black and ending things all alone. He stood back up onto his feet and fought through the pain as he walked from his bedroom to his office up the stairs, multiple times it felt like he was about to lose his balance and fall all the way back down the stairs but he kept himself on his feet and made it all the way up to the top, reaching the office and closing the door right behind him. Jason continued to stumble forward, finding himself resting along the desk and almost knocking off all of the monitors that rested down on it. From there, he reached down into a drawer and pulled out a pocket knife - a switchblade to be exact - and now it all made sense. The knife that was given to him by his brother as a birthday present, to try and repeat the same process as to how his mother died, right after a fight that escalated to wishing for his death and her survival? The dots just seemingly connected one by one. Maybe this was how it was supposed to go.

All he had to do was to repeat the process that he-- that thing repeated on that fateful night in Sapporo. Nineteen stab wounds right into his abdomen, letting the blood flow from the wounds and nobody being able to stop him. This is what he wanted after all. To see him go out like this. This is exactly what he would have wanted— he can’t. He just can’t do it. He just can't bring himself to do it. His shirt is pulled up, he's got the switchblade pointed down onto his stomach, and he's gently pressing it against his skin. But he just can't do it. He just can't.

“Good evening, Jason.” the voice called out, echoing throughout the home.

He leaped up from his chair, holding the switchblade in his hands as he looked to attack whoever it was that spoke, but then he could hear the footsteps behind him. As he quickly turned around and found himself staring at someone he never thought to have been real. Persephone Bane. An evil grin rested on her face as she took a few steps forward, Jason - trembling in fear upon seeing her in the flesh - is absolutely frozen in place. He had only known her from what Savannah had told him, of what she's capable of doing, of what she can do and must do in order to thrive in such a world. Persephone comes face to face with Jason, keeping a smile on her face as she brings her hand up close to his face.

“We have to say,” she pauses as she chooses her words wisely. “You look much better in person without having to see through another person’s eyes. We thought it might have been Savannah’s love for such eye candy like you but now? We can see why she acts the way she does around you. We can see now why she craves you like how she does. You poor thing, having to put up with her.”

“I- You’re not- You’re not who I think you are, right?” She could hear the trembling fear in his voice, and all she could do was feast on that fear, consuming every bit of that fear and chuckling to herself. “How in the hell can I see you? How in the hell can I feel you? What the fuck are you even doing here? You’re—no. You’re not real. I just know you’re not. I’m certain you’re not real.”

“We’re not real?” she lets out a light laugh. “Hilarious you must think that considering, you know, Savannah thought the same exact thing for over two years and now look at her, she’s succumbed to her own fears, she’s allowed us to roam freely whenever we liked. But don’t worry, close your eyes and keep repeating those words. We love when you begin to fear me. We love just eating it all up and making us feel just a little bit stronger. Makes us feel pleased, if you will.”

“No- No, I knew you were real I’ve just- you know, never seen you in person. I’ve only heard of you. I didn’t really know you had an entire body like what you have right now. My whole vision of you was this demon that only Savannah could see or even hear.”

Of course, all of this seemed so comical to think about. To be able to see a demon that you only believed to have been inside of someone’s mind come to life, it was like a walking and living nightmare being pulled out of your dreams and staring you right in your face. If he could slap himself, he would, just to see if this was all a dream but he can’t. His arms still feel frozen in place. She presses her index finger against his lips before sneaking a small kiss from right under his nose, giggling to herself before placing her finger right back onto his lips.

“Hush. We really don’t like it when our foo- Our dearest friend talks too much than they need to,” placing her hand down onto his abdomen area, pulling up his shirt and seeing the slight scratch of where the switchblade grazed the skin. “You poor thing, what have you been doing to yourself? Is this what you people call ‘self-harm’, huh? We’ve never truly understood it at all. Having to deal with all of the pain and then opting to take the easy way out of things before giving up just before doing so.”

With a heavy shove, Jason pushes Persephone away from him, almost sending her across the room.

“You’d never understand it. You’ll never understand the pain that I’ve been through—”

“Your mother passed away during a ‘match’ of yours and you’ve been blaming it all on yourself because everytime you remember that specific match, all you can think about is you pushing and twisting the blade into your mother’s stomach due to this alternate universe version of you taking control of your life and fighting to the death to take claim to this world.” Persephone sees the shocked look on Jason’s face, giving her a smile. “And since then, you’ve continued to grieve and regret ever having her near that place, or even having her in close proximity to him. The demon that you cannot release yourself even if you’ve promised Savannah that he’d never return no matter what the situation is that you’re in. And what she doesn’t know is that there’s a box hidden in this room with his ashes locked away.”

Colour drained from his face. Standing there, in absolute disbelief, and just unable to process anything inside of his mind. There’s just no way that she could have known about any of this by herself, there’s no way that she could just have known about what’s inside of the box - or even know about the box in general - but she so casually mentioned it with ease. Like it was something to brush off to the side. His jaw is completely dropped as he picks it back up to question Persephone.

“How in the fuck did you know all of that—”

“You clearly have forgotten that we are one in the same with Savannah, meaning we hear every single conversation and know every little secret of yours, even when you know that Savannah isn’t looking or nearby. Your secrets are known to us, we could easily tell Savannah at any time about what you’ve been hiding from her, but we feel as if that’s something that the two of you should discuss. Not our problem. We’re aware that inside of the box is an entity, your own demon to be exact - and a former war criminal that’s travelled throughout the reaches of time and space - that’s just waiting to be released. How many times have you contemplated releasing that thing out into the wild, Jason?”

“None. I kept my word to my deceased mother that he’ll never be released again.” he exclaimed.

“But you’ve thought about it recently when you couldn’t take down True Society by yourself after declaring such an impactful speech about being ‘The King’ and yet falling to someone that’s your mentor.”

In such a quick movement, Jason grabs a hold of Persephone by the throat and begins tightening his grip around her neck, watching her struggle to breathe as she begins to kick Jason with her feet. It’s just like before, he’s seeing red and he’s become a loose cannon, uncontrollable and determined to cause and inflict pain on whoever might stand in front of his way. Persephone begins trying to swing for Jason to hopefully get him to release the grip around her neck as he starts pushing her back and back and back before she hits the bookcase right behind her. Her face was turning purple. The grip around her neck was getting even tighter. She’s clearly unable to breathe.

“If I were you, I’d watch that fuckin’ mouth of yours. I don’t care who the fuck you are, I will kill you right where you stand—”

For just a blink of a second, Persephone’s whole look changes and now? His hand is wrapped around Savannah’s neck, choking the life out of her and leaving her unable to breathe, which leaves him to release the grip around her neck and watch her drop onto the floor. It’s just not possible that he’s been choking Savannah. There’s no way that he’s been seeing Persephone this whole time and not seeing it as Savannah. His eyes began to water up and ready to burst out into tears knowing that he’s after hurting her. His bottom lip began to quiver in sorrow.

But then, he glances down onto the floor again. And he can hear her laughing.

It was all just a mind trick from Persephone, and by the looks of things, she’s totally fine. She laughs right in the face of Jason knowing that she had tricked him into thinking he’d ever hurt Savannah. There’s something disturbing knowing that she simply found his true weakness within seconds. Maybe this really wasn’t just some random person in Savannah's mind, but an actual demon coming to haunt her and now Jason, that’s when he scrambles onto the floor and grabs onto the switchblade. Persephone continues to laugh as Jason charges in and swings for her— but she simply dodges out of the way and sends Jason flying into the book shelf. He crashes into the wall, collapsing down onto the floor and - during all of this - feels the blade slice into his leg as he drops onto the floor. Persephone hovers over him, keeping that wicked smile on her face as she does.

“We’re not going to take the threat of a man that’s too afraid to take his own life, never mind taking the life of someone like us. We’re not even a living being, we’re just a vision in your own mind that you can see right in front of you. We might feel real but pushing us? Poking us with a blade? Whatever your next move is? We cannot feel a thing.” She chuckles. “You’re getting all worked up over nothing, Jason. You’re weak, that’s how it’ll forever be at the end of the day. Just do the right thing and take your brother’s advice. Land the blade into your stomach. Finish what you couldn’t do earlier, Jason. And maybe then, you might see your mother once again.”

She just had to go there. But then again, what could he do right now? Everything in his body continues to hurt. Between his head, to his liver, and to his leg — he felt helpless, no hope left inside of him, and all he could do was to watch and listen to everything that she had to say.

“Savannah is never coming back, Jason, no matter how hard you want to believe that she is. She’s moved on, that ring that she’s got wrapped around her finger? It’s gone, removed, just like how you did with yours. Moved onto that one man you hated with all of your life, she’s moved on and gone for Arik Holt.” Persephone can begin to see the blood beginning to boil in Jason’s veins. His anger slowly builds up as he takes a deep breath. “And to think, she was going to marry you and she was wanting to have her first child with you, Jason. Now? She’s moved on because of you being the narcissistic imbecile that you are. All because you decided to become that kind of man and pretend that everything is alright and you cannot be touched. Your ego was way too big to see the signs, weren’t they? We saw them a long time ago. And now you stand there, hands curled up into the shape of fists, and you want to hit us.”

His right hand was curled up into the shape of a fist, looking to make one major swing for her, but he soon dropped his hand back down onto the floor. All of this has made Jason finally give up and finally give into what Persephone has been asking for all of this time. For violence. For murder. For the kill. As he reached over for the switchblade, he could feel her hand down on his ankle, glancing over and seeing Persephone crouched down and looking at Jason directly into his eyes. They stare at one another for just a moment, he begins to get lost in her eyes, it was like staring right at Savannah’s eyes.

“How about you do what is right and put an end to this horrible life of yours, and in return, we’ll return your mother from her grave. That’s all you have to do, Jason, is to just finish what was started. We’re willing to give you - and your entire family - what they’ve all wished for since she passed.”

To sacrifice his own life to bring back hers, was this really the choice that he wanted to stick with? It was something that he had thought about earlier, if this was the right thing to do. After all, that’s what he’d do to bring her back. Risking his own life to save hers one more time. But was Persephone telling the truth? Was any of this real? Was she real? There’s no telling if this is real until he attempts it.

“Just do it, Jason. One large swing right into your abdomen.”

She might be onto something and that’s what keeps him interested. The more he stared into her eyes, the more that it seemed so convincing, and the more he wanted to try and find out the answer. This was for his mother, this was to bring her back, this was to restore peace into this world again, to write all of his wrongs within the past year. Everything can be fixed with just one swing into his stomach. And if she wanted to, she could twist the blade and complete what must be done.

“Just like how he did it.”

This was the only chance he had. Pointing the blade towards him and swinging down onto his stomach—

“JESUS FUCK, NO!”

Like a jump cut back into reality, Jason screams as he goes to drive the blade right into his stomach as he lets out a guttural scream but his hands were grabbed at the last second by someone, fighting with Jason to take the blade out of his hands. The man begins to slam Jason’s hands onto the floor and forces him to release the blade, before sliding it across the floor and across the room. Jason screams for dear life, begging for the blade to be given back to him, and uttering out something else that’s hard to understand. Tears fell from his face as Jason laid on the floor and slamming his fists down in anger, the one chance he had to bring back his mother was gone, and it was stopped just when he came so close to making it happen. But soon, he slowly began to come back to normal. The cut on his leg was gone. The bruised head was gone. The pain in his liver was gone. It was like he had fallen into a trance of some kind, a dark vision of someone’s uncontrolled mind, walked through a nightmare and was able to survive.

Jason is helped up to his feet and he finds himself falling back into his chair, glancing up and seeing Michael Bishop standing there, with a concerned look on his face as he places his hand down onto Jason’s shoulder. He turned his head to look towards the door to his office, it’s been completely ripped off of it’s hinges, and in that moment it seems like everything has clicked in his mind. Everything is beginning to make sense. Everything is coming to him again. And then he looks down onto his arms, turning them over and seeing the horrors of what he’s caused, seeing the scars of what was caused during that trance. Multiple slashes across his arms, right where the arteries would be, and the blood pumping out from the slashes. Michael also sees the slashes and rushes out of the room to run down the stairs and grab something to cover up his arms and stop the bleeding. There’s nothing like seeing your arms slashed in the way they are and knowing that you have no idea how long they’ve been like that. Jason felt himself become weak and his eyes began to close but he fought through it. A blink of his eyes as he looks out to the window of his office, and between his blinks? He could see Persephone standing on his balcony, waving at Jason with that same sinister smile of hers.

Michael runs back up the stairs with a set of bandages in his hands, grabbing onto the arms of Jason and wiping down the blood with some dry wipes before wrapping his arms up to cover up the scarring. Michael seems to be in such a panicked state that he doesn’t even open his mouth to Jason, he doesn’t even look up to him, he’s too focused on getting those bandages.

“Mike?” he softly spoke, just barely grabbing the attention of Michael as he lifted his head up. “I’m so sorry you had to find me like this, I have no idea what happened. I really have no idea what happened to me—”

“No need to explain, just be grateful I broke down that door before you fuckin’ offed yourself.”

If it is one thing to be grateful for, it’s that he’s still alive. Barely. Jason leaned his head back as Michael finished wrapping his arms up with the bandages that he had found. He was just left sitting there and left with his own thoughts to be filling up his head. Wondering how stupid he was to ever believe in Persephone Bane’s antics. Wondering how stupid he was to ever believe that she could have possibly brought back his own mother by sacrificing his own life. Jason felt stupid. And rightfully so. Michael grabbed onto Jason’s head and pulled him in close, it was like seeing a different side of Michael that he has never seen before, a different side of Michael he thought he would have never seen before.

“I don’t know what happened here today, but I promise you one thing, we will get you help. No matter what. That is a fuckin’ guarantee that I will bring to my grave, Jason. I will get you the help that you need.” he exclaimed, but holding back the emotion.

And in that moment, faith had been restored. The end to what was a horrible day has a bright side to it. The help that was promised was going to make sure that Jason was going to recover from this weekend of horror. And with his closest friends having his back, standing behind him like brothers in arms, he felt confident for what might have been the future. At the end of the day, this was never going to be a fight he can do alone. It was never going to be a fight that he could leave all to himself. He needed people to stand by his side. The people he could trust the most. The people he could rely on the most. And he will have those people by his side.

Forever.


The past couple of days since losing to someone like Noah Hope was rough, the abuse that came afterward from online spectators were taking a harsh blow on everything he had, and even when he thought that things were soon cleared up and he was back on the right path again? It came crumbling back down once again. All of the advice that he had taken in to try and rebuild himself seemed like a distant memory, forgotten in his mind, and all he could think about was just one thing. Violence. That’s all he could hear repeating in his head over and over again, to bring back violence and take back what was his.

After all, the next ‘match’ of his would be the Purge Match. This would be a chance to take on the entirety of the Fallout roster and even some of the Proving Ground roster that are willing to show up and put on a performance that was worth fighting for their lives. But all that he could see in the listing of those that are meant to show up? It was just one name. It was just one person that stood out in front of everyone. That was the Prime Champion, Havoc. The man that took everything from him once again. The man that took everything he had left away from him in a heartbeat. And all he could think about was violence. The thought of revenge and payback for everything that he had done to him was hurting his mind, it was messing with him, leaving him with sleepless nights.

And all he could see was red. Blood red. And in his mind were visions— the visual of beating the hell out of Havoc left a creeping smile on his face as he sat in his office, looking towards the mirror that hung from the wall.

If that was what kept repeating in his mind, he could just begin to imagine what he was able to do to him in person if he could truly get his hands on him. But even then, the visuals in his mind seemed to have been out of a horror movie. Too detailed and graphic to even describe with words. Death couldn’t comprehend the true nature of Jason’s motive. Something has soon corrupted him. As he glanced over to the table right beside him, his attention was soon brought onto a small box that was opened. Etched into the small golden plaque on the side of the box were the words of ‘DO NOT OPEN’ and right underneath was the words of ‘INFINITY REALM CONFINEMENT’.

Jason knows what was inside of that box. Jason knows what was secured and hidden away from everyone - even Savannah - and now? All of those closed demons that he has held back for almost a year have finally been opened up, it was like Pandora’s Box being opened and the soul of what rested inside has been released onto this world. The entity that ruined Jason’s life has been released. The entity that murdered his mother. The entity that corrupted him for over a year and the entity that made him become a different kind of man that he once was. A man that would be unrecognisable due to his behaviour.

But in his mind, he asked himself one question. ‘If she could consume her demons, then why couldn’t he?’ All of the abuse, all of the lies, all of the deceit, and all of the pain has brought him to this moment— a moment that he hoped he would never have to turn to. A moment that he had hoped to have never come back to. Though, it’s too late. The world was soon to be corrupted with this entity once again. Jason had only hoped to use this for his own good, to use it for his own advantage, and to find a good meaning to this absorbent power he has to his arsenal.

This was the ending to his chapter, the ending of what he has been creating since his new beginning, and now everything feels like a return to form. Everything feels like it’s coming back together again. All of the pieces of the puzzle were creating the image of his past. Allowing him to become what he never wanted to become again. Allowing him to become a shadow of his former self. Becoming the maverick that he once lived to be.

It didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel like something he had a choice in. His hand was forced to do something he might regret after some time. And he had hoped that no matter what would happen, people would understand why. People would understand his reasoning. People would understand what he had to do to save everyone and everything that he fought for on this brand, in this company, and for the world itself.

He had to become the man that sold the world.

—

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Just so everyone else can be saved from this society.