Cassidy Cray prepares for Kevin Starr... and the cold embrace of the void...

[Quillz]

***The scene opens in the private sanctum of one-half of the PWA Tag Team Champions, Cassidy Cray. The room is spartan... a minimalist white canvas designed to serve as a symbolic tribute to negative space and the nothingness that exists in the liminal expanses between the here and the there. Cassidy Cray sits in the center of the intimidatingly barren sanctuary, his legs crossed and his hands open with their palms up. His eyes are closed and his breathing is even.***

CRAY: “I have been called many things during my storied time on this mortal plane. I have been referred to as The Enlightened One... The Pinfall Wizard... The Alpha... all these titles have been true enough nomenclatures in their time. But there is one title... one mantle... that I have heard whispered in the halls of the PWA Arena that I must take exception to. People have been referring to me as... The Fallen Prophet. And that, my brothers and sisters... could not be further from the truth. How can one fall when one is elevated with the truth of existence in all of its forms?”

***Cray inhales deeply and opens his eyes. They glow with an unnatural white incandescence.***

CRAY: “Last season... I was a lost soul in a world that had ceased to make sense. Everything I was... and all that I aspired to be... was cast asunder by the contradiction of an existence that had lost all coherent meaning. But then... an epiphany. In my darkest hour, I beheld the ultimate, undeniable truth behind the veil. In my desperation... I finally realized that the world was not a balance between light and dark... between good and evil. In fact... the world was merely a reflection. It was two sides of a mirror. On one side was chaos and pain and passion and suffering... and on the other, was nothing at all.”

***Cray closes his eyes and smiles a cold and lifeless smile that does not touch his eyes.***

CRAY: “My entire life... I have labored under a misapprehension. I thought that in a world of balance, darkness would inexorably be countered by light. Coldness would find it’s opposite number in warmth. Hate would inevitably be balanced by love. But I was wrong. The cold, undeniable truth... is that love and hate and joy and sadness and passion and fury and ecstasy and sadism... are all part of the experience of living. There is no divide. They are entwined like a serpent eating its own tail.”

***Cray interlaces his fingers and stares at them coldly.***

CRAY: “This is not ‘good’... it is not ‘evil’... it simply... IS. It is the entirety of existence in all of its infinite complexity. But, in all things there must be balance. There must be an Alpha to the Omega. So... what is the opposite of life? It is no more and no less... that the absence of life.”

***Cray slowly wags his finger back and forth in front of the camera.***

CRAY: “Do not misrepresent my words... I am not referring to the abstract concept of ‘death’. Because even the inevitable embrace of death is part of the living experience. No... what I am referring to... is the absence of life. The nothingness. The blank and infinite void that exists before and after all things. This emptiness is my cathedral. The infinite nothing is my sermon. Limitless expanse of the unsullied infinite is the salvation that has brought me the enlightenment I have craved for my entire life.”

***Cray raises to his feet... almost floating.***

CRAY: “And it is the embrace of nothingness that I offer to PWA. And... this weekend at Assault, it is this sweet and comforting caress of cold oblivion that I offer to Kevin Starr. Last week, my counterpart Bokrug Manaj delivered our sermon... and this week I shall administer another eloquent lesson. Kevin Starr... in many ways you remind me of the Cassidy Cray of old. You embrace life. You hedonistically feed off the wine and grapes sowed by the passion of the here and now. It has brought you fame and fortune... but has clearly hollowed your spirit. You require balance. Your soul seeks its mirrored opposite. I am that inevitable spiritual counterpoint. Face me ‘Natural’. Face the bitter embrace of an illusion shattered. Only once you see the world for what it truly is... can you leave it behind and find true enlightenment.”

***Cray looks up and smiles as the screen fades to a blinding white.***