Post by The Walkers on May 28, 2023 0:39:25 GMT
The scene opens up on a familiar cabin, a visibly heat clinging to its exterior walls and swallowing the structure in its entirety. The camera zooms forward and ascends from ground level as the front door swings open, almost as if pushed by an invisible force from inside. Sitting around a dim lit fireplace are our favorite family of four.
APPLAUSE
Will: What do we do now?
Misery and depression seem to echo from the teenager’s voice and through the living space. Where there’s typically joy and confidence, there is instead a sense of doom and gloom while a chorus of buzzing flies float in small gatherings throughout the abode.
Will: Have at it.
We pan down towards the coffee table centered amongst them, topped with four plates of rotting meat and wilted vegetables.
Abby: I think I’m gonna have to pass on that.
LAUGHTER
Will: Pops, you got a plan?
Robert: Son, sometimes things don’t always go as planned. One minute, you think that you have everything you could ever need and the next, you’re back at square one wondering not only which path to take, but where the path even is.
Abby: All I know is that I hope we figure something out fast. I don’t think mom is feeling so hot.
On the sofa behind Abby, Alice is laid out, gray and worse for wear. Robert lifts a finger up towards his right nostril and wipes a clotted streak of red off onto the back of his hand. With a sniffle and a quick shake of the head, he pushes up to his feet to stand and look down at the rest of the group.
Abby: Where?
Robert: Back on the hunt.
Alice sputters out a cough like an old exhaust pipe and rolls ninety degrees towards her husband.
Alice: Maybe something edible this time.
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
NEXT..
NEXT…
NEXT…
Page after page of flipping through the leather bound book only furthered the ensuing confusion for the man, peering hopelessly through thick lenses in search of something he could decipher with the naked eye, as if he actually spoke some dated form of Arabic.
Steam rises from his cup of coffee while a tabby cat brushes up against his pant legs, doing that awkward back arching motion as a purr rises from the depths of its ribcage.
The cat looks up with its head tilted and offers up a gentle meow.
He pulls out his phone and takes a couple pictures of the cover before running them through reverse image search.
?: Nothing again.
He reaches down and lets his fingertips graze the cat’s back with a motion that prompts it and the tag on its collar to shake melodically.
JEFF
Small streams of light pouring in from the windows catch the silver disk as it meets their glow. The man runs his finger over some of the text, trying his best to pronounce the text and naturally butchering it.
He flips the cover shut and raises a curious brow, but is quickly cut off by the sound of boiling water hitting the stovetop with a sizzle and a pop.
He pivots and rushes to the sight of orange embers beginning to poke up and over the edges of the pot. Panic hits as the smoke detector beeps overhead and the man lunges for the dial to kill the flame underneath.
?: Just my luck..
Pressure had been mounting for weeks. With a pitch that seemed dead in the water and prospects as close to zero as they could be, every minor inconvenience or fork in the road felt massive and only served to pile onto that sinking feeling he spent seven days a week battling from dusk till dawn.
Mreoowh
Jeff’s usual soothing tone now came out pained from the other side of the kitchen island. The man took a worried step back in his direction as he spat out a cautious response.
The distortion comes through even moreso as he peaks over at Jeff, now hunched over as if to cough up a hairball.
The man steps forward, leaning over to comfort the animal, but is interrupted by a stream of thick bile shooting from its mouth and driving the feline back and into the fridge door.
Frozen in place by fear, he locks eyes with the hunched over cat body. Jeff struggles to get to his feet, but begins a zombie-like sway back in his direction. The man kneels down to check on the cat, the meow now unrecognizable.
?: Je-?
This time, when his fingers brush against Jeff’s fur, the fur comes with it as do multiple layers of skin that leave the flesh underneath exposed.
The cat’s head violently shoots upward and Jeff’s bloodshot eyes meet their owners while the meowing becomes twisted and humanlike in delivery. In what seems like a nanosecond, Jeff lunges up through the air and towards the man’s face. He does his best to stave off the attack, leaning his head back away from swiping claws and gnashing teeth that are suddenly much sharper than what they were minutes prior. His feet tangle and bring him backwards into the kitchen. Jeff’s twelve pound body seems to bear hundreds of pounds of force seemingly pulled from thin air that knocks the man back into the countertop.
Acting solely off adrenaline, the man shifts a hand towards the cat's scruff and frees up the other to yank the microwave door open. Jeff manages to break free and lunge forward, but the man ducks in time to send his companion darting into the back of the appliance. Before it can lunge again, he manages to slam the door on it and can only watch on in horror as blood pours from both its eyes and mouth. Though contained, it remains determined to break out and get to its owner. The cat smashes its head towards the glass of the door, leaving a small crack on the innermost panel. The man, now sweating bullets, slams his hand towards the panel of buttons while the door seems to buckle slightly from the force coming from inside. He shakes his head in disbelief and hits start.
You know, I don’t love to name names. For the last couple months, I’d say that I’ve been mostly appreciative of the opportunity given to me and never saw it as necessary to make things so..personal. Feels too negative, you know? Feels like something just as effectively implied as spoken, but as it sits now..there are names worth speaking..names that need addressing, for they now play a part in me and my family’s collective livelihoods.
S.2.K.
This match shouldn’t be about you and yet, it really is. Through your failures in this arena, you’ve managed to shape much more than you probably realize. See, you didn’t just fail yourselves. You went in empty handed and left the same way and for many of Mr. English’s soldiers, that would be something impossible to swallow and I’m sure that it got to you, understandably so. What your failure did though was take away from US. Your shortcomings have left our stomachs growling and our minds racing and after everything that I’ve done to help fill those stomachs, I cannot and will not accept the outcome handed to us.
Ms. Iruma.
Ms. Niijima.
Surely, you can see the same thing I can. My family went out and did exactly what they have done since day one and that’s provided difficulty for others. Strike 2 Kill was not who you wanted nor who you deserved and this sequel is proving just that. Mr. English, in all his wisdom, has clearly seen what the rest of the world did and his signing of this match will pay off exactly in the way that he’s hoping for. Bloodlust for security. That’s the deal we’ve brokered, is it not? We scratch his back and he scratches ours and that makes what happens next a non-negotiable.
My family is going to deliver on our side of that agreement, because unlike Strike 2 Kill, failure is not an option when your last name is Walker. What we bring to the table is an understanding of urgency. We perform with urgency knowing that without it, we risk never performing again. The two of you could be bounced and find another vehicle for slugging it out. For us? This is it. Without Lethal Trials, we would cease to exist and all of this will be for nothing. Understand that we are not willing to go back to nothingness.
Our last meeting may have filled you both with confidence, but confidence is a killer. Confidence means an assumption of safety and that you will make it to tomorrow. You do not have the net to catch you this time. There’s no eliminating the odd men out. You are completely and utterly alone in this predicament with only each other to lean on and family against family? Plight against plight? You do not measure up. We are that now proverbial ten mile walk uphill through the blizzard to reach a destination. It is what makes us who we are and what makes my family so…resourceful between those ropes.
Those accolades hold significance to us, because of their significance to Mr. English. Them being in our possession is a harsh reminder of what happened to Three Ring Barney, what THEY did to a trio once regarded as the cream of the crop prior to our arrival. That gold means renewal for our show and trust me when I tell you that we’ve given up so much more than you can ever understand or even come close to matching. I am done grinding my teeth to dust from that slow, sinking feeling.
Starvation is a twisted little thing.
..and you will never understand it.
THWACK!
The sound of ax head slashing through logs of maple and imbedding itself into the stump underneath them blasts through the woods as Robert lifts the handle up and brings it down with very little in the way of fatigue.
Robert’s son speaks to him from direct rearview, but his own unblinking eyes pay no mind as the ax head bifurcates its target once more. The camera does a subtle zoom out to reveal bones picked mostly clean.
LAUGHTER
Will: I’m sorry. I’ve tried everything. I don’t know what to do.
The edge comes down once more and rests there as Robert releases his grip, but still neglects to make the conversation face to face. He clears his throat and walks away from the stump, dragging his fingers along a still fleshy ribcage of an undisclosed species.
Will: It is?
Robert: There’s always another way, always another option. We’ll keep looking.
The patriarch approaches the driver’s side of the family car and pulls open the front door.
The Walkers’ son makes his way towards the creaking porch and shouts into the quiet of the cabin.
Will: Let’s go! There’s not shit here!
His voice distorts as its cut off by another coming somewhere out of view.
LAUGHTER
APPLAUSE
CREDITS ROLLING
