Although the sky was overcast with dull clouds the October air still felt damp and humid. It was one of those days when you weren’t sure what kind of clothes to be wearing, the unseasonable heat made it impossible to cover up but the weather forecast predicted rain. Kendell decided carrying an umbrella would probably be the better alternative rather than wrapping up in jackets to hold off the rain. She took a deep sigh inwards and began to walk along the grass before stopping in her tracks. A warm familiar hand sat on her shoulder comforting her. She turned and smiled at Kameron nervously.

Kameron Chase: “I’ll be over by the car. Take all the time in the World; we’re in no hurry to get back.”

Kendell nodded as Kameron removed his hand from her delicate shoulder. She was on her own. With a deep breath she continued to walk across the grass. The grey headstones around her where neatly laid out in rows. She could feel her breathing increase in speed as she reached the plot where her father lay. She closed her eyes for a second, trying to relax her nerves. He was dead over six years and she had never visited his grave. She had been barely able to attend his funeral. She knelt down, placing the lilies she had brought with her on his grave. They where his favourite flowers. She remembered how when she had first moved into their home he was determined to plant white lilies in pots all around the small apartment. He said they put him in good mood and the lily had always been a sign of luck for him. She sat down in the grass in front of the head stone, running her fingers across the words engraved into the stone.

Dedicated to his Mother, his Friends and his Fiancé.

She smiled. It was true, he had been perfect, everything about him, he was a hero and could never put a foot wrong. She didn’t know where to start. She didn’t know whether or not it was ridiculous or if he was actually watching down on her, listening to her and knowing how she felt.

Kendell Smith: “Well it’s been sometime now, sorry I don’t visit more, I guess I’m just not a grave visiting type of person, but then again who is. I’ve been great, but you probably already know that... or know that I’m lying.”

Kendell looked around at the grave and headstone.

Kendell Smith: “I see they keep this place in good condition. Your aunt told me she visits all the time. I guess it helps her feel close to you in someway. I’m not sure how that is supposed to work but I guess it does. Six years down the line and she still hasn’t stopped referring to you in the present tense. She always said she never could she said that once she stopped it would become a reality that you where gone. She still misses you a lot. She wouldn’t let them take your old uniforms to hang up in the precinct. We nearly got into an argument about it, I told her it was only stuff but she said it wasn’t that it was all she had left of you and she couldn’t give it away. I suppose I can understand that…”

She looked down at her hands for a minute while she fidgeted with the end of her knee length navy skirt before raising her eyes and looking at the gravestone once again.

Marc Anthony Rossi
1980 - 2001

Kendell could feel a pang of guilt in her heart when the realisation dawned that not only had she not visited his grave but also she had not visited but she had stopped talking to him, something she had done for the first two years. She rarely spoke to anyone about her problems but in the silence of her own room she would tell him everything.

Kendell Smith: “I made it in the wrestling World in the end. It was hard at the beginning, people kept assuming I was like all the other women; I guess they thought that wrestling ability wasn’t something that came hand in hand with being female. I showed them though. I showed them that the name Kendella Luciano was that of strength and success. I won’t let them forget that. I found out I have a brother, Kameron, he’s keeping me in check, making sure I don’t let all the fame go to my head. I told him I got my competitive streak from you but you took it a little too far when you went ahead and died before him.”

She laughed slightly, smiling and looking down at her hands again. She stayed silent for a minute as memories started flooding back to her. She felt a lump grow in her throat as she held back the tears. She swallowed hard not letting her emotions get the better of her.

Kendell Smith: “I have gold, you’ll be happy to know. I’m holding the biggest title in UWF. It keeps me from thinking about you every second of every day. It was your mom that actually said I should take up a hobby, God only knows how it ended up being wrestling, I mean I was the dainty girl that hated breaking my nails, you used to tease me about it. I guess I just needed some way of getting the anger out… the resentment… the antagonism I felt when you where taken away from me…”

She trailed off for a moment looking back down at her hands. She wasn’t sure where she should be looking or what she should be doing. It felt good to speak though, it felt good thinking there was a possibility that he could hear every word she was saying. She hoped he could. She hoped he could tell how sorry she was.

Kendell Smith: “I’m so sorry… you must have been looking down on me in disgust at the things I’ve done, at the person I’ve turned in to. I just… I didn’t know what to do when you left me. I’m not proud of the things I’ve done, I’m not proud of the person I’ve become. I wish we could go back, when we where young and things seemed to be always on the up. I needed to come here and talk to you, I’m not a praying kind of girl, I guess my faith left me during the hard times but I just need to feel that you will be beside me. I can’t do it without you… I just wish you where still alive to be here with me through it all, to watch me, and make me feel like it’s worth while. You where my hero, I would be nothing now if it wasn’t for you.”

She stopped for a minute taking a deep breath and swallowing the lump once again.

Kendell Smith: “I miss you so much…”

Tears began to roll from her bright blue eyes down her rose tinted cheeks. She bowed her head down looking at the grass while her tears fell from her face onto the grass below her.

Kendell Smith: “I wish I could take back all the things I said to you on the last night we spoke. I love you. I’d give it all if I had one more night with you, one more night to tell you that I’ve become nothing without you, that no matter what ever happens you will always be my hero and nothing would have ever change that. I was young and I was stubborn but I never stopped loving you, not for one minute. I just wish I could stand close to you one more time. I miss you so much everyday.”

She wiped the tears from her eyes but they continued to fall down her cheeks. She hadn’t realised this would be so hard, she was finally coming to terms with the fact that he was gone and he would never be coming back.

Kendell Smith: “I’ve never forgotten everything you thought me. You’re the reason I am a winner. I’m doing this on Monday for you. For the man that fought tooth and limb just so he could give the rich girl what he thought she wanted. I learned everything from you and come Monday night I will show Gary Reece exactly what it is that makes a wrestling superstar.”

She pushed herself up from the dry grass, standing in front of the headstone and running her hand along the cool marble. She raised her hand to her face, wiping away the last of her tears and taking a deep breath. It had been a long emotional day and she felt drained. She took one single lily from the bouquet on his grave and placed it on the grave. She closed her eyes and kissed the top of the marble headstone before turning and walking away towards the car. She took another long deep breath inwards. Kameron stood out by the road, leaning against the side of the car. He looked worried and sad as Kendell approached him. With her head down and a sigh indicating how upset she was, she stepped in front of him. That was all the invitation he needed. He stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her as she began to cry again. He rocked her back and forth while holding her tight, his warm embrace reassuring.

Kameron Chase: “It’s ok Kendell…”

Kendell Smith: “It’s never going to be ok…”



-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------




“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror, which, paralyses needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

I sat there in the dark, the moonlight filling the room and dancing along my sun kissed skin like a spotlight waiting for my performance as the leading actress in this life saga. I sat transfixed by my own thoughts. Too tired of mind to know right from wrong, too physically exhausted to do something about it. Apathy filling my soul as the moonlight continued to mock my life choices. My eyes darted to the side for a split second as I looked back at the moon that stared back at me, laughing at the girl with the empty blue eyes.

“What are fears but voices airy? Whispering harm where harm is not. And deluding the unwary till the fatal bolt is shot.”

The palms of my hands felt clammy as I felt his breath on the nape of my neck causing shivers through out my body. I turned my head, nobody there. But it was there, I could feel it, I could sense it, like a warning, a sixth sense telling me to be wary.

“What potions have I drunk of Siren tears, Distilled from limbecks foul as hell within, Applying fears to hopes, and hopes to fears, Still losing when I saw myself to win.”

The moon reflected across the gold of the Universal Title, bouncing against the iris of my bright blue eyes as I stared back at it. Champion, winner, it had been a long time since I had been a winner. Gold didn’t make you a winner. I had lost the spark that at one time had made me who I was. I had lost my soul and become a shell of the person I once was before. Leaning forward I took the bottle of spirits and raised it to my lips, a common ritual before bedtime. It stopped the dreams, the nightmares of failure. A deep sigh and my eyelids fluttered shut for a second, opening up as a smile crept along my face followed by a laugh. Fear had been something I had lived with all my life. Fear of failure, fear of heartbreak, fear of death, fear of the unknown, fear of losing everything I had worked hard for but as I sat in the dark and laughed the fear faded from me, drifting from me into a cloud of apathy.

"Fear makes the wolf bigger than he is."

The big bad wolf, he huffed and he puffed and he blew the house down but if my recollection was correct he couldn’t blow down the house made of stone, the random metaphors of a drunk. My wolf was Gary Reece. His stone house was my title reign, my protection, and the shield from my fear.

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."

Looking down at my clenched fists I realised a trail of blood had began to trickle down my wrist, dripping from my sallow skin onto the cream carpeted floor below me. I let loose my fist; four perfect half moons lined my palm where my nails had dug deep and torn through my own flesh. There was no fear in me for the first time in a long time I was without demons. It had taken the strength to follow the path of Lucifer himself before I could let go of my trepidation and follow life for what it was, a meagre existence of lost souls and damaged minds. There was no longer hope for me, the good catholic girl drawn to the other side by the magnetism of the seven deadly sins. The lust for power and the lust for life had finally taken away my rose tinted glasses. I was looking at the World through my own eyes, my own views and I was only beginning to see what it really was and this week I planned to bathe in the beauty of a world of sin, a world of power and world of blood lust as I took on the man that defied belief. But there was more to this life than black and white, right and wrong, good and bad. The five motives for killing another; fear - jealousy - money - revenge - and protecting something you love.

“Every man is afraid of something. That's how you know he loves something; when he is afraid of losing it.”

I remembered the night it had first come into my possession, the fear, the anticipation, the hunger for success, the feeling that for once every part of the puzzle had come together. It was finally my time, I knew before I stepped down to the ring, I knew it was my time; Gary Reece was just another pawn in the game of Kendell’s life like everybody else that crossed my path. Before that night I had been a rookie, a jobber, someone who could only beat the living crap out of stunners but when I made my return I knew exactly what I wanted and it lay around the waist of Gary Reece. People like Stryfe and Icon had seen it, they had seen how I wouldn’t be stopped until I had finally achieved what I had set out to accomplish. I had fallen at the hands of Gary Reece time and time again, I had put up m best effort and still fallen at the final hurdle but that was for the IC title, the second rate title, when it came to the Universal Title, there was no more messing around. But what is there left when you win the thing you lusted after for so long? When you are at the top how do you go higher? Do you convince yourself that the longer you hold onto it will make you a better champion? The storm had passed and then there was only calm, nothing left to fight for, nothing left to push for just the sound of my light breathing breaking through the lonely silence.

You search the World like a lost soul looking for something to define you, looking for something to bring meaning to your life and when you finally find the thing that will bring you eternal happiness you realise it’s similar to indulging in cocaine. The feeling that you are on top of the World comes crashing down around you the next morning, leaving you tired, disappointed and with a dry feeling in your mouth and then you realise that the boredom and emptiness you felt before indulging is still there, mocking you for thinking that it would ever leave your side, leaving you feeling foolish for ever believing that anything so fickle could define your self worth.

“One of the things which danger does to you after a time is -, well, to kill emotion. I don't think I shall ever feel anything again except fear. None of us can hate anymore - or love.”

The moon, now high in the sky drifted through the blinds once more, but this time reflecting on something that hadn’t been visible before, something that stood out in large, bold letters on one wall of the hotel room….

“Kendell Smith You’re Next”