Valquist: Enlightenment

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Alongside my best friend Isis Derrida we once ventured far from the comfort of our home in Infinity City to find a meaning within the wrestling world, to find enlightenment. Now I find myself alone, without my friend.

My name is Valquist. A former architect, a seasoned veteran of the aged art of wrestling. Alone, without the presence of my best friend, my family. Bound to an un-turning road, driven by the desire to do that which is right, my path is now singular. Infinity, my home, even during its darkening, though I have ignored my path’s calling, labelled as desperate for trying to appease my long past, in the grander scale of time my absence has proven temporary. My preaching tone is of enlightenment in a world set in its ways. A world of black and white. The sun once set on my un-turning road, but a new day has been cast, and I will once again honour the mantra of Full Measures. Isis Derrida and Valquist.

I am The Valquist and this is my enlightenment.

_______________

“For those unaware, my name is Chris McCarthy. I am not the hero of this story, neither am I the villain. I do not know where I stand, or of my purpose. I’m just one of three hundred million in the United States of America, clinging to the love of the stars and stripes. I am an optimist. I love my Brooklyn home. I yearn for its comforts and delights. My dream is a work in progress, young kids don’t have to figure out what they want to do as they age and develop. Each day comes and goes with its challenges, and you fall into different opportunities. Different potentials meeting different people. People, accomplished and seasoned in their profession, driven by economic worth and self-fulfilment. People, stronger by will and might, the people you know will outlive their skin and bone. People, kinder than their smile suggests, willing to throw more than just a bone to help others reach their level.

Me, I’ve been saddled to something you all know as professional wrestling. It’s been my backbone now for more than two years. Is it my dream? Having been at its core, I wish only to stand on the periphery of its existence. These last two months have changed everything. Realigned any potential dream that I may have. I’ve travelled the world without paying a single cent, interacted with spots personalities, some good, and some beyond the reaches of evil. I’ve watched beautiful men and women disfigure themselves, mutilate their personalities and risk their long-term health, and as a slightly more enlightened member of the wrestling community, I ask why. Why do these men of muscle persist with the grinder of the ring-mat? The more established and popular these people get, the more is destroys them. That’s why there are so many heels, these professed bad guys, populating the halls of its profession. 

I’m left asking how far these wrestlers need to be pushed before they completely snap. Before they lose more than just their careers. Family and genuine friends are overtly absent, and the families that these guys and gals parade like expendable luggage, they ultimately get involved, and they too ultimately end up alone. Loneliness, I believe is the catalyst for much of wrestling’s sinister side. Factions and tag teams are presented as thicker than stone and time. Unbreakable. Valquist is the perfect example of its failure. True companionship. He and his best-friend, his ‘brother’, Isis Derrida, two inseparable souls, were torn apart by this business. So why is there such an affiliation between man and mat? Valquist, from all I have learnt, was not ready to hang up the proverbial boots. Infinity Wrestling’s closure only spurred Val further towards his path of enlightenment, away from the city. But Isis, he was drawn to its foreclosure. Stricken by its absence. He could see no end to the path unless the infinite crown was always in sight. So their wounded bond was fractured beyond the point of reconciliation. Believing so fully in their mantra of Full Measures, neither were contented with compromise. 

Now there is just silence. Isis has been spoken of, by Val, but his flesh is but faith and myth. His inconspicuous absence makes me wonder what ever happened to a man Val regards in higher stature than himself, but answers have not been forthcoming.

Much like life, seizing the dream never came of age. Infinity was ripped from existence by the Battle Zone Network, by a well-spoken former world boxing champion. A championed I’ve spoken with in great length. Think of our lives as this personal story, and nothing else. Personal failure weighs heavy on the heart, but more often than not people don’t realise that billions of people have lived and died, been murdered or taken by illness, without their dream realised. For whatever reason, racial stereotyping, age, language and ethnicity, grammar and personal presentation, an education, anything. We are all put at some form of disadvantage, but some are born more capable. Some earn their stature and praise. Val is one of those men, one of the capable. A genuine tale of ‘nothing into something’. Perhaps what has been weighing on my friends mind more than anything is that he knows of his capability, yet just like most of humans throughout history, Val feels nothing but air when he goes out to reach for his dream. He is left with the wind between his fingers and the lingering feeling of frustration, that given his obvious talents and rapid rise up the Visionaries ladder, he has been holstered by differing opinion.

I ask, even of my friend, why he is still here. Not just in VoW, but in wrestling in its entirety. Val is all of the above. Lonely, with no friends, persistently banging the drum of his honest nature and his real words. His real actions. I believe Val has begun to show signs that he is beginning to lose his mental strain, he’s being pushed to that pinnacle level, and he even said so with Joey Nitro in his grand interview. Val is the most eager wrestler the Visionaries have, to the point where with Seth Iser’s withdrawal, he challenged the world. He believes his ambition and capability outstrips the federation, and even though he may very well be true to his word, he’s only put a target on his head. By challenging the world, in more ways than one, Valquist’s most prevalent weakness, a stubborn nature of treasuring honour and application, shines brightly amongst those seeking his head on a stick.

Prior to Seth Iser’s injury, Val spent every day at the summit of mountains in Canada. He told me to knock him off his podium. Every time I failed. He would push me downwards into snow every time. Until one morning I didn’t go up the mountain, to meet his demands, I laid in. Val didn’t show up, he probably waited all day, like a patient pet for his owner to arrive. One the second day, when we knew for certain that the main event wasn’t going to happen, I awoke to Val sitting by my bedside. I told him that the only way down the mountain was by his own doing. Three straight defeats, my friend believed he was tumbling, and not worthy of a place in the Six Visions of Pain match at Heatstroke. He believed that in this instance, that he was Chris McCarthy, constantly pushed down, neck deep in a chilled ice. But he quickly came to saw reality. Even Val, a man with his head and shoulders on the ground, got lost amongst the brutality of professional wrestling. As we sat for hours, he knew that he was losing grip of his permanence. His ambition has always eclipsed reality, and by forcing him down the mountain on his own accord, he was once again able to breathe and see as you or me. Lonely people, no matter how brilliant, always lose perspective unless there is a human element, a touch.

My biggest fear, on a selfish note, is of my own personal state in wrestling. If Val is unable to control his own mantra, he’ll wield a weapon that’ll make my own existence irrelevant. I want to, and need to be, aligned to Val. A constant promise to show his enlightenment, I fear will be his own downfall. Isis would not want Val trampling on any legacy, shared or individual. Isis would surely believe that Val is capable, just by his talent alone. And that ladies and gentleman, is the ‘wrestling effect’. The ability for the industry to make you feel worthless, or belittled, even when they are performing an ancient craft that only a few know how to do. Val teeters on his reality, and the worst reality of all is that he blurs his lines. If he is to win the Visionaries World Championship, he cannot see red. He must only see clear water.

Of course, I want to see him win, for the sake of the wrestling industry. The entire team at Intro to Wrestling have never been more ecstatic for a match in professional wrestling. The Six Visions of Pain is going to define our website, it’s going to define who Val is as a person, and should he win the big one, it’ll legitimise everything Val’s ever said during his time.

The last time I saw Val was at my bedside. I left him these words in his precious black book. The diary of Isis Derrida. Until I see my friend the next time, it is time that I solve the myth between two divided brothers.

I beg of you, Valquist, the dearest of my friends, you must relent. You are not defined by defeat. Zhong is wrong about you, wrong about a lot. Wrong about everything. Seth is just another mirage of your frustration. You need this intervention. You need to be shown that you’ll be just fine, no matter the path you take. You’ve been a blessing to VoW. Seth despite his destructive path, sees it and values it. Do not risk your reality, your everything, with Isis Derrida.

Despite your reservations, some wrestlers are not broken. The working pieces of this industry are not wrestlers themselves, it’s a fusion of them, together. If we wanted stable identities I’d tune into live Church sermons, and day time gardening shows. You’re looking for a way to prove your tale of enlightenment is built on solid ground? It’s not hard, really. Just repeat after me.

“My name is Valquist. For twenty years I have been travelling the world on a path of enlightenment, searching for a means to achieving my own finality. There is no man, no God, that will be able to topple me, as I venture upwards towards the golden reflection I seek.

I am the most prevalent mind and body in the federation, and the industry in its entirety. It’s time you all ascend to my level for a change, instead of punishing me from below. It’s time to elevate yourselves, and actually see Valquist for the man he is, and not for the version you’ve attempted to destroy and corrupt. I will accept nothing other than the very best, and if you don’t measure up to the mantra of Full Measures, then you’re not worthy of standing in my clear water.

It’s time the world around Valquist grew up, for Valiance has grown tired of adolescence and immaturity, because the future holds only one measure of finality.

Valquist, Visionaries World Champion. Infinite.”

Two months exactly had passed since Chris McCarthy had tested his journalistic skills outside of the law offices of Derrida & Valquist. A buzzing sense of déjà vu had overtaken the moment. Just as before, just moments before he was ushered out by Val’s withdrawn father, Chris McCarthy was staring upward into a clouded day, slowly peering downward and seeing his clear reflection in the buildings all-glass structure. Chris had now been in Infinity City three times, being a full blooded Brooklyn boy, Chris actually felt intimidated by the size of Infinity’s towering complexes. In a day darkened by light grey vapour, the clouds lingering in the air faded the top of Infinity’s tallest monuments. The ground Chris walked on, a slick and crystal clear glossed marble, was shadowed. The cities electrical structure meant that it had to have powerful, luminous street lights to compensate for winter days and nights. Behind Chris’s reflection, in the middle of the working day on Wednesday, transportation drowns out much of the noise of the work-focused populace.

Chris felt increasingly bad for those living in the infinite city, stuck being a desk jockey. He always imagine that their jobs were cover for what they were really doing with their days, inventing and play-testing new technologies and ideas. A city of forever-students, always learning, always at the cusp of discovery and promise. A city liberated by the arts, championed by its sports. Infinite possibilities, right? These idealistic thoughts lingered until a familiar face came to meet Chris at the front entrance.

Terrence Tiekra. Agent T.

Without the need for shades, Terrence’s bright blue eyes and darkened brown hair, almost looked alien to Chris. Being the man that first brought Chris to the city, he felt rushed to bring the foreigner into the building, and to the same spine elevator what leads Chris to the very top level.

“Thank you for the ticket,” Chris says. “I’d never be able to afford the transportation on the money I’ve been recently making.”

“Valquist has informed the firm to make special amends for your visits,” Terrence illuminates. “Val’s father was hesitant but all the money is from Val’s personal accounts here.”

“I’m surprised Val still has an affiliation here. It’s all been wrestling, wrestling, wrestling as of late.”

“We know,” T says with a smile as he closes the lift and begins the ascent towards the top. “Val has taken on a consultancy role since his return to the ring, so we’ll get the occasional e-mail about a case we’re working on.”

“What about Isis, does he have the same?”

“We gave them both the same occupation, but we only have one responder.”

“Why doesn’t he?” Chris asks.

“It’s a consultancy role, Chris. Neither are actively involved with our defendants or our case files. It’s practically unemployment,” Agent T states for the record. “Oria expects nothing from his family, and that’s what we work around.”

“But why wouldn’t Isis get even remotely involved?”

“That’s an awfully personal question, asked to an employee who hasn’t been burdened by their friendship.”

“Message understood,” Chris says smiling.

Cued into the occasion, the elevator door opens and Val’s father, a rugged version of Val himself, sat behind his desk, leaning back, as if expecting Chris’s company. Oria’s grey suit jacket was uncharacteristically draped across varnished oak. Chris took a seat, and Terrence had already disappeared. Instead of formal handshakes, Oria Valquist sat comfortably in silence, creating a strange silence in the room. Chris could hear the ventilation rattle and the laptop Oria was using, performing background functions.

“The last time I was here, you didn’t give me the time of day,” Chris explains. “The only reason I’ve given this a second shot is because like you, Val has come to mean a lot to me.”

“You mean he’s building your business up from the ground up,” Oria says, sipping at water in a tumbler.

“Val didn’t slave behind a computer for a year and a half, doing what I was doing,” Chris fights back.

“He and I were no different. Hard times fall on deaf ears to those who can change the future. This firm wasn’t built with money or sponsorship, it was built from the grease of the everyday. I respect that, even in a different position. It still doesn’t answer why you’ve come back, believing that I will change my tone regarding Val and Isis.”

“I don’t want you to change your tone. What I want is enlightenment.”

“Is that why you’re here, for discovery? Is my son an unexplored alien world to you?”

“I’m here because of a wrestling match.”

“You’re not the one going into the ring,” Oria smiles with the Valquist trademark.

“I know that,” Chris hastily replies. “It does sound weird, but I am here for that exact reason. You son is close to losing himself, he needs closure with Isis. Or I fear he’ll turn into what remains of the Derrida name.”

“I have told you once before that my son’s division has wounded this family. I’m not responsible for repairing their history. That’s up to them. Not you and me.”

“Reparation isn’t the solution,” Chris argue. “I think that I’ve been dancing around the issue for too long now. I’m going to get to the bottom of Val and Isis.”

“All so my son can win a championship? Have you even considered the consequences of any unravelling? You might not like what you find.”

“That’ll only apply if you know something I don’t… And it’s not just a championship, not for Val. He sees this World Championship as a means of legitimising his current path.”

“My son is not wrong, he chose the lonely road. He should be able to find happiness from his solo adventure.”

“But he isn’t, he’s slowly twisting his prerogative, every single week. First it was Val saying he’d never allow Isis’s ways dominate, and that he was going to be used as a symbol of what not to do. Then there was this episode where Val was beaten-down before a match, then two more defeats, now he can’t get the idea of perfecting Isis Derrida out of his mind.”

“You’re scared that you’ll end up at square one,” Oria asserts.

“Terrified,” Chris openly admits, “but that is not paramount. Val could be the wrestler of this generation, inspire where others have failed, be Infinity’s new champion, but he won’t do it if you’re at arm’s length. The Visionaries are setting Val up for failure, and he’ll end up in that trap unless the truth sets Val free from his shackles.”

“You’re out of your bounds, Mr. McCarthy, and I’m not here to be your entertainment. This is not your family, you have no jurisdiction meddling with its affairs.”

“It is my business. I spend most days will Val, but I’ve not seen him in weeks. He’s in my sights and presence less and less. It’s his family that’ll set him straight. I just don’t understand your reluctance, you’re deliberately being impossible to deal with, all whilst I’ve had to endure months and months of riddles and words. It’s time for definitive action on my part, I cannot allow this to continue.”

“Chri---,” Oria begins to say before being cut-off.

“Where is Isis Derrida?” Chris demands.

“I do not care where they are. Until they are here, together, that’s when I’ll care.”

“You know where he is, you’re not an idiot,” Chris assumes, sparkling fuel to his fire. “I’m going to be blunt until I’ve left here with my next step.”

“We’ll be here a long while,” Oria says, genuinely looking unconcerned and out of the loop in regards to his children. “I’m not the answer, just like you, I’ve been brought down by this whole mess. We’re still recovering from Infinity’s closure."

“There it is, that word. Infinity. The dividing word. A word that makes my story-telling side believe that Isis is actually dead. Val only speaks of him in memories, always in the past tense. Val does not act like he is going to meet his brother in the flesh again, so why isn’t the possibility a reality?”

“That’s absurd,” Oria claims.

“But it’s never been denied. Not once. Ever.”

“We would know if Isis returned, cold.” Oria was feeling uncomfortable with Chris flying off the handle. Oria’s used to dealing with economists and public defendants, who on the most part are ruthless, yet pleasant. Chris was rooting around his heartstrings, trying to pull at his spine for an answer.

“Then where is he? The last time I was here, you made it clear to me that the protection and privacy of all the past Infinity wrestlers fell under your executive order, so why wouldn’t Isis? You realise what I do for a living, right? It’s my job to root out where these guys are applying their trade, but the Infinity men are so well guarded, it’s like they’re invisible to the public eye.”

“To inform you of that process, the wrestler has the option to choose living in front of, or behind, the veil of secrecy we offer. We are all entitled to our freedom, and just because one small business owner wants to spike his viewership, it doesn’t give you legitimacy to demand what you want. Val might have called in favours for you, but I’m not my son. I’m rather far from it.”

“Do you know where he is, or not?”

“I do not.”

Chris sits back, to take a breather from the badgering assault on Oria to compose himself. Oria can see Chris’s frustration, the veins sticking out of his head, his bronze palms sweating and his brittle fingers clicking. But Oria was genuine, to his own knowledge. He knew he had to wait for Chris to speak again, this was the Brooklyn native’s personal battle.

“We get absorbed into it, every little detail. Every fact, every appearance. There’s nothing more we wrestling fans like to do than go behind the curtain. It’s when we get there, to the point where we know the wrestler’s real story, every little detail. With no disrespect to your son, Mr. Valquist, I am considered a friend, but this entire time I’ve deliberately been kept at arms-length. You son, he’s a terrific wrestler, and he’s the opportunity to win his first ever championship. To do it, he’s battling extreme odds, and all I’ve tried to do, and wanted to do, is to be a part of that something special. To feel what it’s like to win something as a big as a world title, to see if it means as much as all these wrestlers make out. I believe in your son’s mantra, perhaps too much, and that is why I’ve come to you seeking enlightenment. Val has a certain purity as a competitor that makes him stand-out from the crowd, I just don’t want him to lose that sense of individuality. He shouldn’t have to be reliant on Isis every time he tastes defeat. Val uses him to mask what he truly thinks, and it’s only something he’s doing because he feels like he’d have no wrestling home unless he obeys to at least a few of the Visionaries rules.”

“I’m not going to get angry with you for travelling half way around the world, just to be disappointed with me, Chris. I also told you in our last brief encounter that I value your contribution and your work. If Val is to fail, or succeed, in any case you’re not the deciding factor on what happens next. My son is, as you rightly suggest, a commanding fighter. A brilliant technical worker. Pressure and expectancy doesn’t faze him. It’s better that he phases out his negativity through Isis, who unlike Val, doesn’t care for it. Isis was always bigger and stronger than Val growing up, he was always the one out of the two to think up of new games and stories to tell together. Isis was the brainchild for any adventure, but like it or not, Val always took control of what his brother had created, and made something good of it. What’s to say that the same won’t happen again? Isis stepped away from wrestling because he was sick and tired of its gruelling nature. He asked himself why he still wanted to be in those environments, with people that didn’t value him, and in federations that didn’t best utilise his talents.”

Chris sat stunned, realising that the privately recorded a message, the constant doubting, that he and Isis shared a similar shell. Chris blemished with rosy cheeks, looking embarrassed, but Oria didn’t know why.

“Then what drove Val to stay?” Chris asks kindly, the storm finally passing between the two. “What possible motivation would he have for singles competition, and winning a World Championship, without the familiar names?”

“The same force that drove you here,” Oria says leaning forward, with his arms cupped and leaning against the oak desk. “Truth.”

“Truth?”

“Val has been seeking the same answers as you. Your wrestling model doesn’t see Isis as his guardian angel, no matter how much he tells you. Val’s resentful, always has been through history. I’m not half the speaker he is, but deep down I know Val loathes Isis. If you’re ever in a bookstore before you set off for Val’s big night, pick up a book called The Game by Neill Strauss. It’s a tale of a guy’s playbook, and how this guy masters his technique. It’s all about discipline, as Val would put it, to a path, a certain existence and how to dominate it. It’s not like Val’s own writing, darkened and miserable. This author transforms himself from a shy, quietly spoken man into a silver-tongue gem. He comes across Tom Cruise, do defiant in his lifestyle, almost like a monk in his devotion. Cruise never changed his personality once, he always knows what he wants, his greatest desires. So then here’s this kid, doubting everything, but not directly to his face, but to his family. Scared that such a revered personality will push him away. The older, distinguished gentleman that this kid is speaking to, he isn’t worried. He realises that his only biological son can take care of himself, he’s seen his kid rise into one of the most graceful and well-spoken entertainers in the world. This proud father would never doubt his ambition, or his means to get there, because he believes that whatever plan he’s scheming, it’ll only be for good.”

“I understand where you’re coming from,” Chris replies, knowing Oria was far from finished.

“Val isn’t the bad guy here, Chris. Val has lost a brother, not through death, but for a major part of his life. How do you think my son will feel when neither his father, nor his precious Isis, will be in attendance when he raises the belt?”

“Pretty crappy, I’d imagine,” Chris admits.

“This entire firm is getting together to watch the big show. Hell, I’m even having the big night hosted here. Deep down, that’s how much I care. But he knows he’s not welcome here, not until he personally gets over the fact that Isis walked away. There’s no other mirage to the matter. He’s the support of an entire city, and the support of wrestling’s number-one fan, but his dream was always to have his hand raised by Isis. I’m guessing that he’ll be feeling pretty empty when it happens. It’s just a leather strap and some gold, what always mattered was the right people being around him for the moment.”

“Isis is not that person,” Chris learns.

“Now this is where the envy comes in. Val is at the pinnacle where he doesn’t know how to get any better, or any more mature. He’s forty years old, at the twilight years of his peak. He knows it’s now or never, and he’s as dogged and unchangeable as Cruise is in The Game. But Cruise is an alpha, the entire world has learned to view Val as the beta, merely because Isis held that alpha tag. Val was ear-marked as a ‘Robin’ everywhere they went. Out of the two, Val was the architect, the instigator for their wrestling journey, and possessed talents in the ring that Isis could only dream of. They’d come home from training in their twenties, every single day, and they never envisioned fighting anyone else. Only the best. Only the brave. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Val isn’t one to start a hype train of affection or slander against his opponents.”

“You’re telling me,” Chris furthers, having trouble in the past with Val getting into the nitty-gritty details of his opponents.

“Val’s never fighting another opponent, it’s always Isis. His greatest opponent, his one true nemesis. His own family.”

“That’s his level of excellence,” Chris says, truly fascinated.

“So there’ll always be the obsession, not to become Isis, but to overcome it. Val’s struggles will be breaking that barrier between standing in Isis’s shadow, and adapting to his new world when he becomes a success on his own. This championship fight, it’ll be the moment Val finally stops seeing Isis, and only see the admiration he fully deserves. The only reason this family is torn because Val has lost sight of that singular priority. You say he’s on a run of defeats, that’s laughable. It’s almost insulting, but it’s reality. Val will bark up that tree all day. But he’s ready to meet his maker, he’s been building Isis up as the barrier to knock down. Do that, and it doesn’t matter who is in the ring.”

“Will Isis be routing for him? Will Isis even be watching?”

“That is for the man himself to decide,” Oria says calmly. “He’s a special case of departure, because nobody knows where he is. What he’s doing. Where he’s coming and going.”

“The only possession Val has of Isis’s is a little black book.”

“His diary?” Oria asks, suddenly raising an eyebrow. Immediately uncomfortable.

“He’s taken over the writing duties. I’ve even written an entry.”

“You have?”

“I have.”

Chris McCarthy sat biting his nails, twitching his body, in fierce anticipation for VOW’s summer spectacular, Heatstroke. Sat outside of Val’s personal locker-room, the African-American, sporting a red and blue chequered shirt with light blue jeans, was becoming more irritated. The build up to the event, alas the quickening pace of backstage workers as they lug stage equipment to and from the big curtain. Wrestlers past Chris endlessly, preparing as they would without interference, making sure to keep distance. Hours past with nothing but a laziness to time. The sun had already darkened, but nothing has come to fruition. Eventually, VOW backstage interview Darius Yates knocked on Val’s door, but nobody came out. The cheap white plaster door was locked from the inside.

“Any idea where your friend is?” Darius asks informally, worried too of Val’s appearance.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Chris replies, looking down at his phone for wrestling news regarding tonight’s show. But Chris’s efforts yielded no results, Heatstroke was a trending hot topic, but there was not one mention of Val failing to show.

“We can’t take a hit like this!” Darius implies, “We’ve potentially lost enough from this match already.

“You better get him to come out soon, production is concerned. This whole tonight’s turning to…”

“Alright, you don’t need to say it. We know it. Truth is, I haven’t seen him in weeks. Val’s trace went cold after management cancelled his main event against Seth.”

“The pressure’s falling on you kid, make him appear or so help us.”

“What’s going to happen, you going to piss in my nap-time milk?”

“Just make it happen. You want to be part of the showbiz, you got to learn the pressure of organising these events. You wouldn’t last a week.”

“You seem to be coping really well,” Chris points out sarcastically.”

“We’ve not the time for this. Just make Val show, alright.”

“Is that a question or a threat?” Chris says looking up from his phone with a smile, still sitting on the ground being looked down upon.

Darius fluttered his pointed brows, turning and leaving without a response. Chris endured with the patient wait, eventually leading Darius to return with a member of staff from the arena, who around her neck carried a chain of master keys. This rushed female, tight black skirt and leggings, tied back black hair and blue hair, stared down at Chris briefly. The Brooklyn boy smiled, but her hurried smile suggested that she was told Chris was wasting her time. Eventually after scrambling with her keys, the locker-room opens. Darius enters but swears repeatedly until he storms off. The disgruntled worker spoke French to herself, walking off in a storm. Chris calmly tilted his head around to see an empty locker-room with immaculate white shined tiles. Chris eventually rose to his feet, entering the cramped space to see a single item sitting on a white dressed that was built into the wall.

Chris opened its pages, thrilled to know that Valquist had written a response. Before reading it fully, the one hundred and fifteen page effort had been supplanted in Chris’s curiosity, ever since his meeting with Oria Valquist.

“Once crack, two crack, three. Sand caught in your feet, deep within your skin. Water, brown and murky. An existence battling shadows in a sandstorm, left coughing up the remnants of small success and big failure. My sorrow is not through my absence, but through my convictions. The torch bearer of enlightenment, without ever actually experiencing that singular defining moment. A proclaimer of Valiance, even in humbling, consistent losses. A mantra of Full Measures, with my cup only half full. Seeing and believing, but never reaching and achieving.

A martyr by the words of my own prophecy. A lie beneath an honest smile. A victim of not being understood, but followed by great support. Cheered by the millions, adored by the few, but forever without companionship.

I can no longer hold my shield and shield, without accepting the honesty of my reality.

That I, Valquist, have no greater nemesis than my own creation. I am on the cusp of becoming Visionaries World Champion, but my only consumption has been aimed towards a selfish agenda. For a great time I have spoken at length about my desire, my path, my finality, but my warnings have fallen on deaf ears. Even you Chris, my most loyal and humble, have not seen the foreshadowing. I gave my time of day to Joey Nitro, a man more interested in asking about the opinions of other wrestlers than my own. Always asking how it is my responsibility to overcome obstacles.

You’ve been right all along Chris, but you’ve also attempted to destroy tonight’s inevitability. I truly see only blurred faces. Zhong, Jones, Iser, Carson, English, they’re all just moulds of skin and flesh. Immaterial. Beatable. Personalities of dreadful desire, pioneered by pettiness and illiteracy. My level of performance has never been to demean, it’s always been to illuminate and respect.

Time and again my ambition has been words of wonder, and silky speeches that purr off the reader’s pages, but given the skin-splitting reality of my Six Visions of Pain, I must heed your advice and show my set of knives on the mantle. Not just show them, but wield them in battle, and strike down the Vultures and the wrongly optimistic. Reveal that all along, I was wrong to be ignored and overlooked, merely respected as a participant rather than a contender. Make this a story of Valiance, not the backdrop of even greater misery.

The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own. You’ve been a catalyst Chris, you must understand that these words are purely directed at you, on the night of my final Valiance as Valquist. Tonight, as promised, my hand will turn and the clock will keep turning. Preferring seclusion over absorption, what you said to my father is truer than the sky is clear and cloudy.

Valquist is a soul in need of saving, in need of realigning.

But my father, he too was right. That hallowed name, that existence that has been teetering on the edge of our lips this entire time; that is the face you will see tonight. Clear water has finally surfaced, but it is not my own reflection that I see. It’s his. My dream was to have my arm raised by the person I love most in this world, and I will not deny him this opportunity.

My only apology is to you. Chris McCarthy, you are a brilliant young man, and you have nothing but my support, but should you cringe at the crowning of a new World Champion, then I will forever understand your absence. I will not come crawling for forgiveness, the steps you take next on your path are in your domain. We can either celebrate as brothers of the night, or you can live in detachment of the decision.

Isis will finally have his moment. We both will, we all will. You too are now a part of this family, so if you love your family as I do, you will join me in the spotlight. The revulsion he has felt since my return, and his knotted stomach will finally find salvation. We’ll be bonded together with an infinite accord. Full Measures, reborn.

It’s time the world around Valquist grew up, for Valiance has grown tired of adolescence and immaturity, because the future holds only one measure of finality.

Valquist, Visionaries World Champion. Infinite.

My name is Valquist. A former architect, a seasoned veteran of the aged art of wrestling. Alone, without the presence of my best friend, my family. Bound to an un-turning road, driven by the desire to do that which is right, my path is now singular. Infinity, my home, even during its darkening, though I have ignored my path’s calling, labelled as desperate for trying to appease my past, in the grander scale of time my absence has proven temporary. My preaching tone is of enlightenment in a world set in its ways. A world of black and white, occupied by the thin shells of humanity. The sun once set on my un-turning road, but a new day has been cast, and I will once again honour the mantra of Full Measures. Isis Derrida and Valquist.

I am The Valquist and this is my enlightenment.

This is my end.”

Chris’s tear filled eyed in the isolated locker-room dripped a few wet drops onto the next page, blank, stained by Chris’s anger. Chest beating heavily, his curled black strands of hair itchy, his skin burning in fury, Chris threw the diary to the ground, but remained in complete silence, hearing nothing but white noise. Sitting calmly without a measure of time, Chris eventually looked up at the making of a monster, towards the shadow that occupied the space between him and the exit. A seized reality. A champion elect.

Derrida.

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