The Dead Shall Walk Again chapter 3

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April 23rd, 2012- Immediately following Johnny Styles' return.
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Crimson Skull tears through the entrance curtains, coming back into the backstage area.

Skull: Where is he?!

He shoves his way through a crowd of stagehands with papers in their hands and headsets on. They nervously hurry to get out of Skull's way.

Skull: Which way did he go?!

He shoves his way by another group of people, these appear to be the lighting and technical crew. A few of them brush up against the table as he tears his way past them. Their supervisor begins yelling at them making sure they haven't set off any pyrotechnics on accident.

Skull: He was just here, there is no way he is gone now. WHERE IS JOHNNY STYLES?!

The more he searches, the more possessed he becomes with finding Johnny Styles. As Skull is hurriedly making his way through the halls of the backstage area, the crew begin to learn to stay clear of his path. They seem to be so caught up in fear for getting out of his way that none of them can answer his questions. Skull eventually grows tired of searching himself, his anger has overtaken him, he knows his rage is blinding his ability to think clearly and rationally. He grabs the nearest crew member.

Skull: Answer me, and I will not harm you. Where is Johnny Styles?

Crew member: I-I-I-I-I-I-I don't know what you mean?

Skull: He just went this way, he was just out on the entrance stage. Where did he go after that?!

Crew member: He....he's gone now.

Skull: What do you mean?

Crew member: He left just as quickly as he got here.

The words take a few seconds to register with Skull. At first he stares at the crew member in disbelief, not wanting what he heard to be the truth. But then, as the words register with him his anger grows even more than what it was before. Skull is still holding onto the crew member by the collar of his shirt. A twisted smirk runs across Skull's face as he places one hand behind the crew members head as he sidesteps and plasters the crew member's head through the dry wall of one of the walls of the hallway.

The women doing make up scream as this happens and begin to run away. Skull continues tearing his way through the halls, unrelentless on his path to find Johnny Styles. Security guards begin to fill the halls in front of and behind Skull. The ones in front are hesitant at first, pleading with him peacefully to calm down and just leave the building. Skull stops for a moment. He cocks his head to the side and begins to chuckle. He blasts one of the security guards in the side of the head with a big boot. This sends the security guards in scrambles, waves of them begin to try and secure Skull, but he shakes them off and continues on his path. Some of them are thrown against the wall, some of them catch hard rights and elbows from Skull as he tries to to clear his path.

One of the security guards in the back come up towards the massacre going on with a stun gun, he pulls the trigger and starts inching his way towards Skull.

Skull has almost cleared a path through the hall, over half of the guards are lying on the floor and Skull can see the exit door leading to the parking lot. He pushes the last of the guards out of his way just as he feels a sharp twinge in his back, the twinge moves down to his legs. He struggles to take another step, the twinge has become sharp pains, surging through his entire body. He takes another step and collapses just as his hands touch the door.




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January 12th, 2012
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The camera opens back up to when we were last left off with Skull talking to the two young girls.

Skull: There were many lower-caliber federations that I joined in. One of which was the JWF. I could bore you with telling you the story of the federation's entirety, for I was there for the birth, growth, and death of that federation. The only thing that matters about that is it is there that I met my greatest rival. We fought each other on nearly every continent and pushed each other to our very limits.

It's sad to say that a mere mortal man could push me to my very limit, but you must understand what type of competitor this man was. He was relentless in his craft, never gave up until he could barely move.

In the end, it was I who won our endless war. I ended his career in doing so.

Yet, I felt a higher purpose for myself when I did this. I felt there was something left undone. I had ended his career, almost his life, and I had been given the ultimate satisfaction of knowing that I broke the man known as Johnny Styles. I was completely against everything he stood for, and I was completely against everything he did. How the people would cheer him for his pervasiveness and his vulgarity. I tried for a long time to forget that emotion, but I could not.

It was then that I was at the highest of my powers. I had followers, and I created the Crimson Dynasty. The Crimson Dynasty consisted of myself, my queen Tamara and two other wrestlers by the name of Barelai Von'Vicious and Hallow Wicked.

Together, we struck fear into the hearts of man and ruled the federation. Several times, each of us held every title that the federation had to offer. But through the dynasty, I felt my powers grow even stronger than before.

But as my powers grew, so did the evil inside me.

I do not wish to mention the things that I did at this moment, that is for another time. However, I will continue on something else.

After the fold of the JWF, I ventured elsewhere to continue my career.

Federation after federation, I would go there and dominate the competition, but yet I still felt as if something was unfinished.

Year after year went by and I still felt the same uneasiness, until five years ago.

I had stayed in a reclusive state, after the betrayal of my queen Tamara and my former protege Hallow Wicked.

The world had seen the last of the Crimson King, or so they thought.

A new promotion by the name of Wrestling Unplugged had given rise to a new dark power. He was unstoppable, pure incarnate evil. He reminded me of a young version of myself, but already he was making quite the name for himself. His associates, who were all too familiar with my past path of destruction, began to refer to him as the Grim Reaper, and Death himself.

Perhaps their confidence had let them forget that I had made a name for myself with those terms, and those terms were used to describe me as well many times throughout my career.

This young fiend's name was Requiem. I would never have admitted it then, but I can now. I saw in him great potential, and I also knew that he could be the one to finally give me the closure to that empty feeling I had felt since ending the career of Johnny Styles.
I was right, I put my career on the line for his title. Just one more time to see if I still had it. In the end, the young Requiem laid me to rest, finally after all those years of torturous madness.

After he had given me my end, I returned here to my origins. I returned to the place of my "kingdom". It took quite a while, but eventually my eternal slumber set in. The breaths soon left my chest, and my black heart beat its last pulse. It was finally over, I could rest, or so I had thought.

Five long years I laid in that dormant state, but all the while my mind stayed very much alive. My thoughts raced of all the evil deeds I had done in my long life, it raced of all the moments of failure in my life, it raced in knowing that I had failed in my ultimate goal. To rid the world of the unpure.

The unpure still lived, or still pervaded society in their own manners. Those like Joe Santiago and Johnny Styles.
After I had finally given up my sojourn, it was then when those two returned to the limelight.
Santiago does as he always will, run and hide after he realizes he has bitten off more than he can chew.

But Styles, I had thought I taught him a lesson all those years ago. However, he returned, doing the same things he was notorious for before I retired him. His arrogance and his stubbornness always were his strongest qualities. The two qualities that I couldn't fathom about him.
As I slept here, far below the cares of mortal man, I could hear the things that were going on in the outside world. I heard little by little, but eventually as each passerby would share a random story about what was going on, I pieced it together.

Even though the rage I knew that coarsed through my veins all those years ago, still boiled to punish those that I saw fit....I still felt at ease...I believed that there would be someone that took over my bidding. I was wrong. My work has been ignored and neglected. But still, it has went like this for so long, I do not think it is why I have been reawakened.

Skull stands up from where he was sitting. He walks over to the door and opens it. The two boys still lay unconscious on the ground.

Girl1: Where are you going?

Skull: Wherever my path may take me. I need answers, and so, I will go where I think I may find them. You are free to go as you please.

Girl2: But you said you needed answers, aren't you going to ask us questions?

Skull: Dear child, I do not think you have the answers I seek. Please, leave this door closed as you leave.

Skull walks down the tunnels, slowly as the girls exchange glances of confusion as the camera fades away.




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Present Day
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Skull sits upon an old tombstone in a graveyard. The markings on the tombstone appear to be chiseled in Italian. Skull has a handful of flower petals in his hand, he slowly starts to move his fingers against his thumb, letting the petals fall slowly against the ground.
He looks up at the camera as the petals fall upon the ground.

Skull: Soon, so very soon all will know what it is that I am to reveal to the world. My story is almost finished being told. Only a few more weeks to go before the world will know.
Be that as it may, I have yet another thorn in my side. It is no matter, I am a patient being, and I will get what it is that I want.

Maybe it is due to my five year slumber, or maybe it is because you're just not that important. Either way, Carmine, you stepped in where you didn't belong.

I thought the days of Johnny Styles having lackeys doing his bidding were over, but apparently I was yet again wrong about him.

The more I find out about this new Johnny Styles the more I am disappointed.

A younger Johnny Styles would have wasted no time stepping in to face me, but yet he stood at the stage almost immobilized after locking eyes with me after all these years.

Could it be fear?

Could it be doubt in himself?

Whatever the case may be, it is a shame that he did what he did.

Sending a man who once sat in an office out to do what should have been done by you, Johnny.

Speaking of pencil pushers, Carmine is just to be the next stop on my new path of destruction.

I am more ashamed of myself than I am anything else, I can admit that with stride. There was a time in my career that what transpired last weekwould never have happened to me. No matter if I had just participated in a match or not, years ago I would have handled Carmine without even breaking a sweat.

I can also admit that there was some merit to what Carmine had to say before his sneak attack.

The only part of that babble that had some truth was that I am not what I once was, I can admit that proudly.

Am I proud that I am nowhere near the caliber I once was? No, but I am proud to say that I will use those words that were meant in dismantling my resolve to help build my motivation for what is coming.

I could sound cliche and talk about it like there is a storm coming, but even cliche as it is, that's the only there is to describe it.

Carmine, I thank you. You have awakened the fire deep inside that I've been trying to find these past few months. You've made me realize that there was something missing to what I once was.

That fire had been put out years ago, but now it burns brighter than ever. It burns to fuel the winds that are picking up on the horizon, sending in the pouring rain capable of washing cities away with the floods that are sure to come.

That fire had been put out when I found that peace that laid me to rest. When I had reawakened, I still had that peace for a short time. I grew used to that peace, and I grew used to having a placidity in me that the anger that used to burn deep inside me was no more.

In my journeys since I have reanimated these past few months I grew fonder and fonder of that fire I used to have, I began to miss it dearly, I began to crave it. But I had no ways of reaching it or lighting it once more on my own.

Upon seeing Johnny Styles had partly enough courage to even show his face to me once more, and the fact that you delayed me in getting my hands on him again, the demon inside breathes again.


Skull slowly stands up from where he has been sitting all this time, he still holds one of the petals in his hand. He looks down at this petal and clenches his fingers together to make a fist. He squeezes his hand together so hard that blood begins to trickle down the sides of his hand.


Skull: I believe that I will take my time in dismantling you, Carmine. It has been a very long time since the world has witnessed just what I can do inside that ring.

There was a time when the name Crimson Skull struck fear into the hearts of anyone who heard it. There was a time when my name meant something.

It seems that those years have passed us, and it is time for me to remind everyone just who exactly they deal with.

I can tell that almost no one in this federation knows exactly who they're dealing with. You Carmine know of my slow decline into seclusion.

The time in which you met me, this was the time right before my disappearing. That Crimson Skull was but a shell of the phenom I used to be, much like I had been when I first awoke.

But in the short time that I have had this second wind, if you will call it that, I am slowly reaching the pinnacle of strength that I once held.


He lets the flower petal fall to the ground, stained with his blood. He takes the hand he has bloodied and wipes it down the mask. The scent of his own blood takes ahold of him almost as if possessed by something not of this world. He lets out a blood curdling, gutteral roar and slams his fist through the nearest concrete wall of a mausoleum.


Skull: IS THIS WHAT YOU EXPECTED TO SEE, CARMINE?! Is this at all what you expected you would find yourself facing off against after pulling the cheap trick that you did? It seems that I am going to have to teach the world yet another lesson in why you don't cross the devil himself.

I have spent a lifetime in this business making examples of peons like you! Time after time I have wasted my time destroying people just like you Carmine. They all want to make their name off of my glory, just so that they can say they faced off against Crimson Skull!

It's not as exciting as it should sound. In fact, you should fear for your life, for the Crimson Devil has returned.

I had hoped I wouldn't have to resort to letting that part of me loose upon the world yet again, but it seems that is what it is going to take to pull the elusive Johnny Styles out of hiding from me. Until he will face me in the ring, once more, I am going to unleash a path of destruction unlike any that you have seen thus far!

Those that have followed my career will be shocked to see just what happens next. Those that thought I had done everything there is to be done in this business will find out just what I am truly capable of!

Beating Carmine will be putting it lightly for what I plan to do. Tearing him limb from limb would be more accurate. You will reconsider even thinking about doing anything against me, let alone standing in my way.

You're going to be just another example to be made, Carmine. Yet another tally on my list of victims.

Just take it from your good friend Johnny Styles, just what it is that you should be fearing right now. It's not just the limits of your physical
strengths and threshold of pain that I will be putting to the test. But I will break your sanity to a point it will take an eternity to repair.

You'll be lucky if I even stop my merciless onslaught on you when the bell rings that it is over. The anger that I feel swelling inside me is something that is not going to subside any time soon. It's going to take weeks, maybe even months for it to be lashed out.

My vengeance will be something akin to hell being unleashed on earth.

I am not going to rest until I the cold and lifeless corpse of Johnny Styles lay at my feet.

But until that moment, Carmine, since you felt the need to involve yourself in matters that had nothing to do with you, I am going exact that punishment that is due upon Johnny Styles unto you.

You can pray to whatever deity that you hold or revere as holy, because you're going to need every ounce of help you can get come this Sunday.

Because once I get my hands upon you, you're going to have to look into the cold, dark eyes of Death himself. And I am going to give a new meaning to Bloody Sunday when I paint the ring, the entire arena, even the marquee with your blood.



Skull turns abruptly and begins walking away down the hill of this cemetery, the camera fades just as he reaches the bottom of the hill.