Ryan bonded with Fall of Man carrying a particular brand of hope that felt progressive. This was her moment, she thought—her instincts going beyond the crowd, carving out a place where, for once, her talent wasn’t an inconvenience. She partnered with Waylon Creek. They had chemistry, or something close to it—a kind of choreography that only happened when nobody was overthinking, when bodies just knew what to do. Sometimes it felt like the two of them had been doing this for decades, maybe in another life, or a bad sitcom, or both.
The Shinigami Foundation strolled into the ring like it was Sephora for souls (absolution wasn’t in stock that day, cue the impending car crash.) Amy Chastaine, who probably sipped on other people’s dreams like iced coffee, waltzed in and rearranged the ending. The championship walked away wearing someone else’s jacket. Ryan stood there, tasting the metallic aftertaste of almost. “Almost” wasn’t a word she ever learned to accept. It was an insult. Like, spit-on-your-shoes, laugh-in-your-face insulting. Worse than losing, honestly.
And then there was Creek. Watching him unravel was sort of like watching a magician reveal all the tricks: disappointing, a little embarrassing, and weirdly intimate. He was haunted; she couldn’t say by what, only that he carried it around like a sack of wet laundry. When James Evans showed up, unapologetically shifting the atmosphere in the locker room, as if it needed more drama. Ryan went quiet. Not because she had nothing to say, but because sometimes silence was the only language left.
People loved to praise her brutality. As if pain was a substitute for personality. But brutality didn’t stitch you up, didn’t wipe the blood off your chin, didn’t call you a cab after the afterparty. It just made you the last person standing in an empty room.
Fall of Man was changing, or maybe just shedding its skin. Ryan? She was something else entirely. Or at least, that’s what she told herself. She wasn’t sure if it was true—but then, she had never let truth get in the way of survival.
The treadmill is louder in the waking hours, or maybe it’s her mood, ricocheting off the glass and steel of this gym-like mausoleum, bouncing off whatever passes for “inspiration” here. Ryan runs, not gracefully or beautifully. Her trainers drift the belt: left, right, left, right. She isn’t meditating; she isn’t calm. She’s being chased by her own shitty thoughts.
Outside, the Pacific stretches its infinite blue indifference, probably plotting her irrelevance—or death at a young age. The sun spills Gatsby gold, as if that changes anything. Her house, her gym, her curated ecosystem... once proof of control, now just smelling faintly of eucalyptus and Lysol. She can’t remember the last time she enjoyed it here.
She came to Fall of Man for reinvention. Nobody warned her rebirth is mostly paperwork and humble pie eaten from her gear bag. She’d envisioned the Lost Monarch; black and gold, with entrance music so mournful it’d silence the boos. For a minute, she almost believed her own bullshit. The guitar string’s vibration in her chest, that was power, or the illusion of it.
Then, betrayal. (No, really… it’s fine.) Nothing says “crowning moment” like a mid-ring mugging. Shinigami Foundation—Pierce and Belmont—descend like they’ve got a Groupon. A suplex, canvas, wind knocked out so fast her lungs filed a complaint. There was no single loss, just a slow dismantling: boots to her ribs, a jaw snapped back, copper and pride flooding her mouth. She rolled out, clutching bruises that haven’t settled yet, arena lights juddering. It made her wish for a fraction of a section, that she was on speaking terms with her mother.
Her personal gym holds only the shame that embalms her. She pretends she likes it empty. Ocean outside, climate control in; everything is insulated. If only her ego came with central air.
Her body’s a ledger of failure: ribs that stab on deep breaths, a phantom crown on her brow, a knee that’s never right. She fought back, raked Belmont’s eyes (still satisfying), and left a knee-dent in his face. Relativisme, Lumiere d’Arc; she emptied her arsenal. She got her licks in, but not enough, never enough.
Rumentation continues, as usual. Pierce yanking the ref out... Her beside Creek, watching titles slip away, face frozen in that perfected in a boarding-school “I’m fine” cloak. Amy Chastaine, sledgehammer-subtle, making it worse. The ref’s hand: one, two, three, done. Part of her wants to punch the window, just to see if the ocean notices.
She wants to blame Creek. God, does she. It’d be easier, neater, laying it at his feet: how he got rolled up while she stood helpless outside, already drafting the speech she’d never give. But here’s the insufferable truth: tagging with him almost worked. There was a rhythm, an unspoken yet hushed entanglement, only they knew existed. It unsettles her how much she liked it.
Then there’s the thought of James Evans returning, folding her humiliation into his narrative. She didn’t say anything. Silence is strategy, or maybe cowardice. She can’t decide which is worse.
The treadmill doesn’t care about monarchy, guitar music, or flameouts. It demands forward motion.
She jabs the speed up. The belt accelerates. Her legs protest. Sweat stings her eyes, runs salty down her cheek... It tastes like losing.
Her phone buzzes, a Morse code of irritation. Andreas, drunk on some island, dissecting Plato and the sexual revolution. She ignores it, thumbs a message to her assistant: “Get in contact with Heaven. Tell him I want to talk to Creek. Alone.”
Between miles four and five, her lungs stop burning. The rest of her catches fire, but not the good kind. Fury does laps in her bloodstream, shoving isolation aside, dragging that disgusting aftertaste of being outfoxed, not to mention something new. It is sharp, electric... not rage, not hope. Call it what you want, she’s not feeling poetic.
Weakness? Not even close.
Honestly, it’s like a bonfire and someone just tossed a bottle of lighter fluid on it. Ryan LeCavalier—a human combustion event.
She’s not here to smolder; she detonates. Her rhythm continues picking up momentum, left-right-left-right, so fast one knee might finally file for divorce.
Near midnight, she finds solace in the bad fluorescent whir and sticky rubber mat smell, while others pretend to sleep. The machine whines, tired as she is.
She’s not running away; that’d be too easy. She’s been running toward something: insistent, toothed, and gnawing since the preverbial Fall of Man (capital Fuck, capital Me), as if the world’s collapse was just another agenda item. There’s a partnership in the wreckage, or an alliance, if you’re feeling dramatic. (She is.)
The Lost Monarch—God, she loathes the moniker at the moment, but grits her teeth anyway—still crowns herself ‘Queen of the Broken Things.’ She knows the irony; reigning over rubble. It’s a vibe.
Right now, she’s got an itch that text messages can almost scratch. She pauses, thumbs out a final message, as if clarifying it to herself as much as to them:
“Tell Creek we need to talk.”
Her finger hovers. Send. Immediate regret. Immediate relief. The usual.
She keeps running. The machine hums. The feeling burns... something dangerous, something almost alive.
The next morning the sun slices in at an angle that feels intentional, like it’s been personally invited to audition for the part of “Torturer #1” in the Ryan LeCavalier biopic. She stands there, still as a statue, squinting at the bathroom mirror. She isn’t really looking at her face, though. She’s looking more at the ghostly shape of herself carved into the steam, as if honesty is something reserved for braver mornings or for people with less to lose. The mirror does her no favors; it elongates her jaw and skews the line of her nose. She looks like a funhouse version of a has-been, someone she half-remembers, before breakfast.
Something’s shifted. It’s not the usual post-match aches, those are familiar—shoulders buzzing with that five-mile-run ache, and a body quietly protesting years of paid violence. This feels deeper, a hollowed-out sort of wrong, as if she’s watching her own life play out from a safe (or not-so-safe) distance, perched on the wrong side of a canyon she dug herself.
She traces the bruise forming along her ribs. It is violet, precise, and almost beautiful in the way that some wounds are. Last night’s party favored the ring. She presses into it, not for the pain (pain, she understands) but to remind herself that she’s still in this body, that she’s real. The sensation gives way to something practiced: composure, or the performance of it, anyway. Ryan Lecavalier, reliable as ever. Tuesday, Los Angeles. Paradise, allegedly. She almost believes it, almost.
Downstairs, the kitchen sprawls, over-designed and under-lived-in, a monument to marble and money. She stands at the sink, eating cereal straight from the bowl like a twelve-year-old with a mortgage. The refrigerator hums, a mechanical lullaby for people who can’t sleep. Grocery list: organic kale (punitive), bread that costs more than some people’s hourly wage, kombucha that promises transcendence and tastes like self-loathing with undertones of gym socks.
A Prius coughs itself to a stop by the pool. Out steps the delivery kid, maybe twenty-two, drowning in a My Chemical Romance shirt that might be vintage or just well-loved, beanie yanked low as if it could shield him from the indignity of sunlight. He radiates “anywhere-but-here” energy and probably wishes he was in some basement, headset on, a world shrunk to the size of a pixelated map.
“Ryan Lecavalier?” He says it like a question, as if he’s not entirely sure people like her exist outside of random gifs posted on special media, that garner so much attention, so many likes and redistributions.
She signs the tablet, her name a ghost of itself. “That’s me.” The exchange is so sterile it feels like it could be handled by drones. He turns to go, his movements as careful as someone tiptoeing through an alarm system.
It’s the awkwardness—his, so naked it’s almost enviable—that makes her house feel less like a home and more like a mausoleum built to house pretty things and dead ambitions. Every survival instinct says don’t invite him in, don’t you know how these stories end? but she’s bored, and the silence here is starting to chew at her ankles.
“Hey,” she hears herself say, “you want some water or something? It’s hot out there.”
He freezes. “Me? Like... actual water?”
The absurdity catches her off guard, refreshing. “Yeah. I’ve got the good stuff. Imported. Tastes like it should come with a lecture about my carbon footprint.”
Moments later he perches on a stool, picking at the water bottle’s cap until it cracks. “I’m Ben. I don’t really... go out much. Unless you count this. Mostly I just game. It’s quieter.”
“Quieter than this?” She gestures at the ocean view, the kind of serenity that’s supposed to signal you’ve made it, but mostly just feels like a punchline. “You should try dinner with my dad. Guy’s got opinions about everything and the volume to match.”
Ben’s gaze lands on the open Sports Illustrated there she is, mid-air, frozen in a somersault, a headline screaming about her rise and, more loudly, her fall. His eyes flick to the fridge: a ten-year-old Ryan, wedged between a movie star mother and a wrestler father, all of them grinning as if they’ve just pulled off the greatest heist of the century.
“Wait. You’re that Ryan LeCavalier? From SCW?” His voice cracks, suddenly aware of its own volume. “You were the one who... after that match last week, you kind of...” He trails off, embarrassed. “Lost it?”
Her mouth quirks upward, sharp and unapologetic. “Yeah, well. Happens to the best of us.”
She laughs, too loud and too quick, and the sound ricochets off the marble and disappears somewhere up in the beams. It’s almost embarrassing, if she cared about that sort of thing. “That’s what my PR team calls it. ‘An emotional moment.’” Her gaze lingers on him, just to watch the realization crawl its slow, sticky way across his face. Starstruck horror: there’s a flavor to it, a little metallic, uniquely online. It’s the kind of look people have when they think they know you because they’ve seen your worst day, pixelated and looped a thousand times.
“So.” She lets it slack, letting him struggle. “You into public meltdowns or what?”
He turns the color of a beet, or maybe something even more tragic, like a sunburn that’s going to start peeling. “I mean... not really? It’s just—you’re different than I thought. Not really what I expected.” His hands fidget with the edge of his beanie, as if he could shrink himself into it and disappear. “Didn’t think you’d actually talk to me.”
“Most people don’t.” Flat, practiced. (She’s good at that—flatness, detachment, the armor she grew in increments.) But just under the surface, something softer. An old bruise, still yellow-green. “They see the name, the house, the headlines. Stop seeing me.” Or maybe they never tried.
Three minutes—maybe less—she lets it slip, just enough to feel the ache of presence, not gone, not really, just masked by the accidental normalcy of this conversation. Ben manages to gather his dignity, such as it is, and makes for the door. He nearly trips, muttering thanks, already rehearsing the story for his friends: Dude, you will not believe who just gave me water. It’s the way these things become legend, distorted before he’s even down the drive.
Ryan leans in the doorway, watching his Prius wheeze and groan its way down to the main road, the engine’s distress echoing in the canyon. Something lightens in her chest, just at the edges, a secret she’s not sure she’s earned. The ocean outside sounds like itself again: not angry, not dramatic, just ocean. Salt and air and that particular indifference.
The house settles, makes its small nighttime noises. Still too big, still too quiet. But for a moment, it feels less like exile, and more like she’s squatting in an overpriced, slightly haunted Airbnb.
Guest of one.
She touches the ache in her ribs, one sharp throb, then nothing.
She presses again, just to be sure. Still here.
We were so close; the Tag Titles were right there, practically sweating in our hands. Fall of Man, finally the monster people gossiped about after the lights went out. Months of circling, small humiliations… the taste of victory always just off, like biting into fruit that looks ripe but isn't. Then Will Pierce and Alex Belmont crashed in, swinging their arms like they’ve been personally anointed by some local wrestling deity who only takes payment in cheap beer and blood. We fought back with double-teams, mind games, and the crowd’s noise in our bones. Control felt like a rumor, but for a second, we believed it.
And then Amy Chastaine. She’s a magician, or she thinks she is. She showed up and did her trick (nothing in her hands, nothing up her sleeves, watch closely), and suddenly it was a schoolboy roll-up. The kind of loss that feels like a practical joke. New champions. And you all clapped for them anyway, even though you were bored with who you previously had as tag champions.
Management handed down the verdict of us not getting a rematch. Something to do with what we did to Mr. Knots, and look, I’d say “for the record” but the record’s always scratched. William Heaven, cool as a banker, told me it’s a small price he’s happy to pay. I almost laughed. Of course he is. Meanwhile, the fans are cheering when their faves break the rules, but when we do it, well, then it’s a matter for HR. The hypocrisy is so thick you could cut it with a plastic knife.
I realized the moment when Heaven gave me that look—approving, but not warm. He started into Waylon and thinks Amy’s still living rent-free in his frontal lobe. Waylon seemed like he was tired of it, “I’ll handle it,” as canned as it sounded, I just hope this time his reflection agrees.
Then, cue dramatic lighting, James Evans walks in like he’s starring in his own movie. He shakes Heaven’s hand, he didn’t even have the decency to look me in the eyes, he offered to handle Amy. For whatever reason—Heaven called him the stabilizer, the protector, the man who’ll save Fall of Man from itself. I wanted to ask if that means I’m supposed to be the thing you need saving from, but I didn’t. I just watched. Waylon left, Legion trailing behind, his shoulders heavy enough to make me want to say something and not say it at the same time. Evans and Heaven stood in the corner, heads close, weaving fate, not bothering to ask the rest of us what we see in the tea leaves.
Fall of Man isn’t falling apart, rest assure everyone; it’s recalibrating. Translation: the men are in charge.
What does that even look like? A Greek tragedy on cable, the chorus muttering one thing while the gods move the pieces around and the mortals bleed on schedule. I’m supposed to be Cassandra: screaming the truth, ignored until the roof caves in. But I’m done with the myth. I’m not a curse. I’m not a prop for someone else’s hero’s journey.
That brings me to this Thursday on Breakdown, Veil. you’ve got eight wins, two losses, and you’re a former Television Champion, and everyone uses “dangerous” like it’s a prayer or a warning label. The name makes me want to laugh. It’s a curtain. A prop. In Greek tragedy, veils hide things until someone yanks too hard and the entire ritual falls apart.
That’s my job now. Pull. Rip. Tear. Show all of you what’s behind the curtain.
I know what’s at stake. I see the angles, the way the story’s written: Veil, the unstoppable force, the test I’m not supposed to pass. Me? The stepping stone, the tragic heroine who wanted too much. But unlike Cassandra, I’ve lived through that tramura already, too. Is the veil dangerous? Good for him. So am I. He’s got numbers? I’ve got knives no one expects. He’s the “future”? I’ve been “the Star of Tomorrow” for two years, and “tomorrow” is starting to taste sour, like milk left out too long.
Wrestling is a Greek tragedy with better lighting and worse snacks. Heroes rise, gods stir the pot, mortals bleed. The only real difference is the T-shirt sales.
Veil thinks he’s Achilles, but he wears flip-flops. The name’s mystical, untouchable, but veils are for ceremonies; weddings, funerals… moments when something ends.
When I got here, they called me the Star of Tomorrow. Smile, wait your turn, let the men decide where you fit. Tomorrow’s been on back order for two years. It’s time to take it. No one’s handing me a crown.
This is Troy. And Troy? It burns. Always.
SCW needs someone who can yank it into a new era. That’s me. I’ll make up for our stumble. I’ll drag Fall of Man back on track. I’m done shrinking. I won’t apologize for wanting, not just for me; for Waylon, too. Because even in the chaos, I believe in us, not as saviors or sidekicks, but as equals—
But Thursday is mine. My hands. My voice. I’ll rip through Veil like tissue paper and show all of you what’s underneath. I’ll remind every single one of you, it’s just a man. Not a god. Not a prophecy. Just someone about to remember why ex-champions never really leave the title behind.
As far as Fall of Man is concerned. I kept my mouth shut when Evans walked in; Waylon didn’t need more noise. But don’t confuse my silence for obedience. I’m not a background character anymore. I’m not neutral. I’ve watched this company long enough to know every hero is just a villain with better lighting, every prophecy one rewrite away from disaster.
When I say I’m going to eviscerate you, Veil, it’s not hype. It’s inevitable, a forgone conclusion if you will. It’s the crack of a ruby spear through the bronze breastplate, hanging directly over your heart. It’s the half-second before the curtain rips and everyone sees what’s underneath.
This isn’t me looking past you, Veil. This is me burning the silk, tossing out the silver before everything colapses. This is me doing what I was always do, putting the greater good before myself.
I’m not built to be a tragic afterthought.
I’m built to be the queen who forges ahead.
