Post by Ransack Manson on Apr 27, 2021 21:04:28 GMT -6
 Finals night, pre-show... “Is Nate gonna fuck me, Pete?” Ransack broke the tense silence in the locker room with his blunt question. Harper looked at him with a blank stare. “Ah, good. You know nothing. Great.” A beat of silence. “I’ve got an idea…” “Yeah?” “But I don’t think you’re going to like it.” “What do you mean?” Harper let out a deep sigh and looked up to the ceiling of the room before hesitantly speaking. “Lexi.” Ransack looked at Harper with a furrowed brow hiding behind his worn and beaten mask. The following is an excerpt from the transcripts of recordings found in the files of Dr. Reginald Royce: My work suggests that once The Beacon has bridged the gap, he will experience great initial upheaval and an uncontrollable - yet temporary - severance between his mind and his body. From there, theory stands that his mind will do one of two things: (1) the mind will essentially come to terms with the new reality and find stasis as the host of an entity that can be reigned in and controlled or (2) the mind will crumble and erode under the tension and strife that comes with such a drastic change. I am confident that the man known as Ransack Manson is The Beacon, however… I do not know yet if he is a 1 or a 2. Later that evening... “Look, Lex, I know this is hard to swallow…” Lexi stared blankly into her second cousin’s eyes, before she butted in and interrupted Harper. "Oh, no, Pete. No, no. Glass is hard to swallow. This? This is impossible." The tension between Lexi and Harper rose as they seemingly ignored Ransack’s presence in the room. “I need you to trust me, Lexi.” “Why should I, Pete? You’re just spewing bul…” Ransack sighed as he accepted what he knew needed to happen. Ransack gently tilted his head backward and his eyes rolled back into his head. Harper’s eyes widened as he witnessed what appeared to be Ransack welcoming The Raging Dead to take over. Nate’s voice rang out loud and clear from Ransack’s body. “He’s telling the truth, Lexi.” Lexi’s attention swiftly shifted from staring a hole through Harper to the husk of a man from which her father’s voice emitted. “D… Dad?” “Yeah, it’s me.” Lexi’s eyes welled up with tears. “How?” “Does that really matter? What’s important here is that we’re here… together.” Each day, it becomes more apparent to me that this Ransack has what it takes to be The Beacon. He demonstrates enormous, unflinching strength even in the face of exceptional physical and psychological threat, and given that he seems not to know anything about his own personal history only serves to make my hopes rise higher. Each man who has died in these experiments did so after his mind collapsed in on itself when he lost the battle between his identity and that of a tether. With Ransack, his glaring lack of a personal history, of a family, of anything one might attach themselves to as a means of self-definition… it is his greatest defense against the crushing pressure of bearing the psychological weight of at least two existences within one being. We must simply hope that Ransack’s default position of neutrality meshes with his tether. A tear ran from Ransack’s eye and Harper leaned down to whisper in his ear as Lexi and Nate continued to talk. “You’re doing great, Ransack. Let Nate understand the two of you can coexist. This is no war.” Another tear rolled from Ransack’s eye and he subtly nodded as Harper gently rested his hand on The Beacon’s shoulder in an effort to comfort the madman. A successful Beacon will be one who can manage to support himself and the tether. A successful Beacon will be one who can manage to share his physical form with an occupant. A successful Beacon will be one who can make the tether feel as if there is purpose in the shared experience. If Ransack is that Beacon, he will eventually have to sink or swim with his passenger, and in the world where the tether knows they will have control in a crucial moment, I believe we will discover that he is, in fact, the #1 for whom we’ve been so passionately searching. “I knew there was something drawing me here, but I didn’t...I just didn’t know it would be you, Dad.” “I know, Lexi. I know.” “How do we get you out of him?” Harper’s eyes flew up to meet Lexi’s. “Funny you should mention that…” Lexi looked at him with confusion. “What?” “Look, Ransack has been telling the world he was going to burn the prize money, but I worked something out with him so that I can take a small - but critical - cut first, and with that money, I think we can head back to Devil’s Gate and… well, uh, fix this situation. If we don’t get there, if we don’t get to Dr. Royce, Ransack and Nate will be… uh… like this forever.” Harper shifted his eye contact from Lexi back to the Beacon. “Nate, you want to fix this, right? Well, there’s one option: you need to lay low tonight and let Ransack do his thing. He’s undefeated in matches where you didn’t fuck him. If you fuck him tonight? You’re fucking yourself too, Nate.” Harper looked on as Ransack’s eyes rolled forward and his head tilted up to a natural position again. Ransack shook his head as if emptying the cobwebs and he smacked himself near the temple with an open palm. “I think we’re good.” Harper smiled subtly. Lexi extended her hand out to the madman for a shake. “I’m Lexi. My dad, uh, lives in you, I guess.” Ransack choked on a laugh as he waved off the handshake. “Your dad sure is…something, Lexi.” Ransack worked his way up to his feet and turned to Harper. “It’s gotta be close to time, right?” Harper looked at his watch. “You’re up in 15.” Ransack ran his hand into his hair before clinching a fist full and pulling on it hard. As Lexi watched on in horror, Ransack forcefully ripped a chunk of hair from his own scalp. She turned to Harper and spoke. “What the h…” “He’s got a unique way to get himself ready.” Ransack approached the mirror mounted over the shoddy sink in his locker room and dropped his fist full of hair into the sink. Harper looked to Lexi. “Let’s give him some space.” “But I want to see where this is going…” “No, you don’t. Trust me.” Lexi conceded to Harper’s wisdom and they exited the locker room leaving Ransack alone staring at his own scarred and wounded reflection. Despite what I’ve allowed Harper to believe, there is no means by which a tether can be extracted from the Beacon. He wants to think that there is a plan to recover his cousin, but there is a greater chance that Harper’s mother will vaginally birth a litter of German Shepherd puppies. But I need him attached to this project, so little white lies will have to be the path forward. Ransack stared at himself in the mirror. His expressionless face reflected back, and his dead eyes locked onto themselves. Ransack began to essentially chant to himself as he hit himself about the face. “Win the match. Burn the money. Trap Church in Hell.” Ransack balled a tight fist and punched himself in the face. His nose began to dribble blood. “WIN THE MATCH.” Ransack punched himself in the mouth, splitting his lip. “BURN THE MONEY.” Ransack spit blood into the sink and it coated the pile of hair he’d just ripped out. “TRAP CHURCH IN HELL.” Ransack’s emotionless state broke as a toothy, twisted smile spread across his face. |