I always hated bedtime.
My mom, bless her, would try to sing me a lullaby, her voice like a broken record scratching against my eardrums.
“Sleep now, C.J.,” she’d croon, like it was some sweet escape. But it wasn’t.
It was a prison.
She’d sing about all kinds of flowery bullshit, thinking it would calm me down. But I was a goddamn wild coyote even back then. I didn’t go to sleep willingly; I fought it.
Every. Single. Night. I refused to close my eyes, refused to let that darkness take me.
I’d kick, I’d scream, I’d stay awake until my body just gave up.
I’d pass out, but I never gave in.
I never said “I quit.”
Never.
And here I am now, standing on the edge of another kind of darkness.
El Mariachi Muerte thinks he can sing me into submission.
He’s got this twisted serenade, this macabre melody that drags people into the abyss. They hear his notes and just give in, whispering “I quit” to life itself, letting themselves fade off into whatever hellish afterlife awaits them.
But you know what?
Fuck that. They ain’t me. I don’t bend, I don’t break, and I sure as hell don’t quit.
Mariachi, you think your song can silence me?
I’ve heard your tune before. Hell, I faced it head-on in the Lambs to the Slaughter. Forty-four went down, and you were the last to hit the ground.
I pinned you like nothing but a bad dream.
And now?
You want to face me in an I Quit match? You think you can make me utter those words?
Listen here, you ugly son of a bitch. You can strum your guitar, you play your little ditty, but you ain’t never gonna make me say I quit.
Every note you play, every chord you strum, it’s just noise. The same as my mom’s lullaby—a futile attempt to make me surrender.
But I don’t surrender. I never have, and I never will. You can try to wrap me in your melody, but I’ll tear through it like a coyote through a chain.
I’ve faced down the most powerful scum in Arcadia, stared death row in the face and spat in its eye.
I’m a Chainbreaker, a law breaker, and come NXT Level, I’ll break your ass too.
Go ahead, sing your heart out. Try to lull me into that eternal sleep.
But know this: I will never, ever say I quit. I’ll fight until my last breath, until my body gives out like it did when I was a kid refusing bedtime.
So bring it on. Sing your death song, strum your chords of doom. I’ll face you head-on, eyes wide open, fists clenched, and I’ll fight until my last breath.
You can kill me if you want to, but you’ll never make me say those words.
I’ll die before I ever give you the satisfaction of hearing me say “I Quit.”
Because I am C.J. Thorpe, and I don’t quit.
Not for sleep.
Not for death.
And sure as hell not for you.