“You ever carry a shadow, Tombstone?”
C.J. Thorpe leans over a cracked tombstone.
“Not just any shadow—the kind that clings to you, heavy like chains, pulling at every step you take. These shadows, they’re not just darkness following you; they’re the hidden burdens. Mine? They’re crafted from the darkest corners of Death Row and the deceit nestled in the hearts of those I called family. Betrayed, not by enemies, but by blood… my own father, my brother.”
He paces between the graves, his footsteps stirring the fallen leaves.
“But you, you’re no different. You parade around, cloaked in the mantle of death, thinking you’re the master of endings. But beneath that cloak, I see your chains. Those shadows you cast—they’re fear. Fear of the day you’ll face your own end, your own mortality. How can you be the harbinger of doom when you tremble at the thought of your own demise?”
C.J. stops beside an overgrown grave, his fists clenched.
“And what about the past? Mine’s a book with pages torn and bloodstained, each chapter a testament to a battle fought, a betrayal survived. I’ve stared into the abyss, and it blinked first. But you? Your past is an unmarked grave, forgotten and unvisited. You haunt Arcadia with specters of life you never grasped, bound forever to a legacy of fear you can’t escape.”
He kicks at a loose stone, his voice rising with each word.
“Destiny’s a funny thing, Tombstone. You think yours is to bury men like me, to be the final stop on their path. But I’ve wrestled with destiny, tangled with it in the dark, and what I learned is this—I make my own fate. While you? You’re just playing the role destiny, or Igor Mortis, handed you, shackled to an end you can’t even see coming.”
His voice softens, but the intensity in his eyes burns brighter.
“Me? I broke free from those chains. Those shadows that followed me? I turned around and faced them, embraced them, and made them my armor. I’ve been molded by the fires of deceit and hardened by the cold truth of betrayal. And each time I rose, stronger, fiercer, more determined than before.”
C.J. Thorpe stands firm, his shadow cast long across the weather-beaten tombstones. His voice is gravelly, as if ground from the very stones around him.
“But you, Tombstone, you’ll never break free. Those chains, they’re forged from your own fears, your own failures. You’re bound by them, trapped in a cycle of dread, doomed to repeat the same pathetic defeats.”
C.J.’s smirk fades into a scowl as he steps forward, the gravestones looming behind him like silent witnesses.
“So when the final bell tolls, it won’t be for me. I’m the shadow that breaks free, the nightmare that haunts the guilty. You, Tombstone, you’re just a relic, a pathetic echo of fears past, doomed to be forgotten. And echoes? They don’t stand a chance when the real thunder rolls.”
He pauses.
“And when I’m done with you, they won’t call you Tombstone anymore—they’ll just call you gone.”