X-treme Wrestling Federation
The Door That Remembers - Printable Version

+- X-treme Wrestling Federation (https://xwf1999.com)
+-- Forum: Warfare Boards (https://xwf1999.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=6)
+--- Forum: Warfare RP Board (https://xwf1999.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=12)
+--- Thread: The Door That Remembers (/showthread.php?tid=49877)

The Door That Remembers - Matthias Syn - 03-08-2026

The first time that I saw the door, I didn't understand what it was.


I don't remember when the drive started. Just that I was driving. It's not even unusual anymore. The strange part is when I come back to reality. When awareness returns.


My hands gripped tight to the steering wheel. The car was already speeding down the road. The highway stretched in front of me.


I checked the clock.


3:30 am. Of course it was. The road was lonely except for the hum of the tires and the occasional streetlight passing over my windshield. Each light blinked past at perfect intervals. Light. Dark. Light. Dark. So I started counting. 33 seconds between exits. I counted again. Still 33.


The number doesn't even appear anymore, it arrives. Like it's been waiting somewhere. Like it knows I'll eventually look.



[Image: Screenshot-20260227-202310-X.jpg]




The radio crackled without a warning. Static. Then a voice. Low. But purposeful. A preacher peddling purification.


“and the dragon's tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven…”


Revelation. It's always fucking Revelation.


“...and cast them to the earth…”


The signal cut out. The silence that followed felt deliberate. Intentional.


In that silence, another thought slipped into my head. Not new. Something I'd been circling for years without realizing. The Vatican parades in front of us a Pope cloaked in white. Delivering speeches from high upon balconies with cameras aimed upward like parishioners. Just more theater for the savages.


But power doesn't work that way. Power has never worked that way. Thrones cast shadows. There's always someone behind the king. And buried inside all the sleepless nights chasing symbols across maps, one whisper kept appearing.


The Black Pope.


A man. 


A title. 


A murmur.


Said to wield more power than Presidents or Kings. Not a title that the public recognizes. Or one that they'd ever let step beyond mythology. The real administrator. The actual strategist. The man inside the engine while the world watches the facade.


I don't believe in God but I believe in power. And if power has a priesthood, then somewhere in this system, there's a man cloaked in black who thinks he speaks for it. And that's the man that I was going to find.



[Image: Screenshot-20260204-012456-Chrome.jpg]




The road bent west. I don't even remember when I decided to turn. Something else was driving. I just held the wheel. The redwoods swallowed the sky. The fog hanging low between them.


Then the sign: 

[/event]Welcome to Monte Rio. Vacation Wonderland.[/event]


Yeah, sure it is. I knew then, once you follow the number long enough, you realize something uncomfortable. You realize that the number already knows where you are going.



[Image: Screenshot-20260204-012109-Chrome.jpg]




Bohemian Grove.


Most people know the name. Almost nobody knows what it actually is. Sure, they'll lie and call it a summer retreat. A private club. A harmless gathering of all the most powerful people just relaxing in the woods. A getaway for the Gilded class.


That's the brochure version. The carefully crafted myth. I can see beyond the veil now. Past the fiction.


This is where the operators gather. Presidents. Bankers. Defense contractors. War planners. Men and women who pretend to loathe each other for the cameras but drink from the same bottle of 100 year old wine when the cameras disappear.


This was it. They call it The Cremation of Care. Another fucking ritual. I began to understand that everything is ritual with the powerful. This one is designed to symbolically destroy the burden of power.


But rituals aren't theater. Not to them. Rituals are rehearsal. Something practiced until the story becomes real.



[Image: Screenshot-20260204-170511-Chrome.jpg]




The gate was open. Nobody is guarding it. No cameras. Just a narrow road leading deep into the forest. I've come to realize one strange thing about power, most of the doors are never locked. It's just that most people never try to open them.


I drove through without hesitation. Fuck it, I'm already here. The fog was haunting and thickened the deeper I drove. Then it opened. A clearing. I could see the firelight. I could see what looked to be a dozen or so people standing around it. In their suits, in their overcoats.


I recognized some of the faces. Politicians. Media barons. Names that I've seen on television a million times. Standing quiet. In circles softly talking to one another. No speeches here. No ceremony. Just... Conversation. The kind that'll never appear in any transcript the peasants could read.


I shut off the engine. The heavy silence that followed felt almost sacred. And that's when I noticed the chairs. 33. No more. No less. Arranged around the fire in a perfect arc. The number at the top of the Masons ladder. Their signature. None of them looked surprised to see me.


That's when the pressure behind my eyes returned. That all too familiar electric hum. It's become my warning sign. My vision pulsed. I couldn't blink it away this time. The pressure only grew stronger. More impactful. And then darkness.


An unexplainable nothingness. No ground under my feet. No air in my lungs. Just absence. Pure.


I never know how long it'll last. It could be seconds. It could be days. One thing I know is, time doesn't exist in places like that.



[Image: Screenshot-20260204-170815-Chrome.jpg]




For a moment I wasn't in the grove anymore. I was in a hallway with black marble walls raised high on either side. The floor was polished so perfectly it reflected the ceiling. No windows. No sound. My first thought was, at least I could see again.


At the end of the hallway stood a black marble door. No hinges. No handle. Just a slab of stone fit perfectly into the wall. Something about it felt inescapable, inevitable. There was a brief moment of realization, of recognition.


The door remembers me.


Then nothing. Not the hallway. Not the door. Just the space between each breath.


Then the pressure snapped away.



[Image: Screenshot-20260210-012403-Chrome.jpg]




The next thing I remember were the violins. Being offered champagne. I've stood in rings all over the world. I’ve felt crowds scream. I've felt the lights blind me. This felt like that but wrong.


I stood in the middle of a ballroom. The masks. The fucking masks were everywhere. Porcelain faces smiling without even the slightest hint of emotion. Men in tuxedos and women in gowns more expensive than Scoops McGee’s entire plot of farm land.


They moved slowly and deliberately beneath the crystal chandeliers. A masquerade.


I checked the time. 3 hours gone. This time the blackout swallowed the forest and replaced it with this. The transition wasn't random, it was calculated and deliberate.


I turned around as a man in a gray mask approached. Gray suit. Neutral. Forgettable. I remember thinking this is exactly the kind of person who gets invited into rooms that never officially exist. With people who would never admit that they were here.


How did I get here? Who invited me? Because invitation is the only thing that gets you into a room like this.


You followed it, he said softly. His declaration was warmer than I expected.


I followed the number.


He nodded, We expected that you would.


That phrase lingered. Sat with me for longer than it should've.

We expected that you would.


They expected me. They had been waiting.


—----

He gently pointed down a corridor. One that I didn't even notice until he gestured. Fuck it, I followed. As I noticed the music fade behind us and eventually disappear entirely, we stopped at a wooden door. Unmarked. He pushed through the door.


Inside, a small stone chamber. Candles burning along its walls. The only light source in a room that felt like it had been here for a thousand years. I smelled sulfur.


The first thing I noticed was the black table with three people in masks already sitting. Waiting. No one moved. No one spoke. But the silence in that room wasn't empty. It was full of things they'd known for years. Full of things they'd never say.


There was an empty chair. Felt like Mine. Carved into the stone table was a Ouija board.


I sat down. No introductions. No explanations. Whatever will be, will be, I thought to myself.


The planchette was heavy, made of obsidian. They placed their fingers lightly on it. The man in gray motioned for me to follow suit. Children's games dressed in ritual. I'll placate them… for now.


For a long moment nothing moved. Then… the planchette moved along the stone. Slow and deliberate. I realized then that I wasn't moving it. Had to be one of them. Or all of them. I kept playing along.


V - a pause


A


T


I - another pause


C


A


N


The room felt heavy. Like the air had been sucked out of it. I felt like I was choking. The goddamned sulfur. Stronger now with every passing second.


VATICAN


Again the planchette moved.


V


A


T


I


C


A


N


VATICAN


Again, faster this time.


VATICAN


The candles flickered. The planchette circled the word slowly.


VATICAN


VATICAN


VATICAN


Like a needle stuck in the groove of a record.


The man directly to my right whispered the word out loud.


Vatican.


The word felt too small for the room. Too obvious. That's when the man in gray leaned forward.


You came here looking for someone. His eyes a faded shade of blue.


Not a question. A statement. The answer to a thesis.


You came looking for the Black. His voice quiet, gravelly. His words hung in the air like a noose expecting a neck.


Black. There it is. The hidden administrator. The priest behind the priest. The man I've spent the better part of the last 6 months chasing through archives and whispered rumors. It was right there. I was close now. As close as I had ever been.


Nobody moved. Then the man to my left spoke quietly.


You're close. A brief pause. He let his words linger.


But not close enough.


The man in gray slammed the table. Snapping me out of whatever trance I'd fallen into. He had my full attention now.


You wanted the Black.


He let the silence stretch before he said it.


You're closer to the Grey.


The planchette finally stopped moving. Stopped doing its slow dance with my psyche. No one reacted which told me everything that I needed to know. Because when a secret surprises people, they talk. But when it confirms what they already know. What they've always known… they stay silent and the silence was suffocating.


—----


I woke up in my hotel room. My journal already opened. The word GREY scribbled across the page. My boots were off. Nearly placed by the bed. I never take my shoes off neatly. I kick them off. Let them land where they fall. Someone else did this. Or I did, but not the me that remembers.


I checked my watch. 6 hours now gone. This time it was different. This time it felt real. For the first time in my life the blackouts didn't feel like theft. They felt like direction. They were pointing in directions that I didn't even consider. Something inside already knew the road I needed to travel. And that road was leading somewhere past Rome. Past the Vatican. Past the masks and the rituals.


The road was leading to something or someone they only referred to as the Grey. 


And somewhere in the back of my broken mind I could still see the highway. I could still see the hallway and the door waiting at the end of it. That black marble door that I'll never forget.


The one that remembers me.





Power, and I mean true power, hides behind masks. Lives in the shadows. Rituals are real because they decide who stays and who disappears. Scoops, you're about to learn what disappearance really looks like.


Let me speak slowly so Scoops understands every word. I respect you, Terrence. I really do. That's real. That's tangible. But it's also what's gonna make this next part hard to hear. Because respect doesn't shield you from the truth.


You've fought for 40 years to chase something that never wanted you while choosing to give away everyone and everything that ever did.


You've bled across continents and time zones and international date lines for an industry that is notorious for eating its own, and you did it with that goofy fucking smile plastered across your face. Pleading to be the hero. "Good guy” Scoops, right? Delusion like that takes discipline. You lasted, Scoops. Congratulations. So does a scar if you pick at it long enough.


Building an entire career around suffering. Trying your best to romanticize it like it was fate, like it was your fucking destiny. But the truth is simpler. Much simpler. You've spent most of your life running, Terrence. Running from responsibility. Running from the people who needed you to stay. Who begged you to stay. Because deep down you knew that the suffering is the only thing that never left you.


And you've made that your story. The legacy of Scoops McGee. But there are parts of the story that you choose to skip. The Universal Championship was right there, Terrence. Ready to be seized by the man who gave everything he ever loved away so that he could call himself a champion. And you let Kieran King take it off your bones.


The Television Championship was also within reach. And you let whatever that broken down and beaten version of the great Centurion is, take you to a draw. Syn gives a dismissive wanking gesture.


That's you, Terrence. The greatest almost in wrestling history. Almost a husband. Almost a father. Almost a champion. Almost mattered.


Bright lights. Big choke.


Not because you're cursed, Terrence, but because deep down you've always been better at leaving than you have ever been at winning.


Bright lights. Big choke.


The legacy of Scoops McGee summed up in four simple words.


Point to your resume like it'll shield you. Forty years, hundreds of matches. Blood and sweat and pain and all that other bullshit that you think holds weight. Here's the thing about resumes though, Terrence. They're just lists of things that you used to be. The Universal Championship keeps slipping through your fingers. The Television title slipped through your fingers. This tournament will slip through your fingers. Because every time the lights get bright enough for you to show the world who you really are, you find a way to lose.


That's not a career. That's not a legacy. That's a pattern. And patterns don't break just because you want them to. Patterns break when someone comes along who sees the shape of them. I see your pattern, Terrence. I've been watching it for months. We all have. You rise. You stumble. You blame the stumble on something noble. Like sacrifice. Like addiction. Then Scoops will rise again, just enough to stumble again. That's not a warrior's path. That's a loop. An endless loop repeating. The loop ends when someone steps inside and snaps the thread.


I'm that someone, Terrence. I've always been that someone.


People don't like me because I tell the truth and the truth hits harder than any steel chair ever could. Especially when you've been hiding behind cosplay good guy bullshit for 4 decades.


Scoops wears good guy like it's a badge of honor. You wear it because you think it fits. Because you think it photographs well. But the truth is, Terrence, heroes don't leave. Good guys don't walk out the door on their wives when the marriage gets tough. On their kid when fatherhood requires presence. But you did. And you did it in the name of sacrifice. Chasing a spotlight that with hindsight, never ended up coming.


Sure, I'm not a good guy, but I also don't lie. I don't play pretend. You do. That's your calling card. It was never sacrifice, Terrence. It was preference. And you preferred strangers chanting your name over your child learning it. That's what you have to live with. That's the thing that haunts you when you're alone and your mind grabs hold of you. When that lonely road between shows seeks you out and there's nowhere left to hide from the internal discourse.


So let me tell you something that you already know. Beneath that hero costume that you wear so proudly, there's nothing noble, there's no honor. Just an addict. A selfish addict that chose arenas over anniversaries. Who chose bright lights over birthdays.


A good man would regret what he missed. A good man wouldn't need titles or tournaments to prove that he mattered. So no, I'm not gonna let you cosplay hero in front of me like the rest of these clowns would. Not after forty years of running from real responsibility.


You'll pretend that walking into that hotel lobby took courage. But courage in a hotel lobby doesn't erase a lifetime of cowardice. Your son knows that.


I know your promo before you even drop it. Same Scoops script as always. You'll tell us that it was all for the addiction. That's what you said. Fighting is an addiction. Your words, Terrence. And those are the truest words that you’ve ever spoken. That was you being real for the first time in your miserable fucking life. Because if there's one thing that I know, it's that addicts always believe that the next hit, the next bump, fixes everything. It won't though. Because you're chasing ghosts.


I know you, Terrence. Deep down I know you. I know that you're addicted to the noise. To the applause. And we both know that you're only addicted to the applause because your son stopped clapping.


I also know that you were always willing to abandon everything. You just needed a cute little story to blame it on.


And that's why I'm going to fucking erase you, Terrence. Not because I hate you. Because I know that you're as much a villain as I am. I just don't dress it up in good guy clothes and good guy speech and good guy slogans that fit nicely on t-shirts. I'm just honest enough to admit it.


I'm not coming into this match to play mythology with you, Scoops. I'm not admiring statues. How boring. I'm not chasing a Cinderella run. I'm ending one.


You do this out of some desperate need for validation. For one more sunset where Scoops McGee can pretend he was always meant to be king. You weren't.


I've sat in rooms that you didn't know exist. I've touched doors that remember my name. This match, Terrence, is just another room. You're just another door.


That's the difference between us, Terrence. I don't need the validation. I'm an inevitability. I'm not trying to survive the storm. I am the storm. I'm just the first one to admit it. There's no fairytale ending when you line up across from me. You're getting absolutely erased and I won't even raise my voice while I do it.


When we step into the storm, Terrence, you'll do what you always do. You'll try to dig deep. You'll try to find that place that you keep buried inside of you where the suffering lives. Where the abandonment resides. And you're gonna try to sell me on the idea that suffering and the abandonment makes you noble. It doesn't. Suffering just means that you're still conscious while I take you apart.


I'm not going to hurt you fast, Scoops. Fast would be mercy. Fast would just be the kind of ending that you could spin into another story about another battle. No, I'm going to take my time with you. Calculated. Methodical. The way that they teach you in rooms you'll never see. Joint by joint. Breath by breath. Until the crowd stops cheering your name and starts wondering why you just won't stay the fuck down.


And when it's over, when you're lying there in your own blood and your own piss and you're looking up at lights that don't feel bright anymore, you're going to finally fucking realize something that you should've realized two decades ago. The suffering never left you because you could never leave it. I'm not taking your suffering away, Terrence. I'm leaving you alone with it.


You had the balls to say nobody can claim to be a warrior like you.


Okay, fine.


Die like one then.


You only call yourself a warrior because absent father with an addiction to violence doesn't test well with the crowd.


Forty years. All for nothing.




STATIC