NaNoWriMo Story Snippets

55. Excerpt from a Bray Wyatt ficlet

I know my few Bray Wyatt stories definitely aren't as popular as my Becky/Seth stuff, but I still enjoy them. This is a snippet of one I'm trying out. Subject to editing, etc.

Husky Harris. Who ever thought that was a good name? Alliteration was one thing, but to make an obvious jab at his size, something he had been ridiculed for years. The wrestling business could be cruel, he knew—his father and uncles had already warned him—but he thought things would be different. Shouldn't they have learned? he thought, gazing out at the murky water. Shouldn't they be better than people were to them?

The swamp had always been a source of solace for him. Some kids thought it was gross or scary, but he and his siblings treated it like a playground, like an adventure. They never swam out too far, of course—they knew better; they had heard the stories—but they knew darkness wasn't a thing to be inherently feared. Everything had its own place, its own way of blossoming. The swamp simply thrived in darkness, in the oppressive heat that seized his lungs. He couldn't hate the swamp any more than he could hate an alligator's sharp teeth. Nature equipped all its children with tools for survival, and tools were themselves were neutral. It was how they were used that mattered.

It was rarely the same swamp. Life and work took him all over the country now, but he found that any swamp anywhere had a piece of the same soul in its depths, the same comfort in its creeping roots and dark waters. As he sat on the rickety dock, avoiding the worst of the splintered wood and bird-shit stains, he idly picked at a sliver in his palm and worked it free, flicking it into the sluggish water. "What do I need to do?" he asked softly, letting the natural softness of his voice seep through. It was yet another thing he was teased about: having a quiet voice when he was so large. Some people thought it meant he was stupid—or simple or dumb or whatever other offensive term they hadn't unlearned yet—but he knew better. It didn't make it any easier, though. The wrestling world was full of tall, muscular, imposing men, and men like him usually ended up being the joke, the comic relief.

He was no one's joke.

"Who do I need to be?" He had only ever wanted to be himself—to be comfortable with himself, within himself. He wanted to honour the legacies of his grandfather and father and uncles but still pave his own way. The wrestling world—fans and bookers and companies—could be unduly hard on second- and third-generation hopefuls, claiming they were riding coat-tails and nothing more.

Be yourself. The words were an admonition, an invitation, a plea, and they lapped up against his mind the way the swamp water curled around his dangling ankles. Be us.

"Be us?" he echoed, his already soft voice nearly lost to the symphony of the swamp, the choruses of insects and reptiles and all manner of creatures best suited to the darkness. He had been slumped forward, gazing into the murk of the swamp, when a flash of light to his left on his right caught his attention. When he sat up straighter, he noticed one to his right, higher, darting into the drooping canopy of the trees. "Who are you?"

Who are WE? The correction wasn't chiding or cruel, just a gentle nudge, the way his mother used to guide him by the shoulder if he started straying off the walking path through the forest. The WE seemed to cause ripples in the water and shivers in his bones, and a light bloomed right in front of him, bathing his face in gentle amber.

He scrambled to his feet, staggering back from the edge of the dock. There were all sorts of stories about the swamp, about creatures that would try to lure you into the water and steal your breath for their own. It had been foolish to come down to the dock so late on his own, but he needed some time to himself; he needed to be able to lose himself in the darkness without worrying about someone reeling him back in before he was ready to return. "We?" he whispered. The way the voice said it, it meant more than family, more than friends; it made the tiny word burrow all the way down to his marrow and rewrite him, using his blood as its ink.