-334 Years Ago-
-Salem, Massachusetts-

There once was a girl who was afraid of monsters.

She was not like the other girls at school. 

Dorothy Carrier was only eleven years old. She was quiet when the other girls were loud. She preferred to sit by herself while the others were busy playing their games. She did not have many friends. She would sometimes stare when people spoke to her, not because she was rude, but because she needed a little more time to understand what they were saying.

The other children thought she was strange. They would whisper about her whenever she walked past. They laughed at her when she would stumble over her words when she spoke. They said she was creepy because she liked to collect little things she found in the woods, like dried flowers, feathers, stones, and sometimes little bugs. 

One time, she had brought a dead bird to school because she wanted to show the other children how beautiful its feathers were. The other children cried and screamed when they saw it. She had gone home crying that day because she was called a freak.

Dorothy did not understand why no one liked her.

She tried to ignore the other kids. Her father was not much help. He insisted she should try harder to blend in. “Just be normal,” he would tell her. But Dorothy was not capable of being normal. She was an innocent little girl who was just trying to be herself.

“And stay out of the woods,” he warned her.

“Why, f-f-f-f-father? Y-y-y-y-you k-k-k-know I l-l-l-l-ove the w-w-w-w-woods.”

“Because, Dorothy,” he explained to her, gentle but firm. “Haven’t you heard about the witches?”

“W-w-w-w-witches?”

“Yes, the woods are where the witches go and live. Anyone in the woods is going to draw suspicion. And we do not want suspicion on us, Dorothy. Not after what happened to your mother.”

“B-b-b-b-but…”

“No, Dorothy. I need you to promise me you will stop going into the woods.”

Dorothy looked down at the floor. She didn’t understand what had happened to her mother. Her father never liked to talk about it, and whenever Dorothy asked questions, he would simply tell her that some things were better left alone.

But Dorothy remembered her mother. She missed her. She remembered how she used to sing while she worked and the way she would brush Dorothy’s hair before bed and tell her stories about fairies and princesses and brave little girls who weren’t afraid of anything. Such loving, positive stories… while everyone else wastelling ghost stories.

She also remembered the way the other children had started whispering about her...

Witch.

“I… p-p-p-p-p-promise,” she finally relented.

Her father smiled and placed a hand on top of her head. “Good girl.”

And for a few days, she did stay away. She went straight home after school and helped her father around the house. She kept her little collection of feathers and stones hidden beneath her bed.

But something was drawing her back into the woods.

Almost as if it was calling her name.

At first, she thought she was imagining it. She heard it one afternoon while she was sitting on her porch, carefully sorting her box of feathers. The sound was faint but enough for her to set her box down and listen harder. Again, the sound came… “Dorothy…” She sat up from the rocking chair and made her way to the steps. 

“Hello?” she called out.

“Dooorrroooooootttthhhyyyyyyyyyyy…..”

Her heart skipped a beat. Could it be? The voice sounded so familiar. Was it… her mother?

She ran to the edge of the woods before she even had time to think about her father’s warnings from before. She wasn’t thinking about how angry he would be finding out she had gone into the woods. All she knew was that her mother was calling out to her.

Dorothy pushed through the bushes and the brush, going further and further into the woods. “M-m-m-m-mother?”

The voice had gone silent. She took a few more steps, and she heard another sound. Not her name or any other words, but instead it was laughter.

Children’s laughter.

Five of the girls from school were standing between the trees, watching her as Dorothy’s smile faded. One of the girls stepped forward from the group. “Well, well, well…”

“H-h-h-h-i.”

“Look who we found in the woods, girls…”

“Dorothy the Witch!”

“W-w-w-w-what?” she responded with confusion.

“We knew you’d find you out here, witch!”

“I-I-I-I’m not a w-w-w-wit…”

“Witch! Witch! Witch!” the girls begin to chant in unison.

“I… I heard m-m-m-my m-m-m-mother’s voice…”

“You hear that, girls? She’s been communicating with the dead!”

“She’s a witch!”

“OW!” One of the girls grabbed her arm in pain. “OW! Dorothy! STOP THAT! STOP HURTING ME!”

“Sarah, are you okay?”

“She’s looked at me, and I feel my arm being pinched!”

“Leave her alone!”

“I-I-I-I’m not d-d-d-d-doing…”

“Uuugghhhh…” another girl clutched her stomach. “I don’t feel so good…”

“Johanna, what’s wrong?”

“She looked at me…,” Johanna began to make gagging sounds before dropping to her knees. “She’s… making me sick!"

Another girl fell against a tree. “MY HEAD! OH MY HEAD!”

“We’re being cursed!”

“S-s-s-s-stop it… I’m n-n-n-n-not a….”

“WITCH!”

“WITCH!”

“WITCH!”

“WITCH!”

The girls kept shouting that word. Over. And over. And over.

Dorothy covered her ears. “S-s-s-stop,” she cried. But they didn’t stop. Shh stumbled backward, her legs tripping over a large tree root, falling into the dirt with tears streaming down her cheeks. She tried to speak as the kids surrounded her, continuing to chant “Witch” over and over, but she couldn’t get any words to come out.

The girls were now laughing as Dorothy cried out for help. But no one was coming to help her. And why would they? Maybe they were right. Maybe there was something wrong with her. She wasn’t like everyone else. She loved the woods… the monsters lived in the woods…

“I-I-I-I’m s-s-s-sorry,” Dorothy cried, although she didn't even know what she was apologizing for.

But apologizing only made things worse, as if it was some kind of admission of guilt. If she’s apologizing for what was happening, it must make it true. By the time the sun went down, Dorothy’s story was already being told around the village.

It didn’t take long.

There was yet another witch in the town of Salem.

Her name was Dorothy Carrier.

And the town of Salem knew what to do with a witch.

Good for you, you fooled everybody
Good for you, you fooled everyone
Good for you, now you're somebody
Good for you, you fooled everyone 

-22 Years Ago-
-Pittsboro, North Carolina-

There once was a little girl who was afraid of monsters.

Sadie Graves was only seven years old as she knelt down beside her bed. Like every night, she made sure to have her night light turned on as she got ready for bed. But tonight, she was even more nervous than usual. She looked out the window, watching the tree outside rustle in the wind, hearing the creaking as it did. She took a deep breath as she placed her elbows on her bed and clasped her hands together.

“Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep;
And if should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.”

She kept her eyes closed after she had finished her normal nighttime prayer taught to her by her father. She waited, and all seemed quiet. She opened her eyes and stood up, grabbing several of her stuffed animals, lining them up along the edge of the bed like the front rank of a vanguard, positioned toward the door to stand guard for the night.

She climbed into bed behind them, pulling the covers over her body up to her chin. 

Then she heard it. 

A quiet scratching.

Her eyes opened immediately, and they darted to the bedroom door. Her heart was beating fast as she scanned the room looking for the source of the sound. She listened carefully, trying to figure out what it could have been, but her imagination was already beginning to fill in the blanks.

“Daddy?”

No response. She swallowed hard and pulled the blankets tighter around herself.

“Daddy?” She repeated, louder this time. 

She heard footsteps almost immediately. Her parents' bedroom was only a short distance away, and within moments he appeared in the doorway. He looked concerned as he stepped into the room and walked over to her bed. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

“I.. I heard something.”

“Hmm, you heard something?” He looked around. “What did it sound like?”

“I don't know,” Sadie admitted. “It was scratching.”

He looked toward the window, seeing the branches of the tree outside moving in the wind. “Probably just the tree outside. It’s a windy night.”

“No, no, I don’t think so.”

Her father sat down on the edge of the bed and looked at her. Sadie could tell he was trying to reassure her, but she was still too frightened to let herself believe him. She hesitated for a few seconds before finally telling him what was really bothering her. He knew his daughter was afraid of the dark, but she was even more nervous than usual tonight. “Are you okay?”

She shook her head. “I’m… scared.”

“Scared of what?”

“Something’s going to come for me tonight.”

“Why would you think that?”

“The kids at school…”

“Ahhh, there it is. Kids will be kids. Even back in my day, we were always coming up with ghost stories to try and scare one another. But they’re just that, Sadie. Stories.”

“But… this story is real,” Sadie insisted. “It’s.. about a witch. And Shelly… she said… she dared me… to say her name three times while looking in the mirror in the bathroom with the lights off… and… and…”

“Wait, slow down. Say whose name?”

“Dorothy Carrier.”

“Dorothy Carrier? That’s a new one. In my day it was Bloody Mary.”

“WHO IS BLOODY MARY?! OH MY GOSH THAT SOUNDS WORSE…”

“Never mind,” he said, realizing that he may be making it worse. “What’s so bad about this Dorothy Carrier?”

Sadie explained that Dorothy Carrier had supposedly been a little girl who lived in Virginia a very long time ago. The other children had told her that Dorothy was a witch and that the people in Salem had burned her because they knew she was evil. They had told Sadie that Dorothy never really went away, either. She was still out there somewhere, waiting for someone to say her name three times so she could come back and find them.

“And that’s why you’re scared?”

Sadie nodded. “And.. I heard a noise… I thought she was here.”

Her father placed a hand gently on her shoulder. “Sadie, listen to me. None of that is real.”

“It is real, though? Like… Dorothy… she was real…”

“Maybe she was. But witches aren’t real and never were. Not the kind that fly around on brooms and cast spells and such. Those people in Salem were wrong, and most of those women were just… different. Misunderstood, I guess. They weren’t monsters.” He stood up, tucking her back in snugly with her blankets. “Monsters aren’t real, sweetheart. You have nothing to be afraid of.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

He could see that she still wasn't entirely convinced, so he stood up and decided to prove it to her. He crouched beside the bed and lifted the blanket hanging over the side before looking underneath it. “See? No witches.” He then stood up and walked over to the closet. He opened the door and looked inside, moving a few of her clothes aside so he could see into the back. He checked the floor and even looked up toward the shelf before closing the door again. “Nope, no witches in here either.”

Her father walked back over to the bed and sat beside her as he could tell she was beginning to relax. But she did look back up at him. “Can you still leave the bathroom light on for me, though?”

He smiled. “Sure thing.”

“Just… for tonight?”

“Yep, just for tonight.”

Sadie nodded and settled back beneath the blankets. Her father leaned over and kissed her gently on the forehead before standing up. “Good night, sweetheart.”

“Goodnight, Daddy. I love you.”

“Love you more!”

“Not possible.”

“Yes possible,” he said, getting in the last word as he stepped back into the hallway. He left the door cracked open just enough for the light from the bathroom to spill into the hallway and reach the edge of Sadie’s bedroom. She watched that thin strip of light on the floor for a few moments before finally closing her eyes. She pulled the blankets up beneath her chin and tried to think about what her father had told her. There were no witches. There were no monsters. There was nothing hiding underneath her bed, nothing waiting in her closet, and certainly nothing waiting for her in the darkness.

“Monsters aren't real,” she whispered to herself. 

She repeated it again.

“Monsters aren’t real.”

And again.

“Monsters aren’t real.”

“Monsters aren’t real.”

“Monsters aren’t real.”

Eventually, Sadie fell asleep. 

Good for you, you hurt everybody
Good for you, you hurt everyone
Good for you, you love nobody
Good for you, you owe no one 

-Present Day-
-Salem, Massachusetts-

 
There once was a girl who was afraid of monsters.

But then I grew up. 

My father taught me that monsters weren’t real. And I had believed him. Because I was a good little daddy’s girl who didn’t know any better, my dad could’ve told me the Earth was flat, and we never went to the moon, and damn if I wouldn’t have believed him back then. 

But the truth is, he was wrong.

Monsters are real.

But they ain’t the monsters from the horror movies I love so much. Like yeah, no, there’s no Jason or Michael Myers out there killing slutty teens, and the dead ain’t risin’ from the grave (not yet anyway, let’s not rule it out completely). Monsters aren’t the supernatural beasts that we heard about on the playground at school.

No, I found out firsthand who the real monsters are.

The real monsters are the sickos and the freaks out there who take advantage of those smaller and weaker than them. The guys who follow defenseless women out into the parking lot and attack them just because they couldn’t handle a little rejection. Monsters are the ones who fabricate lies or fallacies in order to put forth their own narrative while purposely damaging someone else with no concern about how those lies will hurt someone else.

It took me longer than I care to admit to realize that not only are monsters real… but they are fucking everywhere.

Poor Dorothy Carrier wasn’t the monster in her story. The little fucking pussies in Salem who dared to destroy the reputation of women just because they didn’t fit into the model they wanted their women and children to live by. They were the real monsters.

Which is why I’m back here in Salem, Virginia before I head to Baltimore for Vanguard, where I’ll be taking someone so sick and twisted that I would file them under the category of real monsters… but we’ll get to that in a moment.

I figured if I was going to talk about monsters, what better place to do it in the place that was the basis of my first horror story I was ever told?

Plus, I’ve always had a thing for old houses. Not because I’m some kinda history buff. Because I’m not. I actually hated History. I couldn’t give two shits about who lived here or what they ate for breakfast or what kinda horse-drawn carriage they used to get around town. I just happened to have spent a lot of time sleeping in old houses when I had nowhere else to sleep on those nights after I was booted from Danny B’ Goode’s wrestling school. But no, I’m not here to sleep either. I’m here to do some… remodeling, I guess?

It’s kind of a weird, cruel joke that the town of Salem can try to monetize the fact that the people in this shitty little town committed genocide against their own people, so I don’t feel bad about picking one of the more dilapidated buildings, far off the normal tour guide route, to sink my metaphorical teeth into here. I mean, this place is pretty much falling in on itself already after years of neglect. Figured I could give it a helping hand.

I raised the crowbar over my head and jammed the hooked end underneath one of the old wooden panels along the wall. The wood groaned as I put my weight into it, and with one final shove, the nails finally gave way. The panel tore loose from the wall and dropped onto the floor with a loud crack. I looked down at it for a second before tossing it onto the growing pile of busted wood beside me.

One more piece of fucked up history gone.

I stopped for a second and wiped the sweat from my forehead with the back of my arm before looking around the room. There was dust everywhere. Pieces of plaster had fallen from the ceiling. The wallpaper was peeling away in long strips, revealing the old wooden walls underneath. I reached down and picked up a handful of rusted nails that had fallen from one of the boards and tossed them into my backpack. You never know when those could come in handy.

I made my way over to a small rotting desk that had an old wooden cross sitting on top of it. Whoever lived here probably was one of Dorothy’s persecutors back then. They tortured her all in the name of their so-called god. I turned it over in my hand, studying it for a moment before reaching into my pocket and pulling out my pocket knife, sharpening one end of the cross.

There’s something satisfying about taking an old symbol of misguided faith and turning it into something that might be useful when taking on an actual monster.

I dragged the blade along the wood again, slowly whittling away at the end until it became a point. There we go, much better, I thought before sliding the makeshift weapon into my backpack. I had plans for it in the future...

Oh, and speaking of fucked up history, I suppose we should probably talk about Rayven Reinhardt, huh?

Look, much like the fact that the shit that happened in Salem happened, and it’s not something that should be forgotten, no matter how heinous it was… I ain’t gonna sit here and try to forget what happened when I went up against Rayven Reinhardt for the Valor Championship. I ain’t gonna sugarcoat it either. What happened, happened. And just like history, you gotta learn from it and try to make sure those mistakes aren’t repeated again.

Rayven was better than me that night. Shit, I can’t sit here and deny it. She beat me fair and square. I’m not going to be some bitch who cries about it or acts like she got lucky or some shit. I’m a big girl; I can handle a loss. And more power to Rayven; she’s pretty fucking good at this wrestling thing.

But who am I? I’m the Fuckin’ Final Girl. I survive. I fight. I love to get my hands dirty. And let’s face it, I have a lot more fun when there ain’t a bunch of rules gettin’ in the way of all that. 

Which is why I’m pretty fuckin’ excited about my next match. Falls Count Anywhere. No disqualifications? No count-outs? No rules tellin' me I have to break a hold or stop beatin’ somebody’s ass because we ain’t in the goddamn ring? Fuck yeah, now we’re talkin’! God, I’ve wanted this more than any orgasm I’ve ever had. It’s been way too long since I felt something sharp piercing my skin.

Which is why I kind of like running my hands alongside some of the nails sticking out of the dry rot in this poor excuse for a house.

And I guess that brings me to my next opponent. I won’t disrespect her by calling her her government name as much as I’d like to, just because of how downright stupid it is to rename yourself just because you’re not strong enough to live your life without giving in to some type of deity. I don’t care if it’s God, Buddha, or Chtulu… they ain’t gonna help you more than you can help yourself. As much time I spent sittin’ in church, I learned that the hard way.

I was actually hoping I’d get to share the ring with Zolothach during that Valor Gauntlet. I thought that could’ve been fun. Two women who have built themselves around horror and violence, both of us with our own fucked up histories and our own reasons for becoming what we became. I thought maybe I’d get to find out what she was really made of. Unfortunately, that opportunity never came because the poor girl couldn’t even make it past the first person she had to face. Meanwhile, I took out three people in that match before I won the whole damn thing.

But honestly, I’m glad we didn’t get to wrestle then because it wouldn’t have been as fun! Because I think that Zolothach, much like me, you get off on this shit. Part of you enjoys gettin’ the pain just as much as you do givin’ it out, don’t ya? 

I take a moment to pull another panel off the wall, tossing it into the pile in the middle of what I guess was the living room? Not sure they called them living rooms back then. But that really doesn’t matter. At this point, I felt as though I had earned a break and was just about done here anyway, so a cigarette break seemed in order. I pulled out the carton, popped one out and lit it up before taking a drag.

Ironically, while we both certainly have different pasts… I think me and Zolothach have a lot in common. For one, if we both were alive three hundred years ago, we both no doubt would’ve been burned alive or hanged in the middle of town square because we’re both different. I guess you literally consider yourself a witch, but we’re both not what they would’ve considered a traditional woman, huh? We both have our scars… and I ain’t gonna pretend like we came up the same way because we obviously didn’t. But we’re both survivors. We both learned how to survive, and we both learned that sometimes surviving means doing some things to get your hands dirty along the way. 

But I don’t answer to some deity. Hell, I don’t answer to anyone except myself. 'Cause ultimately the only person I trust is myself. You succumbed to darkness and embraced the monster. You turned yourself into this larger-than-life horror story. You’re a psychopathic sociopath, and when it comes down to it… you’re no different than the monsters who persecuted you and made you who you are today. 

I took another drag from my cigarette and let the smoke hang in front of my face for a second before slowly blowing it toward the ceiling. There’s something almost poetic about standing in a house that was probably built by people who thought they had the right to decide what everybody else should be, what they should believe, how they should act, who they should be, and eventually, those people found somebody who didn’t fit their little mold and decided that the easiest way to deal with her was to destroy her. That’s what monsters do. They see something they don’t understand, and instead of trying to understand it, they try to control it. And when they can’t control it, they try to kill it. 

I know what it feels like to have somebody else decide what you’re supposed to be. I know what it feels like to have somebody stronger than you make you feel small. I know what it’s like to feel uncomfortable in your own skin. Like you’re tryin’ to be somethin’ you’re not. I know what it’s like to be hurt. I know what it’s like to be angry… to be scared… so scared that it makes you become something that nobody would ever dare fuck with again.

But there’s a difference between becoming strong enough that nobody can hurt you and becoming something that nobody can recognize anymore.

I flicked the ash from my cigarette onto the dusty floor and started walking around the room again, looking over everything I’ve torn apart. The pile of broken boards was getting pretty damn big now. Old pieces of furniture. Splintered wood. Wallpaper. Nails. Whatever other pieces of this place I’ve decided needed to come down. All of it sitting in one big pile in the middle of the room, waiting for me to decide what to do with it. 

For a moment, I thought about how our roads were never going to be the same. You became a monster, abandoning the name of the girl you once were. I became the Final Girl.

And maybe the funny part is that I don't think either one of us is completely one or the other.

Because I’ve done some fucked up things. I’ve hurt people. I’ve enjoyed hurting people. Hell, I just spent the last hour tearing apart an old house because I thought it would be funny to destroy a piece of history, and now I’m standing here with a backpack full of rusty nails and a homemade fucking wooden stake like I’m about to go hunt Dracula. I’m not exactly the poster child for normal behavior. I’ve waited outside bars… just waiting for the chance to be there if some asshole tried to step out of line and take advantage of some drunk girl wandering out of a bar all alone. All to relive the moment when I first got my taste for blood. Yeah, there’s a part of me that likes the violence. There’s a part of me that likes the fear. There’s a part of me that looks at somebody who has spent their entire life hurting other people and thinks about all the different ways I could make them regret it. 

So... I guess there’s a little monster in me too, huh?

But that’s the thing I’ve learned over the last few years of being The Final Girl. You don’t survive the monster by pretending it doesn’t exist. You survive it by looking it right in the fucking face and telling it that it won’t win. Even if sometimes it's the mirror.

I took one last drag from my cigarette before dropping it onto the floor and grinding it underneath the heel of my boot. I stepped out through what used to be a doorway, but I’m not sure you can call that anymore since there’s no actual door there anymore. But outside on what was left of the porch was a red plastic gas can. Picking it up, I walked back into the house and looked down at the pile of broken wood sitting in the center of the house.

“Well,” I muttered to myself, “only one thing left to do here.”

I twisted off the cap and started pouring.

The gasoline soaked into the old wood almost immediately, running between the splintered boards and dripping onto the floor beneath them. I made my way around the pile, giving each side a healthy dose before walking toward the doorway. I stopped there for a moment and looked back at the mess I’d made. There was something strangely peaceful about it. All these pieces of a house that once belonged to somebody who thought they knew what was right and what was wrong. Somebody who probably thought their way of life was the only way of life. Somebody who probably would’ve looked at me, at Zolothach, at Rayven, at half the people I’ve met throughout my life and decided we were the ones who needed to be fixed.

Not anymore.

I pulled a lighter from my pocket, flicking it open. For a second, I just stood there, watching the little flame dance at the end of it before I tossed it into the pile.

The fire caught immediately. 

Orange flames crawled across the gasoline-soaked wood before spreading through the pile of debris I spent the evening building. Smoke began pouring toward the ceiling, and within seconds the old wallpaper started curling away from the walls as the heat grew. I stepped backward onto the porch and watched as the flames began swallowing the room.

The irony wasn’t lost on me. Three hundred years ago, somebody might’ve tried to burn a woman like me alive for being different. Today, I’m the one standing outside the flames, watching the house that might've belonged to one of those people burn to the fucking ground.

But that’s what I’m looking to do.

Zolothach, you’re just the beginning.

I’ve noticed there are quite a few so-called monsters running around the Conquest Wrestling Federation. How fitting that the Age of Monsters is just getting under way when I get here. I’ve spent the past couple of years hunting the real monsters of the world and looking to make them pay. It's what I live for.

Mmm, it's what I get off on. As I walk back to my truck, tossing my backpack in the bed, I could feel a tingle below my waist just imagining what fun I'm gonna have with Zolothach when we step into the ring. Tonight, I found some new toys I might get to introduce... but at the very least, you can bet my baby will be with me. I open the door to my truck, climbing in and looking over at my Kendo Stick wrapped in barbedwire. It's about time she got a proper introduction in a CWF ring. I bite my lip, just enough to draw some blood which I immediately lick off of my lips before starting the truck. I began to drive off, looking back in the rear view mirror to watch the house burning in the background.

So whether it’s Zolothach now… Eternal Grove later… god damn if I wouldn’t mind gettin’ my hands back on you Karlie…

Let’s burn this motherfucker to the ground.

Because this little girl ain’t afraid of monsters anymore.

Leave your weapon on the table
Wrapped in burlap, barely able
Don't get angry, don't discourage
Take a shot of liquid courage
Leave the light on if you're able
'Cause we both know you're unstable
Call a doctor, say a prayer
Choose a god you think is fair
'Cause my monsters are real