Silence, Pt. 6: Revelations

The following is transcribed from the secret journal of Rexton William Bader (real name: Richard O’Neill): 

July 8, 2025

Dear Kelsey,

So it’s been four of five months since I became a wrestling manager, and, I’ve got to say, it’s pretty fucking sweet. Everybody knows my name, people buy me shit, and we fly first class all over the place. All over the world! On the company dime, too.

I’ve seen Japan, Kels. Me. The same guy who spent twelve years driving a mail truck around the same fifty-nine mile route in rural Massachusetts. I’ve seen FUCKING JAPAN!

Lately we’ve been back in the good ole U S of A though. We just got home from Milwaukee, and we’ve got an extra week for some much needed R and R before we head to Chicago. My guess is Snow will want to drive to that one, since it’s not too far away, and so the baby can come with us.

While we’re gone on longer trips, Snow leaves the baby with the students at the wrestling school. You might think this is strange–and it is–but they’re all happy to babysit. Especially this one girl, Kelli Kenzi (total bitch), who takes the kid home with her for two and three nights at a time. These kids look at Snow like he’s some kind of GOD. I think every single one of them (especially Kenzi, that whore) would get down on their knees and suck his dick if he asked.

Seriously. Like a god.

Which is how he got them to participate in that bullshit that went down in Saint Ambrose. I still can’t believe we did that. As far as I can tell, the baby is the illegitimate, SECRET, son of the mayor over there. You know me… I hear a story like that and I see dollar signs. But Snow didn’t seem interested in money at all. I really thought he was gonna kill the guy. And, sure, I know I’ve done some dirt in my day, but I didn’t sign up for that kind of felony. It doesn’t sit right with me, Kels.

He’s been okay since then though. “Okay” by his standards, I mean. I keep trying to get him to talk to me–it seems like so long ago that he used to talk to me–but he’s too much of an asshole.

That said, he’s an asshole who took me to Japan…

I can’t help but notice all the shots he’s taking to the head lately. It’s like every match he winds up covered in blood. Hell, right before UltraViolence, it wasn’t even a match and he got flattened by my oxygen tank. I don’t know how a guy can get hit like that over and over, week after week, without it having some kind of consequences.

After the Milwaukee show, on the drive home from the airport, he took a detour to find a specific gas station where he bought a shitload of wrestling magazines. I didn’t even realize gas stations still carried magazines. So, since it’s not like Snow’s good for riveting car conversation, for the rest of the drive home I flipped through them.

“Christ,” I said, “have you seen Daytona Diamonds lately?” Snow’s next opponent. The story in front of me detailed, with pictures, the changes in Diamonds’ body since his return to PRIME. “This guy’s on every drug under the sun. Hey. Hey, you think his dick shrunk?”

Snow didn’t take his eyes off the road. I’m not sure if he was listening to me.

He’s a weird guy, Snow. And it would be enough if he was just a weirdo. Plenty of those in the world. But sometimes… I don’t know. Sometimes it’s like I look in his eyes and I can see something. Or maybe it’s more like something is missing. Whatever it is, I saw it in that moment, driving home from Milwaukee, when I brought up Daytona Diamonds.

July 16, 2025

Dear Kelsey,

Have I told you about the house we’re renting? If it were any better it’d have whores. I kid, I kid. But it’s pretty sweet. Two storeys, three bedrooms, two baths. Snow sticks mostly to the upstairs because two of the three bedrooms are up there. One is the baby’s room. The other room is Snow’s bedroom, but he usually sleeps in the baby’s room.

Now that I think of it, it’s been weeks since I’ve seen that door open. For all I know the house does have whores, and that’s where he keeps them. Again, I’m joking. There are no whores in Jason Snow’s life. In fact, as far as I can tell, he doesn’t have ANY VICES WHATSOEVER. And I don’t just mean the bad ones. I mean NONE. I’ve never seen him play a game, never seen him eat junk food. I’ve never so much as seen him watch T.V. It’s like he’s not even a real person. All he does–and I mean ALL he does–is train for matches, play with the baby, and read his Bible.

Just yesterday he took the baby and his Bible to the wrestling gym. And every time he wasn’t sparring, (Snow’s sparring sessions have been brutal lately. He’s trying to perfect–and I mean per-fect–some kind of rolling chokehold. He keeps catching kids in it and then they thrash around the ring while he works their shoulders to the mat for a pin. It looks like a snake squeezing the life out of its prey. Or trying to fuck it. I don’t know how snakes look when they fuck but I’ll bet it’s something like that.) he was on a bench, forehead deep in his Bible.

I’ve long since stopped wearing my full disguise at the wrestling school, but, for obvious worker’s comp reasons, I still have to be in my chair in public. So I rolled up and said, “I’ve never seen anybody so obsessed with a book they didn’t jerk off to.”

Snow looked up for only a second. I saw that there was a little bit of blood smeared on the edge of the Bible’s open page. Like I said, Snow’s been getting busted open a lot lately, and then he often re-opens the cuts in sparring. But this blood on the Bible didn’t come from Snow’s head; it was coming from his hand, bleeding through a bandage he had wrapped around it.

I said, “How the hell did you do that one? Was that just now in the ring?”

He just adjusted the bandage. And while he was doing that, I caught a glimpse at his Bible. He had a passage circled. I didn’t get a good enough look to read it, but I saw it was Revelations 6:8. And next to the passage he had written, “Azrael,” and underlined it.

I said, “Azrael? Like the cat on The Smurfs?”

Snow snapped the Bible closed and looked at me.

I said, “Je-sus. Sorry, I guess I thought maybe you weren’t gonna be a secretive prick today, but that’s too fuckin much to ask. Didn’t realize the Holy Bible’s a your-eyes-only kind of book.”

Remember how the other day I said sometimes there’s this flash in his eyes? Like this whole other thing that lives inside him comes up to the surface, and you can see it, just for a second. That’s what happened then. I saw that.

Before I could say anything else he got up and started for the ring. Everyone in the room perked up to pay attention. I’m telling you, Kels, the way these kids look at him… If a woman ever looked at me the way these kids look at Snow, I’d con her out of everything she owns. They watch his every move. On his way to the ring, Snow pointed at Julius Johnson, and Julius, like a puppy, followed Snow to the ring.

The students have been showing up to the house more and more too. Mostly it’s not so bad. They cook for us, clean for us, do our laundry… I could get used to it.

Earlier today I found Julius in the kitchen–the same Julius from yesterday, now with bruises all over his neck–mopping the floors. He smiled at me when I rolled in.

“Hey Mr. Bader. Ready for Chicago?”

“Where’s Snow?”

“He’s upstairs.”

“With the baby?”

“Kenzi’s got the baby. Mr. Snow’s in his room, prepping for his match.”

I cocked my head at him. “Prepping for his match? In his room? He choking kids out here too now?” I turned my chair toward the stairs in the living room. We had a lift installed once the students started showing up for visits. “Whatever. I gotta talk to him about Chicago.”

But before I rolled out of the kitchen, I felt a hand on my arm. And when I looked up, Julius’s expression was serious. “No one’s allowed in Mr. Snow’s room. You know that, right?”

“The fuck you talkin about, ‘not allowed?’”

Julius just stood there.

I said, “Hey maybe that’s a rule for you. But I live here. Me and him are a team.” I looked at his hand on my bicep. “And next time you touch me I’ll have him break that shit right off your shoulder and stick it up your ass.”

Upstairs, as usual, Snow’s door was shut. I got off the lift and started wheeling down the hallway, toward it, when a voice stopped me:

“You know it’s ridiculous you still roll around in that thing when we all know you can walk.”

Have I told you how much I hate Kelli Kenzi yet?

Ugh, this bitch…

With the baby napping in his crib, Kenzi was sprawled out on her stomach on the floor of his room. She had one of the wrestling magazines we brought back in front of her, and I noticed one of the pages was ripped out. She had a real thing for Snow, this one. I could picture her tearing out pictures of him and tucking them in her pocket to take home and put to use, since, you know, the real Jason Snow was about as sexually attracted to her–or any woman–as he was a tricycle.

I pointed at the door down the hall. “Snow in there?”

“He doesn’t want to be bothered right now.”

“Yeah? And he told you this?”

“Of course not.”

“But you just know because you have–what–such an amazing connection?”

She looked at me dully. “Because his door’s closed. And no one’s allowed in Mr. Snow’s room.”

I looked down the hallway at the closed door.

Kenzi said, “You should just leave him alone.”

“What?”

“Seriously. Do you even know the first thing about wrestling?” She scooted back onto her ass. “Do you even know the first thing about Jason Snow? Do you know why people call him Mr. 407? Do you have any idea what GTT6 even was?” She could tell by my face that I didn’t. She scowled. “Mr. Snow is trying to put together one of the most epic comebacks in wrestling history. And all anybody’s paying attention to is you.” She held up her magazine, and on its open page–would you look at that–there was a picture of me in my Rexton William Bader get-up. “You’re stealing this from him.”

All I could say was, “Hey, it was him who brought me onboard. Not the other way around.”

“Like they say. Everyone makes mistakes.”

I thought I heard something from Snow’s room, but when I looked, there was only the door. “Hey,” I said to Kenzi. “I ask you something?”

“Only if you keep it in mind that I can crush you like a bug if I want.”

She wasn’t wrong. Kenzi was 6’3 and I’d once seen her bite a man til he squealed.

I said, “Does he seem weird to you? Snow, I mean. Weirder even than normal.”

“In what way?”

I pointed at the door. “Like this. Like, since when is there a rule about goin into his room? What the hell’s that? What? He’s got a girl in there or something?”

She didn’t like that comment at all. “Mr. Snow’s not like that.”

“No, I get it, he’s a fuckin saint. He’s a saint of a man whose dick’s only purpose is to serve the Lord. Fine. Whatever. That’s not what I’m talkin about. Like that shit in Saint Ambrose. That was fucked up.”

“I was there.”

“You were but you weren’t. You weren’t in the room when he turned… hard.” I lowered my voice. “I really thought he was gonna kill that guy. I’m serious.”

“Don’t you think you might be exaggerating a little?”

“I’m tellin you,” I said seriously. “Somethin’s wrong here. You can keep goin all goo-goo eyed if you want, but I’m warnin you. I know him a little. And somethin’s changin. I think he’s losin it.”

“I think you just don’t understand what it takes to achieve great things.”

Maybe she was right. But I didn’t think so. I thought, as I’d said, that something was wrong here.

Kenzi went back to her magazine.

For a long moment I stared at Snow’s door. But in the end I went back to the lift and went downstairs.

July 17

Dear Kelsey,

No bullshit, I’m getting scared. Just now I’m sitting in bed and I remembered that passage in the Bible that Snow had circled. So I looked it up on my phone. Revelations 6:8.

You ready for this?

And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the Earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the Earth.

What. In the fuck. Have I gotten myself into?

July 21, 2025

I need to get out of here. I need to. I can’t stay here, Kelsey. I know I’ve been involved in plenty of shady shit in my life, but this? This is a whole different thing.

Today, when Snow and the wrestling kids left for the gym, I stayed behind.

You already know what I did.

I went into his room.

First of all, it was padlocked on the outside. Who even does that? I’ll tell you who does that: a psychopath.

Don’t believe me?

After I got the padlock unscrewed from the wall, and opened the door, at first just looked kind of empty. But then I turned on the light.

“Azrael” was painted on the far wall of the room, just like he'd written it in his Bible. When I got close I could tell it was painted in blood. Azrael. On each wall. “Azrael.” “Azrael.” All over the room. And then when I looked behind me, above the door, I saw, “I am Azrael, the angel of death.” I remembered the cut on Snow's hand that day in the gym.

I wanted to leave but I couldn’t. I froze right there. It was like all of my worst suspicions about the inside of Snow’s demented head were made manifest in this room. There was no bed, but above the spot on the floor where I assume he slept, there it was again, on the ceiling: I am Azrael, the angel of death.

On his dresser there were photos in frames, standing and piled. Snow in twenties, clean-shaven here, bearded there, with a dark-haired girl and a little blond baby. A couple of other girls who bore a strong resemblance to the dark-haired girl. This was his family. And beneath the pile of frames, across the top two drawers of the dresser, there was an X painted in blood.

Kelsey, I swear to shit I almost fainted. And I wish I’d run away right then. But there was more. In the center of the floor there was a circle painted in blood, and inside that circle there were torn-out magazine pages. And on each page, somewhere, was a photo of Daytona Diamonds. Next to the pages was a small, disposable aluminum tray. And there were ashes in it. Had he been burning the photos.

Enough was enough. I had to run. I wanted out of the house and out of Dempsy and out of the whole situation. But right before I left, one last thing caught my eye. Near the door there was a small end-table, and on top of it there was an open notebook. As I stepped closer I could see Snow had been writing in it. So I stepped close and I read it. I wish I hadn’t.

He’s lost it, Kelsey. He’s out of his mind. Whoever he was before, the guy Kenzi talks about, he’s not that now. What’s worse is he knows it. It was all there in the journal. Mostly he wrote about Daytona Diamonds, and about how Diamonds had to be “punished.” He wrote about things he lost–his family, I guess? I can’t remember exactly what it said. But I remember it kept repeating, I am Azrael, the angel of death.

I have never, ever, felt dread like I felt in that moment.

…Until the next moment.

The next moment was worse.

Because when I looked up Jason Snow was standing in the doorway.

I hadn’t heard him come up. No baby with him. No wrestling students. Just Jason Snow, looking every bit the angel of death the claimed to be.

“Sorry,” I said, putting his journal down. What could I say? “You know that thing about curiosity and the cat.”

He closed the door.

“Snow,” I said, “I think maybe you should think about gettin some help. But, with me and you, maybe we should go our separate ways. You know, no harm, no foul, right? You’ve got your baby. You’ve got like twenty wrestling students at your disposal. You don’t need me.”

He shook his head slowly. It looked like he might say something, but for once–for the first time–I hoped he didn’t. After what I read in his journal, I never wanted to hear him speak again.

“Please,” I said. “Just let me go.”

He just shook his head again. And his eyes were dead.

I closed my eyes–I was crying now, I hate to admit–because I was pretty sure he was about to slit my throat. But when I opened them again, he was just gone. The whole thing had been so surreal that part of me wondered if he’d ever been there to begin with. But I heard the front door open and closed when he left.

I don’t know what to do, Kelsey. It’s not like he’s keeping me under lock and key. I’m free to leave whenever I want. But when I went back downstairs, I found my wheelchair sitting in front of the living room door, waiting for me. It was a message. I want to run, but I’ve never been so afraid. I think he’ll come after me. I think he’ll find me. And, worse, what if he finds out about you?

We leave for Chicago in three days. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I know I have to do something. For now, I think my only option is to pretend everything is hunky dory. As if I’d I never walked into that room and found what I found.

And the other thing I can’t stop thinking about: I really need to figure out how this madman came to have a baby with him. And, mainly, I need to know: Where is the baby’s mother?

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The following is transcribed from the journal of Jason Snow:

I understand my purpose. I am Azrael, the angel of death. It’s been in front of me all my life. The Lord has taken from me all things I have held above him. I now hold nothing above him. I am an instrument of the Lord. I am His sword. I am Azrael, the angel of death. There is only God.

Daytona Diamonds, you are guilty of gluttony. And your sins are immense. You deny yourself nothing. You are the unbridled Id and there is no pleasure you will not chase. And for that the Lord will punish you, and He will punish you through me. I will bring Hell to you. I am Azrael, the angel of death. I am Azrael, the angel of death. And you will know your sins and you will suffer. There is no life without suffering other than a life through God. And I will show you this. I will bring you hell. I am Azrael, the angel of death.

I am transcended in full. I am the Lord’s predator. I am Azrael, the angel of death.

I am Azrael, the angel of death

I am Azrael, the angel of death

I am Azrael, the angel of death

I am Azrael, the angel of death