Dearest Competitor,

You are cordially invited to Twisted Metal.

Take this chance to make your wishes come true!

Calypso

TWISTED METAL

Jeremy Urbano Rosete

1.

Did you ever have a wish? Not the normal wish that'd usually pop up in your mind. We're talking about a wish so pure, so deep and hidden, that you wouldn't dare think it'd come true even in your wildest dreams. This wish, it might be your innermost dream. Or a wish of power. Or fame, or a wish of some sort of escape. Or revenge. A second chance.

Anything you desire. The only thing you have left to live for.

There are some people like us already out in the world, but most of the time, you'll find us in here. You have to understand, this single wish is our entire life now, we're all here because of it. A normal person like you, you'd probably call it a passion, or a mania. An obsession. But you don't know that we all had to be broken to this point. We had to be broken to even have this sort of desire.

So, normal person of the world, welcome.

Welcome to Midtown.

Welcome to Blackfield Asylum. Just let it all out. We're all here for you.

Proposition

To be honest, we've all been waiting for him. The man who would come and deliver us all. It was just a matter of time when he'd finally show up.

Right now, we're in our cells brooding in our sorrows and thinking about what could be and what could've been. Blackfield Asylum Inmates, all of us, here in our grey-matching Asylum Inmate uniforms and our unbuttoned straightjackets. Each day is wasting away and we go along with it. Each of our cells have a small window in the shape of a cross and at the right time the cross window will light up with sunlight and its form will take place on the floor. None of our cells are lit, so the first thing we see in the morning is this upside-down cross, illuminated by the outside rays of sunlight on the padded floor. It reminds us that we're in here for our sins and we'll never get out. All of our cells are meticulously padded on the walls, the ceilings, floors. Padded so we don't hurt ourselves, same with our straightjackets. Right now, our straightjackets are loosened so we can take them off if we want, but the belt buckles on our straightjackets are gone. We only get these buckles when we come outside of our cells.

We usually come outside for potty time. Potty time is a schedule they set up for each of us to use the bathroom at different times so that we don't bump into each other and fight over the same toilet. This schedule, we're used to it. It's a part of our life now, our bodies are practically trained to piss and shit at the time we're allowed to. If we don't feel like going when potty time comes up, then we've wasted our bathroom privileges, because we only get one potty time a day. When our stink gets unbearable, the guards come in with full-body armor and hose us down. Then they strip us and give us fresh clothes and straightjacket and leave us to dry ourselves off.

Weekends only exist three times a month. Weekends mean Recreational Activities and Exercise, which is a nice little label that really means walking around outside at night for hours and smelling fresh air with these armed guards watching you closely. Three times a month, we get to get out of the Asylum and into the courtyard outside. All night on that three-times-a-month Saturday, we get to breathe air different than the stale mechanical air they pump in the Asylum and in our cells. On those Saturdays, we get to breathe the same air that the normal people outside get to breathe. We get to pretend we're normal too.

When we move out on Saturdays, armed military security guards with Kevlar vests and bulletproof helmets and gas masks come to our cells to accompany each of us, all of them with gas masks strapped on their faces in case they have to lob sleeping gas if one of us acts up. These guards snap on the metal buckles on our straightjackets and tighten them up so we can't feel our own arms. Each inmate gets a three-guard patrol but some of us get more. The clown with the fire on his head and one eye gets fifteen guards looking after him. The old man with the human skull mask gets seven. The little girl with the Japanese mask thing on her head gets five guards. All of us look the same except for these three. They may wear the same uniform like us with the same straightjackets and black slacks and black shoes, but they can't be any more different if they tried. Nobody else has never-ending fire on his head. Or a human skull, or a Japanese doll facemask. Nobody has the luxury of hiding their faces like these three.

Everyone here knows them because it's impossible not to know them. They're the only ones with a shred of dignity left intact. The clown and the skull-man and the Japanese mask girl, they're the most famous inmates in the Asylum. They've been here for life and that's a lot longer than all of us.

Three-times-a-month Sundays is church time and on those Sundays, we shuffle into this giant auditorium to sit and listen to this Asylum pastor or priest or whoever lecture us about the bible and God for hours and hours. This Asylum priest tells us to repent for our sins. Asylum pastor tells us that we are loved. Asylum whoever tells us that we only need to learn to accept that love. Asylum god-fearing somebody, he tells us that if we accept that love and ask for the Lord's forgiveness, we'll be free of our sins. Or we all go to hell.

Most of the times, we wonder what he's talking about. Hell doesn't seem so bad. There's things to do there.

The inmate we call Preacher, he loves Sunday. He loves the Asylum pastor or priest or whoever. Inmate Preacher can't wait for Sunday to come by. Inmate Preacher wears this battered little fedora hat that the Asylum pastor gave him once after a long theological discussion. The guards had to take inmate Preacher away because he refused to leave the table after the pastor's time was up. Preacher wanted to talk some more, so Asylum pastor gave him the hat as a promise that he would come every three-times-a-month Sunday to educate him. To enlighten him. To guarantee his soul a passageway into Heaven.

The Inmate Preacher hasn't taken that hat off since.

After those rare weekends, it's back to our cells and wasting away again and again and again.

We don't know how long the days and months and years have gone by, but we know that when the man who will single-handedly deliver us all finally shows up, the clown and the skull-man and Japanese doll face won't be surprised. They already know he's coming. The man who'll deliver us all. We don't know how clown and skull-man and doll face know, but because they know; they wait patiently. They wait every single day for him.

When this man finally comes to us, they're not surprised. When this man comes, the clown with the fire on his scalp says, "It's about time."

The man with the skull says, "Benny."

Japanese doll facemask says, "Mm."

The Preacher says, "Heathen!"

The Preacher says, "Sinner!"

The Preacher says, "Why have you come, you evil demon child? I can smell the ungodly sin reeking off you."

We all hear this in our cells because these guys are so loud, it's impossible to believe the guards aren't doing anything. And so we sniff the air and smell the blood. Seems like it's not their fault, really.

You have to understand; these guards aren't doing anything because they're all dead.

Nothing can smell that bad and still be alive.

This man opens each of our cell doors, one by one by one. We hear the cell doors slamming open and we hear murmuring. All of us see, at first, a nice, tidy suit coat. Then dirtied slacks with blood all over. Then long silky brown hair framing this horribly scarred face.

We see this man, and he says, "Hello."

And he smiles and says, "Dearest competitor, have you ever had a wish?"

He can't blame us for holding our breath and cringing a little. Really, his smile is hideous even though his teeth are perfect. His red flame boiled cheeks stretches back to show perfect white lined shining little teeth.

The man says, "My name is Calypso and I have a proposition for you."

Notes: I've always wanted to do this. I love Twisted Metal and I've written some stories about it.

There was just nowhere to put it, back in the days.

But now we've got this nifty little section... however, reading through it, I saw that they were all based on singular characters, particular favorites, or author-created characters. There are no attempted novelizations on the game! Hence, my attempt. I think it's a good one.

Also, review. Just tell me.

-Jeremy (Ronald)