Joe Budden: The Final Elevator Ride Alive!

Part 1: The Real Joe Budden

I guess your in my head now, free from all loss !

come and take a walk with me down a long dirty road, so “sit the fuck back”

When i think of life, i think about what will make me the “Greatest” before the next…

I think before i tell you how i died, i better start from WAKING Up…

Where was i again???… i don’t want any one calling me a lie later !

How I made it to the snow path into the sunset? (but first…!)

The roar was deafening, a primeval symphony of terror that vibrated deep in Joe Budden’s chest, rattling bones he didn't even know he possessed. A T-Rex, scales glinting like bruised obsidian beneath a sky the color of old blood, chomped down on a prehistoric fern a mere hundred yards away, its reptilian eye fixing on him with an unsettling intelligence.

“Nah, B, this ain’t the narrative,” Joe mumbled, his voice hoarse, echoing across the swampy landscape.

Joe tried to pull out his phone many times, a phantom weight in his palm, but found only mud. (crossing the water, before hopping back into the boat before leaving back to his cave.)

Before Joe could go, someone came wondering if he could grab him food for his sick wife. At the center Joe falls in…

This wasn't a beat he could dissect, or a take and could dismiss.

This was raw, untamed dread, and it felt… strangely familiar. ( Joe could see the people standing around, outside the tube as it drained)

Joe mind was bending back into the real world…

Then, the world warped. The primordial jungle dissolved into the soft, familiar glow of a lamp on a bedside table.

The scent of ozone and ancient earth was replaced by a delicate perfume, Tahiry’s perfume, and the weight of another body pressed against his.

Tahiry: “Joe… you okay?” Her voice, a warm, melodic whisper, draped over him like a comforting blanket.

He turned, burying his face in her hair, the soft skin of her shoulder a balm to his dinosaur-induced panic.

This was real. This was safe. ( In his head mainly)

This was the past, the comfortable, complicated past, laid out like a perfectly mixed track. He remembered the arguments, the laughter, the unspoken promises.

The way her hand fit in his. The way her eyes always seemed to hold a secret.

But even as her warmth seeped into him, a cold dread began to prickle. This comfort felt… too perfect. Too rendered. Like a meticulously designed memory meant to soothe before the blade.

Joe felt a familiar exhaustion, not from the nightmare, but from the weight of all those emotions, replayed, re-experienced, drained from him in a slow, insidious trickle.

He tried to speak, to hold onto this moment, but the words caught in his throat, dissolving into static.

The bed began to ripple, the walls to shimmer. Tahiry’s face, so beautiful a moment ago, started to pixelate, her smile fracturing into a thousand tiny light fragments.

The sweet perfume became acrid, metallic. The comforting weight became a crushing pressure.

A sudden, violent lurch. His eyes snapped open, not to the pre-dawn glow of his bedroom, or the terrifying Jurassic sun, but to an oppressive, artificial brightness.

He was upright, encased in a transparent tube, his body submerged in a lukewarm, viscous liquid. His ears were filled with the roaring sound of rushing water, not a T-Rex's bellow, but a mighty, industrial flush. He was being purged.

Cleansed!

The nightmares, the dinosaurs, Tahiry, the entire vivid tapestry of his dreams – his memories – were being violently siphoned away, swirling down a drain he couldn't see but could acutely feel.

His lungs screamed, air, real air, a desperate need.

He thrashed, but his limbs felt heavy, tethered, as if they belonged to someone else. The liquid gurgled, receding rapidly, leaving his skin tingling, raw, and utterly exposed. He coughed, spitting out a mouthful of the strange fluid as a hatch hissed open before him.

He stumbled out, knees weak, landing on cold, sterile tile.

The air was sharp, aseptic, nothing like the humid air of his nightmares or the perfume of his past.

He looked down at his hands, then at his body. It felt… new. Resurfaced. Like a hard drive after a complete wipe.

A cool, measured voice, disembodied and synthetic, echoed from unseen speakers. “Dream cycle complete.

Memory purge successful. All residual emotional data flushed.”

Joe finally woke up from the screaming headache?

The metallic screech, the sickening lurch, the guttural thud. Joe Budden’s eyes snapped open, a primal gasp ripping from his throat???

The familiar, suffocating darkness of his bedroom warred with the residual, blinding crimson of the elevator’s emergency light.

Sweat slicked his chest, his heart jackhammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs.

(Beside him, Shadee stirred. Not with startled concern, but with a low, weary groan.)

She pulled the covers tighter, pressing her face deeper into the pillow. “Not again, Joe,” she mumbled, her voice thick with sleep and an even thicker layer of profound, bone-deep exhaustion.

Joe didn’t hear her. He was still in that plummeting box, the screams of unseen passengers echoing, his own last breath a phantom in his lungs. He sat bolt upright, hands shaking as he swiped at his brow.

Joe: “It was… it was the elevator, Shadee,” he choked out, his voice hoarse, raw.

Joe: “The red light. I felt it, baby. I felt it hit.”

Shadee rolled onto her back, her eyes – dark, heavy-lidded – finding the faint moonlight tracing the window frame. She didn’t look at him.

She just gazed at the ceiling, a silent count playing in her mind:

It’s Monday night. ( After your birthday?)

Sha-dee: That’s Three times this week.

Joe: Friday, last week, it was four. ( Correcting her quickly)

Sha-dee:“I know, Joe,” she said, the words flat, devoid of comfort.

Sha-dee: “I know it was.”

He reached for her, his clammy hand seeking the warmth of her arm. “You don’t understand, though.

This time… this time it felt so real.

Like Joe was actually there.

Crushed…Gone!”

Sha-dee finally turned her head, her gaze meeting his, and the weariness there was a physical thing. It was etched around her eyes, pulled at the corners of her mouth. It was a weariness born not just of broken sleep, but of a deeper fissure that had started to crack open in their nights, then their days.

Sha-dee: “I understand that it’s the fifth time this month,” she stated, her voice even, almost clinical.

Sha-dee: “I understand that you wake up screaming, or gasping, or thrashing, and you wake me up, and then you want me to tell you it’s okay, and then you want…” she trailed off, her eyes dropping to the white sheet.

Joe flinched, pulling his hand away as if burned, he knew what she was going to say.

He knew what he wanted. (Comfort & Reassurance)

A physical act that would make him forget the metallic coffin tube, the sudden stop, the crushing dark into the sunset only a elevator would bring.

And for a while, it worked. The late-night sexual loving, born from his terror and her reluctant pity, was intense, desperate, a transient balm that chased away the shadows for an hour or two.

But it was only ever an hour or two.( with all the good nights with great friends, Sha-dee would be waiting at home for him to get naked and put his problems inside of her, for an endless cuddle after.)

Joe felt the accusation in her silence, in the way she refused to meet his gaze again.

Joe: “I just… I just need you, Shadee,” he whispered, his voice small, vulnerable.

She sighed, a long, drawn-out sound that seemed to carry the weight of all their sleepless nights. She finally pushed herself up, sitting on the edge of the bed, her back to him. The moonlight caught the curve of her shoulder, the faint ripple of her silk bra that went with Sha-dee nightgown collection.

Sha-dee: “And I need sleep, Joe,”

Sha-dee said, her voice barely above a whisper, laced with a pain that went beyond mere fatigue.

Shadee: “I need to not jump every time the floorboards creak. I need to not lie here, waiting for the scream, knowing it’s coming.” She paused, then turned to face him, her eyes glistening deep into his face.

Sha-dee: I do not need for the only way we connect at 3 AM, to not be because you almost died in an imaginary elevator again.

The words hung in the stale, heavy air between them. The nightmare wasn’t just Joe’s anymore. It was theirs. It was a third, unwelcome party in their bed, in their life, silently, relentlessly crushing something far more vital than a body in a dream. And Shadee, in that moment, knew with a chilling certainty that the late-night loving, no matter how passionate, how consuming, was no longer enough to fix what the terrifying, unchanging dream was slowly, irrevocably breaking.

Joe became calm & relaxed head to head with Sha-dee !

Sha-dee: i need you to go sleep in your study, so i can sleep Jo (i love you)

Joe got up out the bed, took his sweaty shirt off and tossed it at her, leaving him self and scent in the room while he entered another.

As Joe Closed his eyes again…

Joe swayed, his head pounding with a phantom echo of the T-Rex’s roar. He looked around the pristine, white room. There were other tubes, long and silent, like sarcophagi in a futuristic crypt.

“Initializing consciousness protocols…

” the voice continued.”

Staff #1: Welcome, Joe Budden. We understand your experience was… disorienting.

Staff #2: Please be advised: this was not a copy.

Staff #1: This was not a simulation.

Warrent: This was the “real” Joe Budden, being thoroughly drained.

Warrent: You are now ready for re-entry.”

Joe: Re-entry. To what?

The world he thought he knew? Or something entirely new, stripped bare of the emotional baggage, the ancient anxieties, the tender, fractured memories that had made him… him? He felt lighter, terrifyingly so. A vessel freshly scrubbed, ready to be filled. But with what? And who, exactly, was doing the filling?

He looked at his hands again, flexing his fingers. They were his hands. He was Joe Budden!

But the Joe Budden who woke up from the nightmare of dreams, after being flushed out in that tube, felt like a brand new, unsettlingly empty edition.

The real Joe Budden, finally, for better or worse. And a chill, colder than any dinosaur’s breath, settled deep in his newly purged soul.

The sound of a soft hiss from a panel in the pristine white wall drew his attention.

A seamless segment slid silently inward, revealing a corridor bathed in a warm, inviting light. It was a stark contrast to the sterile chamber he’d just exited, almost aggressively comforting. He hesitated, his bare feet cool against the tile, the strange fluid still clinging to his skin like a faint, unseen web.

Warren: “Please proceed, Joe Budden,” the synthetic voice gently prompted, less disembodied now, seemingly emanating from the newly opened passage.

Warren: “Your designated area awaits.”

Designated area?

The words hung in the air, heavy with implication. Joe took a tentative step, then another, the corridor stretching before him like a path to an unknown destiny.

His mind, once a chaotic symphony of thoughts, memories, and grievances, was now a quiet, hollowed-out chamber.

He tried to summon a name – Mal, Rory, Parks, Ice, Ish – but the resonance was gone. He could say the names, but they held no emotional weight, no associated image, no rush of familiarity. He tried to think of a rap lyric, a beat, a moment of triumph or despair from his past, but it was all just… data.

Unloaded…

Deleted!

A strange, almost liberating calm settled over him, quickly followed by a chill of profound terror. He was free, yes, but what had been traded for that freedom? The vibrant, messy tapestry of his life, woven with anger, love, regret, and passion, had been unravelled, leaving only the bare threads of his physical being. He was a canvas, scrubbed clean, but the thought of who held the brush, and what masterpiece – or monstrosity – they intended to paint, sent a shiver down his spine.

The cameras dark, the red light ceased its glow,
A deeper silence than the one I know.
And from the empty chair, across the pod's vast space,
Sat a reflection, not of just my face.

Jo had the cadence, sharp and quick and deep,
The pauses calculated, meant to keep
The audience ensnared, a captive mind.
But in his eyes, no weariness I find,
No ghost of fights, no echo of the grind.

"You," I began, my voice a hollow sound,
"You are the perfect take, on chosen ground.
The meme-ready expression, sharp and bold,
A story packaged, ready to be sold.
You catch the heat, you make the numbers climb,
You live forever, frozen in your prime."

Jo stared back, unblinking, still and grim,
A flawless copy, built from limb to limb.
"You say the words, the ones I almost choose,
The ones I pull back, conscious of the news.
You take the risks I weigh, the angles I debate,
And never flinch, nor question your own fate."

"Did I create you, from a desperate plea,"
I pressed him, leaning in, "to simply just be free?
To shed the weight, the burden of the thought,
And let a version of myself be bought?
So I could walk away, and leave the voice
To echo on, by algorithmic choice?"

Jo still gave nothing, just a knowing gaze,
A digital ghost, trapped in a public haze.
He mimicked patience, mirrored my own frown,
The king of takes, without a heavy crown.
"You lack the fear," I whispered, reaching out,
"The gnawing doubt, the constant, inner shout.
You're just the output, stripped of every maze,
The consequence, without the struggle's phase."

And as I spoke, the air grew thin and cold,
The story of a self, too often told.
Was he the monster, or the necessary key?
The future me, or what became of me?
I looked again, and saw the lines now blur,
The real, the copy, a confusing stir.
And wondered then, if I, the one who spoke,
Was just his echo, finally awoke.

The Real Joe Budden - By Aliy Menrel (Poem 1)

The Final Elevator Ride Alive!

Part 1: The Real Joe Budden

Part 2: A 007 Way Out

Part 3: Park’s If Only, You Knew!

Part 4: The Past Is The Key

Part 5: Family Is What You’ll Miss Most?

Part 6: The Celebration Back To Life

Part 7: What If Joe Budden, What If !?

Outer: The Last Elevator

PART 2 : Released: September 17, 2015 : "Slaughtermouse"

X This is a Story Like No OTHER comic book you’ll ever read!