The bath is hot, steaming to the point of scalding. The tiles of the surrounding bathroom are glistening with condensation, the steam built up to an almost suffocating degree, such is the heat of the bathwater. The whirlpool jets hum slowly, mixing the water at a steady rate, and in the background, music is playing, muted behind the closed door. Only a short amount of time has passed since the bath was turned on, and that in itself was only a short time before that, preceded by the return of the man who is, now, in desperate need of that bath. Clothes are thrown onto the hotel bed, haphazard, uncaring, boots half undone on the floor, thrown off in a fit of pain. The empty wrapper of a bag of ice lays next to the clothes, it’s contents now wrapped inside an ice pack. The owner of both, moving with a slow, pained gait, is lowing himself into the scalding hot bath as we speak, closing his eyes in focus as he sits down, his muscles instantly recoiling against the feel of the water, the ice pack resting on his right shoulder, the shoulder itself aching from an impact, which in retrospect, didn’t need to be as venomous.

“By the Goddess!”

He throws his head back, resting it against the edge of the bath, the swirling water lapping at his neck. His eyes hang heavy, closed as though to absorb what his body is feeling right now, the pain running through every fibre, the aches in parts of the body that you never knew could ache, the human body is capable of a great many things, perhaps the one thing that it does best is create pain at every opportunity. Lifting an aching arm from the bath, he reaches for a flannel and throws it into the water, soaking it and then wringing it out. He reaches up, placing the flannel over his closed eyes and face, then adjusting the ice pack on his shoulder, wincing as he places a little too much pressure on that one spot.

“How the hell am I gonna do this, week in, week out, barely walked out of that ring.”

The question seems to be rhetorical, for he is alone in the bathroom, but to him, an answer comes all too quickly, and too clearly

“How do you feel?”

The voice comes, not from the man in the bath, but from the reflection of the man in the misted mirror. He looks exactly the same, his posture, his positioning is identical, but the voice sounds more confident, more focused.

“How do I feel? You know how I feel, you feel it too, don’t forget that. You expect me to do that all the time?”

Looking at the man in the bath, you wouldn’t believe that he was the same man who has fought in wars, has been scarred by metal and has had objects ripped from his very flesh. As he lays, aching and pained in the bath, he looks nowhere near his real age, he looks as though his return to a WWA ring has aged him by twenty years.

“Come on, don’t you feel it, the rush, the buzz, you used to feel it all the time! What happened to you!”

He removes the flannel, throwing it into the water as he lifts his head and sighs.

“Time happened, age happened, the future happened, everything else but me bloody happened! What do you expect me to say bub?”

“Did you just call me … Blob?”

The hidden meaning of the comment is not lost on the man, as he smiles at the reference to his future opponent.

“No, I said Bub, but thank you for reminding me I have to deal with that mammoth mountain of flesh on Monday. How in the name of the Goddess do you expect me to do anything in that ring against that fat bastard when I’m gassed and dying going up against two rooks?”

He turns to look at the man in the mirror, who turns and looks back, a wide smile on his face.

“Now that, that I can help you with.”

The smile widens from the man in the mirror, but quite the opposite happens on the face of the man in the bath, a look of angry shock crosses his face, no hiding of emotions. He opens his mouth to shout in protest but as he does so, his body convulses, sending him into a spasm that causes him to fall under the water, his entire body lost to the convulsion, and the man in the mirror follows, under the water, into the swirling pool. An eternity seems to pass before a hand shoots out from the bath, gripping the side to yank his body upwards into the air, out of the suffocating water. He bolts upright, his eyes closed tight as the water runs off his face, moving much faster than before. He lowers his head, water running off his now flat spikes. He keeps his head lowered, and as he does so, the same sinister smile we saw in the mirror crosses his face. His body looks stronger, his muscles now don’t seem so tense and aching as he turns to the mirror, wiping off the damp and condensation, looking at his reflection. Whereas before there was resignation, doubt in his face, now his countenance tells a different story. Strength and determination are mixed in equal parts with a touch of insanity and malice. The smile that is spread across his face remains as he stares himself in the eyes.

“Damn you, you evil bastard, damn you. You had to know I didn’t want this, not this way, but you made me do it anyway! But thank you, at least, you have come to make me realise what I need to do against the fat Dragon on Monday. I said it before, I’ll say it again, I have no intention of hiding from that mountain of flesh, not that you can go anywhere once you get in his gravitational field, but I’m going to attack, I’m going to attack like the true Canadian whack job that I am, and when I do, I’m going to make sure that Monsieur Dragon and his Pilote Psycho go back to wherever in Canada he came from and take your

partie la violence with you. Just because you managed to pull off a quick win against RJ Stone, doesn’t mean you can do the same against me when I have no intention of turning my back on you. I’m going to attack you, remember that, and when I do, you will see why I am called a freak, why I am called a psycho, and why, for these past 8 years, the WWA ring has been the place where I belong. Sorry to do it to you Dragon, but I’m back, and you are in my way, so au revoir.”

With that, he turns his head away, the smile still there, still as sinister, and as he does so, he pulls his arm back and quickly and without thinking, smashes the mirror, the assembled pieces remaining within the frame but fragmenting life into multiple pieces. He stands up, no longer aching, no longer hurting, his body renewed with the forces unknown, and he leaves the bath, the heavy metal getting louder as he opens the door. All that is left to do is to look into the cracked mirror, but as we do, we see a sight that is worrying at least. The man in the mirror, the psycho within the Occult Icon, is smiling, a myriad of demonic faces, all sharing one common feature, blood trickling from his forehead and a smile that says he likes it. He wanted to know how he did it? He is going to find out.