A television sitting on top of a dinner table. A dim chandelier hangs above.

Behind this scene, an abyss of blackness. Never-ending dark.

Sitting at the table.

A body. Dressed in funeral suit, worn by the passage of time. Black tie... White suit... Red stains around the collar. Lying limp, remnants of muscles unused keeping the body upright just barely...

Visage vacantly pointed toward the television screen before him. Face hidden in a pair of crossed arms sitting on the table… Were his eyes open, they’d be gazing into the fizzing glow of static from the television.

Eyes closed…

His body motionless…

Still… As if in the deepest sleep imaginable.

Face partially obscured by the corner of a television set… Elbow resting on a remote control…

Mark Flynn. Dead.

“…”

Suddenly, a rush of air… escapes… Held silence…For far too long…

A whisper, bone-dry and coarse, creeps along the sides of the room…

“All this time…”

“I couldn’t remember you…”

“I wracked my brain for what felt like eons… Struggling… Sifting through the fuzz and lint left in a mind unused for years… Like an abandoned library… Books falling apart, pages soft, ink faded… But for the life of me… I couldn’t remember you… There was no memory of you to be found…”

“The irony… considering how long you’ve maintained a perverse twisted memory of me…”

Click… Flynn’s dead weight shifts onto the remote control… Specifically, the play button…

The TV begins to whir to life with images of matches… Of promos…

As do stacks of televisions behind Flynn… A wall of screens click to life.

And begin simultaneously playing clips… From one XWF superstar’s career.

July 18th, 2013
defeated two of those names that I heard were tough to beat.. Mark Flynn and yourself.

July 29th, 2013
made Flynn and Neoneo disappear..

Flynn

Mark Flynn

July 31st, 2013
Mark Flynn went up against me and he's gone.

December 11th, 2013
If ESP thinks I'm an easy person to fight, then I suppose a visitation to history should be in order.

Mark Flynn. Neo-Nero. Stevie Tyler.

January 8th. 2014
What have I done? … Defeated people like Neonero, Sebastian Duke, Mystica, Tony Santos, Stevie Tyler, Mark Flynn…

May 29th, 2014
When I look at your two partners it brings me great joy.

Mark Flynn.

Flynn

Beat Flynn

Click.

The tapes stop. Frames frozen on different points of Eli... Delivering sermons. Converting opponents...

Another rush of death’s breath scurries out into the room, a heaving sigh… One that might crush an animal under its weight…

“It’s been over a year since I died.”

“It’s probably the reason you think of me as a comedian… I died mentally a long time before our match, Eli. The one where you…. Hehehehehe… Made me disappear into ash and vapor.”

“When I left to never, ever return. Gone. A victim of Eli James IV.”

“My name turned into a token of proof that your words were to be believed… A head mounted on a wall… A ghost to be called out to strike fear into the hearts of those you invade…”

“How can you doubt Eli’s message when he killed Mark Flynn forever?”

With a weary creak… Flynn’s eyes open…

“How can you ignore the truth when Eli buried Mark Flynn?”

Flynn’s lips purse as he sucks in air… his lungs fill with oxygen… His chest slowly expands…

“How can you deny Eli will succeed in his mission to convert the XWF? He ended Mark Flynn’s career…”

Flynn’s muscles tighten. His shoulders come together… As he lifts his spine from the back of the chair.

And stands upright from his seat…

“Behold, my child. As should have been prophesied… The dead have risen to walk the Earth… I am among you once again. No longer a slave to the grave I was laid in.”

Flynn tries to cackle… But once more, can only summon a strained sigh… Faster. Stronger.

“I’ll admit. It took me a little longer than the typical three days, Eli."

Flynn winks.

"But, death can only hide the truth for so long.”

“And now, I’m back. Mark Flynn 2.0. Back and better than ever."

“Leaving one to consider. If you ending my career was used for so long as proof of your power…”

“What else in your sermons could be disproven?”

“What further construction in your house of worship, is built on unstable ground?”

"What else of your composition and lifeblood can be taken from you....What victories… What other meals from your past can be ripped from your intestines, where they’ve sat undigested, savored…Keeping you fat and lazy For a YEAR?!?"

Flynn tries to take a step forward… His legs wobble. His body falls back onto the table… His grip tightens around the furniture’s rim… Staying on his feet.

“My strength has returned… at a disappointing pace… Slowly… Subtly…”

“Still, I’ve managed to accumulate a similar list of accomplishments in my short time back in the realm of the living…”

"A year ago, you murdered me without an ounce of effort..."

"A month ago... A slightly different story played out."

"I'm not much of a team player, never have been, and Theo Pryce decided that week to shit the bed, the start of his decline that ended with losing Tony Santos and dying in a plane crash… But for me? My goal that night was accomplished."

"By the end of the match, you were lying outside of the ring. Bleeding from the forehead. Unconscious. Your invincibility stolen."

"You haven't won a match since then... You’re rapidly weakening… And I've gotten stronger every week since..."

“I’ve beaten Azrael Erebus, a claim you’ve seemed to have difficulty duplicating recently.”

“And today, I’ll have attained a 24/7 X-Treme Championship Briefcase, a trinket you yourself couldn’t obtain at Leap of Faith.”

“I beat Kendall Savannah Sawyer. Something that, as we’ve covered, seemed just out of your range of abilities… a few weeks ago”

“The last few matches you’ve been in, you’ve either ended up as a non-factor (see the Trios match last month) or lost humiliatingly to opponents that, in your prime, you would have crushed under the weight of your message (Your last two matches)..."

“Your power is fading… Your abilities withering with time… Your God-given powers… have been reclaimed…”

“Can you deny this, Eli? You couldn’t win a match when one of the people across the ring from you was SHELBY FUCKING COBRA…”

“The only real weapon you have in your arsenal to inspire fear... As I’ve covered… Is your list of names… Your trophies accumulated so god damn long ago…”

“Your peak so very far in your rear view mirror… The last time you won Superstar of the Month… over a year ago… In July 2013.”

“The month you ‘killed’ me.”

Flynn cackles… succeeding this time… a low rattle building in his throat...

“It seems that your best weapon left in your arsenal is my name…”

“And it’s a good weapon… I can’t blame you though for using that weapon…”

“You turned that fake win over a mentally zombified version of me into quite a career for yourself, inspiring fear in every opponent you’ve ever faced…”

“In fact, why would I blame you?”

“You’ve used my name so well… That yours has become a weapon in and of itself…”

“The great Eli James IV… never beaten in one-on-one competition…”

“It’s such a good weapon. That I plan on taking it.”

“As well as my name. I’m taking that back too.”

“I will take them. Easily. As I have done in my past life.”

“You may argue history is on your side… As you’ve never lost a one-on-one battle…”

“I’d like to deliver the counter-point… I have quite the stellar record… Battling undefeated soldiers…”

“I’ve made an entire career out of stomping undefeated insects like you until your exoskeleton, comprised of false bravado, bursts under the weight of my heel...”

“Tristan Slater. Pre-match, 22-0. Six straight months undefeated in matches. Post-match, 22-1.”

“Neonero. Pre-match, 3-0. Post-match, 3-1.”

“Sinister. Pre-match, 1-0. Had been in talks with the current XWF champion to jump straight into a title shot for the big one… Post-match… gone forever…”

“And not that ‘Eli James IV’ kind of ‘gone forever’… The kind that’s temporary…”

“The Mark Flynn variety of ‘gone forever’. The fate that befell Larry Atkins, Wolfbane, Reaper, Deion Richards, Jaymz Dante, Cassius Stonne… Aaron Andrews last week… The kind where you’re gone… Disintegrated into thin air… Where other people stop talking about you…”

“Where the only one left to keep a shadow of their memory alive… Is me…”

“Notice something about some of these names Eli?”

“There’s a subtle shift in intent… When I deliver these names…”

“They’re not quite the same as Stevie Tyler, Sebastian Duke, Mystica, Tony Santos…”

“I don’t use them as a weapon to affirm my status, as if my abilities can’t do so already. Like you, desperately trying to prove yourself every single week… I don’t list their names to strike awe and wonder into my opponent’s heart. I don’t care if my meal that week sees how impressive my resume as an XWF superstar is...”

“I say their names… And I savor looking into my opponent’s eyes… And seeing non-recognition. A shrug. A confused twist of the pupils toward the corner of the eye.”

“Desperately trying to recover a memory… That no longer exists…”

“A bunch of talented future legends… Struck down and erased from history… From their opportunity in the history books… Forced into the abyss of non-existence… The only one left carrying their names… Mark Flynn. Their killer. Their grim reaper…”

Flynn seems to taste the air…. His eyes close and his brow twists in pleasure as the experience of oxygen rushing into his lungs fills him with a twisted joy… Something it seems he hasn’t done in months…

“But…Don’t worry, Eli.”

Flynn’s eyes open again.

“This is not your fate.”

“You will not suffer quickly or quietly. You will not have the dignity of just appearing in the middle of a meaningless list of names associated with my triumphs…”

“The fate you consigned me to FOR A YEAR….”

“…”

“Instead, Eli. I will parade your head for months, personally. ALONE. I will force your corpse to dance and sing my praises… I will describe in the greatest detail imaginable the joys, the sheer ecstasy I felt in that ring, on that field of battle. As I rose from the dead, to reclaim he who killed me.”

“Breaking your bones, twisting your arm, lapping the blood from the side of your head… Making you feel fear, weakness, vulnerability. Feeling the last trail of air… Slip through your fingers and fail to pass into your lungs… Watching your eyes as the last of your precious life… fades and turns to ash. Just like everything else.”

“Taking the undefeated Eli James.”

“And defeating him. Forever.”

“I will revel in your meaningless celebrated mortal glory. And feel nothing. I will force your name to be associated with the dominance and ascent of the greatest XWF superstar of all-time.”

“Mark Flynn.”

“Not out of respect for the magnitude of the accomplishment. Not out of a desire to rise through the ranks in this organization.”

“But out of vengeance. Out of a lust for justice, an obsession with you… Facing the consequences for a year of lifting a false skull into the air… And claiming it was mine… And claiming that my defeat proved your song-and-dance routine as ordained by the heavens…”

“The heavens… have sent me. A man tormented in the depths of Hell for over a year…”

“To silence you. I have returned a corpse. To walk amongst the Earth. For the express purpose. Of dragging you into the depths of Hell. And taking my place.”

“The heavens have abandoned you, Eli. Your message is no longer pure. Your vision is tainted. Your eyes stained, covered in the filth and the muck celebrated in the material plane, deceiving you more and more with each passing moment…”

“This is, intended by your God, as an act of mercy, Eli…”

“A chance for you to martyr yourself for your cause, as every Savior must…”

“…”

“That is how your God sees it…”

“I see it as a chance to take what was stolen from me. Force you to suffer for your sins…”

“And once the punishment for your crime is sufficient…”

“I will cast your name… As I have all the others… Deep into the confines of the abyss…”

“A memory…”

Flynn falls back into his seat… Reclaiming his position on the table… As his eyes close again.

“Never to be recovered…”