Though there was much he could no longer feel, he felt damnation as a man hung over a fire pit feels the lick of the flames. And with it, a desperation that he'd never felt in all his many contests. It was the desperation of a man being pulled magnetically, inexorably, to a vast, yawning doom.

He was desperate, yes. And he was also trapped. Trapped within the ruins of some abandoned storefront, crouched in a corner like a furtive, fearful animal.

He was hiding. Hiding from the sun. It was not simply that the caress of its rays was like the press of a burning hot brand upon his skin. The sun itself had some become a thing that was foul and wicked. The image of that yellow disc conjured up a fear in him every bit as natural as the fear of the coiled, venomous serpent was in the minds of...normal men.

Normal men.

The word had come to his mind as if he was thinking of a species wholly separate from him. It seemed like such an obvious, elementary notion. As obvious as that dogs were a different species. The change came on quickly, he thought with a bitter shake of his head. What did they say in Dracula...."For the dead travel fast."

Another realization fell on him like a shadow. He was not only hiding. He was waiting.

Waiting for the nightfall. Waiting...to sate...the thirst inside of him. His throat, his whole body, was dry, as if all the water had been sucked out from him.

He felt helpless, then, as if he were being swept along on some Hellish tide, forced along to a destination beyond his kin to grasp let alone resist.

"Mister KnightMask, sir....?"

He turned to see a child standing underneath the crumbled remains of the building's walls. He was holding a McDonald's bag in one hand, and a National Inquirer in the other.

Sweet Lord. Please. No.

The child approached him, his eyes wide and innocent.

KnightMask intended to pray that the Lord stay his hand, but the simple task of prayer suddenly seemed suddenly dizzying to his mind, like trying to do quantum physics.

"Mister KnightMask, I noticed you hiding out there...and...I thought you might want these..."

The child offered up the bag of McDonald's. KnightMask took it, although he already new that he could no longer eat that kind of food, anymore than the child could eat a rock.

"Mr. KnightMask, since you got that owy on your neck...I thought maybe these burgers might help...maybe..."

The child knew. He knew what he was. And he'd come into this abandoned building to help him, regardless.

"This newspaper is my mommy's....but she said there was something in it about that man you're going to fight soon...the scary one...I thought maybe you could read it and then give it back...so I could give it back to my mommy..."

KnightMask glanced at the newspaper. He knew that the tabloid had generally claimed, along with Alex Jones and others, that Sebastian Duke was not merely a wrestler but also the head of the legendary Illuminati. This headline, however, was more somber than sensationalistic. Sebastian Duke's father, a man named Asmodeus, had been assassinated, the article claimed. There were grainy photographs alleged to catch the burial ceremony.

Sebastian Duke, the Lord of Darkness, mourning the death of his father. Somehow, that brought his thoughts back to Crimson Cobra. The man who boasted to have no mercy...and yet who found it, inside the octagon, in the midst of pitched battle.

Crimson Cobra....the serpent that didn't strike.

Sebastian Duke, the Lord of Darkness...that loved his father enough to mourn his passing.

Even in the Heart of Darkness...the Spark of Divinity...the Spark of Goodness...still managed to survive. Perhaps the spark was dwindling within him...perhaps...but he couldn't simply sit there and let it extinguish.

He looked down at the bag of hamburgers. He was going to be able to enjoy the taste of these again.

Soon.

He went to promise the boy that he'd eat them later, which was when he realized...the bite had somehow punctured his vocal chords.

He was mute.


Part 2

He waited until the sun had dwindled to start his journey. If his plan didn't work, then he was going to simply wait for the sun to rise again and let himself be burned away.

With each step closer to his destination, the agony increased. Sweat began to gather in beads upon his body. It was like running a marathon across the Sahara desert...while weighted down with some immense burden on his back.

The dryness in his throat became greater and greater until it seemed like he was going to die of thirst. His legs became rubbery. His knees began to buckle wildly. When the cathedral finally came into view, he collapsed onto the pavement.

Did he really want to go on? What if it worked? What if he did get rid of it? Would he go back to being a cripple...? Would he spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair...? Was he really going to give up the power of an immortal...was he really going to exchange it...to return to the life of a cripple....?

He continued to crawl forward...inch by inch. If his match with Crimson Cobra had validated all his struggles in a single moment, then capitulating to the unholy plague that was sweeping over his body...would just as easily invalidate them. And yet, even then...he realized...this wasn't even about him...he was imbued, like Cobra, like Duke, with the spark of Divinity, he was made in the Image of God...he had no right to allow his body to becoming a walking sacrilege...

He seemed to be slithering onward now, as if his arms and legs were merely useless appendages...dead weight...

He realized that he was now at the foot of the steps leading into the cathedral.

In the following days, he would have no memory of how he made it up those steps, save for a vague recollection of a hand grasping underneath his armpit, holding him up...and what he thought was the beating of great wings behind him. Soon he would also forget the ageless voice that whispered in his ear, at the doorway, "The rest...I leave to you."

He had pressed against the doors even as his body seared with a strange burning that had no analogy in all of his experience. Before he passed out, he thought he saw his arms scatter apart, as if the very atoms that made up their composition had been scattered in the wind like so much dust.

He'd awoken with the dawn shining in through the church windows, naked, save for his mask and tattered remains of his pants, which seemed to have been burned away by a fire. Next to him, there was a bag of hamburgers. Pulling up his mask so as to expose his mouth, he grabbed one and put it to his mouth.

McDonald's. There was nothing like it. He reached in for another burger, wolfing it down. Overwhelmed with gratitude, he got up and approached the altar, to look a the giant crucifix that hung behind it. It wasn't until about thirty minutes later that it dawned on him fully...he could walk.