Every step you take, you can feel it burning inside.
Every time you breathe, it burns in your lungs.
Your body is on fire.
You’re INFECTED.
The infection eats away at every fibre of your being until it is all you can think about. It has become you, and you have been consumed by it.
I see that infection.
It began with a single moment of exposure, where it invaded the host. You breathe it in, letting it fester. There it multiplied, spreading through the body and controlling the host.
Fever sets in. Soon, it will have you.
Luther Grim is INFECTED. He has been for some time now.
He was first exposed to that infection during his first hunt. The moment he saw the life drain out of Thomas’s eyes, found within himself the power of taking a life, that infection began to set in. That feeling he got after killing Thomas allowed infection to spread. The validation from Zeus he received saw that feeling eat away at him. A feeling he chased, hunting down with all his might.
The thrill of the hunt became that infection that consumed him. Like a viral spike, his fleeting experience and the validation it brought him soon faded, but the infection remained… and he’s been hunting that high ever since.
His infection drove him to bigger prey, seeking that which would feed that infection further. Invading the Hive itself to claim his NXT Championship, feeling that fleeting thrill of validation it brought.
His hunt has seen prey after prey fall at his feet, and the infection spread. The capture of his title another dose of that same infection, for the more Luther hunts for the highs of validation, the more Grim his infection becomes.
It has been allowed to run rampant through his body, only the Uprising finding a way to stop that infection from spreading. That smoke… Nox’s gas, saw the Hunter stopped in his tracks. Even the most rampant infection can be quelled through antibiotics.
The Third Eye is the antibiotics to your infection, Luther Grim.
I was once inflicted with my own pestilence, Grim. While yours saw you endlessly hunting for the next feeling of worth, mine saw me on Death’s doorstep. But I was spared the reaper’s blade. I survived.
Because I serve a greater purpose, for a force greater than myself. To spread not infection, but healing.
For my validation is found not in the hunt, but in the serving. I have a purpose greater than pleasing my daddy, than following the demands of Zeus, or the thrill of holding a life in my hands and watching it fade away.
Seek not your validation through the blind fools of Arcadia, who will only spread your infection of validation further, but open your eyes to the greater purpose.
That feeling, when the sickness is drawn from your body, it is like no other. Lungs that once burned with pestilence can now breathe freely again.
There is no easy way, but it is for your own good. It’s time to open your eyes, open wide… and take your medication.