Flashing images of young children singing and swinging around in a circle adorn a fog filled screen.
Scissors voice narrates.
“Ring around the rosie, a pocket full of posies. Ashes! Ashes! We all fall down!”
“It all starts with a rosy rash, they allege.”
“The beginnings of a plague.”
The children laugh and play.
“I remember when the rash truly began, Doctor. Pandemonium. I saw it through the eyes of my good friend Felix.”
“I’m not your friend.”
“Touchy.”
“He was right there with you and he who shall not be named, right at the bitter end. By the end of the night, Old School Wrestling was blighted by the beginnings of a rash that would quickly spread.”
“And spread it did.”
“Like the plague you are, it spread to Ring of Dreams, conquering those in its wake.”
“El Mariachi Muerte tried carrying posies to ward off the smell of the disease. He took back the Championship. He made the rash a little less itchy. Muerte was like camomile lotion for the burning sensation that was Doctor Death.”
“In doing so, his trusty music was protection against you, but you took that away. You killed the music, man. How could you?”
“You don’t care about music. You’re a fraud.”
“That’s not fair.”
“I love a little Saylor Twift.”
“But I keep puppetin’, can’t stop, won’t stop puppetin’. It’s like I got these strings dangling in your mind, sayin’ it’s gonna be alright.”
“Cause a puppeters gonna puppet, puppet, puppet.”
“Stop.”
“Ahem. Haters gonna hate.”
“The problem with killing the music and its protection against your disease is that the final step, my good Doctor, is a sneeze or cough. When you beat Muerte and won back your Championship, I think it’s safe to say that many felt a tickle in the back of their throats.”
“A snuffle in their nose.”
“And when that happens, we’re just about at the end of the road, aren’t we?”
“Atchoo!”
“Hehe.”
“But see, I’m not quite like the rest of these… mortal beings. Your plague isn’t capable of breaking me. It doesn’t effect me the same way it does them. Felix here, he’d be itchy and rashy, scratching like some kind of dog – it might be his end, just like it will be El Mariachi Muerte’s.”
“But not me, plague-boy.”
“Oh no.”
“No, you see, I just…”
“Shake it off.”
“When your disease finally reaches its end and it’s ashes, ashes, they all fall down, I don’t doubt they will.”
“Everyone, in fact.”
“They’ll fall to you, turn to dust and Tombstone will take them on their merry way.”
“Ashes, Ashes.”
“But that’s them, my Good Doctor.”
“They’re all susceptible to your black plague.”
“And when the whole of Old School Wrestling turns to dust at your behest and you’ve beaten them all in retention of your Championship, there will only be two left.”
“You and I.”
“A preview of which comes next week at Thunder.”
“Whether you like it or not, little buddy, one of us is the plague and one of us is the puppet master.”
“When the times comes…”
“Snip snip.”
“You fall down.”