Deathrow is empty and covered in dust and blood and unattended to the wrestling ring sitting, Harold Attano walks carrying a lamp.
“Some people out there have experienced what real hell is. They’ve lived in a world where you didn’t know if you were going to be killed in your sleep. It was a waking hell, a world where you don’t know if your next breath will be your last, always on edge, always on alert, when will the other shoe drop?”
Harold walks up to a cell where Jiro died at his hands and he shakes his head, memories of him and Gustav Morgue flooding back to him.
“I killed to leave this life behind, I darkened my soul even more than I already did to make sure I wouldn’t need to keep living that life. I drug myself up from that world of death and filth. I promised myself that I wouldn’t go back to that life while I drew breath. If my afterlife holds that hell, it’ll be the fate that I’ve earned. Heck, it might even be a fate that I deserve.”
Attano kicks some dust and dirt and finds a blood stain made by Jiro’s last bit of spittle and he grimaces.
“But there’s a man who’s trying to bring that life here to the beating heart of Arcadia. He wants to have midnight at nine in the morning. He wants this darkness to cascade from No Man’s Land to Olympus. He would want the whole of Arcadia to live like they were in this world. A man who’s killed to bring this living hades to the rest of Arcadia.”
Attano locates his murder weapon from that fateful night, a measure of steel piping. He lifts it once more reliving the moment in his mind.
“Malakai, you want to bring this darkness to a world of innocents, and common folks. You want to spread that evil like a plague. You want to bring this hell to Arcadia, but you’ve never lived it, never breathed it, never had to wonder if the next day would be your last, or if your next moment would be your last. But still, you killed Mud Mouth to ensure that your evil could prosper. But you forgot something, little man…”
Harold takes the pipe and *KLANG!* the sound echoes through Deathrow reverberating through the deathly hallowed halls.
“There’s already a phoenix that’s risen from the very ashes you wish to cast Arcadia into.”
Harold holds the lantern up to his face bathing it in light.
“A light that will burn away the darkness that you’ve wrought, because what’s one more soul on my conscience for the safety of so many others? What’s one more Midnight, when I’ve already seen one waking day as Champion? Because we all know that all it will take, is One Shot, One Kill to put your manic nightmare to an end, and when you lie on that mat gasping for your end, I’ll whisper to you, ‘Who’ll give Hade’s Owl peace?’ and I’ll answer my own question, ‘Nobody, that’s who.”