Marcus Welsh couldn’t shake it. The vision he saw in the basement of the old OCW office. It infected every dream. Every thought circled back to it.
He told himself it wasn’t real. Some illusion. Maybe the result of bad gas station sushi. But the longer it lingered the harder its existence was to deny.
January 2023
“Marcus, I’m worried,” Greg vacillates in the doorway to Welsh’s study. Chewing what’s left of his nails, he eyes the random triangle drawings that adorn the walls. Even more bothersome are crude sketches of a woman.
“Relax, Greg,” Welsh replies, leaning toward his computer screen, eyeing the live footage of the old OCW office, now in its current habitat. The wind causes shutters to slam. The foundation creaks. Every so often his eyes nearly catch something beyond natural.
“I can’t relax. This is starting to look like the room of a lunatic,” Greg rips down a few of the drawings. Welsh is undeterred. His eyes remain fixed. Beyond frustrated, Greg throws the papers in the air, “I’ll be glad when you go back to work. You have too much time on your hands!”
Greg storms out. Marcus hardly notices.
He clicks the mouse, zooming in on the home of OCW’s curse. “The problem wasn’t the match concept. It’s that I had the wrong players.”
Snaring a cold cup of McDonald’s coffee with one hand and a map with the other, he eyes a spot marked in Antarctica. “All signs lead here. I’ve got the location. Now I just need the right person to offer up.”
Welsh grabs one of the crude drawings of a female that had Greg so perturbed. He knows the face but has yet to recognize who the drawing resembles. He heads to his computer and opens up twitter. He scrolls.
He doesn’t have to scroll long.
His eyes pop when they land on a person familiar to every wrestling fan on the globe.
“That’s it. It’s her. This is the woman I saw in the vision.”
Welsh looks up the area code to Bent Fork.
And so Welsh returned. OCW put on its first event of the new year in Decadence and, like all OCW premium events, it rocked the pro wrestling world.
But greatness was on the horizon as Welsh announced the second annual Illuminatus.
LIVE from Antarctica.
He kept the entrants a secret only to be revealed as the match progressed.
PIC stood as OCW champion atop the Illuminatus more than ready to defend his throne.
The wrestling world watched in awe at the spectacle that unfolded before them. In the end it came down to Matt Meyhu, PIC, Bifford, and Vhodka Black.
Meyhu’s treachery would earn him glory on that night, turning his back on both PIC and Vhodka to claim a third OCW Title victory.
OCW was riding high once again. In just a year’s time it had gone from leper to legend. All under the leadership of a man possessed with higher ideals. Ideals that blinded him from the looming danger.
February 26th, 2023
A cold evening in Antarctica. Welsh, all bundled up, stands in front of the now conquered Great Illuminatus. A bright LIME light shines on it, signifying the war paint of the wrestler who conquered it.
Leo trudges through the snow, the wind picking up and nearly blowing him away. He grabs onto Welsh, “SIR! I think we need to head back! It’s about to get really bad out here.”
Welsh does not respond. Is he frozen?
“Sir? Are you frozen?” Thanks for helping us out there, Leo.
“More like stuck,” the melancholy in Welsh’s voice is as thick as the snow surrounding his feet.
“Oh, let me help!” Leo dives down to dig Welsh’s feet free.
Welsh kicks him away, “Not literally you goof! Mentally. I’m stuck. I thought tonight would solve this big mystery in my mind but it didn’t.”
“What mystery?”
“There’s something greater at play here, Leo. I’ve seen it. Last year I didn’t have the correct players. This year I went out and got them. Scouted out what I thought was the right location and...nothing.”
“I think you’re being a little harsh, sir. We just witnessed the greatest match in pro wrestling history.”
“So far. There are greater goals to achieve. We just haven’t discovered them yet.”
The wind continues to howl. Leo grabs Welsh’s arm, “Sir, let’s go. We can talk about this on the long...long...loooong flight back.”
Marcus stares up at the Antarctica Illuminatus with determination in his eyes.
---
The Illuminatus slowly transitions into the Haunted House. Puffer’s body shivers as a cold chill runs off the water, across the back of his neck.
“Marcus Welsh resigned from OCW shortly thereafter. He could no longer run a normal wrestling promotion. Despite all the success. Despite the OCW rebuild being complete. Despite OCW being as popular as ever, Welsh was finished. His sights were set on something bigger than one promotion.”
The interior of the house groans. LCP stumbles out, looking around.
“Whatever he saw inside that house. Whatever the curse injected into his brain infected the man with delusions of grandeur. Delusions that took him away from his purpose and toward a goal far too lofty for a man of his compromised resolve.”
LCP sees Puffer. He moves to head Jack’s way but sees his shoe is untied. So, he bends over to tie it. As he does, Zombie Marcus comes staggering out of the house, lunging at LCP. But he misses right as LCP ducks and flips over, landing on the ground in front of the house. LCP remains unaware, tying his laces.
“Instead of fighting to break this curse, Welsh ran off to chase a vision purposefully planted into his brain. A vision that would wind up costing Welsh everything. It sent Welsh off in search of the mythical TRIAD.”
LCP looks up hearing the word TRIAD.
“Welsh’s vision was realized. He found the mythical object he saw in his dreams. And during the third and final Great Illuminatus, Welsh watched as the structure crumbled around him sealing him and his greed away for all eternity. But, before his bitter end came to be, Marcus Welsh saw another vision. Perhaps shrapnel from the source of light shining above him. Call it the undeniable clarity one sees before the end. Regardless of where you want to attribute Welsh’s final move, he proceeded to do the unthinkable. Standing over the soon-to-be-crushed body of Vhodka Black Welsh’s vision became clear.”
LCP stands, listening to Puffer. He hears a few sniffles as Zybala is now standing next to him, his eyes a little glassy hearing Welsh’s demise.
“The Curse, knowing Welsh had the power to eliminate it, sent Welsh away so that it could continue to fester and invade. It threw Vhodka into his vision as well, knowing her spirit, heart, and FIGHT might be too much for the curse to overcome. The Curse managed to rid pro wrestling of one adversary but it was unable to take out both birds. Vhodka Black survived.”
Zybala wipes a tear away, “Tragic. So sad.” LCP starts to push him away when Zybala casually says, “Watch your feet.” LCP looks down and sees Zombie Marcus reaching for him. He leaps back, “Holy shit that’s a fucking zombie! That’s a fuckin zombie!”
---
**The events described within this text are extremely accurate. Especially the picture of Vhodka passed out inside The Great Illuminatus**
“Marcus, let’s go!! My hair is getting all this ancient dust in it!” PIC may or may not have yelled in an attempt to hurry Marcus Welsh.
The Great Illuminatus weakened and wailed. Everybody was in a rush to save themselves. Welsh remained in the penultimate tier. All hope of uniting the TRIAD was gone. The only thing left to save was his life.
Before descending to PIC and Meyhu, something caught Welsh’s eye. A figure revealed to him through coincidence or fate. You be the judge.
A hole smashed open into the other chamber revealing the incapacitated body of Vhodka Black. Her fate was all but sealed without the aid of another.
Marcus stood over her. The woman had become the bane of his existence. Foiling him at every turn.
The ancient powers offered one final chance for Welsh to triumph over Vhodka.
But something pulled at him as he stood over her. A vision he saw long ago in the basement of a cursed home.
Marcus Welsh’s Home
Key West, FL
The Great Illuminatus
Antarctica
“Mother fucker!” Welsh yelled.
“Dude! We’re just trying to help,” PIC screamed back.
Welsh dropped to one knee and reached into his pocket. He removed the first canvas he could find. His eyes caught the front of the canvas and his butt cheeks clenched.
“Marcus, hurry!”
Welsh flipped the card around. He ran his index finger across a sharp piece of stone, cutting it open. He scrawled down some words as legibly as he could. Finished, he hesitated, figuring out where to stuff the thing.
Closing his eyes, he reached, grabbed, and dug. “Uggh, so gross,” he complained. Our view pulls back and we see his hand wedged underneath Vhodka’s wig.
“If you don’t hurry up we’re leaving!” PIC urged.
Marcus ripped his hand out from under Vhodka’s wig and wiped it against his shirt.
“Meyhu’s starting to get a little annoyed!” PIC yelled.
“Oh shit!” Welsh found his sense of urgency.
Staring down at Vhodka, he reached for her arms. That wasn’t gonna work, so he snagged her legs and began dragging her toward the hole. There were a few thuds along the way, maybe her head smacking against the ground. Undaunted by any potential head trauma to Vhodka, Welsh kept going. What a man. What a hero. He neared the hole in the ground where PIC and Meyhu waited.
Welsh spun around and picked her up, holding Vhodka in his arms.
“Oh man, how gentlemanly of you,” PIC sounded surprised.
“I told you he’s not that bad a guy,” Meyhu chimed in.
Welsh lowered Vhodka down into the hole where PIC and Meyhu’s waiting arms received her.
“Great job, Marcus! We knew you had it in you…now, come on down!”
Something stole Welsh’s eye. It was shiny. It looked ancient and, expensive. “Hold on.”
“Hold on?!”
And the rest is history. Welsh went for the shiny object which turned out to be an empty bottle of Yoohoo. The ceiling fell, blocking the hole and trapping Welsh in the deadly chamber.
The journey of Marcus Welsh had reached its end.
However, the journey of Vhodka Black was just beginning.
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