The prairie stretched out like a wasteland, hushed under the quiet hush of dusk. Wind ribboned through the yellowgrass, whispering across the land with the dry rasp of old bones. Near the edge of the world, where the sky was so wide it made your heart ache, there stood a shack — sagging, grey, like it had given up standing long ago and simply forgot to fall.

Beside it, fire licked at the wind.

Stu-E Price crouched in its glow, shoulders hunched like he was folding into himself. His shadow was long, broken across the dirt, trembling with each flick of flame. The fire wasn't for warmth — not really — it was something else, something older. A kind of burial.

In his hand, the shimmer of his ring gear. The belt already gone, stripped away under lights and jeers and the thunder of the Fatality crowd. Now, only the remnants — elbow pad, boots, shorts and even the clothes he wore on the way to the arena — hanging slightly in his grip. He stared at them the way you look at a photograph of someone you used to love but can't quite recognize anymore.

One by one, he threw them in.

Not with rage. That would’ve been easier. No, this was quieter, heavier — like each piece carried a piece of him, and he was tired of carrying all that weight.

The gear curled, blackened, shriveled like dying skin. The fire devoured it hungrily, unaware of what it meant. The fire crackled, snapping once — a sharp, angry sound — as if the flames themselves resented the offering. Stu-E didn’t flinch. His eyes were fixed forward, but not on the fire. Past it. Into the dark.

The shack groaned behind him, timbers shifting like an old man muttering in his sleep. Maybe it was the wind. Maybe it wasn’t. He ran a hand over his face, smearing soot across his cheek, feeling the stubble like grit under his fingers. A cut on his lip split open again. Blood, smoke, ash — it all tasted the same now.

He had been someone. In the ring, under the hot lights, with the crowd roaring like a storm around him, he had mattered. He had carried that weight — the belt, the name, the legacy — with pride. But now?

Now he was just a man watching pieces of himself burn.

The last thing he held was the wrist tape. It was frayed at the edges, still stiff with sweat. He stared at it a long time, the way you look at something that’s followed you through years, good and bad — a thread tying you to who you thought you were.

And then, slowly, he wrapped it around his fingers and dropped it into the flames.

It didn’t burn right away. It curled, resisted, like it knew what it meant. Then it caught. Blue flame flared up, brief and bright, then fell into orange and red.

Silence settled like dust.

The prairie didn’t care. The sky didn’t bend. There was no music, no montage. Just the low rumble of the fire, and the soft wind pressing through the grass like a memory too stubborn to fade.

Stu-E stood up slowly, knees aching, shoulders tight. He didn’t look back at the fire. He didn’t need to.

The title was gone. The gear was gone. The man who walked into Fatality was gone.

But something else remained. Not hope. Not yet. Maybe just the space where something new could be. He turned toward the horizon, the last glow of day bleeding into indigo. His silhouette stretched long, and for a moment, it looked like a man carrying nothing at all.

Some time later…

The fire had quieted to embers — glowing red like the eyes of something ancient, breathing slow in the dirt. Stu-E stood in its warmth, arms crossed tight against the chill that crept in now the sun was truly gone. The wind had a sharper edge to it, like it had decided to remember winter.

He pulled his phone from his back pocket — screen cracked at the corner, a faint smear of ash across it. The signal flickered weak, but steady. He scrolled through contacts slowly, thumb hovering for a moment longer than he needed to.

Sean Parker.

He tapped it.

The ring tone buzzed in his ear.

No answer.

Of course not.

The hospital had him under sedation, last he heard. Tubes. Machines. Silence louder than the crowd. Stu-E exhaled and waited for the tone. It came. He spoke low, rough.

“Sean. It’s me. Didn’t think you’d pick up. Didn’t even know why I hit the button, really. Maybe I thought you’d feel it ring, wherever you are in there. I hope you’re out of this soon, mate. No bullshit, I always thought that one day you’d be the one to beat me but now I’ve lost the belt but I don’t care. It’s gone. It means nothing, if you’re gone too.”

He paused, rubbed the back of his neck.

“I don’t know what happens next. But… if you wake up, and when you do — just call me. Doesn’t matter what time. Doesn’t matter what for. Alright. That’s all I got. Later, man.”

He hung up, thumb trembling slightly as it hovered again.

Michelle.

He tapped. Waited.

No answer.

Her voicemail came on, all soft tones and a trace of laughter in her recorded voice — recorded back when the world wasn’t cracked at the edges.

“Hey, Michelle. It’s Stu. I just called Sean. Left him something. Figured I should do the same for you. I know we haven’t talked much with me and Sean not seeing eye to eye.”

He sat down in the dirt beside the fire, watching the last of his gear become ash.

“I’m sorry. I mean that. For what I said. For what I didn’t say. You’re carrying a lot right now. And I know I can’t fix any of it. But if there’s ever a moment you need silence, or someone who won’t fill it with the wrong words… you know where I am.”

He closed his eyes.

“Tell him he’s not done, Michelle and I’ll be waiting for him. Take care, Michelle.”

The message ended. The phone screen went dark.

He set it down beside him in the dirt.

The wind picked up a little, tugging at his shirt, curling through the dying flames like fingers in an old wound. He stayed there, into the night, with only the stars overhead and the ghosts of everything that used to be as the scene fades.