Your teeth clench hard, your eyes tight shut. You silently curse yourself, you know it was done, over�. For a brief moment you let it slip. A momentary lapse of concentration and everything you�d worked so hard for since you arrived, gone in a matter of seconds. Blood from your freely bleeding knuckles runs down your forearm, your crimson glove became elbow length.

You arch your neck to the left, you hear several quiet pops, and one loud powerful crack, as you feel yourself shaken for a moment by the last, a release of tension from your spine, you relax for a moment allowing both of your arms to fall clumsily to your side. Your teeth relax, and you slide your jaw from side to side releasing the muscle tension in your face.

As your eyes slowly ease open you focus on a single trickle of your blood, passed right before your eyes, Blood, your life. It's what keeps you going. Makes you warm. Makes you hard. Makes you other than dead. And here it flows readily against your walls, against your very flesh.

You lean back, allowing yourself to fall. Lying staring up at the ceiling of your home. The pain in your hand, the bruise on your sternum from the huge force of all of his weight focused into a single point, a few inches around, almost collapsing your rib cage and expelling all of the air from your body in that single moment of impact�. It�s all secondary to the sheer desperation you feel at this very moment.

You keep your fist clenched tightly, the agony of your flesh tearing away from itself as you stretch it over the fragmented bones in your hand� Nothing. Washed away by loss. Defeat. You sigh and speak out loud.

�Beaten��

For the first time. As you lie bare back on the cold hard linoleum, your back convulses sharply, causing you to double over, hands wrapped around your stomach. You push yourself over to your front, and pull your body toward a sink fixed to the wall. As you pull yourself to your knees, you convulse again, causing you to hang lifelessly for a moment from the enamel surface. Plaster and Cement fall as dust from the wall harness of the appliance. You pull yourself onto your knees, and cross your arms over the edge of the sink, then rest your head on your forearms.

The feelings of remorse you�ve harboured since your youth, for the men you injured, maimed, permanently disfigured are no longer important to you. You now hold nothing but the pride of those victories, as the remainder of your conscience shatters with a third convulsion of every muscle in your body.

As the pain subsides and you allowed your eyes to open once more, you pull yourself to your feet, and turn on the cold faucet, the dank cold water runs a tainted a light brown for a moment before running clear. You stare at the water for a moment, seeping down into a hole, leading to god knows what. You slip your hand under the running water, the cold against torn flesh and crusted blood from your knuckles causes shock waves of pain to rattle through your veins�. You don�t even flinch.

You�re beyond that now, something changed just then. You clench your fist tight once more, digging your nails into your own palm� Trying to feel, if for just a moment. Whatever changes took place in your mind this night, you may have to live with for the rest of your life. You feel what�s left of your human side, slowly fading inside you.

Blistering hate, rage, un-harnessed, untouched. It boils your blood inside your veins, with each pulse of your blackening heart, your limbs burn. A sickness rises through your body, through every fluid. Your eyes shift up to the mirror above the sink, now stained with your freely flowing blood. Your eyes appear dark, they burn, a cold dis-conscientious black. The only thought in your dampening mind is reaction. You continue to stare at the only human component left of your decaying embodiment. Your face, bare upper body. Little more than a shell.

As you glare at the emotionless figure before you, it starts to change. Slowly your cheek bones seem to rise, your hair turns an almost radioactive blond. The violently your bodily imperfections disappear as the tightened body of a remarkable specimen, one imperfection lies over his right eye, through his eye brow, a scar. He rolls his neck, and it cracks resoundingly.

Suddenly you�re not longer in the driving seat, you see Stone standing before the mirror. The illusion�s that come with the inhabitation of his mind are getting stronger it would seem. You felt in control, the realisation you had no control over Stone�s actions, worries you even more than the idea you did. You�re thinking like him now, with every occupation of his decaying mind, you become that little bit more like him. Stone stares at his reflection, his body toned, but far from perfection, he closes his eyes for a moment before throwing his torn and damaged hand into the center of the glass, shattering the mirror into hundreds of tiny shards.

He doesn�t even pause to wash his hand, to remove the shards of broken glass. He turns on his heels and walks to the door. He opens it with his damage hand, again flesh screams as he tightens his fist around the hand. He steps from the bathroom unhindered by the pain, blood flows readily from his hand dripping onto the floor, and his baggy leather pants. He leans over the brown leather settee and grabs his coat from the right most cushion, slipping left arm into the coat, and grabbing his cigarettes from the left hand pocket, he also grabs a black zippo lighter with the words �From Ash� engraved into it, in gold.

He slips his right arm into the coat and fumbles around with his cigarettes for a moment, before putting on in his mouth, and lighting it with the zippo. He cracks his neck again, then looks up as he relaxes. Tre Crawford and Johnny Dinucci sit in 2 E-Z Boy Recliners adjacent to the Television. Stone�s facial expression doesn�t change.

Crawford flatly
Cut yourself shaving?

Stone continues to look on blankly, before Tre nods toward his right hand, bleeding profusely onto the blue carpet. Stone glances at his hand, still his expression remains blank. William looks toward Dinucci.

Stone
Why is he here?

Tre stands up before Dinucci can answer as Stone slinks slowly in front of the settee.

Crawford
�He� is here to use your phone, and �he� has a name, it�s Tre Crawford, the pinnacle of perfection, don�t you forget it Will.

Stone looks up at Tre, he throws a punch with his shattered hand, which lands on the jaw of Tre knocking him to the floor, he looks down at the fallen then blinks. Tre stands in front of him, the punch was never thrown, Stone never moved. Stone cracks a grin.

Crawford
What you grinning about?

Stone rolls his eyes and walks past Tre deliberately bumping into him. Crawford turns around with a bitter look in his eyes, as Stone walks to the corner of the room. Reaching up against the wall, and picking something up. Dinucci turns with a look of concern� Or something resembling concern in his scarred heart.

Dinucci
You�re losing a lotta blood Stone. You might wan� a go to hospital and get that seen to yeah?

Stone throws the phone to Tre a little harder than necessary, Tre shifts to one side, and catches the phone rather astutely with one hand. Tre, continues to glare at his colleague.

Stone bitterly
Nah, not every member of Team Dinucci desperately looking for an excuse not to fight.

Tre snarls

Stone continues
I�ll be fine.

Tre raises his eye brows as he comes to the realisation that the phone is somewhat moist, on observing it, he sees a hand print in Stone�s blood smeared across the back of the white plastic hand set. Tre looks up disgusted.

Crawford
When I want your blood, I�ll take it for myself.

Stone smirks. Crawford snarls again before turns around, dialling a number into the telephone. Stone stand still for a moment before wondering in the direction of the kitchen, opening the large fridge door and grabbing three bottles of Budweiser from the rail inside the door with his healed hand. As he shuts the door, he stands still for a moment putting his torn and scathed hand on the kitchen bench top. The blood from his hand quickly pools, spreading over the marble surface.

Dinucci looks up just in time to see 3 bottles of Budweiser crash to the tiled kitchen floor, followed quickly by William Stone, you see the feet of Johnny Dinucci coming toward the fallen William before, flinching back sharply and snapping your eyes open, finding yourself sitting in front of your computer in your home. There�s a moment of stillness, before you respond to friend who asks if you can make it to a party the next night. You respond but your mind stays locked on William Stone�