Snow was falling, in huge, unhappy clumps of slush that were trapped in the wool fibers of his dark navy coat. The snow was dirty, and had a musty smell clinging to it as it melted against the warmth of his shoulders and the body heat that was palpable even through the thick covering of wool. He stomped his way through the snow’s gradual buildup on the busy city street, his head downcast as he watched his steps. He slid a few times, and managed to catch himself before falling to the ground in terminal embarrassment.

Hadrian’s eyes were cautious as he found the subway entrance, his motions dictated forward by the rush of people surrounding him. His boots stamped their way down each step, each wet grossly snowy descent splashing a set of brown droplets onto his fancy black boots. And they were fancy indeed. Black leather with the Timberland logo etched in them. Steel toed in the front and extremely comfortable as well as expensive. They were limited edition boots that cost him $280 dollars. So needless to say he was not really happy having them get wet and covered in slosh.

He leaned against the metal railing, his hands clasping its cold surface. He had no gloves, and the heat from his chilled skin misted the steel rod in his grip. The steps were slippery and thick with people, the sounds of subway cars arriving and leaving echoing upwards to where he stood midway on the stairs. The horde of people brushed past him, full of intense purpose, people and more people with many important things to do.

He kept his grip on the steel bar to keep his balance, and lifted his right foot. The pinch that had germinated against his right heel had now become a stabbing pain. Making his way down these stairs in this busy rush would only guarantee disaster. Even as he stayed where he was, trying to keep his balance, there was too much jostling and pushing. One false step, and he’d be hurtling to the bottom of the stairwell, his body broken, and his appearance of perfection shattered.

“It’s too busy, for you,” Hadrian heard a small voice say.

He looked to his right to see a small child standing beside him, his clothes thick with a covering of snow. Beneath his wool hat he could make out two large, black eyes staring up at him, his lips a pale hue that matched his equally pale skin. His unearthly appearance made her uneasy. He tried to ignore him, and inch away, only to be stopped by a slippery patch of slush at his heel. His new boots skidded along the brown sludge, salt cubes sticking beneath the heel, preventing him from finding his balance. He tried to keep his grip on the rail, only to have his hands freed from it as he began to tumble, his arms flailing madly as though he could prevent the inevitable fall by flying.

Something pushed at his back, and stopped him from completely falling. He was given a few quick glances by members of the crowd still making their way down the stairs, but the moment was soon forgotten, and witnesses were quickly finding their way to a comfortable seat on the subway train.

He held onto the steel railing with both hands, not entirely convinced he was out of danger. The crowd had finally ebbed, and he could hear the singsong chime of a subway car as its doors opened and closed.

“Too busy,” a now familiar voice said.

He frowned, and turned to see the child once again. He tried to figure out of this child could be a boy or a girl, but it had that strange ambiguity often seen on the very young, and especially in children well padded with snow and winter gear. It smiled at him, and held out an object to him within the confines of thick, grey knitted mittens.

“You need to take this,” he or she said.

Hadrian stared down, his eyes widening as he took it in—The stairwell seemed to be lit up from the tiny object in the child’s hands, its golden glow warming him as he stood above it. He dared to let go of the steel railing and, much steadier than before, he reached for the thing being handed to him. It was the shape of an avocado seed, he immediately thought. Round, and smooth, and a brilliant golden sheen. When he picked it up, the metal was warm in his bare hands. The warmth spread throughout his arms to move like a cascade of warm water over his entire being. It caught every piece of light finding its way down the stairs and turned it into sparkling points against the curves. He cupped the seed, as he now thought of it, into his hands protectively, and slid his thumbs over its smooth, comforting surface.

“Don’t waste it,” he heard the child say.

He shook his head and closed his eyes against the golden brilliance in his hands. “I’m not gonna take this from you kid. This has to have some kind of value to it…Why did you give this me?”

He opened his eyes to see a man in an overcoat trotted down the steps, past him. He gave him a judging once over, and from his frown, he didn’t seem at all amused to see a grown man talking to himself.

The child was gone, but the large golden seed remained in his hands. He glanced up and down the stairwell, searching, but this time he was alone. A rush of winter wind gusted downwards, and he got the hint, descending at last. He was steadier on his feet now, and he didn’t slip on his way down into the main artery of the subway.

The weight of the seed was heavy in his coat pocket, and he kept nudging his hand against it, making sure its presence was real. He stared blankly ahead of him at the crush of people who surrounded him. It was a miracle, to be sure, that he got a seat at this time of day. He did a quick scan of the crowd and to his delight there was no one sick or elderly in need of a seat. They were all as healthy as he was, at least on the surface, and all equally capable of nabbing his seat, had they been just a little faster.

“It’s weird” he thought as he ran his thumb around the slightly elliptical shape of the seed, the lining of his coat not blocking its warmth. “I never get a seat on the train. Especially at this time of the day.”

He sighed in relief as his stop came into view—a pale green station that had just a small tone of snot. He made his way easily through the press of the crowd, no small feat to be sure. He found himself on the platform, the train winding its way down the track, away from him. The temperature had improved, and a new warmth was creeping through the cold, creating fat, soft flakes of snow. He stopped for a moment, staring at the scene for a bit, enjoying the gentle beauty of snow falling against the train tracks. At times like this, with the station covered in a thin veil of snow, its ugly railings coated with white—at times like this he truly enjoyed being in the city. He preferred the comfort of home down in Florida. But the city was great during winter.

The pleasure of that moment in the train station was quickly replaced with a feeling of oppression as he entered her dark apartment complex. The brownstone was fairly well maintained, but it was an old building and full of the musty scents and dark corners of a place that has had too many walk through its doors. There was curly ironwork reminiscent of the seventies decorating the main foyer, its metal painted a sickly greenish yellow. He walked past it and headed for the side stairs. Darkness was threatening the city now, as the sun began to set. In a town like this, if you were smart, you’d carry a gun or mace or something to protect yourself. Not Hadrian though. He was not afraid of anything. Not even the shady characters of the city. He always wondered why he kept coming back to the city when he was perfectly happy back in Florida. But again, it was the snow. And just the overall feel you got from being in a big place like this.

He heard a screaming child somewhere on the third floor, its wailing drifting down in ghostlike eerie into the stairwell. He shook his head and opened the door to the second floor and counted out the numbers before he reached his own. “One-A”, “Two-A”, all the way to “Six-A”. The ground floor apartments had no letters attached to them. Why did he stay here when he had enough money to stay at the Waldorf Astoria or even the Hilton? It was sentimental. Someone he loved a long time ago used to live here. Since then, he bought it and comes down to stay every so often.

“They can’t even number this place properly,” he thought. “No matter how many goddamn times I tell the landlord, it doesn’t get done.”

The key scraped its way into the lock, opening the cavern that was the apartment. He turned on the side light, flooding the doorway with the single weak light that didn’t reach into the rest of the house. He closed the door behind him, and took off his coat, tossing it onto a nearby couch in the living room. After turning on four lamps the place finally had a half lit coziness to it, but it was still far from cheerful. The murmur of an argument from the apartment above were trapped in the drywall, doing their best to escape. Hadrian sighed. He’d be listening to this for the last four days.

Again, he felt the urge to pack up and sell the place just so he wouldn’t have to hear that shit anymore but he quickly dismissed it. The place was too important for him to get rid of it like some cheap piece of furniture or something. Arranging meetings with realtors, calling places, hunting out who would be interested in selling/buying it. In the end, the emotions attached to it were worth putting up with all the crap that went on.

He walked over and sat on the couch, his body covered in the shadows of the apartment. His relaxation was short lived. The answering machine was sitting in across from him on the kitchen counter beside the fridge, a red triangle blinking on and off. Sighing, he got up, walked over and pressed ‘play’, it was his son Brendan. They didn’t talk much anymore. He was busy with his own career and living in two different states didn’t help. He heard the message and then hit ‘erase’, and the message was gone.

His feet hurt a bit from walking in the snow for so long. He wasn’t as young as he used to be so it wasn’t like he could walk for hours and not hurt a bit. Things were different now. The ironic thing was, that inside the ring where he performed, he could deal with the pain. He could get through it and walk it off. But put him in some cold weather and snow and it was downhill from there. He head back to the living room to sit down again and try to relax. The argument in the upstairs apartment had slowly tapered off, and there was nothing left now but a kind of suffocating silence. He picked up his coat to hang it up, and remembered the strange object sitting inside of the pocket. Curious, he took it out, and was surprised to find its weight had been exaggerated in his mind. He held the elliptical ball of gold in his palm and stared at its beauty for a few moments. His senses told him it wasn’t exactly the same as he perceived it on the stairwell—It was smaller, now, its luster less brilliant. He shrugged and placed it on the end table holding a living room lamp.

Hadrian paced his way down the hallway, towards the bedroom where life was truly lived. He turned his computer on and then changed into some sweats and a t-shirt that said AC/DC on it. Once it was on, he sat in front of it and started reading the latest news. He clicked through the usual boring news about Disney stars and their usual “controversial” crap which was nothing but planned stunts by Disney in order to get them more notoriety. The Tiger Woods story was beaten like a dead horse so there was no point in reading that. So he continued to look around to see what he could find.

The computer’s hum was the sole occupant of the room, since Hadrian didn’t make any noise. It was nine o’clock, but he had no plans. He was not due to be in Dallas until 6pm the next day. He thought staying here for a night would get him to focus on the task at hand. Not only did he have to work on hosting the show, but he also had to prepare for his match at the pay per view for the World Title. If we haven’t covered this by now, Hadrian is a professional wrestler. He has been so since he was about 17 years old. He lives in Orlando Florida but has an apartment in New York and he also owns another home in Los Angeles California but he rarely goes there. He usually just rents it out.

The light coming from the computer invaded his living space, killing all sense of warmth in its cold hue. He sank into the office chair before the monitor and began typing in random words into the search engine, searching for things he didn’t have much interest in. He would find language courses for free, and would bookmark them, only to delete them later. Knowledge free for the taking, but who had time for these kinds of things? He surfed around a bit more, and then hit his email box. He didn’t bother reading any of it. Ninety percent of it was spam anyway. He read a couple of emails sent from online acquaintances who asked him if he’d heard about the latest movie with so-and-so acting in it. He hadn’t, and he didn’t feel like seeing it. Movies weren’t made like they used to he thought. All this Avatar and Paranormal crap was of no interest to him.

He left the computer humming and went back into the living room. He turned on the television. Family Guy was on. From the confines of the couch he watched as Peter did something stupid as usual and laughed. It really is a funny show. At ten o’clock, he yawned, and stretched, and turned off the television. He began switching off lamps, and paused as he saw the golden seed beneath the last one, its golden sheen now noticeably dulled to copper. It was smaller, too. Frowning, he shut off the light, and shut the seed out of his sight.

Four hours later he would wake up and wander into some forum on his computer. He would usually just check and see if anyone was talking bad about him and his character. He had been a staple of the wrestling business for a long time. Fans came and went and people would talk about him and his latest antics. He laughed at what the majority of the people said. All he could think of was how idiotic they sounded. They swore up and down that they were professional wrestler gurus with a degree from Harvard. They tried to dissect each storyline and match as if they had written it themselves. He would reply under a different name and try to start up a new argument or just randomly piss someone off. It was great. He turned off the computer about ten minutes later.

Tossing and turning, Hadrian tried and tried as hard as he could to go to sleep but for some reason he couldn’t do it. Maybe it was being in this place again and missing the smell of her perfume or the way she laughed at his stupid jokes. Maybe it was because there had been such emotion and passion in their relationship that it lingered on even though she was not there anymore. Her name was Christina. They had met when Hadrian was in town for a show. He was sitting across from her in a hole in the wall bar called The Ace. She approached him and it took off from there. It was absolute magic between them. This was 19 years ago. Their relationship was on again off again but the bond they shared was unforgettable and undeniable. I mean they did have a child together. But a few years ago she died from breast cancer. Since then he has found it hard to get close to a woman. Sure he’s had the usual one night stand here and there but nothing will ever come close to the love he shared with her. To this day he remembers her smile and the way she would say I love you.

He stood by the window and looked out into the city. Even this late at night, people still roamed the streets. That’s how life was in the big city. It’s true what they say about it. It never sleeps……

WORDS FROM THE VILE ONE

So last week I didn't set a very good example for the troops. I said I would not accept defeat not failure but I lost my own match. Not a very good way to lead a group of men that expect you to be unstoppable and indestructible. But needless to say that I underestimated my opponent last week. It won't happen again though. THAT I can guarantee. Now that I have my good friend John at my side, nothing, and I DO MEAN NOTHING is going to stand in our way. The New Organization of Wrestling is truly a force to be reckoned with now.

Who dares to step towards us and defy our power? Few will, and those who do will never be the same again. I promised I would lead these men and make them the future of this business and I still plan on doing that. I am not going to just sit by and let everything I have set in motion be for naught. David Williams, last week was luck. You and I both know you're a lucky man to even be standing and breathing. But it's ok. I got caught off guard and you took advantage. I would have done the same thing. But now let me focus on the man who I will be facing tomorrow night. Hunter Ryan! You and your little buddy thought it was going to be soooooooo easy. You thought that the clever little plan you two hatched wouldn't fail. But as usual, I always get the last laugh. And as you saw from what occurred, I am never without a back up plan.

Hunter, what you and Cady tried to do was pathetic. Do you really think that I would just let you attack me or anyone from the N.O.W. without having a plan of our own? You were both so happy and overjoyed and then out of nowhere BAM! Taken out by the man who's very hand you raised. Fools. Tomorrow night Hunter, you and I may not be going one on one but I promise you, things are going to be a little different than before. See, you've gotten the upper hand on several occasions, but tomorrow night we're playing a whole new ballgame. You're about to come face to face with the realization that the piece of shit title you now hold will be mine. And when I take it from you, i'm going to burn it! I hate the Xtreme title and anyone who's held it because not only does it prove how mediocre you've become, but it proves that when it comes to Xtreme...There is only one man who should be Xtreme champion for life. ME!

Cady, I hope you're ready too because not only do you have to deal with me, but you have to deal with one angry fucking Italian who is ready to sink his teeth into some fresh meat. He's starving for action and you may just end up being on the wrong end of The Rage! For now boys, just remember one thing. You're not dealing with some two bit wrestlers who don't know their way around. You're dealing with a legend and a god! John Gambino and Famine of the Vile are going to knock you fucking heads off!!