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faceless · (06-30-2026)

You ever been in an IKEA? It's a smorgasbord of a "furniture store" that really focuses on the small space, big ideas kind of bullshit that also sells meatballs and gravy. I dunno about you, but those meatballs slap. In the depths of the Big Blue Box, however, is the warehouse portion where every bit of prefabricated, flat-packed furniture is stacked in towering shelves that could survive the apocalypse.

With an oversized yellow shopping bag dangling over his shoulder and an instruction book (clearly scribbled and created himself, because branding didn't allow for his chicken scratch) folded in his hand, Dickie Watson wanders the aisles, eyes narrowed as he circles the desolate space of brown corrugated boxes and red shelving.

"Forty-three."

A few more steps ahead and he peers at the next set of numbers on the metal shelves.

"When the fuck did I skip forty-four? Fuck is this shit?"

A sigh escapes him as he scratches absentmindedly at one of the many choices of tattooed forearm as he turns to look up one walkway and back down the other. "I've been here twenty fuckin' minutes already. Charlottesville doesn't even have one of these places, so I've now driven two hours because I committed to a joke before I really thought about whether it was worth the gasoline..."

He stops walking, turns around, and then looks back down the aisle he'd just come from. "Nah. Nah, nah, nah, I tell ya...if I get fuckin' lost in here, at least I can find a little fake apartment and live in it. Not sure I'd fit in it, but ya know...we've all made compromises. Like me. Showing up on Anarchy. For a match for a championship to really stick it to 'em, right? The big ol' opportunity, hey. The big ol' 24/7 Xtreme Briefcase."

Dickie's eyes drift back to the instruction booklet he snaps into the waiting air. He holds the booklet up to his face, obscuring it. "Before assembly," he reads, "ensure all required components have been collected."

He closes the page and finally holds up the cover up for the camera. In thick black marker, written in handwriting that can only charitably be described as functional helvetica, are the words:

SÄMÄËL

Assembly Required

"Look, I got the umlaut in there too. All of 'em."

Now, I don't know if you've ever built IKEA furniture, but some of it requires multiple boxes. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what Dickie begins to gather. The booklet folds under his hand as he begins wandering again, the other hand absently dragging along the edge of the shelving while he scans the handwritten labels on small boxes he'd very obviously taped to random boxes sometime before a camera appeared.

God Complex. Followers. Security. Presentation. Confidence. Contingency Plan.

He studies the collection for a second before looking back at the booklet.

"...Still missing one." He crouches down, nudging each box into a neat little row with the side of his hand as though he were organizing tools on a workbench instead of pieces of another human being. "You know what I expected to find after five fuckin' months of watching you?" He scratches thoughtfully at his jaw.

"Complexity. I figured somewhere between February and now there'd be a page I'd missed. Somethin' that made me stop the tape and go, Ah...there it is. That's why the bastard's still champion."

He shakes his head.

"Instead...I found a fuckin' routine "You've gotten really, really good at making people stop wrestling and start reacting. They react to the speeches. They react to the followers. They react to whatever weird apocalyptic bollocks you've decided to wheel out this week."

Another tap.

"And while everybody's busy trying to solve the fuckin' Da Vinci Code..."

He shrugs.

"...you reach for the same answer."

His eyes finally find the camera.

"Now don't get pissy with me. I'm not saying it doesn't work. Clearly the shit works. You've been champion since February. I'm not thick enough to stand here pretending that's luck."

A grin.

"I'm saying I know where your hands go."

"You smiled when Elon said my name because you thought I'd spend the week chasing ghosts. Reading occult books. Trying to figure out what flavour of eldritch horror you identify as." He snorts. "I went to IKEA. I watched tape. I had meatballs. I solved the fuckin' puzzle."

His boot nudges the scattered boxes.

"You've spent five months teaching everybody to wrestle your match. Fuck that. I'm showing up to ruin it. I don't give a shit about the championship, but I'm definitely interested in ruinin' your day. I'm gonna drag you back to the one place you seem determined to keep escaping."

He points toward the imaginary ring.

"A wrestling match." Another shrug. "If I'm wrong? Congratulations. You keep your belt. But if I'm right..."

He folds the instruction booklet in half and stuffs it into the yellow bag.

"...you're gonna find out there's a massive fuckin' difference between having a process...and meeting the dickhead who's perfectly happy to kick the instructions straight up your ass."

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