Slowly his eyes began to flutter as he started to awaken but before he could even open his eyes, his ears were overcome with a deafening sound. The sounds he could hear were of several television monitors playing videos on full volume, much to El Diablo’s irritation and confusion. Attempting to rub his eyes to wake himself properly, The Mexican Devil was shocked as his right hand was yanked back.

“What the fuck?” Diablo’s dry mouth muttered.

Turning his head, El Diablo could see that his right hand was chained to the wall. Using his left hand, he tried vigorously to pull the chain from out of the wall, but to no avail.

“WHOEVER IS DOING THIS, I WILL GET OUT!” he shouted, straining his throat.

Using the light from the television monitors, El Diablo noticed a small object in front of him. He attempted to reach out with his left hand to get it, but it was out of his reach. Desperate, he yanked at his right hand again, but it was not going to give way.

“What do you want from me?” his throat croaked.

With little else to do, El Diablo began to look around the dark room, but could not see anything other than the four television monitors at the other end of the room. Staring intently at them, The Creator of Controversy recognised the footage that was playing on these monitors. He could see footage of himself at Marie’s home on the top monitor, footage of himself brainwashing Marie on the second monitor, footage of himself and Clinton Sage setting fire to the face of Jason Cruise on the third monitor and spliced footage of himself talking to Angela, Jason Cruise, Jonathan Rhine, Kansas Marie and The Man in the Black Hat on the bottom monitor.

“What are these meant to mean?” he whispered to himself.

Tired and thirsty, The Master of Manipulation tried again to reach the distant object, but still could not reach it. Suddenly an idea encompassed him, and soon after he began to take a shoe off and then the other, tying them together, El Diablo kept hold of them at one end and stretching his body out as far as it could go, he launched the shoes to connect with the object. This failed many, many times before he could finally reel the object in.

“YES!” he mouthed.

Looking at the object, he appeared relieved as in the palm of his left hand was a small key, which he promptly used to free his hand from the chain on the wall.

“That’s better,” he stated.

Clenching and unclenching his hand multiple times to try get the blood flowing again, El Diablo stumbled to his feet, still a bit woozy from having being knocked out by the mystery attacker. Slowly regaining his composure, The Mexican Devil wanted to escape this torture that he was enduring, but his curiosity of what else was in the room was getting to him.

“Maybe I’ll find out who has done this by examining the clues that are in here,” he thought to himself.

Using the light from the television monitors, The Creator of Controversy found a corner of the room where he could see a box of matches. Swiftly picking them up, El Diablo struck a match against the side of the box to get some light.

“What do we have here?” he queried.

Looking down, he could see several bottles of Mexican tequila and scattered around them were multiple photographs of Jason Cruise’s burnt face. The eyes of the LiveWire Champion in the photographs seemed to be staring at The Mexican Devil intently, making him feel further uncomfortable about the situation he had found himself in.

“OW, FUCK!” his strained voice shrieked as the match went out and burnt his hand slightly.

Unnerved, El Diablo’s curiosity was still keeping him in the room, as he felt he had to find out who had locked him up like a caged animal. Striking another match, Diablo walked back to where he was chained up, and to his surprise, many photographs were taped to the wall, photographs of El Diablo with his wife Angela, some from many years prior.

“Jorge, this better not be you,” he whispered.

Expecting Jorge to abruptly appear, like he had done a lot of times over the previous weeks, The Master of Manipulation was genuinely shocked that his deceased brother had not arrived to haunt him yet again. Realising that it wasn’t Jorge, meant that someone else was behind watching him and gathering information on his life, and knowing this sent shivers down El Diablo’s spine, a reaction he had never experienced before.

“If not you, Jorge, then who?” he pleaded.

Lighting another match, he walked on and found yet more photographs taped to the wall, except these photographs weren’t like the others, these ones were in an order, telling a story. Taking a closer look, El Diablo noticed that these photographs were recently taken, because he was in them and chained to the wall. The only difference in the photographs were of the key he used to set his hand free, being moved from far away from him to gradually closer. A sign that whoever had done this, intended for him to free himself.

“Why let me go? If it was me doing this, I’d have left me here to rot,” he pondered.

Knowing that whoever was behind this was doing so to get inside his head, El Diablo still couldn’t help but feel frightened. He knew that this would have taken a lot of planning and preparation, especially if it was planned for him to escape, and even worse, to not even know who had done this to him.

“What else is there?” he wondered.

Gingerly walking along another area of the room, he lit another match and almost found himself tripping up, as on the floor were several plastic replicas of Jason Cruise’s temporary mask.

“Cruise must be behind this,” he angrily muttered.

Kneeling down, El Diablo picked up one of the replicas and held it close to his face, reminiscing about his own past when he wore luchadore masks back home in Mexico. Remembering this, The Mexican Devil felt severely angry that his arch enemy was wearing a mask when he didn’t deserve the honour of wearing one.

“That bastard. I don’t care if he is disfigured, he should not be allowed to wear that mask. It disrespects all Mexican luchadores that choose to wear them for all the honour that they carry,” Diablo commented, bitterly.

Getting back to his feet and striking another match, El Diablo walked on, but could find nothing else and decided to head toward the monitors to get a better understanding of why his own footage was playing repeatedly on them.

“Ah, what a lovely home you have, Marie,” he spoke softly.

Watching the top monitor, El Diablo contemplated why whomever attacked him would want him to see this video, but could not come up with a realistic answer. Switching his attention to the second monitor, The Creator of Controversy had a better of idea of why he’d be expected to view this.

“That was a fun night. I’ve never manipulated anyone as easily as that,” he commented.

Closely inspecting the video on the monitor, all he could think was that this was someone’s attempt to play the mind games on him, like he had done with Marie on that night. Only, he didn’t have a concrete answer of who, but what he did know was that it was somehow connected to Jason Cruise.

“I KNOW YOU’RE PART OF THIS, JASON!” he shouted, further straining the soreness in his throat.

Now gazing at the third monitor, The Master of Manipulation actually smiled at watching the footage of Jason Cruise’s face being burnt.

“Now I know that it is you, Jason. Why else would I need to watch it?” Diablo said delicately.

However, his mindset soon changed when he viewed the bottom monitor, showing himself in conversations with multiple FUSE personalities. Standing still, and thinking intently, El Diablo’s paranoia was beginning to creep in.

“What if it was Rhine? Maybe Aimz? Perhaps Raynes? Hell could it even be The Man In The Black Hat?” he questioned.

Taking a step back from the monitors, The Mexican Devil lighted another match and headed towards the door, determined to leave this torture behind. To his frustration, the door was locked and heavily enforced so that he couldn’t knock it down.

“Come on Raul, there must be a way out,” he whispered to himself.

Panicking, El Diablo lit another match as he looked around frantically for the key or some other way out, but to his sheer frustration could not find anything, except for a message in red written on the floor:

THIS IS NOT THE END!

“THEN REVEAL YOURSELF!” he put additional strain on his voice.

Striking yet another match, El Diablo felt alone, angry and scared in knowing that it must have been his own actions that had caused this kind of overreaction. Sighing and slowly raising his head, The Creator of Controversy noticed an envelope taped to the ceiling, before the match blew out. Jumping a few times, he finally managed to snatch the envelope down and quickly lit another match so that he could read it.

“THIS IS FOR ALL YOU’VE DONE!
I’LL BE SEEING YOU SOON”

Inside the envelope was the key, which El Diablo rapidly used to open the door. Squinting his tired eyes as the sunlight entered the room, he cautiously stepped out of the room, only to find himself standing outside of an abandoned warehouse.

“At last,” he mouthed.

Remaining cautious, he walked away slowly, looking all around him to make sure that the ordeal was over. For once The Mexican Devil was visibly shaken and seemed out of his depth, now that someone had adopted a mind game that not even The Master of Manipulation had thought to inflict upon an enemy. But the question still remained fresh in his mind, who attacked him and left him there to question his sanity?