The locker room reeked of sweat. All day men had been going in and out. They started in their street clothes, changed into wrestling tights and singlets and trunks of various colors with their names splashed across the fabric in bright hues. Then they returned, drenched in sweat to shower and change back into non-descript attire that let them blend in with the crowd exiting the arena. 

​

Rhys Archer sat on a wooden bench cradling his new world title belt. The taste of blood still lingered on his tongue from biting the inside of his mouth. His opponent, Toxic, had landed on him a little funny, making Rhys’s jaw slam shut when he wasn’t prepared. 

​

But he didn’t care. He didn’t care about the blood or the sweat or the other men leaving the locker room. The black belt with a big gold “W” in the center was his now. It didn’t matter that he’d known he was going to win for weeks—that was how wrestling worked. As real as it felt in the moment, everything was predetermined and choreographed. Leading up to the final count, pinning Toxic’s shoulders to the mat for three, he thought that it wasn’t real. That in a single moment, it would all be taken away from him and he would be back to the mid-card, selling the pain of other talent’s moves while he got nothing.

​

He ran his fingers on the belt, feeling the smooth leather, worn from the years and dozens of men raising, throwing, wearing it. He felt the cool metal W. It was real gold—or gold plated. He wasn’t sure which it was, but he knew it was an expensive belt he would be guarding with his life. 

An older wrestler stopped beside Rhys and smiled. “You deserve it.” He squeezed Rhys’s shoulder and added, “Bye, Evan.” Backstage, with the cameras off, Rhys Archer was Evan Miller. He never thought he’d win a championship with a plain name, so he donned the stage name Rhys Archer. He gave the name more credit than he gave himself.

​

“Bye.” Rhys kept his eye on the belt as though it might disappear if he looked away. As though it were a dream, and he wasn’t ready to wake up.

​

Though the locker room was quiet, he could still hear the roar of the crowd in his mind. How they had celebrated with him. They had wanted him to beat a legend. 

 

Toxic was getting old for wrestling, but he could still move. He hadn’t been plagued by injuries and was smart with his wrestling style. He was fast and strong and showed no signs of slowing down even in his 40s. But management had said it was time for him to start helping new talent, like Rhys Archer. 

 

Rhys set aside the belt and headed for the showers. He liked being the last one to leave—it meant he could blast music on his phone and steam up the whole shower room. Today, however, his phone was dead, but he didn’t care. He could sing his entrance music—Take It Off by The Donnas—at the top of his lungs.

 

He was grinning ear to ear when he got out of the shower, but his smile fell quickly and his stomach clenched when he saw the belt was gone. He ran to his spot in the locker room, snatching up the piece of paper left in the belt’s spot and reading it.

 

“Come find me.”

 

“No…” he gasped. He had only just won the thing and now it was missing. Worse, someone was playing games with him.

​

He hurriedly dressed and darted out of the locker room into the hall. All was quiet. The fluorescent lights flickered and buzzed overhead. His first instinct was to run out to the ring and find security, but when he got there, there was no one. 

 

Not only was he alone, in the middle of the ring, his belt lay with a single spotlight shining on it. He stood at the top of the ramp, staring at the belt. A prickle raced up the back of his neck and a bead of sweat traced his temple. Was this some sort of hazing he didn’t know about? 

​

“Hello?” He called, only to be answered by the echo of his own voice in the cavernous arena.

 

The silence was broken by the riff of Take It Off by The Donnas and the large screens behind him lighting up with his entrance video. He ducked his head as though something were flying at him. His ears rang from the sudden crash of electric guitar filling the air. 

 

“Very funny!” He yelled and assumed his wrestler persona. He jogged in place a few times, pumped his arms in the air to get the imaginary crowd cheering, then ran down the ramp toward the ring—

 

A chair swung straight into his face, sending him flying back. His head slammed against the ground. 

 

***

 

Rhys woke with a groan. His head pounded and felt…full. His feet tingled. He thought he might vomit and blinked several times, trying to make sense of why the arena seating was on the ceiling.

It wasn’t on the ceiling—his eyes snapped fully open, and he flailed his arms—he was dangling in the middle of the ring, ten feet off the ground with his title belt below him. 

 

Now he was in the center of the spotlight, his shadow cast at strange angles across the ring below. He swung his body a few times until he had garnered the momentum to lift up and grab the bar his feet were attached to. The very bar he had pulled the belt from earlier in the ladder match against Toxic. 

 

He clawed at the rope holding his ankles to the bar and, without thinking, yanked on a loose end and came crashing down onto his back. He let out a long groan. 

 

From the darkness, an elbow came hurtling toward his head. Wrestling instinct made him roll out of the way well before it connected, but his heart still pounded and he jumped up to his feet as Toxic hit the ground with a loud boom. 

 

“What the hell, man?” Rhys threw his arms out to the sides.

 

Toxic pushed himself up, unfurling to his full height and glaring at Rhys. The black and white paint on his face was smudged and his skin glistened with sweat. “That’s mine.” He pointed at the belt. “You took it from me.”

 

“What?” Rhys looked at the belt, which, notably, still had Toxic’s moniker across the front. It was hardly Rhys’s belt. In truth, it was no one’s but the company’s. Rhys was borrowing it, having put down a huge deposit lest he lose it at that. Toxic was about to get thousands of dollars back. Not a bad consolation prize, Rhys thought. 

 

Toxic raised his fist and swung for Rhys’s head, but Rhys ducked and ran under the fist, turning and bouncing his back against the ropes before dodging another fist. 

 

“Take it then! If it means so much!” Using his momentum, Rhys dropped to the ground and slid out of the ring, landing on his feet with feline grace. 

 

“It’s not mine. It’s not mine! It’s not mine!” Toxic ran across the ring, diving over the ropes in Rhys’s direction. Rhys stumbled back and watched Toxic crumple to the ground. Rhys turned on his heel and ran up the ramp.

 

“Get back here!” Toxic yelled. 

 

Rhys didn’t slow down until he had gotten back stage and reached the bay doors. The large, metal shutters were closed, and he grabbed the handle and tried to yank them up, but they wouldn’t budge. One side was chained down and padlocked. He was trapped inside.

 

“Rhys,” Toxic sang. 

 

“Come on!” Rhys turned around, his back pressed to the metal shutter. 

 

“You should have stayed in the mid-card.”  Toxic was walking up to him, dragging the steel steps from the ringside behind him. The short, metal staircase that typically lived at one of the corners was only three steps tall, but it was big enough to make an impact. If anyone knew, it was the man who had them accidentally thrown at his head–Rhys Archer. 

 

“Look, it wasn’t my decision.” Rhys pressed his back against the shutter, his fingers searching frantically as if they might find some escape.

 

“You should have taken the loss…”

 

“We’ll talk to management!”

​

“It’s too late!” Toxic stopped walking and slammed the stairs on the ground. “I was going to break records! But you had to ruin it!” 

 

Blood filled Rhys’s mouth, and his head spun. Was he about to faint? Now that he had stopped moving, the earth seemed to sway around him. He could feel the impact from the chair swung into him earlier, and he looked down to see blood dripping from his face onto the concrete. 

 

Toxic raised the stairs and charged toward Rhys. Rhys dropped just as the stairs swung at his head. The metal steps slammed into the shutter, and Rhys scrambled across the floor away from Toxic. 

“You’re fuckin’ dead,” Toxic growled. This time, as Toxic swung his weapon down, Rhys only managed to drag himself back far enough that his major organs were saved, but his ankle was the sacrifice for the awkward movement. He let out a howl as the stairs crushed his bones. 

 

Toxic raised the stairs again, but Rhys rolled to the side before the stairs came down. 

He pulled himself away from Toxic, dragging his leg and dodging each swing of the stairs as they got closer and closer to finding their mark. 

 

As Rhys pulled himself back, his hand found something soft. Instinctually, he grabbed it and flung it at Toxic’s face.

 

Tacks flew out of a black bag, scattering across the floor. Toxic raised his arms, dropping the stairs, then stumbled as his booted feet found the tacks. He fell crashing to the floor.

Though it was not much time, it was enough for Rhys to push himself to his feet and hobble back to the ring panting, bleeding, sweating. His ankle screamed with every step.

 

Rhys collapsed at the top of the ramp leading to the ring, looking back to see Toxic coming through the curtains behind him. With what little energy was left in his body, and a hefty dose of adrenaline, he rolled down the ramp, landing against the bottom of the ring and grasping beneath it.

 

He grabbed the handle of a baseball bat, yanking it out and swing for Toxic. The barbed wire wrapped around it caught Toxic’s skin, shredding it and sending blood spattering across the ground. 

 

Rhys used the bat to stand up, then swung again, this time aiming for Toxic’s face. He met his target. 

 

Toxic went stiff. His eyes half-closed, he fell to the ground, not even bracing for impact. 

 

Rhys leaned on the bat and sank to the ground. He lifted the ring skirt, peering underneath for the medic’s kit to tend to his own wounds. That damn belt. He had expected to be ambushed by more fans, but not his own peers. It was already more trouble than it was worth.