"Vince said he'd never give up on me," Jim Ryback told the interviewer. A twinge of regret in his eyes was obvious, despite his other words contradicting that sentiment.
It would be another 40 years until Ryback and Vince were reunited. The circumstances, however, would not be pleasant, as reunions at funeral homes never tend to be.
Vince, somehow still alive thanks to cybernetics and a probable deal with the devil, was rolled into the room in his wheelchair by his 53 granddaughters. Ryback's casket sit before him.
A moment passed as he sat contemplatively in front of the casket. Suddenly he motioned upwards and stood up, surprising his grandchildren.
Surprise in the McMahon-Levesque household had died off years earlier, when their father gave up on most vestiges of hope as he continued to fail to sire a single son; therefore, several of the young women thought they were broken as they gasped loudly.
Vince stood at the casket, stunning all who looked on, then bent over toward the body and spoke gentily whispered into Jim Ryback's ear.
"And I never did."Suddenly a parasitic demon, the true reason for Vince's longevity, emerged from his throat and, with a series of tentacles and an exuberant amount of slime and saliva, reached out, pried open and slid into Ryback's mouth. Vince's frail body collapsed backwards, reduced to a lifeless pile of shattered bones and dust as it fell to the ground, as Ryback's eyes opened and he sat up out of his casket to the horrified onlookers still assembled.
On that day, a sordid miracle had taken place.
And on that day, the events leading to the Earth's end were set fully into motion.
