Episode 101: Harbinger
Written By Karl White
There are endings that come not with a single moment, but as the quiet fulfillment of something set in motion long before.
The arrest of Win Wheeler ended with a guilty plea. The true scope of what he’d done, what he intended was withheld from public view. To the outside world, it was a tragic case of violence and instability. A young man who lost control and turned on his own family. But the truth as few knew it, was far more horrifying.
At his sentencing, Dr. Mei Lin Zhou was the government’s witness, connecting the dots to Win’s spree of terror. She pieced together the string of outbreaks, not speaking in fear, but measured clarity. She did not describe zombies. She described process. Transmission. Outcome. She explained, in language meant to be understood, what the Crimson Virus did to the body, how it spread, and what would have followed had Win Wheeler succeeded.
Win listened to it all without interruption. There was no outburst, no denial. Only the recognition, perhaps for the first time, of what his work had become when spoken aloud, by someone who understood it better than he did. He was sentenced 60-years to life.
Life behind bars - © 2026 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
In prison, something in Win quieted. The noise driving him, the hate, the certainty, it was pushed aside. In the years that followed, incarceration did what it always does. It stripped everything away, replacing life with routine, reducing a man to bare repetition. There were days of resistance, anger directed outward at a world he still believed needed cleansing. But time has a way of reshaping even the most rigid convictions. Isolation and distance from death wore him down.
Over time, he accepted his punishment with a kind of measured clarity. There were no excuses left to make, only regret. Not for the outcome, but for the cost. His mother. The wasted life of promise. And in that acceptance, he found a modicum of peace. But for the mistakes he made, he wanted redemption.
It began without intention. A younger inmate, Jabari, was assigned to the same block, barely out of his teens, already marked by outside affiliations and by a system inside that decides who’ll last and who won’t. Win saw the way others watched the newcomer, and the inevitability of what was coming. When it happened, Win stepped in without thinking. Intercepting a situation that would’ve ended badly. He didn’t make a scene or draw attention. He simply redirected it, diffused it, and afterwards told Jabari, in plain terms, how to survive. Keep your head down and don’t try to prove anything. It wasn’t mentorship in the traditional sense, but it was enough to keep Jabari alive.
Over time, they became friends, real friends, unlike anything Win ever had on the outside. Both were there because of the same root cause, misplaced youth and misdirected purpose. Their bond felt earned. Win had someone to talk to, to atone to, a face that didn’t pass judgement for unspeakable things, because Jabari had been there too. Together, they avoided the traps that swallowed others doing long sentences. And the trajectory of their lives shifted towards something better.
True friendship - © 2026 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
Then, one night, without warning, a sudden and brutal correction to the fragile balance of incarceration. A fight broke out that Win couldn’t reach in time. When he arrived, it was already over. Jabari lay on the ground, caught in something that had nothing to do with him. The details didn’t matter, what did was how quickly it all came undone. And in the ecosystem of prison Win learned there’s no such thing as a second chance.
He understood then he hadn’t saved Jabari, just delayed what was always bound to happen. And for himself, no amount of salvation would change his outcome. In a desperate hour, he sought escape.
After a failed attempt to hang himself in his cell, Win was placed into crisis counseling with the prison chaplain. Father Bennett was a calm presence, easy to talk to with a subtle edge that made him disarming. That’s because he’d gone by many other names before...In ancient Mesopotamia, he’d been Ba’el. By 800 BCE he was Barek. In the Holy Roman Empire, Bariel. During the Reformation he was known as Belmont. And most recently he was Dr. Bellian Vale. But appearing to Win, he’d become an important voice in a dark time.
Father Bennett - © 2026 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
WIN: I’ve made so many mistakes, bad choices. I feel lost.
FATHER BENNETT: What if I told you, what you’ve done was the Lord’s work? A necessity. A fate meant to be met.
Father Bennett would twist and coil the truth, telling Win, the work he’d done hadn’t stopped because he was wrong, but because he’d been caught. And the system that imprisoned him and labeled him a threat, was the same system preserving the very thing he’d been condemned for trying to use. Win was right to want to reset the world. It was a cold and uncaring place and needed a man like Win to correct the path.
The demon, cloaked in human form, fed him carefully chosen fragments of truth. Clippings of past outbreaks. Accounts of rulers who used the plague. Scientists who refined it. Slowly, deliberately, he stripped away the regret that had taken root. He made Win feel like his purpose was clear.
And by the time decades had passed and his name faded, Win Wheeler had been reshaped into a more mature version of the mad-scientist. The anger was no longer impulsive. It grew patient. Structured. Informed by a lifetime of reflection and guided by a voice that never once wavered in its certainty. That he was chosen for this.
Early release - © 2026 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
In 2032, Win came up for parole. There was no reason to deny it. He was an old man, frail by appearance, compliant by record. Whatever he’d once been, it seemed time had taken it from him. And with a glowing letter from Father Bennett, he was released quietly.
Win Wheeler stepped back into a world that had moved on without him, one with no memory of the man he’d been, and no idea of what he still carried. And with a demon over his shoulder, he returned to his work.
FATHER BENNETT: I’ve been here since the beginning, Win. I was the curiosity that led you to the vial in Darvashir. I was the whisper at every turn as you studied, and learned how to use the plague. And I’m here now...to help you meet your fate.
With everything he needed restored, Win understood what Ichikawa had only begun to grasp. What Dastan had misused. What others had failed to see. The plague wasn’t merely a weapon, but a mechanism. A correction of the unnatural order. Something that required the right conditions, the right moment, and the understanding of what the world needed.
Not long after, Win released a flock of carrier pigeons, each infected with the most potent strain of the plague. And as they scattered away into the endless blue sky, a Procession was quietly enacted.
A Procession is enacted - © 2026 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
No single point of origin could be identified. The plague moved efficiently, far reaching, radiating as far as life allowed it to spread. By the time the first signs appeared, it was already too late. Governments reacted as they always had, with denial, blame, and retaliation. Each nation saw the outbreak as an act of aggression. The response was swift, countries willfully unleashing death on one another. What followed was a slow collapse. The world as we know it didn’t end in a single moment, but instead unraveled.
Win Wheeler hadn’t created the plague, or been the first to weaponize it. But he understood it. And in the end, he was the one who used it exactly as it was always meant to be used. Not as a tool of power, but as a final act. The culmination of every decision that had come before, carried forward through time, waiting for the one person willing to see it through to its natural conclusion. The Dark didn’t need to force the world to end. It only needed someone willing to begin it.
In the Abyss, Bhekizizwe and Gérard Roux had been wandering for what seemed like an eternity. There was no boundary or end to the place. And though they could not die, both felt themselves nearing the edge of surrender.
Then, a faint light began to take form. Shadows recoiled as it approached. And within the halo of illumination was a figure...it was Banerjee. A beacon in the endless dark.
A light in the darkness - © 2026 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
Though the two Eternals had never met the powerful mystic, they knew of Banerjee, deciding to remain in the Abyss when Veera Sarin, Aolani, and Herakles escaped. He’d spent his time in the blackness uncovering the depths of the Dark’s evil plans and knew a final reckoning was fast approaching.
And in that moment Bhekizizwe and Roux understood, their fall into the Abyss had not been exile. They were there to help Banerjee prepare for war...and this place was to be their battlefield.
And as the Fight for Life faded, the Fight for the End would be next.
TO BE CONTINUED…