The young boy handed the water bucket to the old man, who took it in his gnarled old hands... He drank deeply, and then looked into William's young, crystal brown eyes for a long moment. Finally, he spoke.

"You will be a strong man, boy. Your journey will carry you far from this place, but in the end, you will return. It will be then, that you shall be made a man..." William Felt a chill go through his entire body. He suddenly didn't know what to say; he took the bucket and ran. He stopped running when he reached the door of his family's hut, and only then did he look back, but the old man was gone, without a trace, save for a cryptic sign left behind: a small R, etched in the stone by the road where the man had stood. He was oddly compelled to keep the stone, and in time, made a necklace of it.

William left home the day his mother died, and went off in search of a life for himself. He ended up joining the foriegn millitia, and was shipped all around the world, fighting in the various revolutions which kept stirring here and there. He kept all his personal belongings in little pots, save for the stone.

Following the wars, he returned home, to find that everything he had known was gone. Everything was changed; progress had reared it's ugly head. Penniless and friendless, he was destitute. He soon fell into the habit of drinking all day and sleeping in his own filth each night, wherever he happened to drop. In time, he came to think of the alley behind a certain movie theatre as his home. He watched the comings and goings of the actors and actresses and pretended he was one of them.

One day, a young starlett he had been particularly interested in, glanced his way as she was going into the theatre. When she reemerged later that night, she invited him to go to breakfast with her. The couple soon moved in together and she introduced him to all her actor friends. He was told about a try-out for certain parts in their movie, and in the end, was chosen for the part of Rocky. The rest... is history!