Darkness filling all senses, a sense of dread creeping slowly with ice-cold prickles down the spine, as eyes try to open yet can tell no difference from when the eyelids covered them.

No smells, no sounds, no sights... not even a taste to the air around.

Pure darkness, with not even one object to touch. Seemingly floating... floating in this dark abyss with nowhere to go in the lonely void.

'Where the hell am I..?' came the groggy thoughts of the man trapped within the darkness, 'Why is everything so dark?'

A flash of blood-red light filling the senses, bringing the eyes to force themselves shut, doing all they can to bring out the sudden intrusion. A rush of flowing water smashing into his frame, striking him back as a putrid, sickening smell floods his senses. He can hear the flowing of the water, he can still see that light flooding through, feel the moving current around him, hear the rush of it all...

And he can taste the water, as it hits his lips.

'It's not water...' came the abrupt realization, 'It's blood.'

Nightmares come true, too. More often then dreams, sometimes.

Screaming, kicking, scrambling to free himself from the never-ending torrent of blood around him. The metallic, sickeningly sweet taste of the blood still in his mouth as he did all he could to spit that taste out, to pray for salvation from this river of blood.

His feet strike ground.

Gasping, finding enough ground to stand and force himself from the rushing current, pulling himself slowly up a sandy island shore. Collapsing on his hands and knees, he vomits onto the ground and feels the shakes and shivvers inherent with the upheavel of your digested waste.

The pain is almost unbearble, flooding his senses much as the river of blood had.

He carefully opens his eyes to a bloodred skyline, the sun setting across teh horizon and casting a yellow glow over the red oceans of blood-- oceans, not rivers. He'd been carried through the current of an ocean, to an island, in the middle of an unknown world.

"Hello?" cries the lost man, his eyes showing great concern for the predicament he finds himself in, "HELLO?!"

His voice echoes back despite the open air of the world around him, causing the hairs on the back of his neck to stand in fright as he looks all around, his voice echoing all across the small island he was trapped upon.

"What is this place...?" he whispers to himself, rubbing his hands over his arms quickly, trying to qwell the cold chills running throughout his body.

Utter silence, he looks all around for an answer yet doesn't even hear his echo mutter the reply, 'What is this place?'. Almost discouraged by this, he curls himself up into a ball, burying his face into his knees and openly sobbing to himself. All alone... away from everyone he loved, without a clue as to where he was.

"Do not cry." sounded a voice within his head, perhaps imagined by himself to keep company within the span of a few seconds he was trapped in this place.

Was he going crazy? Unsure, the man looked up to the sky, seeking out the voice who comforted him with its words, trying to show him that he wasn't alone. Yet the man never found anything, his eyes scanning the sky and seeing no faces, no ghostly figures of his life.

Instead, he found a voice, a booming voice from the sky above once again speaking to qwell his inner fears.

"I made a promise to never leave you... to never forsake you when you walked through hell. I am here to help carry you through, to help you see what must be seen."

"God...?" whispered the man, his eyes widenin as he thought for sure to himself that he was going crazy. Here, stranded in what he would perceive as hell itself, God was speaking to him?

"How do I know you're not the devil playing tricks on my mind?" asked the man, confused as to why he was even accepting the notion that he was speaking to a divine being in general, though it couldn't be so unbelievable considering the circumstances he found himself currently in.

"Because," boomed the voice in reply, "I am the Alpha and the Omega. I am the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End! I am one with the Father our Lord, and I promised not to forsake my bretheren who wish to join Him in His kingdom!"

'Great,' thought the man to himself, 'Not God... his son. I'm talking to Jesus.'

He was sure he was going insane by now.

"Why am I here?" asked the man, his eyes searching for an answer, "Why have I been forced to swim an ocean of blood?!"

"Because, my brother..." spoke the voice in return, "You have allowed yourself to."

"What are you talking about?" cried the man, his eyes filled with tears of frustration now, "Show yourself to me! Prove that you are real!"

"You have followed my Father's words all your life, and now when confronted with hell you wish to question Him?! Ungrateful man! Rise, sinner, and be confronted with the face of thy God Almighty!"

The man staggered to his feet, unsure of what to expect when suddenly the sun flashed in the distance and the bloody oceans were turned to crystal waters, the sky a brilliant, heavenly blue. Even the island he was stranded upon had changed, the sand much gentler on the feet and without shells or rocks to hurt one's naked feet. The man stood in shock, looking at the delightful world he saw before him.

"Forgive me!" cried the man, looking to the heavens above, "I should have not questioned you..."

"Correct, now sit your honkey butt down." came the reply, swinging the man in a complete 180 as his look of fright turned to one of confusion.

"What on earth...?"

"No no, not earth. Your mind, kiddo... we're in your mind." corrected the voice, as the vision of Jesus Christ appeared before him, smiling. At first he seemed all too translucent-- almost a figment of the man's imagination, but as he stepped forward, more of his body became apparent, until the man was looking upon the son of God, whole before him.

"You're... you're..." he whispered, only to be interrupted with the smile of the man.

"The son of God? Yes, yes I am. Well, I'm your interpretation of him, anyway. I'm here to help you, my friend... you can't try to walk through the hell you'll face in these coming days alone. You have to come to my father and I for help-- when was the last time you prayed?" Jesus asked, his arms crossing.

"I... I pray every night..." the man half-stuttered, only for Jesus to shake his head.

"When you ACTUALLY prayed! You've made a habit of praying before sleep, as though if you didn't you might never awaken! When did you last put all your heart into it?"

"I... I guess it was that Thursday night." the man whispered, lifting his face to stare the Lord's son in the eye, "Just a few weeks ago..."

"Yes!" Jesus cried, clapping his hands together with a smile, "When the cards were in your favor! Don't you see? You've put your heart into it when all was well, yet when the times get rough you try to make the journeys on your own! Isn't that what cost you your first true battle with that Dillon Durst fellow? Trying on your own? You didn't put enough faith in the power of your words... if only you spoke that in the name of God you would lay claim to victory, perhaps you would actually have won that very night!"

"But... but why are we here?" came the reply of the man, his voice shaking.

“Why, to bring you to the truth, Dominic.”

“And what is the truth?” Dominic asked, his eyebrow arching ever-so-slightly in wonder.

“Something that I’ll be bringing you to,” chuckled Jesus, holding out his hand. “Come on, let us begin.”

Dominic, still quite certain that the stress from his upcoming match was driving him insane, put his faith in his actions and reached out to grab the hand of the son of God.

It was time to begin his journey the truth.