renner
League Member
- Joined
- Mar 4, 2004
- Messages
- 178
- Points
- 0
- Age
- 40
- Location
- Oakland, TN, USA
- Website
- www.fetchquest.com
November 30th, 2008
Steve Knox's day began with six words sent to him by text message from Alexandria Malone.
"Steve, I'm breaking up with you."
It went downhill from there.
* . *
It was the morning, and Steve Knox had been woken up by the vibrating noise of his cell phone, placed on the nightstand next to his bed in the hotel room he was staying in.
Steve Knox stared at his cell phone for a long and agonizing moment, trying to let his mind, which was just waking up, process what was in his hand. To say that Steve Knox didn't expect such a message was like saying the people of Hiroshima didn't especially expect being bombed. After he realized that this text message wasn't a joke, he did the only thing that really made sense to him. He threw the phone into the nearest wall, though by some miracle, it did not break when it hit the wall since Steve did it half-heartedly.
Steve then rolled over to his side, pressed the pillow against his head, and went back to sleep.
* . *
"Hm? W-what are you doing here, Mr. Steve?"
Steve Knox found himself at a shrine. It was clearly built like a Shinto shrine, only built at the top of a tall mountain. Looking around, Steve was surprised to find that the area seemed perfectly normal for once. There was a clear blue sky, and there were many other mountains that surrounded the mountain that Steve was standing on top of. There was just one problem with the scenery: all of the ghosts that seemed to be floating around the shrine, doing their own thing. That freaked out the man who often called himself "Captain Awesome", if only because he still hadn't really gotten used to the whole "ghost" thing.
There was at least one living person, and in fact, she was the person who had just addressed him. She was a short girl with long black hair, about fourteen years old. She wore a white, sleeveless robe-like shirt, white sleeves with elongated cuffs that are detached from the robe and exposing her shoulders, and a red hakama, and a pair of wooden geta. She wore two sets of blue beads around her head like headbands, a necklace made out of the same blue beads with a red charm at the end, two wristbands made out of the same beads, and a belt, once again made of the same beads. She held a broom and seemed to be sweeping the ground before Steve had shown up.
Her name was Talila Yumeko, and she claimed to be a shaman who visited Steve Knox in his dreams. They hadn't spoken in months, not since the week before Steve Knox had become the NFW National Champion. Now, Steve no longer had that title or the PTC Elite Championship, nor did he have Alexandria Malone any more, apparently.
Steve watched the ghosts for a moment before turning his attention to the girl, "Talila? What is this place?"
"This, um..." Talila said, seemingly at a loss for words for once, "This is Kuroyume Shrine."
Talila held her broom out, and one of the ghosts came over to collect it from her. She started to approach Steve, her hands on her hips, and a curious expression on her face, "How, um... how did you get here?"
"Huh?" Steve asked, clearly confused, "I went to sleep like I normally do before you barge into my head."
Talila reached her hand out to touch Steve, but was shocked to find that her hand passed straight through his stomach. Steve noticed Talila's surprised expression, looked down, and developed a very similar expression, "What the hell?!"
"...You have me at a loss, Mr. Steve." Talila said, retracting her hand. She took a few steps backward, and motioned Steve to follow her, "Can you walk?"
Steve took a step forward, and nearly fell over in shock when his foot passed through the ground. He somehow did not fall through the ground entirely, however, instead he regained his footing and went back to his original position. Feeling embarrassed, Steve gave Talila a pleading look, "Little help?"
Talila looked at a couple of the ghosts in the area and motioned for them to give Steve a hand. Three male ghosts, all without lower torsos, came over to Steve and lifted him off the ground. Talila gestured for the ghosts to follow her, and so they did, bringing Steve into the shrine.
They entered a room with a single kotatsu (a low heated table used in Japan), located in the center of the room. There was a purple lotus flower placed in a bottle filled with water in the center of the table, and a teapot with a few tea cups next to the flower. There were a few shelves lining the walls, and a doorway in the back that led to a bathroom facility, Talila's bedroom, and a few other chambers. Talila sat down at the kotatsu, placing her legs underneath the heated blanket and shivering a bit from the ambient cold. Steve was set down across from Talila, and he very fortunately did not fall through the floor this time.
Talila's hands reached for the teapot, "I have to say, this is kind of unusual for me."
Steve seemed slightly confused, so he had to ask, "What do you mean?"
Talila nodded, pouring herself some tea. Steve noticed that it was a red-colored tea as she poured it, but didn't think much else of it, "I've frequently visited the dreams of people from other worlds, but this is the first time they've come to my home."
Steve blinked, "Huh?"
After failing to come up with any conclusions of his own, Steve let Talila continue on since she seemed to know more about this sort of thing than he did, "Did anything strange happen to you recently?"
"Don't you usually read this stuff from my subconscious?" Steve asked.
"Mr. Steve, I don't think I can state this any clearer. I'm not *in* your subconscious." Talila said, before she blew into her tea to cool it down before taking a sip of it. When she was done, Talila gestured at herself, "This is my real body."
Steve Knox was generally a guy with an average intelligence, but it only took him until now to realize why Talila had been so confused about his appearance here, and why he seemed to be the same as the ghosts that had been floating around outside of the shrine's grounds.
Upon closer examination of Talila, Steve realized that the girl seemed paler than she normally did when she would consult him in his sleep. He remembered his last conversation with the girl, some months ago, where she had confessed to him that she was really weak in reality. Steve thought that perhaps there had been truth in what Talila had been saying to him all along.
This wasn't a dream.
This was real.
"Did, um... did I die?" Steve asked.
"I don't know. People who die in these mountains are drawn to my shrine, but you live in another world entirely. It's... well, it's unprecedented. I'm the only dream shaman in this world, so I don't exactly have anyone to compare notes with. Which is why I asked if anything happened to you recently." Talila asked.
Steve had an inkling, "Do you remember when we first met?"
"I do. We spoke at the picnic table about your doubts." Talila said. She then started to giggle, hiding her smile with her left hand, "It felt like so long ago, though!"
"You told me something, you told me that winning the Elite Championship could bring me sorrow. More than I can know, in fact." Steve said, solemnly. Talila stopped giggling upon hearing the tone in Steve's voice. She stared at him for a bit before she stood up from her kotatsu.
"So, did something bad happened to you?" Talila asked, as she stepped away from the kotatsu.
"I lost both my titles in one night, then went unemployed in the national scene for three months because Eddie Mayfield shut down NFW's operations for the rest of the year, my brothers still hate me, I'm travelling around with a bunch of weirdos, I keep getting involved in weird crap like this, and now my girlfriend's dumped me." Steve Knox said, extending a finger for each item in his list as if he was counting them off.
Talila nodded as she picked up something from a nearby shelf. It looked like a tarnished silver tin can, about the size of a fist. Talila opened the can and pulled out a small handful of something resembling gray sand. She frowned upon examining it, "Sorry, Mr. Steve, this is going to be as unpleasant to me as it will be for you."
"Huh?" was the only thing Steve could say before Talila blew the dust into him.
Steve started gagging and coughing, briefly unable to breathe. His only solace was the fact that Talila, too, began coughing from the dust cloud. Once Steve's lungs finally stopped heaving and coughing, he looked over at Talila who looked a little worse for wear after that stunt, "Wh-what was THAT for!?"
Talila coughed, and looked at Steve with watery eyes, "I-it's something called 'ghost dust', it..." she said, before she went into a short coughing fit, "It only forms here at Kuroyume Shrine."
She closed the lid on the tin can, and set it back on the shelf. She then covered her mouth with her hand and started to cough a bit again, "It gives form to spirits, if only for a couple of hours. You won't fall through the floor if you walk."
Steve *did* notice that he could touch things again. He stood up and walked over to Talila, before he squatted down in front of her, enough so that they could be at eye level. Talila was taken aback by this, "What? What is it?"
"I've been wondering this for a while, but is there something wrong with your health?" Steve asked of the girl.
Talila didn't say anything, but instead grabbed Steve by his left hand, "Come with me."
Steve couldn't object to the fact that Talila just dodged his question, he had to resign himself to being dragged to another room, much further into the shrine. In fact, it was a room with another kotatsu, but the room was decorated in pink and purple colors, and notably had a sword placed on a mantle in the center wall of the room.
There was another person, a woman, who was sitting at the kotatsu. She didn't seem to be a ghost at first glance. She wore a purple beret on top of a head full of long, wavy white hair. Yet, despite the color of her hair, she had the appearance of a woman in her twenties. She wore a purple and white kimono with an indigo trim. Talila called out to her as soon as she entered the room, "Hey, Mayu!"
This woman named Mayu seemed to be in a daze for a brief moment of time, before she snapped to attention and looked at Talila and the man she was dragging behind her, "Hm? Dear me, who's that you're with?"
Steve noticed that her voice was like a high-pitched monotone, and almost dream-like in of itself.
"This is Mr. Steve. He's, um... how do I put this? Someone I met in the dreamscape, from another world." Talila explained.
"Oh?" Mayu asked, her expression turning more serious, her tone showing more emotion, "I see. Despair has fallen upon him, then. Then he has to go to the cavern, and you with him."
"The cavern? You mean... *that* cavern?" Talila asked. If it was at all possible, she actually turned paler, "Mayu, you told me never to go in that cavern."
Steve held his hands up, and then gave a time out signal, "Time out. What're you people talking about?"
"Ah," Mayu said, as she stood up, "Mister... Steve, I presume? I'm Mayu Aoame, the leader of the ghosts here. Oh, but I'm fully formed and can touch things, so I suppose we're no different right now."
"Uh...huh..." Steve said, not quite sure what to make of this weird woman. He noted with some alarm that the color of Mayu's eyes were red, but Mayu either didn't notice the alarmed expression on Steve's face, or didn't care.
"Anyway, the cavern is a place just outside of the shrine, a place of great spiritual power. I warned Talila never to go into the shrine, because it could hurt her, but... it's important to get you back to your world as quickly as possible." Mayu said.
Mayu's then gave Steve a mischievous smile, "Or else, you could die. Then you'd *really* be a ghost. Hee hee hee."
Something about this woman made the hairs in the back of Steve Knox's neck stand up on end. Maybe it was that smile on her face, maybe it was the fact that he could now tell that she wasn't really one of the living, or maybe it was the prospect of dying. The prospect of his own mortality definitely never occurred to him before.
Talila sighed, leaning against the wall, "So, I have to go into that cavern, too?"
"Oh, yes. It's part of your training as a shaman, you know. You have a connection to this man, now. That's why he's here in your home." Mayu said, again with a smile, "What's in the cavern is only for you two."
Mayu then stopped and looked at Steve before getting close enough to him that the idea of "personal space" was nothing more than a moot point. She then started whispering into his ear, "Oh, but you're very cute. Why don't you just stay here with us? There aren't any male ghosts around her with all their body parts intact, if you catch my drift?"
Before an incredulous Steve Knox had time to respond, he was suddenly yanked backwards and out of the room by a slightly miffed Talila, "Okay, cavern outside? We're on it. Thanks, Mayu."
"What just happened?" asked Steve as he was being dragged out.
He then saw Mayu wave calmly on his way out, who called out to him, "Come back soon!"
* . *
Down the mountain from the Kuroyume Shrine was a small hole that led into a cavern system within the mountain. It was a dark, cursed place, almost writhing with malevolence. Talismans and wards had been placed around the entrance of the shrine, some attached to the mouth of the cave while others were placed on ropes just above the entrance.
Even Steve Knox, who was hardly what one would consider to be "spiritually aware", knew that this place was bad news. He stared at the maw of this black abyss, unable to see inside. He knew he shouldn't go in, but the girl dressed in the shrine maiden's uniform stood right by him, a lantern clutched in front of her legs. So, Steve decided to ask the question that's on his mind.
"So, what's the story with this place?" he asked.
"As I mentioned before, Kuroyume Shrine is sort of a gathering place for spirits who haven't gone to Paradise yet. They've usually left some sort of regret in the living world when they die, so that's why they haven't passed on." Talila said, staring into the empty void directly in front of them, "This place, however, took in grudges. Murdered spirits who wanted revenge on those that killed them. From what Mayu's told me, one of my ancestors constructed a miniature shrine within this cave to trap these grudges, in order to prevent them from harming the people and spirits who live in the shrine."
Steve looked at Talila like she was crazy.
"And you're telling me we've got to go in there?" Steve said with a severely concerned tone.
"Yes..." responded the shaman in probably the most unsure tone she'd ever allowed herself to make in front of Steve Knox. Apparently, she wasn't so thrilled to be her, herself. Steve sighed, and placed a hand on the girl's shoulder.
"Don't worry, I don't *think* anything bad will happen," Steve told Talila, before he sighed, "So, what are we looking for in this place?"
"There's supposed to be a wall of mirrors in the back of the cave. You must see yourself in the mirror." Talila explained, before she paused, frowned, and added, "I won't know what will happen until we try it, though."
After bringing a light to her lantern, Talila grabbed Steve by his hand with her other hand. They walked into the cavern together, the only thing illuminating the darkness at first being Talila's lantern. Steve Knox would never admit it to Talila, but he was one random cackle of laughter or ambient scratching sound from going into hysterics. Talila was also close to the breaking point, herself, and she felt as though something was gently caressing her hair. After a minute of walking, and dealing with that feeling, Talila couldn't take it any more.
She stopped and looked up at Steve, "Q-Quit fussing with my hair!"
"I'm sorry," Steve said, before he nervously chuckled, "I'm just wondering why your hair is so silky and smooth. You live out in the boonies."
Talila would have answered, but she noticed a light in the distance. She walked straight towards it, trying to ignore the bad vibes or Steve's sudden love affair with the texture of her hair, emerging in a large, brightly lit cave. The light seemed to come from an opening in the ceiling that allowed sunlight to come in, and the sunlight was then reflected off of the huge wall of mirrors on the far side of the room. Upon entering this room, Talila put out her lantern. After looking around the room and finding nothing but the mirrors, Talila and Steve exchanged a glance at one another.
After a brief pause, Steve had to comment, "I don't like this."
The unease in his voice was unmistakable. Even he could feel the malevolence that existed within this room and in this cave, and he wasn't even spiritually aware like Talila was. He couldn't imagine how she felt, nor did he really want to, the ability to be able to see and hear spirits was something he didn't exactly consider a gift.
Instead, his focus turned to the wall of mirrors.
Staring at his own reflection for a bit, Steve slowly started to approach the wall. He was now face-to-face with his reflection, but couldn't really sense anything. So he turned to Talila, "So, what do we do here?"
Talila didn't answer.
In fact, Steve noticed that her expression had turned into a stunned horror. He hated seeing that look on someone's face, especially when they're looking just past you. So, Steve turned back towards his reflection, and noticed that something was different about it. Actually, two somethings. The first was that it was smiling when Steve, himself, was not. The second was that there was a malevolent, sickly purple aura emanating from it. Before Steve had any time to react, his reflection grabbed him by his shirt, and pulled him straight through the mirror.
* . *
Steve landed on his stomach in a strange place.
It was a lot like the room he had just been in, but with several key differences. The walls were stained red with blood. The sunlight was gone, replaced by an almost sickly yellow glow. The ground pulsated as if it were alive. Most alarmingly, there was something similar to a giant beating heart hanging from veins that lined the ceiling. All in all, it was a very creepy and very evil place to get dragged into.
The ground felt like flesh to Steve, it was warm and it felt somewhat slimy. Nevertheless, he managed to get to his feet, wobbling a bit due to the ground's "living" nature. He turned around to see the wall, noticing that he could see Talila on the other side, though she was frightened and on the verge of tears. She gave no indication that she was aware of what was on the other side of the mirror.
"Welcome." said a voice. Steve was startled to find that it was eerily like his own voice if it were two of him speaking just a split second behind one another. He looked in the direction he thought the voice came from to find a man. And not just any man, but a man who looked and dressed just like him. The only difference between the two Steves, it seemed, were their eyes. The whites in the eyes were black, and the normally blue eyes of Steve Knox were instead a bright gold.
Steve glared at his doppelganger, "What the hell are you?"
"I'm you." the doppelganger said.
Steve Knox can't exactly accept that so easily, "What?"
"Perhaps," the doppelganger said, as he approached the real Steve, "You didn't hear me."
The doppelganger gripped his shirt with both hands, and tore it off his body, Hogan-style. He threw the two halves of the shirt down onto the ground, and then charged at Steve with astonishing speed. Throughout his career, Steve Knox had delivered many a Gold Rush to a hapless victim before, in order to pull out some great victories. However, getting hit in the face with his own lariat from a doppelganger version of himself was not exactly something he anticipated adding to his life experiences. Predictably, Steve Knox was knocked clear off his feet and he nearly landed on the back of his head.
If there was at least one saving grace to this side of the world, it was that the ground was rather soft on account of its living nature. But that served as no comfort to Steve Knox.
"I..." the doppelganger said, some distance from Steve Knox, seemingly distracted with something, "...am you."
Steve saw something familiar in the doppelganger's hand as he struggled to return to his feet. It was a weapon of familiarity to him, and no doubt, Steve Knox had been smashed in the head once or twice or thirty times in his career by such a thing: a metal folding chair. Worse yet, one covered in barbed wire.
"Aw, hell." muttered Steve.
"Wrestling is our life," the doppelganger said, as he dragged the chair across the fleshy floor with one hand, creating the almost unpleasant sound of barbed wire ripping through flesh even before it can make contact with Steve, "It's our past, our present, and our future."
The doppelganger swung the chair, one-handed and underhanded, towards Steve, who barely managed to roll out of the way before it could cause him injury. It was an awkward, unwrestling-like swing, and the doppelganger had a significant amount of delay before he was back to stalking Steve Knox with the chair. "The ring is all that matters. Victory is all that matters. The championships are all that matter. What do we care about other people? They get in our way."
Another swing with the chair, but Steve managed to avoid it.
"What the hell are you saying?" asked Steve, trying to gauge his double's movements.
The doppelganger moved so much like he did, although Steve would never be stupid enough to swing a steel chair at somebody with one arm. At least, that's what he told people on occasion, he'd certainly considered it once or twice. Another swing, and Steve managed to step aside. However, an attempt to punch his doppelganger in the face just led to his right fist getting caught in his other's free hand.
"I'm saying that you surround yourself with so many people, yet you are an island to yourself," the doppelganger said, before wrenching Steve's hand and wrist and bringing pain to his arm. The doppelganger sneered at Steve, "You are alone. You've always been alone. So what if the only girl that ever really liked you is leaving you? You're a superstar! You're the main event, man! So what if one little girl left you!? You can have any girl you want! And then throw them away when you're done! Just like Alexandria!"
He attempted to hit Steve with the chair with the free arm, but Steve grabbed the chair before it could hit him even though the barbed wire started to cut into his left hand, "Hey, dumbass. If you're me, you should already know something."
"Know what?"
"I'm not right-handed." Steve snapped, before he pushed the chair back just long enough to punch his doppelganger in the face with the left hand. Stunned, the doppelganger let go of both Steve and his weapon. Although he attempts to pick up the weapon again, Steve stopped him by stomping down on the chair and then hitting him in the head with a knee strike.
The doppelganger rose again, this time with black blood dripping from his mouth, but also a smirk, "You think you can defeat yourself in a battle of fisticuffs?"
Suddenly, Steve Knox's attention was diverted just a little past his doppelganger. Over the course of his scuffle with him, the doppelganger's back had been placed to the mirror's. He saw that Talila was attaching talismans, similar to those found at the entrance of the cavern, to the mirror. She was arranging it all in a pattern like a star. Steve smirked, himself, as he redirected his gaze back to his doppelganger, "Hey, you think that I'm alone?"
Steve Knox, taking advantage of the "breathing" nature of the floor, easily put a foot underneath the steel chair and kicked the chair up. He caught the chair in mid-flight and held it in both hands, "Aren't you forgetting the one person who knows everything about me, cares about me enough to keep meddling with my affairs, and acts as my conscience?"
By now, even the doppelganger realized what was going on and he sharply turns to look at Talila, on the other side of the mirror, who had just finished constructing the talisman arrangement. Both of her hands were outstretched, palms out, and a pure violet aura wasemanating from her body. He knew what was up, and his once smug expression suddenly disappeared, "...The shaman."
The moment the doppelganger's attention had wavered to look at what Talila was doing, Steve Knox suddenly threw the chair with all of the force he was capable of. The chair made a loud collision with the side of the doppelganger's head, and then stuck there because of the barbed wire. The doppelganger stood there for a few seconds, but he collapsed to a knee. Steve Knox rushed towards the mirror, ignoring the doppelganger from the moment he let go of the chair so he could make a mad rush. In his mind, whatever crazy thing Talila was doing to the mirror, he didn't want to be on this side of it when she was done. He dove right into the mirror, passing through it and landing right by Talila's feet. Although Talila was surprised by the action, she saw it as a chance to push a huge amount of the purple energy into the mirror.
Just as she did that, Steve's doppelganger tried to dive out of the mirror as well, specifically to try and grab Talila by her throat. Talila had just launched her power and didn't realize what was about to happen until it was late. However, she was rescued by Steve Knox, who grabbed her by the waist and pulled her back just in time. After a pause, Steve looked up as best as he could despite Talila being on top of him. The mirror and the doppelganger of himself looked like they'd been frozen in violet carbonite. They didn't move. Steve couldn't even feel the malevolence from the mirror any more.
"Geez, you really went to town." Steve said.
Talila coughed, turning over and looking at Steve with weary eyes, "Stupid. I was... so worried."
Perhaps it was because of the power she had unleashed to seal the mirror's malcontent, or because she was of weak constitution to begin with, but Talila was exhausted and short of breath. Talila buried her face in Steve's shoulder, and spoke to him between her labored breaths, "Can you... carry me back... to the shrine?"
Steve sighed, but nodded, "Only because you just saved my ass. Next time, you're walking."
* . *
Upon returning to the Kuroyume Shrine, Talila was taken to her futon in her bedroom. All of her jewelery were now removed, and placed in a small bowl nearby. Since getting back home, she had gone right to sleep. Steve knew that she slept a lot to begin with, however, so he didn't think much of it.
Steve watched Talila try to rest from the doorway, somewhat concerned for her well-being. As he did so, Mayu started to approach him from the hallway, "Ah, you're still here?"
"I figure my actual body's still sleeping. I'll be hanging around until it wakes up, I guess." Steve said, shrugging. Ever since Talila had entered his life, he had come to expect seeing his sleep serve as a method of communication. The idea that his mind was existing in one place while his body slept somewhere else didn't seem to phase him at all, now.
Mayu leaned over to look at the sleeping Talila, before looking at Steve, "Tali exerted herself quite severely to help you."
"She's got some unique abilities, I'll say that much." Steve said, continuing to watch the sleeping shaman.
Mayu smiled mischievously at Steve, an expression he found to be slightly distressing any time he saw it on her face, "Hee hee. You're quite taken with her, I see. No wonder you two are connected."
"What's that mean, 'connected'? You said it before, but I didn't make sense of it until now." Steve inquired.
"Hm, it's hard for me to explain since I'm not a shaman," Mayu said with a particularly ghostly smile, itself a feat since she was a ghost, "How I understand it is... Dream shamans talk to many people in their lifetimes through dreams. Eventually, they might meet somebody they're fascinated with, and go out of their way to meet with them again. Obviously, Tali's become fascinated by you."
"Huh." was Steve's response at first.
After a pause, he added, "Why?"
Mayu couldn't help but stifle a laugh, "I've been around a thousand years and I don't think even I could answer that for you. Tali's a strange girl even above strange girls. Perhaps it comes from being raised by ghosts like me."
Steve hadn't really thought about it, but he realized that he hadn't seen Talila's parents around. Based on Mayu's comments, he began to suspect that her parents weren't around for a reason, and he nodded slowly, "I see. So, tell me something."
"Hm?"
"You were the one who proposed we go to that cavern, so... what the hell was that about? I fought a bizarre version of myself inside a mirror." Steve said, attempting to pantomime the scenario with his hands.
Mayu got a very interested look on her face, as she leaned in closer to Steve, "Oh, really? Fascinating. The mirror is meant to allow the people drawn into it to see their flawed selves. To see your flaws and allow you to overcome them. People see different things in the mirror. You say you saw yourself... I'm not an expert on this, but perhaps you think yourself as completely flawed?"
Steve shrugged. He thought about the bizarre encounter he'd just survived, and remembered that everything about it seemed much like his daily life as a professional wrestler. Wrestling had been the family business in the past, and Steve Knox trained himself to the point of obsession. Then it finally hit Steve Knox, after all of this time. The entire purpose of this journey, the entire reason he was sent here in the first place, it came rushing back to him at once.
"Oh, God." Steve said, losing his own equilibrium just long enough for his shoulder to hit the wall.
Steve started laughing, the type of laughter that wasn't so much about the humor of the situation as it was about a man realizing just where he went wrong in life. He clutched the side of his head with his left hand, and let his laughter reach a crescendo, "I'm such a dumbass. I finally figured it out."
He sighed and closed his eyes, now leaning against the wall with both of his shoulders against it, and chuckled a little more to himself.
"I never loved Alexandria in the first place."
* . *
The moment those words escaped his lips in the dream world, Steve Knox found himself back in his bed, in the hotel room. It was now about 10:40 in the morning, and Steve groaned upon seeing the clock. He'd need to leave pretty quick.
Rolling out, and getting to his feet, Steve Knox looked in the direction he had thrown his cell phone in and picked it back up. It lit up after he checked the messages again, and the message from Alexandria appeared on the screen again.
"Steve, I'm breaking up with you."
Fumbling with his cell phone, Steve managed to barely type in the response he was looking for.
"ok."
With that settled, Steve could now have the rest of his day to himself.
Steve Knox's day began with six words sent to him by text message from Alexandria Malone.
"Steve, I'm breaking up with you."
It went downhill from there.
* . *
It was the morning, and Steve Knox had been woken up by the vibrating noise of his cell phone, placed on the nightstand next to his bed in the hotel room he was staying in.
Steve Knox stared at his cell phone for a long and agonizing moment, trying to let his mind, which was just waking up, process what was in his hand. To say that Steve Knox didn't expect such a message was like saying the people of Hiroshima didn't especially expect being bombed. After he realized that this text message wasn't a joke, he did the only thing that really made sense to him. He threw the phone into the nearest wall, though by some miracle, it did not break when it hit the wall since Steve did it half-heartedly.
Steve then rolled over to his side, pressed the pillow against his head, and went back to sleep.
* . *
"Hm? W-what are you doing here, Mr. Steve?"
Steve Knox found himself at a shrine. It was clearly built like a Shinto shrine, only built at the top of a tall mountain. Looking around, Steve was surprised to find that the area seemed perfectly normal for once. There was a clear blue sky, and there were many other mountains that surrounded the mountain that Steve was standing on top of. There was just one problem with the scenery: all of the ghosts that seemed to be floating around the shrine, doing their own thing. That freaked out the man who often called himself "Captain Awesome", if only because he still hadn't really gotten used to the whole "ghost" thing.
There was at least one living person, and in fact, she was the person who had just addressed him. She was a short girl with long black hair, about fourteen years old. She wore a white, sleeveless robe-like shirt, white sleeves with elongated cuffs that are detached from the robe and exposing her shoulders, and a red hakama, and a pair of wooden geta. She wore two sets of blue beads around her head like headbands, a necklace made out of the same blue beads with a red charm at the end, two wristbands made out of the same beads, and a belt, once again made of the same beads. She held a broom and seemed to be sweeping the ground before Steve had shown up.
Her name was Talila Yumeko, and she claimed to be a shaman who visited Steve Knox in his dreams. They hadn't spoken in months, not since the week before Steve Knox had become the NFW National Champion. Now, Steve no longer had that title or the PTC Elite Championship, nor did he have Alexandria Malone any more, apparently.
Steve watched the ghosts for a moment before turning his attention to the girl, "Talila? What is this place?"
"This, um..." Talila said, seemingly at a loss for words for once, "This is Kuroyume Shrine."
Talila held her broom out, and one of the ghosts came over to collect it from her. She started to approach Steve, her hands on her hips, and a curious expression on her face, "How, um... how did you get here?"
"Huh?" Steve asked, clearly confused, "I went to sleep like I normally do before you barge into my head."
Talila reached her hand out to touch Steve, but was shocked to find that her hand passed straight through his stomach. Steve noticed Talila's surprised expression, looked down, and developed a very similar expression, "What the hell?!"
"...You have me at a loss, Mr. Steve." Talila said, retracting her hand. She took a few steps backward, and motioned Steve to follow her, "Can you walk?"
Steve took a step forward, and nearly fell over in shock when his foot passed through the ground. He somehow did not fall through the ground entirely, however, instead he regained his footing and went back to his original position. Feeling embarrassed, Steve gave Talila a pleading look, "Little help?"
Talila looked at a couple of the ghosts in the area and motioned for them to give Steve a hand. Three male ghosts, all without lower torsos, came over to Steve and lifted him off the ground. Talila gestured for the ghosts to follow her, and so they did, bringing Steve into the shrine.
They entered a room with a single kotatsu (a low heated table used in Japan), located in the center of the room. There was a purple lotus flower placed in a bottle filled with water in the center of the table, and a teapot with a few tea cups next to the flower. There were a few shelves lining the walls, and a doorway in the back that led to a bathroom facility, Talila's bedroom, and a few other chambers. Talila sat down at the kotatsu, placing her legs underneath the heated blanket and shivering a bit from the ambient cold. Steve was set down across from Talila, and he very fortunately did not fall through the floor this time.
Talila's hands reached for the teapot, "I have to say, this is kind of unusual for me."
Steve seemed slightly confused, so he had to ask, "What do you mean?"
Talila nodded, pouring herself some tea. Steve noticed that it was a red-colored tea as she poured it, but didn't think much else of it, "I've frequently visited the dreams of people from other worlds, but this is the first time they've come to my home."
Steve blinked, "Huh?"
After failing to come up with any conclusions of his own, Steve let Talila continue on since she seemed to know more about this sort of thing than he did, "Did anything strange happen to you recently?"
"Don't you usually read this stuff from my subconscious?" Steve asked.
"Mr. Steve, I don't think I can state this any clearer. I'm not *in* your subconscious." Talila said, before she blew into her tea to cool it down before taking a sip of it. When she was done, Talila gestured at herself, "This is my real body."
Steve Knox was generally a guy with an average intelligence, but it only took him until now to realize why Talila had been so confused about his appearance here, and why he seemed to be the same as the ghosts that had been floating around outside of the shrine's grounds.
Upon closer examination of Talila, Steve realized that the girl seemed paler than she normally did when she would consult him in his sleep. He remembered his last conversation with the girl, some months ago, where she had confessed to him that she was really weak in reality. Steve thought that perhaps there had been truth in what Talila had been saying to him all along.
This wasn't a dream.
This was real.
"Did, um... did I die?" Steve asked.
"I don't know. People who die in these mountains are drawn to my shrine, but you live in another world entirely. It's... well, it's unprecedented. I'm the only dream shaman in this world, so I don't exactly have anyone to compare notes with. Which is why I asked if anything happened to you recently." Talila asked.
Steve had an inkling, "Do you remember when we first met?"
"I do. We spoke at the picnic table about your doubts." Talila said. She then started to giggle, hiding her smile with her left hand, "It felt like so long ago, though!"
"You told me something, you told me that winning the Elite Championship could bring me sorrow. More than I can know, in fact." Steve said, solemnly. Talila stopped giggling upon hearing the tone in Steve's voice. She stared at him for a bit before she stood up from her kotatsu.
"So, did something bad happened to you?" Talila asked, as she stepped away from the kotatsu.
"I lost both my titles in one night, then went unemployed in the national scene for three months because Eddie Mayfield shut down NFW's operations for the rest of the year, my brothers still hate me, I'm travelling around with a bunch of weirdos, I keep getting involved in weird crap like this, and now my girlfriend's dumped me." Steve Knox said, extending a finger for each item in his list as if he was counting them off.
Talila nodded as she picked up something from a nearby shelf. It looked like a tarnished silver tin can, about the size of a fist. Talila opened the can and pulled out a small handful of something resembling gray sand. She frowned upon examining it, "Sorry, Mr. Steve, this is going to be as unpleasant to me as it will be for you."
"Huh?" was the only thing Steve could say before Talila blew the dust into him.
Steve started gagging and coughing, briefly unable to breathe. His only solace was the fact that Talila, too, began coughing from the dust cloud. Once Steve's lungs finally stopped heaving and coughing, he looked over at Talila who looked a little worse for wear after that stunt, "Wh-what was THAT for!?"
Talila coughed, and looked at Steve with watery eyes, "I-it's something called 'ghost dust', it..." she said, before she went into a short coughing fit, "It only forms here at Kuroyume Shrine."
She closed the lid on the tin can, and set it back on the shelf. She then covered her mouth with her hand and started to cough a bit again, "It gives form to spirits, if only for a couple of hours. You won't fall through the floor if you walk."
Steve *did* notice that he could touch things again. He stood up and walked over to Talila, before he squatted down in front of her, enough so that they could be at eye level. Talila was taken aback by this, "What? What is it?"
"I've been wondering this for a while, but is there something wrong with your health?" Steve asked of the girl.
Talila didn't say anything, but instead grabbed Steve by his left hand, "Come with me."
Steve couldn't object to the fact that Talila just dodged his question, he had to resign himself to being dragged to another room, much further into the shrine. In fact, it was a room with another kotatsu, but the room was decorated in pink and purple colors, and notably had a sword placed on a mantle in the center wall of the room.
There was another person, a woman, who was sitting at the kotatsu. She didn't seem to be a ghost at first glance. She wore a purple beret on top of a head full of long, wavy white hair. Yet, despite the color of her hair, she had the appearance of a woman in her twenties. She wore a purple and white kimono with an indigo trim. Talila called out to her as soon as she entered the room, "Hey, Mayu!"
This woman named Mayu seemed to be in a daze for a brief moment of time, before she snapped to attention and looked at Talila and the man she was dragging behind her, "Hm? Dear me, who's that you're with?"
Steve noticed that her voice was like a high-pitched monotone, and almost dream-like in of itself.
"This is Mr. Steve. He's, um... how do I put this? Someone I met in the dreamscape, from another world." Talila explained.
"Oh?" Mayu asked, her expression turning more serious, her tone showing more emotion, "I see. Despair has fallen upon him, then. Then he has to go to the cavern, and you with him."
"The cavern? You mean... *that* cavern?" Talila asked. If it was at all possible, she actually turned paler, "Mayu, you told me never to go in that cavern."
Steve held his hands up, and then gave a time out signal, "Time out. What're you people talking about?"
"Ah," Mayu said, as she stood up, "Mister... Steve, I presume? I'm Mayu Aoame, the leader of the ghosts here. Oh, but I'm fully formed and can touch things, so I suppose we're no different right now."
"Uh...huh..." Steve said, not quite sure what to make of this weird woman. He noted with some alarm that the color of Mayu's eyes were red, but Mayu either didn't notice the alarmed expression on Steve's face, or didn't care.
"Anyway, the cavern is a place just outside of the shrine, a place of great spiritual power. I warned Talila never to go into the shrine, because it could hurt her, but... it's important to get you back to your world as quickly as possible." Mayu said.
Mayu's then gave Steve a mischievous smile, "Or else, you could die. Then you'd *really* be a ghost. Hee hee hee."
Something about this woman made the hairs in the back of Steve Knox's neck stand up on end. Maybe it was that smile on her face, maybe it was the fact that he could now tell that she wasn't really one of the living, or maybe it was the prospect of dying. The prospect of his own mortality definitely never occurred to him before.
Talila sighed, leaning against the wall, "So, I have to go into that cavern, too?"
"Oh, yes. It's part of your training as a shaman, you know. You have a connection to this man, now. That's why he's here in your home." Mayu said, again with a smile, "What's in the cavern is only for you two."
Mayu then stopped and looked at Steve before getting close enough to him that the idea of "personal space" was nothing more than a moot point. She then started whispering into his ear, "Oh, but you're very cute. Why don't you just stay here with us? There aren't any male ghosts around her with all their body parts intact, if you catch my drift?"
Before an incredulous Steve Knox had time to respond, he was suddenly yanked backwards and out of the room by a slightly miffed Talila, "Okay, cavern outside? We're on it. Thanks, Mayu."
"What just happened?" asked Steve as he was being dragged out.
He then saw Mayu wave calmly on his way out, who called out to him, "Come back soon!"
* . *
Down the mountain from the Kuroyume Shrine was a small hole that led into a cavern system within the mountain. It was a dark, cursed place, almost writhing with malevolence. Talismans and wards had been placed around the entrance of the shrine, some attached to the mouth of the cave while others were placed on ropes just above the entrance.
Even Steve Knox, who was hardly what one would consider to be "spiritually aware", knew that this place was bad news. He stared at the maw of this black abyss, unable to see inside. He knew he shouldn't go in, but the girl dressed in the shrine maiden's uniform stood right by him, a lantern clutched in front of her legs. So, Steve decided to ask the question that's on his mind.
"So, what's the story with this place?" he asked.
"As I mentioned before, Kuroyume Shrine is sort of a gathering place for spirits who haven't gone to Paradise yet. They've usually left some sort of regret in the living world when they die, so that's why they haven't passed on." Talila said, staring into the empty void directly in front of them, "This place, however, took in grudges. Murdered spirits who wanted revenge on those that killed them. From what Mayu's told me, one of my ancestors constructed a miniature shrine within this cave to trap these grudges, in order to prevent them from harming the people and spirits who live in the shrine."
Steve looked at Talila like she was crazy.
"And you're telling me we've got to go in there?" Steve said with a severely concerned tone.
"Yes..." responded the shaman in probably the most unsure tone she'd ever allowed herself to make in front of Steve Knox. Apparently, she wasn't so thrilled to be her, herself. Steve sighed, and placed a hand on the girl's shoulder.
"Don't worry, I don't *think* anything bad will happen," Steve told Talila, before he sighed, "So, what are we looking for in this place?"
"There's supposed to be a wall of mirrors in the back of the cave. You must see yourself in the mirror." Talila explained, before she paused, frowned, and added, "I won't know what will happen until we try it, though."
After bringing a light to her lantern, Talila grabbed Steve by his hand with her other hand. They walked into the cavern together, the only thing illuminating the darkness at first being Talila's lantern. Steve Knox would never admit it to Talila, but he was one random cackle of laughter or ambient scratching sound from going into hysterics. Talila was also close to the breaking point, herself, and she felt as though something was gently caressing her hair. After a minute of walking, and dealing with that feeling, Talila couldn't take it any more.
She stopped and looked up at Steve, "Q-Quit fussing with my hair!"
"I'm sorry," Steve said, before he nervously chuckled, "I'm just wondering why your hair is so silky and smooth. You live out in the boonies."
Talila would have answered, but she noticed a light in the distance. She walked straight towards it, trying to ignore the bad vibes or Steve's sudden love affair with the texture of her hair, emerging in a large, brightly lit cave. The light seemed to come from an opening in the ceiling that allowed sunlight to come in, and the sunlight was then reflected off of the huge wall of mirrors on the far side of the room. Upon entering this room, Talila put out her lantern. After looking around the room and finding nothing but the mirrors, Talila and Steve exchanged a glance at one another.
After a brief pause, Steve had to comment, "I don't like this."
The unease in his voice was unmistakable. Even he could feel the malevolence that existed within this room and in this cave, and he wasn't even spiritually aware like Talila was. He couldn't imagine how she felt, nor did he really want to, the ability to be able to see and hear spirits was something he didn't exactly consider a gift.
Instead, his focus turned to the wall of mirrors.
Staring at his own reflection for a bit, Steve slowly started to approach the wall. He was now face-to-face with his reflection, but couldn't really sense anything. So he turned to Talila, "So, what do we do here?"
Talila didn't answer.
In fact, Steve noticed that her expression had turned into a stunned horror. He hated seeing that look on someone's face, especially when they're looking just past you. So, Steve turned back towards his reflection, and noticed that something was different about it. Actually, two somethings. The first was that it was smiling when Steve, himself, was not. The second was that there was a malevolent, sickly purple aura emanating from it. Before Steve had any time to react, his reflection grabbed him by his shirt, and pulled him straight through the mirror.
* . *
Steve landed on his stomach in a strange place.
It was a lot like the room he had just been in, but with several key differences. The walls were stained red with blood. The sunlight was gone, replaced by an almost sickly yellow glow. The ground pulsated as if it were alive. Most alarmingly, there was something similar to a giant beating heart hanging from veins that lined the ceiling. All in all, it was a very creepy and very evil place to get dragged into.
The ground felt like flesh to Steve, it was warm and it felt somewhat slimy. Nevertheless, he managed to get to his feet, wobbling a bit due to the ground's "living" nature. He turned around to see the wall, noticing that he could see Talila on the other side, though she was frightened and on the verge of tears. She gave no indication that she was aware of what was on the other side of the mirror.
"Welcome." said a voice. Steve was startled to find that it was eerily like his own voice if it were two of him speaking just a split second behind one another. He looked in the direction he thought the voice came from to find a man. And not just any man, but a man who looked and dressed just like him. The only difference between the two Steves, it seemed, were their eyes. The whites in the eyes were black, and the normally blue eyes of Steve Knox were instead a bright gold.
Steve glared at his doppelganger, "What the hell are you?"
"I'm you." the doppelganger said.
Steve Knox can't exactly accept that so easily, "What?"
"Perhaps," the doppelganger said, as he approached the real Steve, "You didn't hear me."
The doppelganger gripped his shirt with both hands, and tore it off his body, Hogan-style. He threw the two halves of the shirt down onto the ground, and then charged at Steve with astonishing speed. Throughout his career, Steve Knox had delivered many a Gold Rush to a hapless victim before, in order to pull out some great victories. However, getting hit in the face with his own lariat from a doppelganger version of himself was not exactly something he anticipated adding to his life experiences. Predictably, Steve Knox was knocked clear off his feet and he nearly landed on the back of his head.
If there was at least one saving grace to this side of the world, it was that the ground was rather soft on account of its living nature. But that served as no comfort to Steve Knox.
"I..." the doppelganger said, some distance from Steve Knox, seemingly distracted with something, "...am you."
Steve saw something familiar in the doppelganger's hand as he struggled to return to his feet. It was a weapon of familiarity to him, and no doubt, Steve Knox had been smashed in the head once or twice or thirty times in his career by such a thing: a metal folding chair. Worse yet, one covered in barbed wire.
"Aw, hell." muttered Steve.
"Wrestling is our life," the doppelganger said, as he dragged the chair across the fleshy floor with one hand, creating the almost unpleasant sound of barbed wire ripping through flesh even before it can make contact with Steve, "It's our past, our present, and our future."
The doppelganger swung the chair, one-handed and underhanded, towards Steve, who barely managed to roll out of the way before it could cause him injury. It was an awkward, unwrestling-like swing, and the doppelganger had a significant amount of delay before he was back to stalking Steve Knox with the chair. "The ring is all that matters. Victory is all that matters. The championships are all that matter. What do we care about other people? They get in our way."
Another swing with the chair, but Steve managed to avoid it.
"What the hell are you saying?" asked Steve, trying to gauge his double's movements.
The doppelganger moved so much like he did, although Steve would never be stupid enough to swing a steel chair at somebody with one arm. At least, that's what he told people on occasion, he'd certainly considered it once or twice. Another swing, and Steve managed to step aside. However, an attempt to punch his doppelganger in the face just led to his right fist getting caught in his other's free hand.
"I'm saying that you surround yourself with so many people, yet you are an island to yourself," the doppelganger said, before wrenching Steve's hand and wrist and bringing pain to his arm. The doppelganger sneered at Steve, "You are alone. You've always been alone. So what if the only girl that ever really liked you is leaving you? You're a superstar! You're the main event, man! So what if one little girl left you!? You can have any girl you want! And then throw them away when you're done! Just like Alexandria!"
He attempted to hit Steve with the chair with the free arm, but Steve grabbed the chair before it could hit him even though the barbed wire started to cut into his left hand, "Hey, dumbass. If you're me, you should already know something."
"Know what?"
"I'm not right-handed." Steve snapped, before he pushed the chair back just long enough to punch his doppelganger in the face with the left hand. Stunned, the doppelganger let go of both Steve and his weapon. Although he attempts to pick up the weapon again, Steve stopped him by stomping down on the chair and then hitting him in the head with a knee strike.
The doppelganger rose again, this time with black blood dripping from his mouth, but also a smirk, "You think you can defeat yourself in a battle of fisticuffs?"
Suddenly, Steve Knox's attention was diverted just a little past his doppelganger. Over the course of his scuffle with him, the doppelganger's back had been placed to the mirror's. He saw that Talila was attaching talismans, similar to those found at the entrance of the cavern, to the mirror. She was arranging it all in a pattern like a star. Steve smirked, himself, as he redirected his gaze back to his doppelganger, "Hey, you think that I'm alone?"
Steve Knox, taking advantage of the "breathing" nature of the floor, easily put a foot underneath the steel chair and kicked the chair up. He caught the chair in mid-flight and held it in both hands, "Aren't you forgetting the one person who knows everything about me, cares about me enough to keep meddling with my affairs, and acts as my conscience?"
By now, even the doppelganger realized what was going on and he sharply turns to look at Talila, on the other side of the mirror, who had just finished constructing the talisman arrangement. Both of her hands were outstretched, palms out, and a pure violet aura wasemanating from her body. He knew what was up, and his once smug expression suddenly disappeared, "...The shaman."
The moment the doppelganger's attention had wavered to look at what Talila was doing, Steve Knox suddenly threw the chair with all of the force he was capable of. The chair made a loud collision with the side of the doppelganger's head, and then stuck there because of the barbed wire. The doppelganger stood there for a few seconds, but he collapsed to a knee. Steve Knox rushed towards the mirror, ignoring the doppelganger from the moment he let go of the chair so he could make a mad rush. In his mind, whatever crazy thing Talila was doing to the mirror, he didn't want to be on this side of it when she was done. He dove right into the mirror, passing through it and landing right by Talila's feet. Although Talila was surprised by the action, she saw it as a chance to push a huge amount of the purple energy into the mirror.
Just as she did that, Steve's doppelganger tried to dive out of the mirror as well, specifically to try and grab Talila by her throat. Talila had just launched her power and didn't realize what was about to happen until it was late. However, she was rescued by Steve Knox, who grabbed her by the waist and pulled her back just in time. After a pause, Steve looked up as best as he could despite Talila being on top of him. The mirror and the doppelganger of himself looked like they'd been frozen in violet carbonite. They didn't move. Steve couldn't even feel the malevolence from the mirror any more.
"Geez, you really went to town." Steve said.
Talila coughed, turning over and looking at Steve with weary eyes, "Stupid. I was... so worried."
Perhaps it was because of the power she had unleashed to seal the mirror's malcontent, or because she was of weak constitution to begin with, but Talila was exhausted and short of breath. Talila buried her face in Steve's shoulder, and spoke to him between her labored breaths, "Can you... carry me back... to the shrine?"
Steve sighed, but nodded, "Only because you just saved my ass. Next time, you're walking."
* . *
Upon returning to the Kuroyume Shrine, Talila was taken to her futon in her bedroom. All of her jewelery were now removed, and placed in a small bowl nearby. Since getting back home, she had gone right to sleep. Steve knew that she slept a lot to begin with, however, so he didn't think much of it.
Steve watched Talila try to rest from the doorway, somewhat concerned for her well-being. As he did so, Mayu started to approach him from the hallway, "Ah, you're still here?"
"I figure my actual body's still sleeping. I'll be hanging around until it wakes up, I guess." Steve said, shrugging. Ever since Talila had entered his life, he had come to expect seeing his sleep serve as a method of communication. The idea that his mind was existing in one place while his body slept somewhere else didn't seem to phase him at all, now.
Mayu leaned over to look at the sleeping Talila, before looking at Steve, "Tali exerted herself quite severely to help you."
"She's got some unique abilities, I'll say that much." Steve said, continuing to watch the sleeping shaman.
Mayu smiled mischievously at Steve, an expression he found to be slightly distressing any time he saw it on her face, "Hee hee. You're quite taken with her, I see. No wonder you two are connected."
"What's that mean, 'connected'? You said it before, but I didn't make sense of it until now." Steve inquired.
"Hm, it's hard for me to explain since I'm not a shaman," Mayu said with a particularly ghostly smile, itself a feat since she was a ghost, "How I understand it is... Dream shamans talk to many people in their lifetimes through dreams. Eventually, they might meet somebody they're fascinated with, and go out of their way to meet with them again. Obviously, Tali's become fascinated by you."
"Huh." was Steve's response at first.
After a pause, he added, "Why?"
Mayu couldn't help but stifle a laugh, "I've been around a thousand years and I don't think even I could answer that for you. Tali's a strange girl even above strange girls. Perhaps it comes from being raised by ghosts like me."
Steve hadn't really thought about it, but he realized that he hadn't seen Talila's parents around. Based on Mayu's comments, he began to suspect that her parents weren't around for a reason, and he nodded slowly, "I see. So, tell me something."
"Hm?"
"You were the one who proposed we go to that cavern, so... what the hell was that about? I fought a bizarre version of myself inside a mirror." Steve said, attempting to pantomime the scenario with his hands.
Mayu got a very interested look on her face, as she leaned in closer to Steve, "Oh, really? Fascinating. The mirror is meant to allow the people drawn into it to see their flawed selves. To see your flaws and allow you to overcome them. People see different things in the mirror. You say you saw yourself... I'm not an expert on this, but perhaps you think yourself as completely flawed?"
Steve shrugged. He thought about the bizarre encounter he'd just survived, and remembered that everything about it seemed much like his daily life as a professional wrestler. Wrestling had been the family business in the past, and Steve Knox trained himself to the point of obsession. Then it finally hit Steve Knox, after all of this time. The entire purpose of this journey, the entire reason he was sent here in the first place, it came rushing back to him at once.
"Oh, God." Steve said, losing his own equilibrium just long enough for his shoulder to hit the wall.
Steve started laughing, the type of laughter that wasn't so much about the humor of the situation as it was about a man realizing just where he went wrong in life. He clutched the side of his head with his left hand, and let his laughter reach a crescendo, "I'm such a dumbass. I finally figured it out."
He sighed and closed his eyes, now leaning against the wall with both of his shoulders against it, and chuckled a little more to himself.
"I never loved Alexandria in the first place."
* . *
The moment those words escaped his lips in the dream world, Steve Knox found himself back in his bed, in the hotel room. It was now about 10:40 in the morning, and Steve groaned upon seeing the clock. He'd need to leave pretty quick.
Rolling out, and getting to his feet, Steve Knox looked in the direction he had thrown his cell phone in and picked it back up. It lit up after he checked the messages again, and the message from Alexandria appeared on the screen again.
"Steve, I'm breaking up with you."
Fumbling with his cell phone, Steve managed to barely type in the response he was looking for.
"ok."
With that settled, Steve could now have the rest of his day to himself.