renner
League Member
- Joined
- Mar 4, 2004
- Messages
- 178
- Points
- 0
- Age
- 40
- Location
- Oakland, TN, USA
- Website
- www.fetchquest.com
RP for the Elite Championship, and also the second round of the SCCW No Limit Tournament.
Billy, I swear to God, if you respond to this, I won't love you any more. XD
--
Since the sudden passing of Jimmy Smalls, Steve Knox couldn't get his last conversation with the man out of his head.
Jimmy told Steve that he had seen a vision of a girl, who told him that he would soon die. Sure enough, he had died. However, that didn't disturb Steve nearly as much as one detail, a necklace with a blood red jewel. Steve had seen that necklace before, for it belonged to a girl he knew named Talila Yumeko.
The problem was, Talila did not exist in his world, but in another world entirely. Or so he'd been led to believe, but his encounter with Jimmy that night in Providence had shaken his faith in the little "dream shaman".
Was she truly trying to help Steve Knox, or was she really a harbinger of death?
He needed answers.
And he needed them from an unusual source.
* . *
March 27th, 2009; New Orleans, Louisiana
Steve Knox could not tell anyone where he intended to go. That's why he told his friends that he was taking a booking over in Japan for a couple of days and that he would be back in time for the next few dates. He left the bus in the care of his "posse", and left for an airport. He did not depart for Japan, however, but instead departed for the city of New Orleans, in Louisiana.
He already knew that the Cosmo Kid would know that he was lying, and that something was up. Cosmo had a knack for knowing anything and everything, after all. However, Steve didn't care. If he didn't find answers as soon as possible, Steve feared that hisnew found paranoia would consume him and his friends.
The reason for the trip to New Orleans was to speak with a medium that his father claimed to have met, once.
Earl Knox had a fascination with the otherworldly. One could say that the man was highly superstitious. Steve remembered all of the little rituals that Earl would do before he stepped into the ring. He always wore the same necklace to the ring. He always kissed that necklace before setting it on the ring post before entering the ring. He always made a motion of pinching his nose whenever he was going to do something risky in a match.
All of those things were for luck, and a superstitious belief that <b>not</b> doing these things would invite a hex upon himself.
Not only was he superstitious, but he was also fascinated with ghosts and mediums. Although he would tell his son that he'd never seen one, a fact that Steve didn't really believe considering that he's seen them himself, he would meet with whatever mediums he could find whenever he travelled.
One such medium was a man named Roberto Lindhurst.
Earl trusted in this man's abilities enough to tell Steve about them. He was said to be a secretive sort of person, who didn't display his abilities to show them off. Rather, he carried the ability to exist in the realms of both humans and spirits as a heavy burden. He didn't want to be burdened by human society, so he became a hermit and a recluse.
Steve thought to meet this man as soon as he had heard about Jimmy's death, but two things delayed his plan. The first was knowing nothing about Lindhurst other than his name and his last known address. The second was his match with Legion at Temptation: Knoxville, the first round of the all-important "No Limit Tournament", which delayed his plans to head to New Orleans.
A third problem that arose was that he didn't even have a lot of time to waste tracking down the medium. Prior to the trip, he had to make a phone call to the only person he knew who lived in New Orleans, and unfortunately, that person was Coral Avalon, a man that Steve wasn't exactly on friendly terms with. However, Coral did check into it for him, and eventually called him back to tell him his last known location.
So, that was the reason why Steve Knox stood in front of a house in the middle of a suburb in New Orleans. It was recently built, so it didn't show any signs of damage following Hurricane Katrina. The house was small, probably only large enough to have a living room, bedroom, bathroom, and a kitchen. It had a layered-type of panelling, painted a pale yellow. The roof was brown, shaped in an upside-down Vfashion. The lawn was quite well-maintained, and freshly cut. The only really noticeable features of the front lawn, though, were a recently-planted tree sapling on the left side of the lawn, and a cobblestone path that led from the driveway into the entrance of the house.
Upon pulling up to the side of the street and looking at the house, Steve Knox had the faintest sense of <a href="http://community.primetimecentral.net/showpost.php?p=274211&postcount=2">déjà vu</a>.
"Have I... been here before?" he further asked himself, before he shook it off.
Departing his rental car, Steve walked along the driveway and then along the cobblestone path.
Once he got to the front door, he knocked on it once, paused, and then knocked three more times. After waiting briefly, he was confronted with not the person he was initially looking for, but instead, a girl. She had a slight frame and couldn't have been taller than five feet in height. She was at least part-Japanese, and was actually about twenty years old. Her black hair was shoulder-length, and she had blue eyes. She wore a faded AC/DC T-shirt with the sleeves cut off, and a pair of jeans. She didn't wear any shoes, but she did wear some pink-colored socks. She looked pale, but most likely, this was because she didn't leave her house very often.
Steve blinked a couple of times at this hermit girl, while she sort of wrinkled her nose at Steve, "Can I help you, mister?"
"Um, yeah... I'm looking for a Roberto Lindhurst?"
The girl paused, "I'm sorry, he's no longer among the living. I'm his daughter."
Steve sounded disappointed, and repeated a line he'd found himself saying more and more lately, "...I'm sorry for your loss."
"Don't worry about it, it happened a while ago." the girl said, before she paused, and looked at Steve. Steve was a bit uncomfortable with the girl's stare, but eventually, she stopped and inquired, "A-Are you related to the Knox family, by any chance?"
Steve stammered a bit, caught off-guard by the girl's question, "Uh, yeah... yeah, my name's Steve Knox."
The girl seemed taken aback by his response, but composed herself quickly.
"Um... m-my dad told me, before he passed away, that someone from the Knox family would inevitably come looking for him. He was apparently acquainted with your father for a time." the girl said, before she stopped and slapped the side of her head as if she'd forgotten something, "Oh, uh, sorry... my name's Reimi, by the way."
Steve sighed, while scratching his head in embarassment, "Well, uh... this is actually kind of disappointing. I hoping to find a medium."
"Well, you're looking at one." was Reimi's response, which caused Steve Knox to perk up, though he was too taken aback to respond, "Both my parents were spiritualists, so to speak. I guess I inherited some of that. I don't know how much help I can be to you, though."
Reimi opened the door all the way and stepped aside, looking shyly at Steve, "Um... C-come in. I'll be with you in a bit."
* . *
After a few minutes, Steve Knox found himself in a dark room in the basement of the Lindhurst home. The room was dark, and lined with shelves which, themselves, had candles all around. Steve counted at least twenty of these candles, all of which were currently unlit. Reimi had told him to go down into the basement not long after coming into her home. As he sat there waiting, he once again got a feeling of déjà vu. He'd felt like he'd been in a situation like this before.
Reimi came into the room after a few minutes. She had changed into a purple kimono with a white flower pattern, with a pink obi (a type of belt used for kimonos) and a pair of wooden geta (block-like sandals). The sleeves of the kimono were so long that Steve couldn't see her hands, so he assumed that the kimono was made for somebody else.
"Sorry about the wait," Reimi said, as she began to light the candles using a long match, "It's hard to put the belt on for this thing."
Steve said nothing in response to this, and instead waited patiently for Reimi to light the candles. When all candles were lit, Reimi sat down across from Steve Knox. She maintained a passive expression, but her stare began to discomfort Steve. Finally, she spoke, "What is it that you came here for?"
Steve never spoke of his dreams to anyone. He feared that it was a figment of his imagination, but now knew that they were more than that. He decided to start with the truth, "Since... August, I believe, I've been getting strange dreams."
"Dreams?" Reimi asked.
"Yeah. I still vaguely remember the first one. I started in front of a house, almost exactly like yours. Then I'd end up in a room... very much like this one. And I met a girl who could change and warp the dreams I'm experiencing. She'd know things that neither of us should know. She could almost predict what was going to happen to me." Steve said. After get through this part of his story, he paused to breathe and recompose himself before he continued, "Up until last week, I thought I was just going nuts. I've gone through a lot of troubling things in the last five years, so I just assumed that it was something like PTSD."
"Then?" Reimi asked, assuming there was more to the story.
"I met a guy, friend of the family, who told me that he met a girl very similar to the one I knew in my dreams. She told him that he would soon die, and the morning after, I got a phone call telling me exactly that." Steve said. He sighed nervously, before he concluded the story, "So, that's what I wanted to track down your dad. I wanted somebody who knew about this spiritualist stuff to give me some answers."
Reimi took in everything that Steve Knox had said.
Finally, she cleared her throat, "Mr. Knox, there was another reason I let you into my home."
"Huh?"
"I could already tell that you have something like a specter hanging over you." Reimi said. The stare in the girl's eyes reminded Steve very slightly of the stare that Talila, the shaman of his dreams, would often give him. She continued, "It's really curious."
"Curious?" Steve asked nervously, "That's... uh, that's an odd word to describe something like that."
Reimi slowly nodded, "It's curious because I sense... nothing from it. Neither benevolence nor malevolence. Truly a hollow spirit."
"A hollow spirit? What the heck does that mean?"
"Hmm. If I may be allowed to present a theory... I believe the specter that hovers over you is like a shikigami. Esoterics in the west control them as familiars or, in simpler terms for you, minions." Reimi explained, "They don't really have thoughts or feelings of their own, so they can be controlled easily by the esoterics. And they perform all kinds of tasks. I even hear they're sometimes used to curse people, though I've honestly never seen it myself."
"Wait, I'm cursed?" Steve asked, incredulously, before he paused and gave it a short bit of thought before he added, "Because that would certainly explain a lot of things."
"It's hard to say," Reimi admitted with a sigh, "Since they're hollow, it's hard to predict what they're meant to do. Would you allow me to remove this shikigami for you?"
Steve only nodded in agreement. Reimi reached across the table and took Steve by his hands, pulling them to the center of the table. She gave Steve a short stare before she gave him some instructions, "I want for you to close your eyes and breathe deeply. Try not to think about what's going on around you. Focus on the color black."
"Black?"
"Yes. Focus on that, if you don't mind." was Reimi's response.
So, Steve thought about the color black. He thought about how dreary the color was, and how he couldn't comprehend why it was such a popular color. Yet, at the same time, even he believed that black went with just about anything. After all, his wrestling tights wereprimarily black, so why would he be complaining, now, about the color's popularity? Maybe it was those goth kids. He never really got that whole subculture, with their rap and their hip hop. At least, he thought those were the people who were into rap and hip hop. After a short thought, Steve thought to ask Chris Chambers later, since he seemed to be up on that culture. Although he certainly never wore black, but maybe Chambers was an exception to that rule. Steve then started to think that maybe Chris Chambers didn't know anything about that culture and that he should ask a different expert. Unfortunately, Steve drew a blank on other resident experts on that type of culture, and thought that maybe if they came out of their caves, stopped cutting their wrists, and listened to normal music, they would be perfectly functioning members of society. And that would be awesome in his bo--
Wait, what was that?
"Spirits, I beseech thee," Reimi spoke with a commanding tone, as if truly speaking with the spirits. Her eyes were closed and her attention was drawn away from Steve Knox, rather, she seemed look past him now, "Hear my voice, and make a path to the one that controls you. Let go of your inhibitions, speak nothing but the truth, and show me what remains to be seen!"
Upon speaking those words, Steve Knox felt and heard the table rattle. It wasn't a heavy rattle, rather, it was more like a vibration. He opted to keep his eyes shut, unaware that the flames of the candles were unnaturally flaring up. Reimi kept her focus on the shikigami, trying to match wills with the person in control of it.
Steve suddenly felt the black color he was concentrating on becoming white.
His awareness of this white was such that when he opened his eyes, he found himself in a completely white, featureless space. He looked around for a few seconds, confused as to why he was in this space or why he was suddenly standing.
"Honestly... I'm disappointed, Mr. Steve."
The voice seemed as though it came out of nowhere, so Steve turned around until he could spot the source. It was a young girl, much shorter than he was, who looked to be in her early teens. Her black hair reached the middle of her back, and she wore a light green dress, the skirt of which ended at the knees. The most striking things she wore aside from this, though, were the blue beads. She had two sets of them wrapped around her forehead, two sets of them worn as bracelets, one set wrapped around her waist as a belt, and a necklace made out of the beads with a blood red jewel at the end.
Steve knew who this girl was, because she was the reason that he came to the home of Reimi Lindhurst in the first place.
She was Talila Yumeko.
* . *
"Disappointed?" Steve asked. He kept his distance from the girl, unsure of what will occur with this encounter.
Talila had been involved in Steve's life since August of last year. She had served as a sort of a guide to Steve, and even showed him the world she lived in back in November. She called herself a "dream shaman", but it was more accurate to say that she was a spirit medium who specialized in seeing the dreams of others. Steve had been led to believe that Talila's real body was weak and sickly, so the girl he saw in his dreams was what she would look like were she a healthy girl.
She had her arms crossed in front of her chest, "Monumentally."
Steve always felt a certain degree of tension and unease when meeting Talila. She had an off-putting manner about her, and always seemed to know what was going on in Steve's life better than Steve himself did. Steve knew that this sudden meeting was filled with bad vibes, but he also knew that he didn't have very many ways of escaping this encounter.
"So... what are you disappointed about?" was the only thing Steve Knox could manage to say.
Talila stepped in such a way that only her left side was facing Steve. Her arms remained crossed, her irritated expression still apparent on her face, "How did you manage to come this far, without figuring out who I was?"
"What are you so irritated about? You're the one who put that shikawhatever on me, weren't you?" Steve asked, a bit agitated himself. He really didn't know what was going on, and he really needed the answers.
Talila sighed, and rubbed the back of her neck in frustration as she turned to face Steve again, "And what if I was? Would you understand the significance of it? Or do you truly believe that I had ill intentions for you? Maybe you think I'm putting a curse on you? I don't know, really, what do you think?"
"I don't KNOW!" snapped Steve. His tension was reaching a breaking point. He shook, and grabbed at his hair with his hands in trying to control the rising tension in his body. He exhaled deeply, and crouched down, looking at the white, featureless ground he was standing in. He had trouble breathing, as if the air around him suddenly fled from his panic.
After a moment's pause, Talila crouched down in front of Steve so that her head was level with Steve's. She spoke softly, "There is something I must ask you, Mr. Steve."
Steve could barely get out his next, simple question, "What?"
"Five years ago. Did something happen to you that you considered to be unusual?" Talila asked. It didn't take Steve Knox very long to figure out exactly what the girl had meant. It was an incident that he cared not to mention, because it was too fantastic to have believed that it had ever happened to him. Whenever something reminded him of that incident, he always summed it up in a single, solitary word.
"Pasadena."
"...Yes." was Talila's solemn response. She stood up, and backed away from Steve, "Mr. Steve... I have a confession to make."
"What?"
Talila sighed, "I've been lying to you. I'm really not really from another world. I'm just a normal person, like you. The only thing that makes me different from other people you know is that my heart is connected to yours. I am made manifest, here before you, because we were both there on that day."
"Then... the incident in November? When you pulled me into your world?" Steve asked.
"A genetic memory, from my ancestors who once took care of a haunted mountain shrine. And the ghost you met, Mayu, is actually the guardian spirit of my family." Talila responded, sighing as she stood up, "I'm sorry."
Steve didn't know what to do or say, but he suddenly felt a little calmer. At least, he felt calm enough to ask the next question, "So... we met?"
Talila suddenly seemed paler, as she began to walk away from Steve. She then turned back towards him, "Yes. In Pasadena, you risked your life to save mine, a fact I didn't forget. I've spent years trying to find out your name and who you were. And then... there you were, on my television. A professional wrestler. Steve Knox. You were just nineteen years old back then, an idealistic kid who wanted to follow in his father's footsteps, and got caught in the middle of that ugly incident."
Talila's legs shook, as she coughed into her hand, "I... I haven't forgotten. So, all I've wanted to do was help you. But I couldn't help you when you're so far from me, all I could do was read you from afar, our hearts connected as they are. I've... I've tried to guide you all this time, so that one day... we could meet."
Talila's collapsed to her knees, and then fell to her side, which caused Steve to pick himself up and rush over to her side.
He examined the girl's hand to find blood on its palm. He lifted Talila's head so that she could look at him, "H-hey, what's going on with you?"
"Th-this shikigami... I don't... n-need it any more. See... see you... around." she could barely get out, between her coughs. She then suddenly stopped coughing, her eyes becoming vacant and her breathing slowing to a stop.
"Hey... Tali? TALI!"
As Steve attempted to shake the lifeless girl awake, however, his perception of reality began to falter once again.
Soon enough, the only thing he could see was black, again.
* . *
Steve's attention suddenly snapped up, and he found himself back in the basement of Reimi Lindhurst. Sitting across from him, with her chin resting on the top of the palms of her hands, was Reimi.
She smiled at him.
"I'm sorry." Reimi said, "For what I put you through."
"What... what just happened?" Steve asked, not sure what was going on any more.
Reimi reached into the inside of her kimono and produced a necklace. It was made out of blue beads, and had a blood red jewel attached to the end of it. Steve stared at it, completely dumbfounded.
"I'm truly sorry. I only meant to comfort Mr. Smalls before he passed on, since you were close to him. I never imagined he would tell you about me, and that you would actually seek out my late father for council." Reimi said, moving her hands into her lap and looking apologetic.
Steve no longer felt his previous tension, and instead, it was just replaced with great confusion, "Wh-what's going on?"
Reimi sighed. She shook her head at Steve, confounded as to why he hadn't figured it out yet, "I was Talila, Mr. Steve. Or, rather, I was presenting myself to you in her form, using some fortune telling to vaguely determine what would happen to you."
When put in simple terms like this, even Steve could figure it out, "Then, the 'shikigami' you were removing..."
"Was the manifestation of me as Talila, yes." Reimi said, before she smiled at him. Despite her smile, tears began to well up in her eyes, "I-I'd always dreamed of meeting you. You're my hero, after all."
Steve hesitated.
"I-I'm no hero. I'm just an average guy, who happens to work as a professional wrestler." Steve said, getting up hastily. He was suddenly uncomfortable, not knowing what to think any more. He was on his way out of Reimi's basement when he was suddenly stopped. He was stopped by Reimi's hands, as they held on to his left wrist. She didn't so much stop Steve as catch him off-guard enough to make him stop, though.
"Mr. Steve... um. Would you care to spend a little more time here and have some tea? I'd understand if you'd run away from me, now that you know the truth about me. I, um... I know I'm kind of a freak." Reimi said. She seemed just as awkward and uncomfortable at this point as Steve was. To Steve's credit, he picked up on this.
"Compared to who?" was the question he thought of first, "I bet you that once you've met Cosmo, you'll think you're normal."
Reimi let go of Steve's hand, and breathed a sigh of relief, "M-Maybe. Will... you be staying, then, Mr. Steve?"
Steve thought about it for all of the care and attention of an impulsive person in a shopping mall wielding a credit card, "S-sure. I... guess I can stay for a little while. Just one thing."
Reimi's attention perked up, "Um, yes?"
"Just call me Steve. Please."
Reimi giggled, the same way that the girl Steve once knew as Talila Yumeko would, "Very well, then, Steve."
Billy, I swear to God, if you respond to this, I won't love you any more. XD
--
Since the sudden passing of Jimmy Smalls, Steve Knox couldn't get his last conversation with the man out of his head.
Jimmy told Steve that he had seen a vision of a girl, who told him that he would soon die. Sure enough, he had died. However, that didn't disturb Steve nearly as much as one detail, a necklace with a blood red jewel. Steve had seen that necklace before, for it belonged to a girl he knew named Talila Yumeko.
The problem was, Talila did not exist in his world, but in another world entirely. Or so he'd been led to believe, but his encounter with Jimmy that night in Providence had shaken his faith in the little "dream shaman".
Was she truly trying to help Steve Knox, or was she really a harbinger of death?
He needed answers.
And he needed them from an unusual source.
* . *
March 27th, 2009; New Orleans, Louisiana
Steve Knox could not tell anyone where he intended to go. That's why he told his friends that he was taking a booking over in Japan for a couple of days and that he would be back in time for the next few dates. He left the bus in the care of his "posse", and left for an airport. He did not depart for Japan, however, but instead departed for the city of New Orleans, in Louisiana.
He already knew that the Cosmo Kid would know that he was lying, and that something was up. Cosmo had a knack for knowing anything and everything, after all. However, Steve didn't care. If he didn't find answers as soon as possible, Steve feared that hisnew found paranoia would consume him and his friends.
The reason for the trip to New Orleans was to speak with a medium that his father claimed to have met, once.
Earl Knox had a fascination with the otherworldly. One could say that the man was highly superstitious. Steve remembered all of the little rituals that Earl would do before he stepped into the ring. He always wore the same necklace to the ring. He always kissed that necklace before setting it on the ring post before entering the ring. He always made a motion of pinching his nose whenever he was going to do something risky in a match.
All of those things were for luck, and a superstitious belief that <b>not</b> doing these things would invite a hex upon himself.
Not only was he superstitious, but he was also fascinated with ghosts and mediums. Although he would tell his son that he'd never seen one, a fact that Steve didn't really believe considering that he's seen them himself, he would meet with whatever mediums he could find whenever he travelled.
One such medium was a man named Roberto Lindhurst.
Earl trusted in this man's abilities enough to tell Steve about them. He was said to be a secretive sort of person, who didn't display his abilities to show them off. Rather, he carried the ability to exist in the realms of both humans and spirits as a heavy burden. He didn't want to be burdened by human society, so he became a hermit and a recluse.
Steve thought to meet this man as soon as he had heard about Jimmy's death, but two things delayed his plan. The first was knowing nothing about Lindhurst other than his name and his last known address. The second was his match with Legion at Temptation: Knoxville, the first round of the all-important "No Limit Tournament", which delayed his plans to head to New Orleans.
A third problem that arose was that he didn't even have a lot of time to waste tracking down the medium. Prior to the trip, he had to make a phone call to the only person he knew who lived in New Orleans, and unfortunately, that person was Coral Avalon, a man that Steve wasn't exactly on friendly terms with. However, Coral did check into it for him, and eventually called him back to tell him his last known location.
So, that was the reason why Steve Knox stood in front of a house in the middle of a suburb in New Orleans. It was recently built, so it didn't show any signs of damage following Hurricane Katrina. The house was small, probably only large enough to have a living room, bedroom, bathroom, and a kitchen. It had a layered-type of panelling, painted a pale yellow. The roof was brown, shaped in an upside-down Vfashion. The lawn was quite well-maintained, and freshly cut. The only really noticeable features of the front lawn, though, were a recently-planted tree sapling on the left side of the lawn, and a cobblestone path that led from the driveway into the entrance of the house.
Upon pulling up to the side of the street and looking at the house, Steve Knox had the faintest sense of <a href="http://community.primetimecentral.net/showpost.php?p=274211&postcount=2">déjà vu</a>.
"Have I... been here before?" he further asked himself, before he shook it off.
Departing his rental car, Steve walked along the driveway and then along the cobblestone path.
Once he got to the front door, he knocked on it once, paused, and then knocked three more times. After waiting briefly, he was confronted with not the person he was initially looking for, but instead, a girl. She had a slight frame and couldn't have been taller than five feet in height. She was at least part-Japanese, and was actually about twenty years old. Her black hair was shoulder-length, and she had blue eyes. She wore a faded AC/DC T-shirt with the sleeves cut off, and a pair of jeans. She didn't wear any shoes, but she did wear some pink-colored socks. She looked pale, but most likely, this was because she didn't leave her house very often.
Steve blinked a couple of times at this hermit girl, while she sort of wrinkled her nose at Steve, "Can I help you, mister?"
"Um, yeah... I'm looking for a Roberto Lindhurst?"
The girl paused, "I'm sorry, he's no longer among the living. I'm his daughter."
Steve sounded disappointed, and repeated a line he'd found himself saying more and more lately, "...I'm sorry for your loss."
"Don't worry about it, it happened a while ago." the girl said, before she paused, and looked at Steve. Steve was a bit uncomfortable with the girl's stare, but eventually, she stopped and inquired, "A-Are you related to the Knox family, by any chance?"
Steve stammered a bit, caught off-guard by the girl's question, "Uh, yeah... yeah, my name's Steve Knox."
The girl seemed taken aback by his response, but composed herself quickly.
"Um... m-my dad told me, before he passed away, that someone from the Knox family would inevitably come looking for him. He was apparently acquainted with your father for a time." the girl said, before she stopped and slapped the side of her head as if she'd forgotten something, "Oh, uh, sorry... my name's Reimi, by the way."
Steve sighed, while scratching his head in embarassment, "Well, uh... this is actually kind of disappointing. I hoping to find a medium."
"Well, you're looking at one." was Reimi's response, which caused Steve Knox to perk up, though he was too taken aback to respond, "Both my parents were spiritualists, so to speak. I guess I inherited some of that. I don't know how much help I can be to you, though."
Reimi opened the door all the way and stepped aside, looking shyly at Steve, "Um... C-come in. I'll be with you in a bit."
* . *
After a few minutes, Steve Knox found himself in a dark room in the basement of the Lindhurst home. The room was dark, and lined with shelves which, themselves, had candles all around. Steve counted at least twenty of these candles, all of which were currently unlit. Reimi had told him to go down into the basement not long after coming into her home. As he sat there waiting, he once again got a feeling of déjà vu. He'd felt like he'd been in a situation like this before.
Reimi came into the room after a few minutes. She had changed into a purple kimono with a white flower pattern, with a pink obi (a type of belt used for kimonos) and a pair of wooden geta (block-like sandals). The sleeves of the kimono were so long that Steve couldn't see her hands, so he assumed that the kimono was made for somebody else.
"Sorry about the wait," Reimi said, as she began to light the candles using a long match, "It's hard to put the belt on for this thing."
Steve said nothing in response to this, and instead waited patiently for Reimi to light the candles. When all candles were lit, Reimi sat down across from Steve Knox. She maintained a passive expression, but her stare began to discomfort Steve. Finally, she spoke, "What is it that you came here for?"
Steve never spoke of his dreams to anyone. He feared that it was a figment of his imagination, but now knew that they were more than that. He decided to start with the truth, "Since... August, I believe, I've been getting strange dreams."
"Dreams?" Reimi asked.
"Yeah. I still vaguely remember the first one. I started in front of a house, almost exactly like yours. Then I'd end up in a room... very much like this one. And I met a girl who could change and warp the dreams I'm experiencing. She'd know things that neither of us should know. She could almost predict what was going to happen to me." Steve said. After get through this part of his story, he paused to breathe and recompose himself before he continued, "Up until last week, I thought I was just going nuts. I've gone through a lot of troubling things in the last five years, so I just assumed that it was something like PTSD."
"Then?" Reimi asked, assuming there was more to the story.
"I met a guy, friend of the family, who told me that he met a girl very similar to the one I knew in my dreams. She told him that he would soon die, and the morning after, I got a phone call telling me exactly that." Steve said. He sighed nervously, before he concluded the story, "So, that's what I wanted to track down your dad. I wanted somebody who knew about this spiritualist stuff to give me some answers."
Reimi took in everything that Steve Knox had said.
Finally, she cleared her throat, "Mr. Knox, there was another reason I let you into my home."
"Huh?"
"I could already tell that you have something like a specter hanging over you." Reimi said. The stare in the girl's eyes reminded Steve very slightly of the stare that Talila, the shaman of his dreams, would often give him. She continued, "It's really curious."
"Curious?" Steve asked nervously, "That's... uh, that's an odd word to describe something like that."
Reimi slowly nodded, "It's curious because I sense... nothing from it. Neither benevolence nor malevolence. Truly a hollow spirit."
"A hollow spirit? What the heck does that mean?"
"Hmm. If I may be allowed to present a theory... I believe the specter that hovers over you is like a shikigami. Esoterics in the west control them as familiars or, in simpler terms for you, minions." Reimi explained, "They don't really have thoughts or feelings of their own, so they can be controlled easily by the esoterics. And they perform all kinds of tasks. I even hear they're sometimes used to curse people, though I've honestly never seen it myself."
"Wait, I'm cursed?" Steve asked, incredulously, before he paused and gave it a short bit of thought before he added, "Because that would certainly explain a lot of things."
"It's hard to say," Reimi admitted with a sigh, "Since they're hollow, it's hard to predict what they're meant to do. Would you allow me to remove this shikigami for you?"
Steve only nodded in agreement. Reimi reached across the table and took Steve by his hands, pulling them to the center of the table. She gave Steve a short stare before she gave him some instructions, "I want for you to close your eyes and breathe deeply. Try not to think about what's going on around you. Focus on the color black."
"Black?"
"Yes. Focus on that, if you don't mind." was Reimi's response.
So, Steve thought about the color black. He thought about how dreary the color was, and how he couldn't comprehend why it was such a popular color. Yet, at the same time, even he believed that black went with just about anything. After all, his wrestling tights wereprimarily black, so why would he be complaining, now, about the color's popularity? Maybe it was those goth kids. He never really got that whole subculture, with their rap and their hip hop. At least, he thought those were the people who were into rap and hip hop. After a short thought, Steve thought to ask Chris Chambers later, since he seemed to be up on that culture. Although he certainly never wore black, but maybe Chambers was an exception to that rule. Steve then started to think that maybe Chris Chambers didn't know anything about that culture and that he should ask a different expert. Unfortunately, Steve drew a blank on other resident experts on that type of culture, and thought that maybe if they came out of their caves, stopped cutting their wrists, and listened to normal music, they would be perfectly functioning members of society. And that would be awesome in his bo--
Wait, what was that?
"Spirits, I beseech thee," Reimi spoke with a commanding tone, as if truly speaking with the spirits. Her eyes were closed and her attention was drawn away from Steve Knox, rather, she seemed look past him now, "Hear my voice, and make a path to the one that controls you. Let go of your inhibitions, speak nothing but the truth, and show me what remains to be seen!"
Upon speaking those words, Steve Knox felt and heard the table rattle. It wasn't a heavy rattle, rather, it was more like a vibration. He opted to keep his eyes shut, unaware that the flames of the candles were unnaturally flaring up. Reimi kept her focus on the shikigami, trying to match wills with the person in control of it.
Steve suddenly felt the black color he was concentrating on becoming white.
His awareness of this white was such that when he opened his eyes, he found himself in a completely white, featureless space. He looked around for a few seconds, confused as to why he was in this space or why he was suddenly standing.
"Honestly... I'm disappointed, Mr. Steve."
The voice seemed as though it came out of nowhere, so Steve turned around until he could spot the source. It was a young girl, much shorter than he was, who looked to be in her early teens. Her black hair reached the middle of her back, and she wore a light green dress, the skirt of which ended at the knees. The most striking things she wore aside from this, though, were the blue beads. She had two sets of them wrapped around her forehead, two sets of them worn as bracelets, one set wrapped around her waist as a belt, and a necklace made out of the beads with a blood red jewel at the end.
Steve knew who this girl was, because she was the reason that he came to the home of Reimi Lindhurst in the first place.
She was Talila Yumeko.
* . *
"Disappointed?" Steve asked. He kept his distance from the girl, unsure of what will occur with this encounter.
Talila had been involved in Steve's life since August of last year. She had served as a sort of a guide to Steve, and even showed him the world she lived in back in November. She called herself a "dream shaman", but it was more accurate to say that she was a spirit medium who specialized in seeing the dreams of others. Steve had been led to believe that Talila's real body was weak and sickly, so the girl he saw in his dreams was what she would look like were she a healthy girl.
She had her arms crossed in front of her chest, "Monumentally."
Steve always felt a certain degree of tension and unease when meeting Talila. She had an off-putting manner about her, and always seemed to know what was going on in Steve's life better than Steve himself did. Steve knew that this sudden meeting was filled with bad vibes, but he also knew that he didn't have very many ways of escaping this encounter.
"So... what are you disappointed about?" was the only thing Steve Knox could manage to say.
Talila stepped in such a way that only her left side was facing Steve. Her arms remained crossed, her irritated expression still apparent on her face, "How did you manage to come this far, without figuring out who I was?"
"What are you so irritated about? You're the one who put that shikawhatever on me, weren't you?" Steve asked, a bit agitated himself. He really didn't know what was going on, and he really needed the answers.
Talila sighed, and rubbed the back of her neck in frustration as she turned to face Steve again, "And what if I was? Would you understand the significance of it? Or do you truly believe that I had ill intentions for you? Maybe you think I'm putting a curse on you? I don't know, really, what do you think?"
"I don't KNOW!" snapped Steve. His tension was reaching a breaking point. He shook, and grabbed at his hair with his hands in trying to control the rising tension in his body. He exhaled deeply, and crouched down, looking at the white, featureless ground he was standing in. He had trouble breathing, as if the air around him suddenly fled from his panic.
After a moment's pause, Talila crouched down in front of Steve so that her head was level with Steve's. She spoke softly, "There is something I must ask you, Mr. Steve."
Steve could barely get out his next, simple question, "What?"
"Five years ago. Did something happen to you that you considered to be unusual?" Talila asked. It didn't take Steve Knox very long to figure out exactly what the girl had meant. It was an incident that he cared not to mention, because it was too fantastic to have believed that it had ever happened to him. Whenever something reminded him of that incident, he always summed it up in a single, solitary word.
"Pasadena."
"...Yes." was Talila's solemn response. She stood up, and backed away from Steve, "Mr. Steve... I have a confession to make."
"What?"
Talila sighed, "I've been lying to you. I'm really not really from another world. I'm just a normal person, like you. The only thing that makes me different from other people you know is that my heart is connected to yours. I am made manifest, here before you, because we were both there on that day."
"Then... the incident in November? When you pulled me into your world?" Steve asked.
"A genetic memory, from my ancestors who once took care of a haunted mountain shrine. And the ghost you met, Mayu, is actually the guardian spirit of my family." Talila responded, sighing as she stood up, "I'm sorry."
Steve didn't know what to do or say, but he suddenly felt a little calmer. At least, he felt calm enough to ask the next question, "So... we met?"
Talila suddenly seemed paler, as she began to walk away from Steve. She then turned back towards him, "Yes. In Pasadena, you risked your life to save mine, a fact I didn't forget. I've spent years trying to find out your name and who you were. And then... there you were, on my television. A professional wrestler. Steve Knox. You were just nineteen years old back then, an idealistic kid who wanted to follow in his father's footsteps, and got caught in the middle of that ugly incident."
Talila's legs shook, as she coughed into her hand, "I... I haven't forgotten. So, all I've wanted to do was help you. But I couldn't help you when you're so far from me, all I could do was read you from afar, our hearts connected as they are. I've... I've tried to guide you all this time, so that one day... we could meet."
Talila's collapsed to her knees, and then fell to her side, which caused Steve to pick himself up and rush over to her side.
He examined the girl's hand to find blood on its palm. He lifted Talila's head so that she could look at him, "H-hey, what's going on with you?"
"Th-this shikigami... I don't... n-need it any more. See... see you... around." she could barely get out, between her coughs. She then suddenly stopped coughing, her eyes becoming vacant and her breathing slowing to a stop.
"Hey... Tali? TALI!"
As Steve attempted to shake the lifeless girl awake, however, his perception of reality began to falter once again.
Soon enough, the only thing he could see was black, again.
* . *
Steve's attention suddenly snapped up, and he found himself back in the basement of Reimi Lindhurst. Sitting across from him, with her chin resting on the top of the palms of her hands, was Reimi.
She smiled at him.
"I'm sorry." Reimi said, "For what I put you through."
"What... what just happened?" Steve asked, not sure what was going on any more.
Reimi reached into the inside of her kimono and produced a necklace. It was made out of blue beads, and had a blood red jewel attached to the end of it. Steve stared at it, completely dumbfounded.
"I'm truly sorry. I only meant to comfort Mr. Smalls before he passed on, since you were close to him. I never imagined he would tell you about me, and that you would actually seek out my late father for council." Reimi said, moving her hands into her lap and looking apologetic.
Steve no longer felt his previous tension, and instead, it was just replaced with great confusion, "Wh-what's going on?"
Reimi sighed. She shook her head at Steve, confounded as to why he hadn't figured it out yet, "I was Talila, Mr. Steve. Or, rather, I was presenting myself to you in her form, using some fortune telling to vaguely determine what would happen to you."
When put in simple terms like this, even Steve could figure it out, "Then, the 'shikigami' you were removing..."
"Was the manifestation of me as Talila, yes." Reimi said, before she smiled at him. Despite her smile, tears began to well up in her eyes, "I-I'd always dreamed of meeting you. You're my hero, after all."
Steve hesitated.
"I-I'm no hero. I'm just an average guy, who happens to work as a professional wrestler." Steve said, getting up hastily. He was suddenly uncomfortable, not knowing what to think any more. He was on his way out of Reimi's basement when he was suddenly stopped. He was stopped by Reimi's hands, as they held on to his left wrist. She didn't so much stop Steve as catch him off-guard enough to make him stop, though.
"Mr. Steve... um. Would you care to spend a little more time here and have some tea? I'd understand if you'd run away from me, now that you know the truth about me. I, um... I know I'm kind of a freak." Reimi said. She seemed just as awkward and uncomfortable at this point as Steve was. To Steve's credit, he picked up on this.
"Compared to who?" was the question he thought of first, "I bet you that once you've met Cosmo, you'll think you're normal."
Reimi let go of Steve's hand, and breathed a sigh of relief, "M-Maybe. Will... you be staying, then, Mr. Steve?"
Steve thought about it for all of the care and attention of an impulsive person in a shopping mall wielding a credit card, "S-sure. I... guess I can stay for a little while. Just one thing."
Reimi's attention perked up, "Um, yes?"
"Just call me Steve. Please."
Reimi giggled, the same way that the girl Steve once knew as Talila Yumeko would, "Very well, then, Steve."