I'm so tired.

My eyelids droop at their own accord, my vision blurring suddenly as my head tilts wildly on my neck and plummets for the floor. I catch myself. I can't sleep yet, I have more training to do. I need to get up off this bench, walk over to the ring, and get to work. My body hurts so much, though... I've put it through hell in the past week. My muscles burn with the intensity of a furnace, my spine ready to fold on me like a cheap card table.

Those gym mats in the corner look awfully comfortable.

No, you son of a bitch! Don't you dare lay down, if you do there's no way you're getting back up! You need to train, you need to get yourself ready for The Kings!

I can't keep training with an empty tank, though. I'll burn myself out before we ever get to High Stakes. Just a little nap. A cat nap. I'll wake up fresh as a daisy and get the rest of my training in; it'll be like nothing ever happened. Oh man, those mats look really comfortable.

You motherfucker! Get back on the bench! Stand up! OOOOH YOU GODDAMN BITCH!

I was right. They are comfortable mats. This feels so good. My body is so relaxed. I'll just close my eyes for a second, maybe I won't even fall asleep.

NOOOOOOOO!

Click! Click! Click! Click!

The heels of my brown leather oxford shoes clip loudly on the concrete floors as I walk, sending eerie echoes up and down the long and dark stone corridor. It makes me self-conscious. I do my best to lower my feet to the floor more carefully, and grunt in frustration when it makes absolutely no difference.

Click! Click! Click! Click!

At least the noise doesn't seem to be bothering anyone. Hell, I'm honestly not sure that there's even anyone here for me to bother. It takes a second to dawn on me, but I'm not even sure where "here" is. I stop walking, and the distant reverberations of my footsteps fade away leaving the seemingly endless tunnel in complete and total silence.

"Hello?"

I call out into the void, but get no response. My shout is swallowed up by the silence, devoured into the shadows at the end of the passageway. I take a closer look at the walls; made entirely of smooth stone, and damp to the touch. There are no windows or doors in sight, but the space around me is still relatively well lit somehow. I turn around to look behind me, where I must have started walking. There's nothing that way either, just a continuation of this seemingly endless walkway.

"Hello?! Is anybody here?! Where am I? How the hell did I get here?!"

The noise I create bounces around for a few seconds, but quickly vanishes like everything before it. I begin to panic, my lips and tongue dry up in seconds and my ribcage tightens painfully as I try and force air into my lungs. I bang my fists furiously on the damp stone wall, but there's no give to it. It stands strong, mocking me and my terror.

"Somebody help me! How did I get here?! HELP!!"

"Please, be quiet."

I turn so quickly that I nearly give myself whiplash, and nearly fifty yards down the tunnel stands the shadow of a man. He's motionless, but is unmissable in the emptiness that surrounds us.

"Who are you? Where did you come from? Where are we? How do we get out?"

"I'm you, we're here and from here is where I hail. You get out when you sleep, not a moment sooner. Now please, be quiet."

"... what... the FUCK are you talking about?"

"I answered your questions. Your distaste for the answers is your own problem. Now again, please, be quiet. The hallway is for silence, we speak in the red room."

"What red room? There are no rooms, and this is not a hallway! It's an endless fucking tunnel! It's a stone fucking tunnel, and it's wet! Why is it wet? Where the hell are we? Are we under a fucking lake or something?"

"I don't know what you're talking about. The walls aren't stone, and they certainly aren't wet."

Furious at his outright denial of the facts, I spin around to the wall and slap my open palm against it.

"Are you blind, they're made of fu-"

My hand collides with a heavy fabric curtain which billows softly on contact. It's as dry as Shane Carvers vagina. I examine the fabric slowly, running my fingertips across it in disbelief. What the hell is happening here? I turn back in the direction I started from, and see the fabric drapes run along the entire length of the corridor. I turn back to the shadowy figure, but he's gone.

CLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICKCLICK!

I sprint down the hallway to where the guise of a man once stood, my heels once more echoing like thunderbolts in the silence, and search for a door or hatch that he could have escaped through. Nothing. I punch the fabric in anger. It billows, unharmed.

"FUCK! Where the hell did you go?!"

"I told you, speaking is done in the red room. I'm waiting for you here"

"I don't know what that means! I don't know how to get out of here! I don't know where the red room-

"-is."

With the blink of an eye, I'm somewhere else. The endless and narrow corridor is now a spacious room, but one with well defined boundaries. The black curtains are replaced by similar ones of a blood red hue, which admittedly causes a painful adjustment for my eyes. In the center of the room is a round wooden table with two empty chairs across from each other. I glance around the room carefully; I'm alone.

"OK. I'm here. I'm in the red room. Where are you?"

It takes a second, but the red curtains part in the corner of the room and out walks...

Me.

He's dressed in different clothing than I am, and his hair and beard are more clean cut than mine, but as he stares back at me with a familiar shit eating grin, I can uneasily confirm that he's unmistakably me. His movements are stiff and jerky, and he makes his way over to the wooden table and sits down like a video tape that's being rewound.

"E-vah a taes, Sem-aj. D'i evol ot ts-aor uoy ot ruor ec-af."

His voice has a hypnotizing rhythm and zips in and out quickly. It takes me a moment to catch on that he's speaking backwards. I take another slow look around this "red room", and back to this leather-jacketed bizarro version of myself.

"Damn, David Lynch is gonna sue the shit outta somebody."

His grin widens, eyes gleaming wildly as if someone was blasting a flashlight through his eyelids.

"I'm just fucking with you. Stop watching Twin Peaks at night, it'll fuck with your head."

He snaps his fingers and in a split second the red curtains change color, a wave of blue velvet rippling along the walls from left to right. My heart jumps into my throat.

"Stop! Doing shit like that! FUCK!"

"Alarming, isn't it? For realsies, though. Sit down."

I glance around the room again, but there are still no signs of an escape route. Slowly I take a few steps towards him, and then a few more. His grin continues to grow wider and wider, almost cartoony as I finally reach the table and pull the chair out.

"Please, please, take your time. I don't have other things do be doing."

I sit, cautiously.

"What the hell is going on here? I'm so confused..."

"Of course you are, doll face. Just sit there and look pretty, I'll fill you in if you can keep up. Where we are isn't important, the only thing you need to know is who I am."

"You're... me..."

"You're partially right there, Sherlock. I'm a version of you; one that you wish you could be, and one that's within your reach if you were to make a few calculated decisions. I'm you with a bank account triple what you have now, and growing exponentially. I'm you globe-trotting in a whisper quiet private jet, making supermodels beg for mercy when you give them the business in sprawling palatial estates in the country of your choosing. I'm you with the Universal Championship around his waist. I'm you, with a Crown... trademark."

"... what?"

He rolls his eyes and bangs his head dramatically against the table top.

"Jiminey Buttfuck, Batman! Do I have to spell everything out for you? I'm you, but a King!"

"King of the XWF?"

"BITCH! I'M YOU IF YOU JOINED THE FUCKING KINGS! God damn it Theo was right about you, you thick son of a bitch. You're fucking up James; you're on the wrong side of these battle lines, and you know it. You're coming up on the point of no return, and once the massacre starts nobody will show you an ounce of fucking mercy, do you understand? I'm here to tell you that it's not too late to change course."

"Fuck you. I'd never join the Kings."

"Of course you wouldn't, and that's why you're going to lose. I did join them, and as someone who's seen the end of both trails; you're heading down the wrong one."

I don't say anything. I can't say anything. He eyes me with a laser focus so sharp I need to look away from him. I focus in on the now-blue curtains that surround us and he presses on.

"You still have time. Go to Theo, and tell him you want to talk. You belong with them, James. They're men of your own rarified air; athleticly gifted, independently wealthy, intelligent and driven, entrepreneurs... they're Gods among ants in this modern day XWF. Why stand alone against them, and get bowled over?"

"I'm not alone."

"James, be serious, you might as fucking well be. Does Vinny Lane live up to what you need him to be? His nerves are shot, his glory years gone by a decade and his last great run nearly half that. He smokes his age in cigarettes each day, and drinks like it's his main form of nutrition. Maybe he'll hold his own, but he won't be doing any heavy lifting for you. Carver? Fuck Carver. Jon Brown? Do we even need to go there? The man is nearly collecting pension, showing an AARP card to cash in on half priced breakfasts and movie tickets. The XWF website won't even put up a roster page for him, since it's too embarrassing to write "Tag Raven" down as a finishing move. Fuck. Them. Ditch those losers, and make the choice that's actually going to do something for you."

"I am getting something out of this, if you forgot."

"The XWF Classic files? You already got them! Fuck Carver and fuck Vinny for holding onto them for this long, and bounce on their asses! What are they going to do, ask for the files back? Fight you? You'd dummy them both and they know it, that's why they asked you for help to begin with... despite the pitiful mess you've allowed yourself to become."

"Excuse me?"

He rolls his eyes, and stands up from the table slowly. He circles around behind me, and places his hands gently on my shoulders. I want to turn and watch him, but my head remains steadfastly forward. I can't move. I can't fucking move! I cringe when his hands touch me, ready for an attack. One never comes.

"James, don't tell me you don't see it. You're a coward now, James. You're afraid of The Kings, or anybody else for that matter, that might hand you that inevitable first loss and prove you're not unstoppable. You aren't as skilled as you were, you aren't as conditioned. You're going to fail, on one of the biggest stages of your career, and you know it. When was the last time you went on a date, James? One that wasn't with Blizzard or Big Shank? When was the last time you made a business deal that excited you, or took a special interest in one of the students at your academy? You're a shell of yourself, desperate for the approval of people that you don't know and who have barely heard your name before, as much as you want to pretend they've been longing for your return."

"Shut the fuck up. This is a dream, isn't it? I figured it out, I remember falling asleep. I want to wake up! WAKE UP!"

He takes his hands off my shoulders, and circles the opposite way around the table and back to his seat. His outfits changed, the black leather jacket replaced by a tan cartigan sweater, designer blue jeans giving way to traditional khakis. He sits down again, and winks at me.

"You hit the nail right on the head there, baby doll. It's not going to be that easy to get out of here, though. I've been trying to get you alone for weeks and you wouldn't allow it. That voice of self doubt echoing the back of your mind? That's me. The admiration that grows for Samuels and Pryce each day? I'm stirring that up. Admit it, even Madison is growing on you now that he's left his cave. You need to hear these things, James. I'm not letting you leave until you accept the facts."

I feel my right hand twitch, and realize I can move again. I leap up from the table and rush over to the wall, tugging at the curtain desperately to get behind it. Another curtain. I roar angrily and rip that one to the side, revealing another curtain. I look back to the table, he hasn't moved. I rush to the corner and start trying to burrow my way through the curtains there and find a door, but no matter how much velvet I pull aside a fresh layer is always waiting for me.

"LET ME OUT OF HERE!!!"

"You're inside your own head, James. There's no escaping reality."

I stop digging my way through the curtains, and step out of the velvet shroud. I turn towards him, and he motions for me to sit down. Resigned, I trudge back to my chair and slump into it.

"What do you want from me?"

"You're looking at this the wrong way, James. It's what I want FOR you. I want you to have the life you deserve, and be treated like the Legend you are. That will never happen if you allow The Kings to have their way with you, never. Join them. Allow the most powerful men in the company to watch your back, allow management to pull strings in your favor and enjoy the perks of being the GOAT."

"I can beat them."

"Maybe. In your hey day. One on one. Not now, and not with two aging albatrosses hanging from your neck."

"I'd never betray Jon Brown, not when he came back for me."

"So he popped his head in the door, who gives a shit? He released a video that didn't impress anyone and he's willing to eat a few punches for you, very nice. Tell him to go home if you're concerned for his well being, but you are not obligated to let him steer you into the rocks. Abandon ship."

"Vinny-"

"Fuck the Loverboy. If The Kings had a sliver of interest in him, he'd do the same to you before you could google a Chris Cornell song to watch his next promo with. You don't know him. You don't owe him anything either."

"The rest of the roster will think I-"

"Made the best decision that you could have made for yourself, and will forget all about it when you're their alpha dog and they've never seen you lose. Stop looking for excuses, James. Pull the trigger, bitch!"

He makes a compelling argument. Every fiber of my being wants to deny it, but I can't. He sees me wavering, he senses my weakness and pounces.

"You saw the bull shit promo that John Madison finally released. All that build up, and that steaming pile of shit squeezes itself from his anal sphincter? Foreplay is great, but learn to thrust Maddy, am I right? Do you think Theo and Samuels are happy? Do you think Doc is proud of how his team is being represented when he could have done so much better? Madison is on his way out, Raven, whether it's his choice or theirs. It could be you."

"They'd never want me taking the Universal title from them, or competing in tournaments or rumbles that they had their eyes on, we couldn't mingle."

"Their smart men, James. They realize that when your horses are pulling the same chariot, a win for one is a win for all. If Doc were Universal Champion, he knows he's defending it regardless. Would he rather you, his ally, and the team keeps the belt regardless... or Ax3's flavor of the month? It can work, James. It WILL work. I've seen it"

"Fuck. You."

He sighs deeply, and shakes his head in dismay.

"Disappointing."

"Fuck The Kings; Theo, Madison, Samuels, Doc, all of 'em. I'm beating them at High Stakes, alone if I have to, but with whatever help Lane and Jon can provide. You'll see."

"Sure you will, champ. Let me know how that goes for you.

He stands up and circles the table towards me much quicker than he did the first time, and with fire in his eyes. He balls his fist aggressively, and I find once more I can't move to defend myself.

"Wait, what are you doing? Why can't I move my arms?"

"Think about it when you wake up, James. You still have time. If you decide to go all suicide-bomber on us, though... remember, you were warned. You had a choice."

"STOP! STOP!"

He winds up and fires an absolute piston into my teeth. It doesn't hurt. I don't feel anything. The world around me literally vanishes, and I'm floating in a sea of darkness.

My eyes start to feel heavy.

I'm so tired.

I hope I wake up soon.

FADE TO BLACK... FADE TO BLACK... FADE TO BLACK... FADE TO BLACK... FADE TO BLACK...