"There is no impossibility to him who stands prepared to conquer every hazard. The fearful are the failing."
-Sarah J. Hale
4th August, 2009
Determination is an edge that is as sharp as it is curved. There are few armours that can protect against it and to wield it in the correct manner is an art form in itself. There weren't many men out there that could claim to be in the same predicament that Draeden Darksky now found himself in. He had seen his name on TV, in newspapers, on the internet. They all announced his death in small print, a miserable little obituary to inform the world of his demise. From the day he stepped upon Irish soil, Draeden became determined to remind the world that he existed, to give them a reason to remember until there was no-one left to recall his name. A petty and selfish pursuit? Perhaps. But if he had snatched the very dominance of Kartheon, the world upon which he strode, from the clutches of the Crimson Legion then he had already achieved something beyond amazing.
Or maybe he had simply stabbed some idiot with red hair to death. Either way, the world had certainly received Draeden's dues, paid in blood, well in advance.
All this was irrelevant now. As much as such events had only occurred less than three months ago, Draeden had to move on. There was no sense in dwelling on something that had happened behind closed doors. With Caladan missing and the rest of the world completely oblivious to what really went on in China, Draeden needed to shift his focus.
The Extreme Tournament was the perfect opportunity for this. He was already scheduled to fight, in error maybe, but his name had been on the paper. His replacement was incapacitated; he was too drunk to even stand, never mind wrestle one of the top performers in the world and win. If this opportunity had been left to Dimitri Sergeyevich then he would have made a mess of the whole thing and the opportunity would have been wasted. There was no hope of Dimitri winning this tournament. The weak and the inferior were now gone, all that remained in the competition were the smart and the talented. Draeden felt fortunate to fall into both categories; blessed with the wit to accurately gauge his opponents' worth, to identify what needed to be done to achieve victory. Combined with his combat prowess, Draeden was potentially unstoppable.
'Unstoppable.' A word that had been used many times to describe the current holder of the True Expert title, the very title Draeden aimed to walk away with himself at the end of this tournament. Level One, a man with everything to lose in this competition, was not likely to take this tournament lightly. Draeden expected to see him in the finals, but first he would have to advance that far himself. A worry for another day, then.
This week he was to face Hannibal Cage, a man of which Draeden Darksky knew next to nothing. A trawl of the internet had uncovered very little, certainly nothing of any use to Draeden. Cage had entered the tournament as an independent competitor and had not identified any promotion as his home. All he had to judge the worth of the man as a wrestler were the achievements he knew of. Cage had beaten both Ness and Jose Ramon, both TFWF superstars. Ness had also performed in VWF for a short time, Draeden was well aware of his skills – the man was certainly not to be discounted as a weak opponent. As for Ramon, his star-studded TFWF career spoke volumes.
Hannibal Cage was not an opponent to be trifled with.
Draeden would just do as he always did. There was no reason for him to do any different. His win to loss ratio in VWF was testament to his abilities in the ring, as was the fact that he had gotten this far in a tournament against some of the best the business had to offer, particularly after being away from wrestling for almost a whole year. He had stepped onto the shores of America and marched right back into the competition, into the fire, and done what he did best.
Fight.
And win.
Exactly what he'd continue to do.
Once he won the True Expert title he didn't know what he'd do. That's when everything would change. Would he simply treat it the same way as he'd treated the VWF Cabo Wabo Middleweight Championship – with utter indifference? The fact of the matter was that Draeden Darksky could, and would, defeat anyone that came his way. He didn't need a championship to prove that. His abilities had saved his life in the past. In China, Draeden had killed men in order to stay alive. Silly titles meant nothing in comparison to such a brutal requirement. Still, this was his business now. Winning shiny gold belts in comparative cuddle-matches and pillow fights for huge piles of money.
The amount he'd raised so far was easily enough to live on for some time. He could take his fortune and go back to England. Find his family there, maybe retire altogether. Buy a farm. At twenty five years of age he'd seen enough to last a dozen lifetimes and he was already fed up with this one.
"Yes indeed, this life is terrible, is it not? Why bother?" came Jack's bitter voice, almost lost amongst the chaos in Draeden's head. The taunting grew louder as Jack struggled to be heard. "Why, you might even say that there is no hope. Just give up. I would. What you hope to achieve is beyond your reach. Even if you manage to beat this Hannibal Cage then whoever wins the other quarter-finals match will overcome whatever pathetic efforts you can put forward. As if you could win a tournament of this calibre."
Draeden rolled from the bed onto his feet and peered around the darkness, ignoring the voice and focusing on his own thoughts. The competition. The winning. Moving on to the semi finals. Semis to finals. Finals to victory. It was there within his grasp, there was no reason why he couldn't just reach out and take it, as was his full and true intention. For with the True Expert title he cemented his place in history. Even if only for a small time, it'd be long enough. Then the world would truly know his name.
"Some of the best wrestlers in the world have entered this tournament, just what exactly makes you think you can beat them? Especially when you don't even know if you can beat Hannibal Cage. Who is he anyway? You don't even know!" Jack continued. "If you can't beat some unknown who is, admittedly, less of a failure than you are, what exactly do you think you're going to get out of life?"
Draeden grabbed his pants from the floor in the pitch black room, the comfortable baggy jeans he'd worn earlier today. The creases would fall out with his movement. Irrespective, he would move in the darkness with no-one to see, thus he did not wear a shirt. He walked out of the room and headed for the stairs. At the balcony Draeden stood and looked over the vast, empty hall.
In Ayreon, he and Maeron Mentari had looked over the same balcony, had walked down the same stairs and into the hands of the Ancient Ones who had sought to guide them to their deaths in China. His hatred for the meddling Ancients flared, his grip on the wooden bannister tightening.
The voice that cried out for his blood was getting louder, more intense. His other thoughts were being drowned out by the stream of insults. "Good, good, even someone as stupid as you knows when it's time to cut their losses. You can climb, so over you go. Over the balcony. Let the angels guide you to the stones below where lies your sanctuary! You stand now at the gateway to the future, why not take the final leap and get it over with? No need to waste time with all this tournament nonsense, what use is a name for yourself when all you have to look forward to is death? There it is! In your own words, Draeden – 'reach out and take it'. It's yours for the taking, go ahead, it won't bite."
"And what of you, Jack? Where do you go?" Draeden whispered. "Why do you want this?"
"Why do I want this? I've told you before, Crusader. I'm you. I want what you want, need what you need and see what you see. I see that there is not much worth looking at, apart from that Alexandra of yours. You could take her with you, add her soul to the swarm which surrounds you. They're coming too, you know. I suppose that in some respects I see more than you do, for when you look in the mirror you don't see all the faces of the ones you've killed. The ones that you'll have to answer to when you reach the other side. You see, this is the easy part. It may seem hard, more so to others than I, I agree, but once you take that last step that's when the real challenge begins. You like challenges. So ascend from this physical world of primitive battle and dive head-first into the greatest challenge of all."
"Which is?"
"To answer for your sins. You'll need all the help you can get, I mean it. Go and get Alexandra. Open her throat, release her soul from her body and take it with you to the great world beyond this one. Beyond Kartheon, beyond even Ayreon, lies another place completely unlike this one. Jack will take you. I am your guide," Jack sneered. "All you have to do is take that final leap. Swan-dive into the unknown and you will be rewarded. The next challenge waits for you. Go and show it who Draeden Darksky is."
"Let me finish the one I'm working on. I hate to leave a job half finished," Draeden muttered, walking away from the balcony, towards his bedroom. "No good starting something I know I can't finish, right Jack?"
"Your cowardice will be your downfall, Draeden. It will come to you like a knife in the back and I will do nothing – NOTHING! – to stop it! Understand? Nothing! Your failure will follow you wherever you go and one day it will stab you so hard you won't know what hit you. And this time you won't survive. No chance! Not again!"
The screams continued and Draeden did everything he could to ignore them as he lay back down in bed, closing his eyes. He didn't need sleep, he needed peace.
Death was not the only answer.
First he would win the Extreme Tournament, win the True Expert title and seal his place in the pantheon of the world's greatest fighters.
"Then we shall see."
* * *
5th August, 2009
Draeden's eyes snapped open. The sweat that lathered his face was a cold one, enabled by the great discomfort he had felt while submerged in the murky, troubled waters of a restless slumber. A sudden patch of air turbulence had jostled him back into the waking world at the most opportune moment he could have wished for; an instant before impaling himself with his own sword. Flashbacks of the Crimson Legion's last stand in China, an ambush gone horribly wrong. A number of lives were extinguished that day like candles in the wind; Draeden served as the almost poetic gentle breeze that would put out those lights forever.
All was as prophesied by the Ancient Ones, the eldest and most powerful souls to pace the earth; to cross the border between life and death in order to preserve that which shall be. The guiding force behind all things, the Ancient Ones would watch from afar and channel their energy to wherever it was needed most. It was them who had directed the maelstrom of malevolence in Draeden's direction, creating a head-on collision that struck the rest of the world with the impact of a damp cushion.
Precisely as intended.
No-one in the world would ever learn of what happened that day. There would be no survivors. Only the one known as Apocalypticus was destined to walk away from the whirlwind of destruction that the Ancient Ones had cast before them, but that outcome was not to be. Even the best-laid plans suffered mishaps that entities as powerful as the Ancient Ones were unable to prevent. Proof, then, that Fate was not as easy to manipulate as they had expected. A being even the Ancients could not understand, could not bend to their will.
Because of their arrogance the Ancients had made a terrible mistake. Their very existence had been a secret for countless millennia, their souls forged at the birth of the world. Their power lay in what was not known of them, if their presence in the world were to become common knowledge then their ability to subjugate history even as it was written would soon dwindle into nothingness, damning the Ancient Ones to the confines of the past they had been so determined to maintain absolute dominance over.
They had known that the true Apocalypticus, Rhodri Caladan, would escape the annihilation the Crusader of Sacrifice would bring upon the Crimson Legion. What they had not expected was for the Crusader himself to walk away from the battle. A final, desperate attempt to correct the fault that would become their undoing was to erase the thoughts of the vulnerable, weakened mortal they had already cast into the abyss. They threw the Crusader of Sacrifice to the wind once more.
And again he survived their betrayal.
Draeden remembered that night well. He was regularly reminded of it by vicious, vivid nightmares that reflected the brutality of the Legion as if it were happening to him yet again. The scarred, pale arm of Maeron Mentari wrapped around his neck in a deadly grip that was overshadowed only by the shattered sword descending towards his jugular. Had he wasted but a moment, Draeden would have worn his blood on the outside, his life force drained from his body via sundered throat, staining the grimy concrete floor of the old Chinese warehouse that would become his deathbed. Draeden was not a man known to go down without a fight. His own blade slid free from its scabbard, the tip rested against his chest and, with one savage thrust, Draeden slew his enemy at the cost of his own life.
A toll that remained unpaid.
The thought of being punctured by a length of sharpened, folded steel was not one that appealed to anyone, least of all Draeden. Fortunately for most, this was a sensation that remained a dull but unpleasant mystery, one that would never unfold into an occurrence they'd survive to speak of. Regrettably, Draeden was not one of those fortunate enough to make his way through life without being subjected to such a horrific and agonizing experience as being stabbed. In the heart no less, or at least where his heart was supposed to be. A minor detail that had saved his life. A birth defect, something most would look perceive as a disability. Dexterocardia. Faulty genes be praised!
The reason for Draeden committing an act of such extreme vengeance was unknown, even to him. Refusal to accept defeat, he assumed. Bloodlust, claimed Jack. Either way, the choice had been made and, somehow, it had turned out to be the right one. Fate had certainly smiled upon him that day. With yet bloodier hands, Draeden Darksky marched on.
Another patch of turbulence shook Draeden from his reflective thoughts, making the disturbance a welcome one. Jack had not bothered him for a few hours and there was no good reason to waste that peace by dwelling on the past.
He had left on his weekly excursion early after convincing Alexandra to join him. Seeing the sights of Hayward was not exactly a matter of excitement to Draeden but it was an opportunity to get Alex out of the mansion. She hadn't left the grounds of Darksky Manor in months and although Draeden himself wasn't much of an outdoor person, Alex was. To reconnect her to the outside world would be a lifeline he couldn't ignore, especially knowing now that she secluded herself within that haunted old mansion every day, and that her only source of human contact was a Mexican housemaid who spoke English as well as an armadillo could read Braille.
Alex was more than familiar with interstate flight. She and Draeden had flown across the country together with All-Star Wrestling on several occasions, though not as often did they fly from one side of the country to the other, as they were in this instance. The familiarity did not particularly encourage Alexandra, who had thus far spoken very little. Draeden didn't know what bridge she had to cross but he had vowed to cross it with her. After all, it was partially his fault she was in this mess. If he had stuck around and supported her instead of flying off to China at a mere moment's notice then things might have been different. She didn't hold anything against him of course, his mission was important. Deep down he knew that too, but that didn't prevent the sight of Alexandra's horrified expression at his suggestion invoking a sense of guilt that burned him to the core.
But was he doing this out of love or guilt? A bit of both, he supposed. Anyone who said they'd never done something out of guilt was full of shit.
Draeden looked to his right. Alexandra sat in the window seat there, looking terribly uncomfortable. "You should have woke me," he said when she met his eyes.
"How often do you sleep? I'm not going to interfere with such a rarity," was her abrupt answer.
Draeden smiled. Same old Alex, even after everything she'd been through.
"More nightmares?" she asked.
"Aye."
"What about?"
"China. It's been playing on my mind a lot recently."
"Well even if you never really died there, the rest of the world thought you did. That's got to take its toll on you somehow. You said you saw a news report about it in Ireland?"
"More about the fuck-up with the card for the tournament. That is, me being on it." He paused and noticed that Alex was gripping the arm rest of her seat tightly. "Are you okay?" he asked.
"Yeah. I'll be happier when we land, get to the hotel," she said, releasing her hold on the seat.
There was not long to go.
* * *
6th August, 2009
"Hannibal Cage? Who's he?"
"I don't know," Draeden said distractedly as turned the black leather hat over in his hands. "I hear he's a bit of a dick, but then this is coming from the people who call me a Lord of the Rings wannabe. Fuckers. Which do you prefer?" he asked, pointing to another hat. He placed the one in his hands on his head.
"Well fuck them. It doesn't matter if he's a dick. He could be a Pokémon fanatic. As long as he doesn't use Fire Blast in the ring. That one," Alexandra said and nodded to the hat on Draeden's head. He left it there and angled it downward. "Are you done? Can we go back now?"
"Yeah," he muttered, heading for the checkout at the other end of the shop which was otherwise completely empty. It was one of those stores that catered to a particular style, apparently one consisting of a great deal of leather and suede. Cowboy hats and boots lined the walls with chequered shirts, jeans and suede coats hanging on rails in the middle. It was a spacious shop with laminate-wood flooring, plenty of mirrors and embedded lights, suggestive of the great expense for any item purchased within.
Draeden was not one for spending massive amounts of money on frivolous articles such as jeans and shoes, but his hat was an important item. Although his old hat, a Friesian cow-print cowboy hat, had cost him almost seven hundred dollars from some Swedish fashionista-cum-downright-fucking-swindler, Draeden's sense of humour had transformed somewhat following recent events since its initial purchase. Like a prune in the Sahara, Draeden's jocular approach had shrivelled into something entirely less fun than it used to be, and as such the cow-print had he'd formerly been renowned for wearing was a mere thing of the past. Having said that, he would certainly not throw the hat away, should he happen across it once again.
No, this black leather cowboy hat would do fine. It was comfortable and functional, a shield against the sun, not a fun gimmick. He handed the hat to the girl behind the till and retrieved his wallet. It was just some nylon piece of shit he'd picked up in an airport, to add contrast.
"That'll be two... Hey, wait; you're Draeden Darksky! You here for the tournament?"
Draeden smiled. "Could be. I do have a 'falls count anywhere' match, you might do well to lock up your doors."
The girl giggled. She couldn't have been any older than eighteen with carrot ginger hair and a green top. What an annoying laugh, Draeden thought. "What's it like to come back from the dead?" she asked.
"I couldn't tell you, I didn't die," he grunted in response, the smile now gone from his face. "It's a case of mistaken identity, I wasn't the guy that died in China. Can I just pay for my hat now?"
"Uh, yeah, of course. Sorry. That's two hundred and fifty dollars please, Mr Darksky."
He handed over cash. "No need to apologise. It's the only question I've heard since I came back. I don't know anything about this dead guy they found, I just took a trip to China - that's all. And call me Draeden, everyone's so formal these days."
Taking the money, the girl smiled. "Yeah, I know... I'm Faye!" They shook hands. "It must suck for everyone to think you're dead."
"Yeah Faye, just a bit," he muttered as he took his receipt. Placing the new hat upon his head, Draeden ambled out of the shop with Alexandra following sheepishly behind him. Draeden offered a wave over his shoulder to Faye and, with that, he forgot about her entirely.
As they stood outside, Alex snapped the price tag off the back of Draeden's hat. "That might help," she said. "So can we go now? I want to head back, I've got a headache."
"You don't have a headache," Draeden said, looking her in the eye.
"I do!"
"You're agoraphobic."
"What? That's ridiculous!"
"Then why are you sweating like that?"
"It's hot! It's the height of summer, there are no clouds in the sky. I'm from Finland. We don't get a shitload of heat out there, remember? I'm not exactly used to it. I have a headache."
"Bullshit. You lived in Thailand and Japan, you're used to the heat and you never complained before. You're not used to it because you never go outside. Look at how pale you are, your skin hasn't seen the sun in weeks," Draeden persisted.
"Oh, this coming from Captain Sun-Tan?" she countered. "Get the fuck out."
"Who said I liked the sun? I don't tan, I burn – you don't. Don't change the subject. I saw the look on your face when I suggested you come out here, you were horrified."
"Who'd want to come to Hayward? Not me! Particularly not to see you get the shit kicked out of you in some fucking dump of a warehouse?" she said dismissively, looking over Draeden's shoulder for a cab to hail to take them back.
"You're even turning down work--"
"Look, if it's about paying rent then I'll get work, if that's the problem just fucking say so! No need to be a dick about it!"
"I don't give a fuck about the rent! You spend your own money on your own shit, you're hardly a drain on my resources and I make enough on my own not to need any rent from you. If you remember, you forced me to take money from you because you felt bad about not giving me anything, so back the fuck off!"
She sighed. "Look, I just don't particularly like to go out these days. I prefer to stay in. I can read, go online, sleep a bit. I'm alright. It's not a big deal."
"When was the last time you actually went out and did some shopping or something?" he demanded.
"I order everything online. Can we have this argument in the hotel? I'm tired."
Draeden sighed and gave in. "Fine."
"What about you? When was the last time you slept? Don't tell me you're such a sneaky ninja that I don't hear you pacing all night."
"Apart from the hour I got on the plane... Sunday?"
"You look like shit," Alex said as she nodded.
"So you keep telling me," he grunted in response. "Some pair we are."
Alexandra managed to catch the attention of a passing taxi and it stopped at the side of the road for them. "Yeah, an agoraphobic and an insomniac. Fucking excellent."
* * *
It was a cold night in Hayward. As usual, Draeden was unable to sleep, plagued by the inherently deranged rantings of Jack. He had taken to counting the cracks in the paving stones of the street from the balcony as a distraction, a passive act which could attest to his incredible night vision. He had managed to subdue Jack's ramblings to a whisper in the back of his head allowing for clearer thought processes.
Alexandra had kept the copy of 'Shadow Crusade' that had been sent to Draeden. He was reminded of this by the book resting on the table on the balcony where she had been reading it. It transpired that she had actually ordered it for him, in an attempt to get him to read something instead of sitting around and listening to Jack's running commentary all the time. He still refused to read it but despite his disinterest Alex insisted on filling him in on the details. The book was about a man destined to save the world. He began life as an orphan boy, cast out of his village, taken in by the street folk of a great all-conquering nation's capital city. The kid's eyes were pure white, probably a birth defect, but the people of his village were superstitious, God-fearing idiots who thought he'd been cursed by the Gods. What a crock of shit. So far he'd been trained by the homeless people to steal and avoid capture by the law, then been drafted into a military training school to be taught how to read, write and fight. He still didn't see why this was of any relevance to him, nor why the author was in such desperation to make him read it.
Why bother when Alexandra would summarise it all for him?
A noise inside the suite caught Draeden's attention. He turned around and went back inside, closing the sliding glass door behind him as he did so. There were no lights on, Draeden left it that way as to avoid disturbing Alex.
The hotel suite was two separate bedrooms connected by a lounge in the middle with a sofa, TV and an internet access point; there was a step up to the front door. Draeden immediately noticed the piece of paper on the floor, it had probably been slid under the door while he was outside.
"What's that? Interesting! A note maybe? I wonder if it's for you!" Jack babbled. "Of course it is! Who'd send you that?"
Draeden ignored him and picked up the paper. It was actually an envelope. He opened it but there was nothing inside, the words were written on the inside of the envelope itself. With a sigh, Draeden pulled the envelope apart, ironing out the creases with his fingernail to straighten out the paper. Now turned the right way round he could see the writing properly; though the writing was large it was hard to make out the cursive writing. He squinted at the paper.
"It says 'open the door'."
Draeden sighed. "Yeah, thanks Jack. Well spotted." He carelessly threw the note to his side and peered through the peep hole in the door, there was no-one in the corridor outside as far as he could see.
"Could be dangerous. Best be careful, Crusader," Jack sniggered.
The door swung open silently. The whole corridor was deserted. Draeden stepped out of the room and listened carefully. The sound of someone's television a few doors away could be heard, but otherwise there was nothing, and certainly not anyone creeping around posting notes. He went to shut the door, and that was when he noticed the package that had been taped to the outside of it. The package was square-shaped, wrapped in brown paper. Draeden had a pretty good idea of what it was. He tore it from the door and ripped the paper from the top half of the package.
Sure enough: 'Shadow Crusade'.
Well enough was enough. Draeden took the book and stormed towards the elevator, tugging the door shut behind him. He pushed the button and waited, watching impatiently as the lift crawled from the floor above, down to Draeden's. When the lift arrived, a man was waiting inside and looked at him with a strange expression.
"Going down?" he asked. He was carrying a small case, wearing a dark brown jacket and black jeans, black t-shirt. Draeden nodded and he pressed the button for ground floor.
The music being piped into the lift was soothing, much to Draeden's annoyance. He didn't want to be soothed. He wanted to stay angry so he could take it out on whoever was unlucky enough to be at reception at the time. That nut-case author had crept into the hotel and stuck the book to the door. How ridiculous, these places were meant to be secure and not so that any old idiot could just walk in wherever and whenever they pleased. It was only then that he realised that he was wearing only his tracksuit pants and no socks, shoes or shirt. No wonder the man in the lift with him looked at him strangely. At the ground floor the man walked out of the lift and headed straight out while Draeden went to the reception desk and angrily slammed the half-wrapped book down on the counter. The young woman sat on the other side nearly leapt out of her skin at the sight of a furious Draeden Darksky and the sound of him almost destroying the hotel armed only with a book.
"Uh, c-can I help you?" she asked after recollecting herself.
"Yeah, who took this book to my room?" he demanded, holding the cover up for her to see.
"I, er, I don't know. We don't deliver books to rooms. If something turns up down here for you then we call your room. In the morning."
Draeden sighed. "Well someone's just stuck this to my door. Like 10 minutes ago."
"That wouldn't have been us, sir."
"Well who was it then, the book fairies? Santa come a few months early? Look at the CCTV, I want to find the asshole that taped this to my door, this shit isn't funny any more. Second floor, room five."
"I didn't see anyone, let me look," she said as she pushed a few keys on her computer, the screen out of sight beneath the desk. Draeden ducked under the folding counter top and moved around to her side of the desk to see. "You're not supposed to be around here!"
"Don't care. Show me."
"Really sir, I--"
"No, look, I really don't care. The faster you look, the faster I go away. I'm not supposed to be here; you're not supposed to let random people come in here and start messing with people's rooms either. Get on with it," he growled.
The woman got to work. She pointed to the screen, as if Draeden couldn't see. "There! That's the view of the corridor on your floor, there's a man..."
The man in question walked along the corridor, straight past room five. He disappeared into a room at the top end of the hall.
"Fast-forward," Draeden muttered. "We'll rewind if we see him."
As commanded, the receptionist fast-forwarded the CCTV footage. A man is seen, very quickly, going to Draeden's door and bending down before zooming to the fire exit.
"That must be him!" she said, rewinding. The pair watched as the man shot past in reverse, then again as he walked calmly to the door, slapped the book onto the door and pushed the note under in one fluent motion before straightening up and walking off. He also entered the fire escape.
"Are there any other exits, like fire escapes?"
She thought. "None he could have used without alarms that'd go off, sir."
"Can they be disabled?"
"Not really, only from here. Unless they were smashed... but it'd take a lot of work to break one and they're alarmed for that as well."
"The roof?"
"No."
"And no-one has left via the front?"
"Apart from that man you were in the lift with, no."
"The man on the tape was wearing a long black coat and a baseball cap. Couldn't have been him. What room did he go into? He must still be in the building..."
"I can't really show you that, sir! Customers' details, including their rooms, are confidential! I shouldn't really be allowing you to be here and look at these tapes!" protested the receptionist.
Draeden scowled. "So you can't show me the log book either?"
"No. Sorry sir."
"Fuck's sake. Are there any rooms on the ground floor?
"No, there aren't sir..."
"And are you all booked up?
"We have three rooms spare, sir, one on each floor. I can move you if you'd like, so this man can't bother you?" she offered.
"No, no point..." he grunted, more or less to himself as he headed away from the reception desk; thoughts raced through his head, options, potential answers... So much to think about. So little sleep to catch but plenty of things to do to fill the time. Draeden continued to turn things over in his head as he strolled around the reception area, wondering what to do next. By the door was a small table with a bowl containing packs of matches with the hotel's logo on the front, the paper matches that were torn from a strip and lit on the back of the packet. He took one and stuffed it into his pocket before marching over to the lift. It was already there so he stepped right in, pressing the button for the next floor up.
A few moments of listening to the relaxing music passed by as Draeden waited patiently, an idea forming in his mind. There was a bong! as the lift reached the first of the three floors, the doors slid open and revealed a corridor that Draeden could've easily mistaken for that of his own floor.
He took the matches from his pocket, tore one out and turned over the packet.
Struck the ignition surface. The paper match flared into life.
He held it up to the sprinkler.
It went out.
How anticlimactic, he thought.
He tried again, this time the fire causing the desired reaction from the fire alarms – that being them going off. Immediately, someone's door opened and the terrified face of a young man popped out. He stared at Draeden in his trackies.
"There's a fire y'know," he growled at the man. "Better hurry before you get burned to death. Very unpleasant."
The man disappeared and started screaming at the other people in his room to get out. Draeden headed for the fire exit and watched as the people came pouring out of their rooms to gather safely outside. He watched from the fire exit as people ran down the stairs from the rooms above, he could also see who was leaving the rooms on this floor. He hadn't seen the author yet. Soon, everyone was accounted for on the first floor, it seemed. One room had not been opened, the guests had fled from the fictional fire as fast as their feet would let fly. As he left the floor and headed up the fire escape he pushed past a small group of people, one of them was Alexandra.
She grabbed him and pushed him against the wall. "What the fuck did you do!?" she yelled. "What now!?"
"Nothing!" he lied. "Honest!"
"Oh, that's bullshit! Why do you insist on setting fire to hotels?"
"I didn't set the hotel on fire, I promise. Just go outside, I'll catch you up - soon!"
Alex frowned at him. "Just be careful."
"Yeah, yeah," he dismissed, guiding Alex down the stairs with a gentle shove. The man he was looking for hadn't gone down yet. A worried-looking elderly couple headed down the stairs, they appeared to be the last. "Anyone behind you?"
They paused and looked up. "No," the woman said. "I don't think so."
"Good. Go on, go! There's a fire you know!"
The couple hurried on. Draeden lingered a moment longer, he had to be quick, there was work to be done before the emergency services showed up. Nobody else came from above and he had not seen the mysterious author. Time to work. Draeden ran up the stairs and ducked out of the stairwell at the third floor. He looked at all of the doors, all but three of them were left ajar.
"Oh, isn't this exciting!" Jack said with glee as Draeden ran at the first door, smashing the door in with his bare foot.
The door splintered at the lock and swung open, the lights were on inside but no-one was home, not in the lounge nor the single bedroom. The suite was almost identical to Draeden's own in terms of layout, only with a single bedroom instead of two. Same fancy wallpaper above the dado rail, a soft red colour on the bottom. The rail itself was crème, as was the skirting board along the bottom of the wall with matching coving at the top. Same generic furniture, too.
Clothes and such were left lying where they'd been dropped in the bedroom. There was a case half unpacked in front of the wardrobe. No, not this one. Not this room. He hurried out and further along the corridor to the next.
"You must've been a fireman in a past life! Or a burglar. Probably a burglar. Actually, I remember you stealing things in a Las Vegas hotel," Jack continued.
"Be quiet Jack, I'm busy," Draeden snapped.
"Touchy."
His words were true, only Draeden didn't have the luxury of an empty hotel that time. Still, it was a necessity, as was this. Draeden backed up against the door opposite the one he aimed to destroy for a decent run-up. He launched forward, the door succumbed to the might of his foot. In this room the lights were off, so Draeden clicked them on. Everything appeared untouched, ready for the next set of guests. He checked the bedroom. Exactly the same. Next one.
"You'll never win the tournament if you keep doing stuff like this every night. You should go back to bed."
Fuck that. Draeden had the energy for both. It was only Thursday, he had two days to rest and recover from this.
This would be it, the room he was looking for. The room with that bastard author inside. He'd grab him by the throat and beat the answers out of him. In fact, he'd beat the shit out of him regardless of whether he told him what he wanted to know. There was more to this than a pushy author looking for publicity for his book. People that wanted publicity put their names on the stuff they wanted to be known for.
"Logically, he should be in this one," was the obvious, as stated by Jack.
"I know," Draeden growled under his breath.
"Of course!"
Draeden swore as he glared at the final locked door with malicious intent. Behind it lurked the answers and he would not be prevented from getting them. He wasted no time charging at it, hitting this one shoulder-first. The door collapsed under the force and Draeden staggered to avoid falling over the wreckage. This room was empty too, it seemed. He hurried into the bedroom. It was empty...
...almost.
On the bed was a long black coat and a hat, the same as the man in the CCTV footage had worn. On top of the hat was a note. He snatched it and glared at the words, written in the same handwriting as on the note that was pushed under his door. Draeden squinted at the writing while in the back of his mind a bitter cackle became louder and louder.
Recognition dawned on Draeden.
The man in the elevator... that look. Him.
Written upon the note were three simple words: "The game begins."
