The ocean is not often perceived as an entity of mercy, yet the mystery of what lies beneath the waves is often so alluring for some that they cannot help themselves and risk its wrath regardless. For those, the ocean bears no forgiveness. To set foot in the infinite kingdom of the sea is to invoke the kind of power that land-dwellers could not hope to conquer, the kind of remorseless brutality that could brush a city from the land and condemn it to the great depths forever in one single, terrible swipe of a watery claw. A proportionately minuscule display of raw, unchained might; the consequences of which would ripple in the waters of time for centuries while the land-dwellers seek to recover, to make sense of it all, and the ocean will continue to observe them in disdain.
To say that the ocean is entirely vengeful or malevolent would be a foolish statement. It has provided a home to countless different species over the course of time, in turn providing the land-dwellers with food for millions of years - as it will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. The sea has been known to, on occasion, guide home souls lost in its kingdom; to return the innocent to the shores from whence they came.
This was one of those occasions.
As the tide withdrew from the sandy shoreline it left behind a single, large object that one could easily disregard as debris when viewed through the veil of night that lay upon the smooth beach. Perhaps it was a piece of driftwood, discarded by the sea; the bloated bones of a seafaring vessel finally come to rest upon land? Not today. These were bones of another kind, contained within a sack of flesh and blood.
The tide rose again and washed over the body like a child retreats from the corpse of a small mammal after poking it with a stick.
The sea gave the body one final nudge. This seemed to be enough to rouse the man into rolling onto his side and to half-cough, half-puke a few mouthfuls of water onto the sand beside him, leaving him more exhausted than before. With great determination the castaway pushed himself to his hands and knees and continued to empty his stomach of the salty sea water a few mouthfuls at a time, an exercise punctuated by a momentary pause to gasp for air while the ocean gently washed over his hands and legs. The flood of regurgitated water seemed to be over, the man now breathed as carefully as possible to avoid another bout of vomiting, but it never came. He sat back on his legs and looked up to view the landscape before him.
The situation he found himself in had begun to feel like an everyday occurrence and that was not a thought that was reassuring for him. As he surveyed his surroundings he let his mind wander to the past, to recall why this felt so familiar to him. Thinking back to this relatively recent memory caused a pain behind his eyes that stung like a thousand needles jabbing his brain with increasing severity. He mentally flinched from the pain and the memory was lost to him once again, like a trout free from the fisherman's barb it disappeared into the murky depths of the unknown once more.
He surveyed his situation through stinging, bloodshot eyes. There were three options that the castaway could see through the haze at this time - follow the shore to his left or right, or go straight ahead over the small rise before him and find out what lies beyond. He thought he could hear trees swaying in the breeze but the sound of the tide, coupled with the water in his ears, made it difficult to say for sure. With trembling hands, the forward motion began. One wobbling arm supported his body as he lifted his weight from his legs and leaned forward, placing another hand down on the sand a few inches in front of the other. His fingers grip the sand as if seeking to drag himself forward, but he does not find it as the sandy beach offers no purchase for the horizontal climb. Squinting through the darkness, the man could see that the moon-lit rise was only a few metres ahead. Get that far now; worry about the rest later.
* * *
Draeden Darksky was a busy man of late. After becoming the Chief Executive Officer of The Experts, life seemed to have become one long stream of paperwork. That is, until he paid an exorbitant amount of money to hire someone else to do it for him and he was able to once again devote his time to plotting revenge against those who sought to remove him from the head of The Experts.
There was, of course, also the matter of the author who had become something of a nemesis to Draeden since his return to the US. It was because of the anonymous man's harassment of Draeden that he was eliminated from the Extreme Tournament and this iniquitous deed would not be without answer... as soon as Draeden discovered the stranger's identity. Unfortunately for Draeden he possessed neither the skills nor the resources to track down the writer of the only book ever to cause great misery to Draeden Darksky. "Shadow Crusade" was the name. Draeden had refused to read it, despite the dozens of copies piling up at his house in Chicago, sent by the author himself - purely because this would fulfil the devious author's wishes; doing so would mean another victory to the man and Draeden was not willing to let that happen under any circumstances.
It had been a while since Draeden had heard from the mysterious stranger, the last time being when he showed up at the tournament in his match against Hannibal Cage, causing the distraction at a vital moment when Draeden's concentration was required the most. "Never again," whispered Draeden bitterly as he replayed that moment in his head.
"Sorry?" came a soft voice from the other side of Draeden's sizeable office; the face of Alice Bowman had looked up to him from where she knelt on the floor by the filing cabinets, brushing a lock of dark hair from her view.
"Nothing," was Draeden's grunted reply. The personal assistant turned her attention back to the stacks of files and folders that surrounded her without another word, further cementing the confidence Draeden had in his selection of the young woman as his PA. Alice didn't bother him with her opinion unless he requested it, which he didn't; she simply performed her tasks without questioning the outcome or his motives which was exactly the kind of unerring loyalty that Draeden required from her. It had been a month to the day that he had taken the raven-haired woman into his employ and yet, despite the time that had passed thus far, he knew virtually nothing about her. He assumed that she liked to read as he had seen her with her nose buried in a book of some sort every time he'd passed her desk on his way out of his office. Alice wasn't often tasked with any real work; the ludicrous salary Draeden had arranged for her as his personal assistant was purely intended to waste Experts' money and to allow him to select the personnel in his immediate environment to suit himself.
Draeden didn't go to meetings and generally ignored the goings-on of The Experts as much as possible, leaving the real work to the people who actually knew what they were doing, like Alice. As much as Draeden was an intelligent man who commanded a surprising wealth of knowledge, despite his relatively uneducated background, he was not a businessman and as such he had no idea how to handle the affairs of even a small company, let alone one of the scale of The Experts. His deft evasion of any work relating to the everyday happenings of The Experts was wholly intended to hurt the company even more and was apparently successful, according to his frantic underlings who were still desperately trying to keep the business afloat despite the financial damage that Draeden inflicted upon the business on a daily basis.
As The Experts' CEO put his feet up on his desk, Alice placed the folder she had in her hands on top of an open filing cabinet drawer and sighed.
"Something bothering you?" Draeden asked her, spinning a pen in his hand.
"No, just this filing is taking forever. Jesse Gunn's PA left a real mess and Spike never had the chance to clean it up," she complained. Then, turning to Draeden, she said: "You want to get some coffee?"
"Would love some." He made no move to get up, assuming the young woman intended to bring him some.
"I meant - would you like to come with me for some?"
Draeden looked up from his pen spinning and his eyes met the smiling young PA's own, an expression he did not reflect. "Sure."
* * *
Having reached a semi-vertical state a few metres ago, the man staggered amongst the trees. He felt as though he had done so for hours already, the constant struggle onward slowly sapped what remained of his strength and he found that his resolve was weakening at the same pace as his body; a pace much quicker than his legs could carry him. The onward battle was a losing one and was becoming increasingly hopeless with each step forward. Any attempt to delve into his thoughts to take his mind from the pain simply made it worse, that stinging agony that repulsed him from his own memories had rattled him to the core and made his journey all the more arduous.
Despite the pain in his mind, the man still knew a little. He knew he could beat this. He knew that he had endured more than this laborious task could throw at him and that there would be rest for him soon. He knew that the forest would not be safe, otherwise he would have crashed onto the wet, green forest floor and slept beneath the great canvas of leaves, but such an option was non-existent unless the choice of freezing to death or being mauled by a wild animal had suddenly become acceptable. He had to find shelter. Had to.
Had to.
* * *
Draeden had perhaps gotten ahead of himself when he had praised the usefulness of his PA and her ability to distance herself from him on a personal level by avoiding asking too many questions. Perhaps this simple requirement was too much to ask. Perhaps it was time for a new PA. It had been a month and the two had barely shared a conversation, yet Alice Bowman had unexpectedly invited him out of the office for coffee. Obviously nothing too formal, but still, this troubled Draeden. They had found a table away from the other customers in a little café across the street from Legacy Towers. Draeden awkwardly peered into the mug in his hands as Alice sat opposite, the pair bound in total silence.
Alice took up the challenge and swung a verbal ice-pick. "This isn't really your kind of environment, is it?"
"Not really," Draeden muttered in response.
"At Legacy Tower, I mean."
"Hmm."
"So... what is?" she persevered. "I mean, I know you're a wrestler too and stuff, so you'd feel most at home in the ring or something, right?"
"No."
"Really? Why?"
"It reminds me of darker days, when times were not so... easy."
"Wow, what do you mean?"
"Nothing. Look, the ring is not a magical 'sanctuary' for me. I'm not that much of a cliché. Yet."
"Then where?"
As much as Draeden was disappointed at Alice's sudden interest in his personal life he couldn't help but admit to himself that he was, at least in a small way, fond of the woman's presence, and not just because of her beauty. He would consider keeping this one. For now. "I'm only in this building because my contract requires me to conduct business in some way, otherwise I'd be in Chicago wreaking havoc on the VWF for their treachery," he said, finally.
"Why has that suddenly become your driving force? You joined the Extreme Tournament, you represented VWF and said nothing the whole time. Why now?"
"I had... a change of heart," he said, smirking because he knew that nobody else could ever know what really happened that day. "I put a lot into this company. The least I'd earned was a little respect and Spike Johnson's conduct pushed me too far."
Alice leant across the small lacquered dining table. "You're going to destroy this place, aren't you? Financially, I mean," she whispered.
"Such is my intention, Miss Bowman," growled Draeden as he sipped his lukewarm coffee, a scowl covering his previous expression of amusement. "And just by announcing such an intention I have already caused chaos. The investors don't want their money to be anywhere near The Experts because they know it's a sinking ship; company stock value plummeted the instant I publicly promised to see the demise of the company they owned a small piece of. I will bring this place down; there's no question of that. It's just a matter of when." He set the empty coffee cup down on the dining table before rising to leave. "Thanks for the coffee."
* * *
Could it be?
Was that... a light?
A faint yellow glow had caught the wanderer's attention and he staggered towards it with renewed vigour. He had marched on through the forest for many hours, pressing on through hunger and a kind of fatigue that he never knew existed after escaping the jaws of death once more. His memory had not opened to him yet, but he somehow knew that this was not the first time he'd walked away from something that should have seen his demise. Being washed ashore as he now found himself had happened before, but he couldn't think back to try and recover his lost experiences.
The light drew closer as he staggered on. At first he thought it was coming towards him and he was surprised to discover that it was his own momentum that had increased, the hope of salvation revitalising his weary body enough to shift up a gear and drive on despite his exhaustion.
Bigger and brighter with each step, the yellow light was behind the row of trees a dozen or so desperate steps away.
The castaway limped on.
* * *
Draeden had gotten ahead of himself. He knew this now; Alice would have to go. She had no talents that he could not easily replace, even if she was easy on the eyes. If he found someone more skilled for the job then this would serve as an excuse to waste more money on their salary anyway.
The Experts' CEO kicked his feet up onto the modern pine and brushed steel desk and pondered. His mind was a shambles at the best of time, lurching from one thought to the next like a wounded deer staggered through the forest in a desperate attempt to escape its hunter. For some reason this thought pleased Draeden momentarily as he conjured the image of The Experts and the associated promotions reeling from his attack, his very own financial crisis inflicted upon them as his brutal revenge.
"What about all the people who will lose their jobs? Thousands of people will suffer," he recalled Alice saying as he walked out of Café Nero. He had laughed in response. So many large companies going down at once would have much greater consequences than initially intended, he realised.
Good.
No, Draeden would not fire Alice Bowman. The innocence he had read on her face, optimistic words spelled out by naïve lips at that moment - he enjoyed it. The problem was that he wasn't keeping the girl occupied enough to distract her from asking him questions he didn't want to answer. She was becoming interested in who he was because she was not stimulated. The solution was simple; it was so obvious he was amazed he didn't think of it straight away. Hire another PA. Another overpaid idiot on the books, another drain on The Experts' resources, all the while he got to keep Alice Bowman out of his hair. It was perfect.
Draeden Darksky smiled to himself as he spun his pen.
* * *
The squat wooden farmhouse offered another obscure glimpse into history that so far only served to confuse the freezing-cold man further, though desperation offered even less. He practically fell into the old wooden door before thumping it with the bottom of his barely-closed fists, stepping back and barely balancing on weary legs to await an answer. Inside, a dog had started barking. The animal sounded huge.
As he gazed at his surroundings the more it seemed like the tiny glade the farmhouse sat in had become its prison, the dilapidated home locked in by the forest that surrounded it like a silent army marching upon a defeated enemy that still had one trick left up its sleeve. The trees loomed in the darkness, the shadows and leaves conspiring to block out the sun, to prevent ascension to the Heavens. It was as if the place the castaway now stood in were a subterranean world all of its own; an isolated, verdant Hell.
Could there be truth in this? Had the presumably shipwrecked man truly died and awakened in this place, this afterlife consisting of freezing, wet misery?
Before his thoughts could decline any further into despair, the barking stopped abruptly. The stranger watched the door and listened as a security chain slid free, the bolt knocking against the door frame.
The door creaked open.
A burly man, probably in his mid- to late-forties, filled the opening. He gripped an old-looking rifle by the barrel in one hand while the other clawed at a thick, greying beard as he eyed his visitor suspiciously. A brown and black dog that was truly as big as it had sounded padded over to sit beside his master, the beast's midnight eyes locked onto the visitor's own while he panted in anxiety, the urge to rip the stranger to shreds in defence of the giant that towered above him was only a mere gesture away from manifesting in reality, outside of the animal's eager mind.
"Who're you?" he asked, the deep voice booming in the wet man's skull. The shaken expression he received in response was not satisfactory, so he tried again. "I said - who are you?"
"I don't remember," the castaway admitted in a hoarse whisper.
The owner of the home looked frustrated. "Then where'd you come from? How'd you get here?"
A gesture back in the direction he thought he'd dragged himself from was all the explanation he could offer the man. "That way."
"Nothing but sea that way, lad. Try again."
"I'm telling the truth."
"Come forward so I can see you proper," muttered the man as he took his weapon in both hands. The castaway did as he was asked. "You look familiar."
"So do you. I recognise this place from... somewhere."
"You also look wet."
"I am."
"And cold," he added.
"Yes."
A sigh, followed by a gesture to follow the man into the house. "Come in then. Fire's on."
* * *
"Here, drink this," rumbled the bearded man, handing a chipped mug to his visitor as he sat on the floor in front of the fire, soaking in the warmth and wrapped in a thick woolly blanket. He slumped into a chair, groaning with the effort, and leant his rifle against the arm, his wolf-like dog sniffing at the stranger's back. "Hector, come! You dunno where he's been."
That name, Hector, echoed through the castaway's head. Images of the past flooded into his mind's eye and the pain that came with it was unbearable, enough to force a muffled scream from his lips as he wrapped his arms around his head in agony.
"What's the matter with you?" the man asked, leaning forward with a stern look upon his weathered face. "Tea too hot for you, eh?"
The huge man's words fell on deaf ears; the only sound the stranger could hear was the piercing screech of his brain as it struggled to remember. He saw the house, the one he was in right now, but different and from afar, as if looking down from a hilltop. Brighter. It was pleasant outside; the amber sun up there amongst the soft clouds in the sky, lush green fields surrounding the property with rows of lemon and orange trees on a small rise behind the farmhouse. The door to the house swung open and Hector leapt down the front steps, barking excitedly, spinning on the spot; the sound of the castaway's suffering was forgotten for now, though he didn't realise it. At the door stood the bearded man. He looked more youthful, his full beard reduced to a mere goatee, the lines on his brow gone. He was smiling. Instead of the gun he held now, the big man carried a long staff. Upon seeing it, the stranger was reminded of an injury the giant had sustained while working... farming. Yes, he was a farmer. The name "Ronan" appeared at the forefront of his mind as he looked into the calm eyes of the man oblivious to his presence. The stranger felt himself slipping away, the world he looked in on growing more distant. Beside the man a child appeared, a boy of maybe five or six years of age. Ronan's huge paw settled on top of the kid's head and ruffled his unruly hair playfully. They watched in silence as the sun slid down towards the horizon with unnatural haste.
The world became shrouded in darkness.
* * *
An A4 envelope was slipped onto the desk beside Draeden as he doodled a sword of some sort on a business document that, at some stage, had been marked as important. Without looking up, the suited young man took the envelope and re-opened it - Alice had already investigated the contents prior to bringing it to Draeden - before tipping the contents out onto the desk. A letter fell out.
"What's this?" Draeden asked, frowning at the well-presented correspondence on his desk.
"It's from PTC. It's an invitation to their seventh GTT tournament," explained Alice, picking the letter up and handing it to him to read. "The invitation is an open one, you should select some wrestlers to send over to represent The Experts. It's kind of urgent, they wrote to us about this two weeks ago but you were, uh busy."
"Busy?"
"I think your exact words at the time were, um, 'I don't give a shit.'"
"Ah. So what's GTT?"
"It's a great opportunity to put The Experts out there and get some exposure for our wrestlers, not to mention--"
"How many?" Draeden interrupted.
"H-how many what?" Alice stammered in surprise at the sudden, spry splicing of sentences.
Draeden grunted. "How many wrestlers-- oh, nevermind, it says here..."
Alice politely waits for him to reveal the answer.
"How many?"
"What? How many what?" Draeden asked, distractedly.
"How many wrestlers do they want?"
He passed his PA the letter. "Here, see for yourself."
With an exasperated sigh Alice took the letter from Draeden, skimmed it over. "Five?"
Perfect. "Aye. Fancy that."
"Who are you going to choose to send?"
"I'm not going to send anyone. Contact the promotions, tell them there's four spots at the tournament available to Experts talent, first-come first-served," Draeden mumbled through hands cupped over his face. "If anyone complains about short notice, tell them to fuck off."
"Only four? Why?"
"Because one spot is full, Miss Bowman. Mine."
Alice's eyes widen with surprise, making Draeden grin. "But don't you have to be here?"
"Yes and no. I only need to be here to oversee what goes on and relay my instructions to you. On the other hand, we could call it a business trip and you can come with me to wherever this tournament is."
A moment of silence passed between them while Alice hastily sought an excuse to decline. The thought of spending any longer with Draeden Darksky after their brief but unpleasant exchange in the café yesterday was not an agreeable concept.
"I- I don't think that would be... appropriate?" she tried.
Draeden scowled. "You foolishly misunderstand my intentions, Miss Bowman. You'll be communicating with my office here and relay my instructions. I need someone I can rely on to do this - unfortunately that's you. You won't be required to attend the events nor be in contact with me outside of working hours. When you're not on the clock you can please yourself. I just need you around to make sure nobody fucks up what I'm trying to achieve here. Understand?"
"Yes."
"Good. Get together whatever you need from here, we'll leave tomorrow for... where?"
Alice scanned the letter. "DC. The event is being held at the Verizon Center."
"I see," he grunted, pausing for a moment's thought. "Don’t we have a helicopter or something?"
"There's a helicopter on the roof but I don't think we can fly all the way from Hayward to Washington in it."
"No, but it can take us to the airfield where our corporate jet is, right?"
"You don't like driving, do you?"
"Not in the slightest," he said cheerfully.
* * *
When the castaway opened his eyes he traded one darkness for another. The room he was in was pitch black and it felt like he was lying on a bed as whatever was beneath him was soft and the closest thing to comfort that he could remember experiencing. He must've passed out at some point, as he didn't know how he got into the dark room. Sitting upright made his head hurt, but it was a necessary evil. His eyesight sliced through the darkness; he was aware of the absence of light but his vision was barely impaired by it now, allowing free movement around the room. An almighty creak from the floorboards alerted Hector, who began to bark excitedly. Another two wobbly steps, another two groans from the old farmhouse and he had made it to the door. The battered, round handle turned in his grip but the door didn't open - it was locked.
Breaking the door down did not sound like a bad idea, except for the fact that the castaway didn't feel up to knocking down a kitten with a tank, let alone a solid wooden door with himself. Fortunately the matter was taken out of his hands as the door was pushed open from the other side by the burly bearded man. He clicked the light on, blinding the castaway momentarily.
"I know who you are," he said in a low tone, looking at his guest with sorrowful eyes as the stranger squinted at him through narrow, bloodshot eyes. "And I think I know why you're here."
"When I passed out, or whatever happened to me, I saw you. Your name is Ronan."
"Yes."
"We lived here?"
"In a manner of speaking."
"Why am I here?"
"Because you're dead, Draeden."
Haunted, part one: Consigned to Oblivion
