Looking over the clifftop, David could feel himself falling. Not physically. More metaphysically -- his consciousness zooming across the sky, steadily losing altitude in his battle against not just gravity, but the collective will of a sleeping god. The force of the wind was pushing him down. He was Lucifer in God's game, falling down toward the lake of fire. The landscape beneath him, the foliage once alive in the blinding love of the sun, now burst into flame. The sky melted from the milky pinks of the sunset into a black and red, twisted version of itself -- a darker side of the sky. David had flown too close to the sun, and his wax wings had melted away.

Drowsy, back in reality, he rubbed his eyes, re-emerging into the world that held darker secrets than his own internal universe. Indeed, he sat at the roots of a tree overlooking a massive clifftop, where the vital earth fell away into a sheer downward fall. The trunk firm against his back, David felt no fear of a fall, even after such a daydream. The apparition of his strive was still ripe behind his eyelids. The overgloss of his fall was still imprinted in his vision, dancing alongside the floaters at the edge of his awareness. Behind him, Mystica looked on with a look of pity upon his face. To the ever-dreaming otherworlder, David was just a boy, trapped in a game he never asked to play. But he was a foolish child, having been so easily dragged in by the charms and wiles of others, friends and lovers alike. Though Mystica could not truly criticize him for his transgressions and endeavours, for the sleeping god had done the same to the poor boy: dragged him in and chained him up in a life he never asked for. Pity was, of course, beyond Mystica's infinite consciousness, but there was something in him that felt for David. For a moment, Mystica worried that a piece of David's humanity had somehow snuck its way into his own mind. But that worry soon disappeared with David's near-silent musing to his darker half.

"So do you want control now?"

Mystica raised a curious eyebrow, clearly in wonder at David's harsh abandon.

"Eager to let your dear lord wreak his will. I like that."

"That's not what I meant," said David with folded hands. He spoke with a sort of bored vigour, knowing and feeling that he had the whole world in the palm of his hands.

"I have everything I could ever want, and so do you," David continued. "I have the adoration of those I care about. Friends. No seething, seeded sadness. And you...you have a powerful connection, a vessel for your future revival, and a shot at the US Title whenever you see it fit. All I ask is that you respect my alliances and emotions for 24 hours."

"24 bloody hours?" Mystica shot back, flabbergasted at the notion. "One day, I'll have you in chains, with all the free will in the world, and you grant me a day of use?"

"It seems that I hold the power now," David snickered. "I have all I could ever desire, and you...are asleep somewhere in the snow, sharing headroom with two other blokes, and controlled by a man. Does that hurt?"

"Do not pretend you could live without me," Mystica replied, crossing his arms. "You would be broken down in an alleyway had I not guided you back to sanity."

"Is depression an insanity?" David asked with a smug grin.

"You'd be put away..." Mystica spat, spitting verbal hot fire forth from his lips. "Or more likely, have ended your own life."

To this, David could not object. Those many years ago, up in Canada, he had been struck with an overwhelming sorrow, like a collective network of his previous instability and suffering, all joining into an army and assaulting his happiness. Out in the snow, close to death, he had almost asked for death -- begged the winter reaper to take him in with loving arms. He asked the snow to guide him gently into that eternal rest. Hours prior, he had held a bottle of prescription sleep aids, a pain in his heart too great for mortal coping mechanisms. And out there, amid the blanket of white beneath his weakened feet, he had come into the embrace of a rather different lord of death. To save a life was to take a life away.

"Your agenda is..." David sputtered, choking back his memories' deep sorrow, "lacking in momentum."

"Quite the contrary," Mystica sneered. "Win the hearts and minds of the people, one by one. That title shot is more than just a match...it's an opportunity."

"Your opportunities are a frightening idea," David replied, a small shiver scaling its icy way down his back.

"And we wait for the right moment. Yes, I'll respect your desires to keep love and friends but...any others in the way are fodder."

"To feed the fire..." David concluded fearfully, looking back out over the horizon. In the sun's falling rays, the treetops below appeared to be aflame in a red glow. The fire burned away.

"And the wedding?" Mystica added, turning to join David in looking over the horizon, out toward where the sun held desperately onto the mountains. "All yours. Give me the blood, and you get the sincerity."

For a moment, there was only silence as David pondered the offer.

"Deal."

Achievements

• 1x Tag Team Champion
  
• August 2013 Superstar of the Month (Thank you all so much!)
  
• 1x US Champion
  
• 1x X-treme Champion