"Welcome home, Olive."


"Thanks."


Olive stated as she dropped a cardboard box onto the floor of her old bedroom. She was home. Hell had frozen over. Clearly. Either that or the mental hospital that she was staying in burned to the ground. One of the pyromaniacs got a hold of a survivalist guide somehow and learned how to create fire from rubbing together some sticks. Things got out of control and the entire building went up in flames. With only one casualty. The pyro that started the fire. Talk about irony. You can choose which scenario is the truth. One is accurate and the other is a lie. Really doesn't matter which you pick though, since the result is the same. Olive got to go home. Not the preferred choice but better than staying in a citadel full of crazies.


"Do you need help unpacking?"


"Are you drunk?"


"What? No."


"Ah... pills then. Xanax, right?"


"No!"


"Then why are you being nice to me?"


"Because you're my daughter."


"Crap. You're dying, aren't you?"


"No, I'm not dying. I had a lot of time to think, while you were away and I realized that there may have been times, when I could've been nicer. You know? I always put a lot of pressure on you. Then Trevor died and you joined that terrifying wrestling federation. Which led into you hooking up with that awful grease monkey, drug addict."


"Uh-huh. Griffin MacAlister. Your point?"


"I just think that all of that led to well... you know. And I could have maybe prevented it, if only I showed a bit more compassion."


"I have no idea what you're talking about."


"Oh Olive, come on now. You know what happened. You still can't be sticking with that ridiculous amnesia story."


"It's not a story. I have no fucking clue what you're talking about."


"Language."


"If I promise not to swear, can you at least give me the Cliff Notes version of what went down cause I'd really like to know."


"Honestly, I thought once you got home, you'd drop the act but I can see you're as stubborn as ever."


"No, I'm being sincere, Mom. I honest to god have zero recollection of what happened that was so terrible, I had to get locked up in a psych ward. I was in my apartment one minute and the next minute, I'm in a room with three other women and they're telling me that I was there, for two weeks. I had people saying hello to me and addressing me by name and I didn't know who they were. Do you know what kind of nightmare that is, it's the kind you don't wake up from because you're already awake. Especially for someone like me, that usually has perfect recollection."


"I know what a wonderful memory you have. That's how I know you're lying."


"Oh my god! I'm not lying!"


"Well, I'm not going to argue about this, you're home and that's what is important. Maybe over time, you'll trust me enough to be truthful. Anyway, I'm going to leave you to unpack, I need a drink."


Olive's mother scurried from the room and Olive rolled her eyes.


"What about helping me unpack? I thought you asked me if I needed help. What if the answer was yes? Ugh. Fuckin' lush. Welcome home, Olive indeed."


She stated aloud to no one because her mother was long gone by then. While Olive remained on the second floor, her mother was already on the first, that fast. With a sigh, Olive reached into the box of her possessions and retrieved her cell phone and its charger. Upon plugging it in, she turned the phone on and began scrolling through names. Abruptly stopping when she got to one particular name. Tapping her foot nervously, she looked to the ceiling, closed her eyes and hit send. It rang three times before someone answered.


"Olive fuckin' Pendershore."


"Griffin fuckin' MacAlister."





"Hey there XWF, Olive Pendershore here."


"I'm back. Again. Yeah, I wrestled a little while ago, but that match was complete garbage, so I'm going to pretend that it never happened. You all should do the same thing. I didn't even release a promo. The folks in the XWF just put out some footage of me in the psych ward. I guess they thought that was an adequate filler. Based on some of the stuff that passes off as promos, I can completely understand why they would assume that. I could probably take a shit on camera and eighty percent of the roster would think that was fantastic. I'm not going to do that by the way, I don't want to steal material from my opponents. Since every time they speak it's the same equivalency. Word on the street says it stinks the same too. Cameramen talk yo. Anyway, I'm out and back wrestling again, obviously. Because even if you've spent time in a facility for the mentally unstable, you're still qualified to wrestle for the XWF. "


"For this upcoming fight, I'm scheduled to face Rain and Snow, The Perfect Storm."


"I'm going to say this right now. I don't know who these people are but they seem really fucking awful. Which should inspire me to kick them in the face, till they die but from my perspective, allowing them to live is way worse, because then they have to continue onward being them. Rather then if I were to murder them, then they might come back as something or someone, far more worthy of existence and they don't deserve that. Don't get me wrong, I'm still going to kick the shit out of them until they're barely clinging to life. I just won't go past that line. Then I'll let Brian make the pin because I don't want to. Since the XWF doesn't have a health plan, I'm not risking catching whatever they're carrying. Brian looks like he's been living in the woods for awhile, off the grid like a crazy survivalist or the uni-bomber, so I'm sure he knows how to treat whatever they pass on to him. Well, that's all I've got. Hope you all weren't too disappointed and if you were, you should probably kill yourself because there's no way you're going to survive living in this world, if this is what qualifies as a disappointment."


"The End?"