Trudging back through the fields of The Promise Land was like walking through a quagmire. The grassland had sucked up the rain like men dying of thirst, and the mud was relentless. By the time David even came into eyeshot of his shack, he had ruined his good pair of shoes, and the cuffs of his white pants had dissipated into a dull, muddy brown. Internally, he was simultaneously cursing his poor navigational skills and enjoying the feeling of home. This rain was just like the near-constant rainfall of Redditch. The gray-white skies, always calling him home, away from the confusion that had befallen him. In the darkness of his memory, something returned to him.

---

He had been seated in a roof set up in office decor. Bookshelf to the wall, drawing his eye. A plain desk, adorned with a mess of papers and un-noteworthy office supplies. Clipboards and pens and little plaques reading Doctor so-and-so. A chair designed to be comfortable, but failing miserably beneath his bottom as he shifted to and fro, trying to find some semblance of peace in the situation. The woman across from him, probably fresh out of med school, somehow with her own practice, likely funded by overzealous parents, leaning toward him, her overly-made up appearance decked out with a long, leg-strangling skirt and a formal blouse. She balanced the glasses on her nose with poise, something gained from a sense of entitlement; some evil intelligence lurking beneath the surface. Detective to the deranged.

"How have you been feeling, David? Has the medication been helping?"

She asks this in eager words, her posture unsure. She is to examine him, but he is examining her and her books. They are all medical journals, aside from one book of poetry David has back at home. He has already memorized the contents, and could easily repeat them back to her, but he knows she hasn't read it. It's all a show. A vague attempt at adding some personality to the sterile gray and white environment of business and medicine. His blue eyes remain fixed on the bridge of her glasses. They have been broken twice. He can tell from a glance. The little break marks and scratches on the inside corner of the lenses. She could easily afford to have them fixed, judging on her income. This practice brings in tons of clients who have no real problems -- just the ones they've invented in their heads. OCD, ADD, social anxiety. All things that the mind creates when it is bored. She sits at the edge of her professional-looking office chair, which has been loaded in fresh from the depot store, purchased on credit; something she can afford to pay off in monthly payments. David glares, staring into her dull brown eyes, and answers simply.

"You seek to sterilize me."

---

Back in the present, David finally manages to stumble his way over to the front of his shack. He had come here to perhaps pick a small bouquet of roses for the girl on his mind, but checking the position of the sun, he realized it was far too late in the day to do so. Eli would be expecting him at the helipad in less than thirty minutes. Not nearly enough time to pick them and bring them to Rose. He flushed at the very thought of her, somehow bringing a pink hue to his ghostly white face. But as he approached his domicile, something was amiss. There was a stranger present.

Up on the deck, a boy, no older than 15 or 16, sat in a simple wooden chair, carefully paring a peach in his hand with a small pocketknife. He was dressed much like the others of The Promise Land: a simple brown shirt with dirty jeans, speckled with the mud from the recent rain, and something quite different than the others: a baseball cap emblazoned with the symbol of a sports team David was unfamiliar with. At the sight of David approaching, the boy lifted his head, revealing his dirty blonde hair and simmering dark brown eyes. There was a small scar running across the boy's left cheek, which moved in tandem with his mouth as he greeted David.

"Howdy," the boy shouted, waving David over with the hand clutching the pocketknife. Moving his eyes away politely, David noticed something lying at the foot of the porch stairs. It was a bouquet of flowers: eleven roses acting as sentinels, circling one large golden sunflower peeking up over the roses like a massive yellow star.

"I was told to pick those fer ya," the boy said, looking proud of himself.

"By whom?" asked David, acting cautious toward the entire situation.

"Not allowed to say," the boy replied, shrugging. "Let's just say someone's contracted me to look out fer your well-bein'. Like a servant. Or a butler, if you prefer."

"Was it Becky?"

"Not allowed to say."

"Eli?"

"Not. Allowed. To. Say." the boy replied, reiterating his point. At this point, he had cleaned the pit of his peach clean, and lazily tossed it off into the woods. Seeing a new use for the pocketknife, he began to pick his teeth with the fine edge.

"Roight..." David muttered, surprised that his day could have possibly gotten weirder than it already had. He quickly ascended the stairs and extended his, which the boy heartily grabbed and gave a thorough shake.

"What should I call you, then?" asked David, trying his best to be friendly despite his particular mood. "Everyone deserves a name. And I guess I'll need your name if I'm to call on you for things."

"Toby," the boy said, smiling like a loon, his eyebrows curling up in delight.

"Roight, well, Toby..." David sighed. "I have a heli to catch and..."

David reached for the doorknob to his shack, but Toby, like a man of action, quickly leapt toward David, grabbing him by the wrist and forcefully removing David's hand from the knob.

"Wouldn't go in there," Toby warned, waggling a strong finger in David's face.

"And why's that?" asked David in response.

"I was told by my...contractor...that you really shouldn't be hanging around there much today. Might be unpleasant fer yer head."

"Again with the contractor. Just tell me," David implored, using the obnoxious tactic to get Toby to loosen his grip, if only for a moment. Indeed, it worked, and David immediately shoved past Toby, opening the door with a push of his shoulder. But looking inside his shack, he immediately regretted it. Once more like looking into a mirror, David did not even require the figure at the desk to turn around before he realized who it was. Calmly, another carbon copy of himself turned from the casual position it had held a moment prior to face David. This version was clad in gray, with his hair slicked straight back. Without even breaking eye contact with his new doppelganger, David reached down to his side and grabbed his bag, which held his wrestling gear for the evening. Still with his eyes locked on the gray copy, he speedily backed out of the shack and slammed the door behind him.

Turning a full 180 degrees, David nearly slammed into his other copy, Mystica, still clad in pure black.

"Found something interesting," Mystica began, but he was almost immediately interrupted by David's panicked voice.

"No time. Take control. We have a match."

"Oh, I thought you'd never ask, luv," Mystica smiled, and gratefully obliged. David felt a sudden sense of serenity flow into his veins, and his worries were no more. Now the monster had risen. Now was the time to go. Time to win. Time to kill. The mysteries would wait until they had returned.

Achievements

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