The ringing in Jaymz's ears would not desist, though he could see nothing but shifting reddish emptiness. He felt the tightening around his throat, air trapped in his lungs. He sputtered, fighting the grip at his neck, but it was far too taut. He thought he felt himself crying.

Then, he stopped struggling. The grip did not falter, but the pain ceased; it merely became a presence, a painless awareness. The redness turned slowly to darkness, and Jaymz became calm.

Painless.

Calmness.

It was a feeling Jaymz had not experienced in ages. There was no pressure, no laughter around him, no hatred. Everything was as it should have been.

Except for the mysterious darkness.

Jaymz paid it no mind. It brought with it solace, and he embraced it with both arms.

Or he believed he did. He thought he smiled, too, but he couldn't be sure of that, either. In fact, he wasn't even sure of any of the sensations he was feeling. Perhaps his body screamed in agony and he merely shut it out. Perhaps he was in utmost bliss, but could feel none of it. Perhaps his nerve endings were failing.

He realized, with finality, that the calmness he felt, was nothingness.

He felt nothing.

He accepted it.

He was dead.

* * *

No.

There was a light that overcame him, coming from everywhere and filling every corner of his vision. It was blinding, like the flash of a pistol.

He finally felt something, his hand reaching up to shield his eyes. That was fruitless; he couldn't even see his arm, let alone block the blinding light with it. But he actually felt something, and this filled him with dread.

Because the grip and the ringing was still there.

And then the pain returned.

Jaymz gave a tremendous lurch, and the sound of a crowd oohing came to his ears; the grip on his neck presented itself as a set of fingers. Jaymz reached up to the fingers to fight them, and his eyes came open.

It took a moment for his eyes to grow accustomed to the world around him, but as they did, the voices of the crowd faded away.

There was no crowd.

Lucas Black's fingers were not at his neck.

Jaymz slowly uncoiled the bed sheet from around his throat and tossed it away, nearly knocking over his disconnected heart monitor. He silenced the ringing by picking up the phone.

"Raccoon City, Nemesis speaking."

"Dude, you're not a f*cking zombie, man."

Jaymz looks around his hospital room, at the machinery and strewn bedclothes, tubes stuck in his arm, bandages, scars healing too slowly. He sighed.

"Says you."

"Dude, you are not the living dead. You're the dead living." Jaymz could almost see the goofball's shit-eating grin at his paradoxical pun.

"I'm dead tired, Mark. I've got machines watching my heart and lungs and brain, it hurts to walk, and I'm lucky I'm not pissing in a bag. What the hell do you want?"

Pause.

"Oh, it's that bad still?" The hope that was in his voice was killed and replaced with concern.

"Yes, Mark. What did you want to pester me about?"

"Dude, you're not even telling me I punch cocks. It makes me depressed."

"I'm going back to sleep."

"You can't be sleeping, dude. You've gotta be getting ready for your match on Meltdown."

A pain shot through Jaymz,and he let out a grunt of surprise and pain.

"What? What match?"

"You know what match, Jaymz. The one that made every sod in the IWC gasp when it was announced. You're effing in it, dude, how can you not know about it?"

"Mark, what the hell are you talking about? I've been struggling to stay conscious almost every day since the match with Black."

"Jesus, man. If that's the case, what did you do to Kade Williams to piss him off so much? Did you rape his cat or something? You're wrestling Ry Ballard for the World Heavyweight Title."

The phone clattered to the floor, pain flooding every sinew and strand in Jaymz's body. He looked over at himself in the mirror across the room. An unfamiliar man looked back, a broken man whose body was hastily trying and failing to piece itself back together.

And now, another match, against the world's greatest wrestler.

He could hear the cells of his body screaming in fear, pleading with him to stop, begging him to just die.

But he could also hear the laughter again, roaring back to life, working along side his pain to crush the life out of him. His head fell and his eyes closed.

He had nearly found peace.

Instead he was saved and presented more suffering.