What do we see when we look into a mirror? Is our mirror image a reflection of ourselves, or someone that we pretend to be? The mirror shatters, leaving thousands of glass fragments embedded in the mind’s eye. There is tension, as the anxiety begins to rip it apart. Who am I, really?
Celeste gazes into the mirror, as she downs another pill. Lately her anxiety had been steadily crawling to an all time high. What was it? Why was she so paranoid all of the sudden? It was as if everywhere she went she could feel someone… or something looking at her… it was unusual and disheartening as she rather enjoyed the public spotlight. She was a people person by nature.
She had been sitting in a hotel for the past couple of hours; a quick stop before the last pay per view before Kingdom Come. It has been one of the wildest weeks of her career… she and Steven Kurtesy scored a massive win over Chris KO and Ty Burna in a tag team the previous week; what followed were several days of interviews, photo ops, and autograph signings.
She had gone days without a good night’s rest; and the dank, dreary looking hotel rooms she had been bouncing back and forth across had not made things easier. She had passed out right after check out; she hadn’t even bothered to change her clothes. She awoke several hours later… it was close to midnight, and she suddenly felt like shit. She suddenly felt homesick… she wanted to see her husband and son… she wanted to see them so badly.
She walks over to the bedside table and picks up her cell phone; she’s surprised to find five missed calls, three from her husband, and two from her father.
‘What in the world is this all about? These calls weren’t from that long ago…’
She hits redial and calls her husband; Laxus picks up on the fourth ring…
“Hey babe, yeah sorry I didn’t get your call. I’ve been so busy the past few days that I haven’t gotten much sleep…”
She listens as her husband’s tone turns serious; her facial expressions turn from joy, to worry, and then to horror.
“What! Are you serious! I-I… are you okay? What about Nero?”
She begins to pace back and forth across the room; this was bad, really bad…
“Did you make it out of the house? What do you mean you weren’t there?”
Her nerves were on fire, and she was starting to sweat. She was sure that she was yelling loud enough to wake everyone else on the floor.
“I’m coming home, Laxus! Work isn’t important right now; I’d rather be with you and Nero. We’ll talk about it later…where are you staying? Right…”
‘That must have been why my father called…’
“I will catch the first flight out, and I’ll see you both soon. I love you so, so much.”
She closes the phone and ends the call. She swears in frustration, collapses on the bed, and bursts into tears.
She finally had the opportunity of her career… a match against the WZCW champion. Even though the title wasn’t on the line, there was no greater honor than fighting the top guy in the company. She respected the hell out of Steven Kurtesy; his convictions, morals and character were all something to be admired. The man was very much like her, as they both fought to preserve the right to stand up for themselves and others to take a stand alongside them. They were the first to confront Ty Burna and his poison… and so far they had provided the antidote so that others could find the strength to follow the same path. She was planning on facing him with honor and giving the fans a show they’d never be able to forget.
But all that had changed… her family needed her now. She would call and leave a message for Sandy in the morning. Steven would understand if she wasn’t able to make the show… he always did…
She does her best to dry her tears; she needed to pack. She quickly calls her agent and requests him to book her a ticket for a one way express flight back home to Sacramento. Her nerves were now shot, and on top of everything she was starting to get a headache.
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Celeste didn’t sleep the entire flight home; she wanted to, but her mind was forcing her body awake. She found herself staring out the window, her mind blank of thought. She barely registers the plane landing; the jostling passengers breaking her out of her trance.
She heads towards the terminal; her husband was already waiting for her at the baggage claim. Without a second thought she rushes over and leaps into his arms. The last six hours had been rough on them both, and all she wanted to do was return to her father’s house and sleep… but there was something that she needed to do first.
“Laxus… I want to see it,” she says with a hint of sorrow in her voice.
“Really, don’t you want to rest first?”
She shakes her head,
“No… no, this is something that I want to see.”
He nods, as Celeste grabs her bags. He loads her suitcase into the trunk, and the couple drives to their house. Celeste sits in silence as she continues to stare forward. Her husband shoots her a look of concern.
“So I saw on the WZCW website that you’ve been booked in a match against the world champion this week, that’s got to be pretty exciting.”
She cracks a small smile,
“It’s a dream come true for me. Kurtesy has been a friend to me these past weeks, and I owe it to him to bring my best game possible… but after this I- I don’t know…”
Laxus opens his mouth to speak, but he decides against it. Whatever decision she wanted to make in the next few days, he was going to support it. Their family would get through this, but he couldn’t blame her for being such an emotional wreck… after all she had already been through this ordeal as a child….
The sun was starting to peak up over the horizon as Laxus pulls the car into the couple’s driveway and up next to the house. Celeste feels her jaw drop; she couldn’t contain her shock. It was worse than she thought.
Her husband had called her late last night to inform her that the family house had caught fire in the middle of the night; firefighters were only able to salvage about half of it. The roof was gone, and it had collapsed on top of the living room. A series of giant tarps had been draped around the outside to keep the water out.
“Oh God… how did this happen?”
“It was an electrical fire that started in the attic and spread. Nero and I weren’t home, and the neighbors called the fire department,” he explains.
Looking at the house Celeste couldn’t help but think back to her youth, when her childhood home had caught fire and nearly trapped her inside to burn to death. She received severe burns in the process and had to undergo intensive skin graphing surgeries for several years. Flames were more than just a gimmick to her; they were a vehicle. They symbolized her tenacity and will to survive; they also symbolized her love, her hate, her mercy, and her anger.
However the fire had also left her traumatized…her paranoia was also birthed inside of those flames. She never thought in her wildest dreams she’d have to go through this again.
Laxus steps forward and drapes his arm around her, pulling her close to his chest…
“Are you alright? I know this must be hard for you.”
She nods,
“Honestly I’m just so relieved that you and Nero weren’t here; I don’t think I could bear to see him go through the same things that I did.”
This whole ordeal had really thrown a monkey wrench into her plans for the week; she had the biggest match of her career taking place in a few days and she couldn’t even enjoy it. At the moment she didn’t care if she won or lost, she didn’t even care about the Apostles or Ty Burna. The only thing that mattered right now was her family.
“Are you ready, Celeste? We should be getting back to your father’s house; you need to get some rest.”
She nods and offers him a tired smile; hopefully she would feel a little better tomorrow. And the healing process could begin.
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Hours pass, but the sleep wasn’t bliss. Just fourteen hours of deep sleep in a dark void. Celeste wakes up to find herself in her father’s guest bedroom. She takes a quick glance at the clock; it was after nine and it was night once more. She throws back the covers, and walks down the hall to the top of the stairs. She follows them down to the kitchen; she hasn’t eaten anything since the day before.
She finds her husband seated at the dining table with a pile of paperwork in front of him.
“Hey, you’re awake,” he’s says with surprise.
She nods, and starts to make herself a sandwich.
“Are you feeling better? I was worried about you.”
“I think so…I was shocked to see something like this happen again.”
Shocking was kind of an understatement. On one hand it would seem like karma was against her for some reason, but seeing that house brought up allot of old feelings that she’d long since suppressed. Surviving that fire was almost like a rite of passage for her; it had been proof that she was capable of surviving anything… even the chaos brought on by Ty Burna and his followers.
She grabs her sandwich and moves over to the table, Laxus clears away some of the papers to make room for her.
“So what are you working on, work stuff?” she asks.
He shakes his head,
“I’m trying to figure out how much it’s going to cost to repair the house…”
Turns out that the house was in worse shape than he’d thought; the roof would have to be completely replaced, and the living room would have to be repaired as well. The walls, gutters, and the brick on that side would also have to be replaced, and the electrical would have to be rewired. It was a mess.
“…the house is in worse shape than I initially thought. This might set us back a bit.”
“How much do you think it’s going to cost?”
He sighs,
“Around thirty grand, maybe more; redoing the roof and attic is going to take twenty, and the southern wing with the living room is going to cost a couple thousand. Then the gutters need to be repaired and the electrical wiring needs to be redone.”
She pushes her finished plated aside and rubs her temples,
“We should be okay after I get my paycheck from the Kingdom Come pay per view, but I would really hate having to perform just for the benefit of making money. I don’t want to be that person again.”
“And you don’t have to be that person; I just want you to be happy and continue to wrestle because you love it, not because you’re using it as a vehicle to get money and fame.”
“I really was hopeless years ago wasn’t I,” she muses.
“I had forgotten what really made the business special for me, and more importantly I nearly forgot about us.”
She leans over and kisses him; in times like this it felt so good to have Laxus around. Was she so arrogant that she felt like she was the most important person in the world? Would it have killed her to have called him those nights she spent traveling on the road; whenever she got lonely. I guess she really couldn’t blame him for thinking that she had cheated on him… she was never truthful with him during those times.
“But we made it through didn’t we,” he responds.
“And now we have Nero; he was the rock that solidified our foundation.”
She smiles,
“I remember when I found out I was pregnant. I realized that the person that I saw in the mirror wasn’t the kind of person that I wanted to be anymore… I realized that I wasn’t the most important person in the world.”
“So are you okay with all of this… the house?”
“I haven’t completely gotten over it yet, but it’s not going to stop me from going back to work.”
“Just don’t push yourself too hard.”
“I’ll be fine; besides I have friends that are watching my back this time, so I owe it to them to be as professional as possible.”
Laxus gathers up the papers and puts them into a manila folder,
“It’s getting late and I’m going to bed. Even though you just got up, do you plan on sleeping again?”
She shakes her head,
“Probably not, I’m probably just going to meditate for a while then I’ll work out. I’ll keep things quiet so that you, daddy, and Nero can sleep.”
He stands, and places the folder on top of the counter by the medicine cabinet, and leaves her alone with her thoughts. Celeste takes her plate and puts it into the dishwasher… perhaps clearing her mind might help her to see things more clearly, and to make some sense of the haziness she’d been feeling lately.
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The night didn’t offer any repose as she struggles to find what was smothering her inner self. Every time she tried to listen to her inner core she could only see the same two swirling masses; a golden hole on the right, and a black hole on the left. The two holes were starting to merge on top of each other… what did that mean? It could be a symbol for her anxiety pushing down on her like a giant weight caused by stress.
It wasn’t the Apostles or Ty Burna that had caused this; lately she just didn’t feel like herself anymore. It was as if the person she had been over the past few months felt like living inside of a dream, and she was beginning to wake up.
What did it mean? She was still her, nothing was going to chance… but she just couldn’t shake the feeling that the person she was now wasn’t the real her. Why was she suddenly so cautious? Was she afraid of what the future was going to bring?
It was that…it was just she didn’t feel like she was in control of her destiny any longer. Like something was trying to reach out from the darkness in her soul to give her direction once more. She was so close to being in a situation of power… and soon Ty Burna wouldn’t be there to get in the way. She was beginning to doubt whether or not this path of righteousness was truly genuine or not.
That’s why she had to seek out and find her real self, in order to develop a truly compassionate heart. And then the solution hit her… the black hole was the yin of her personality while the yang was the golden hole. Through her meditation she could see the two beginning to merge, but the black hole was starting to swallow the light from the other. That must have been while she felt so empty all of the sudden.
But first she had to face her friend Steven Kurtesy…
Even though the match was important, it was still only an exhibition; non title. It was a way for the two of them to kick back and have some fun and to entertain the fans. If Burna thought this match was going to drive a wedge between their alliance, then he was wrong. If the Apostles thought that the two of them were going to beat each other silly so that they couldn’t perform to their best potential at Kingdom Come, then they were wrong. The odds of an Apostle run in were high, but that would mean that Ty foresaw the two of them not beating the crap out of each other. Such a thing would be an act of cowardice; it would be proof that he feared the two of them… because they were going to put a stop to his reign of terror.
And for one fleeting second all seemed right in the world…
