Zeke could remember it all vividly. The people quaking as he walked by, introducing all his fellow Leaders, that poor man's face turned to mush on the stage. This was not his first night remembering things like these. There had been many others. Zeke could picture dozens of other men and women with their faces crushed by Crimson. Zeke thought about what his therapist told him Crimson represents. 

"These dreams started about a year ago, right Zeke? This Crimson Minister character is your desire for control. Crimson represents you pushing back on the things in your life. Your job, your rent, the funeral expenses. Zeke, you need to let go of Crimson. Whatever you want to do, that's fine. Just don't detest doing it. Your hatred is boiling up under the surface. Don't let it hit a breaking point."

That was the last time Zeke had gone to see Dr Nyugen, about a month ago. He missed going to see her- it was good for him. He usually left her office feeling better. But his new health insurance didn't have any mental health budget allocated. He was looking for a job with better insurance so he could go back to Dr Nyugen, but finding a job was hard. Times were hard.

So Zeke lugged himself out of bed in his cramped one bedroom apartment in Buffalo, grabbed his wallet and earbuds and walked to the bus stop. A lot of people complained about the bus but Zeke didn't mind it. Despite all the people around, when he put his earbuds in he felt as alone as ever. He had even made friends with some of the usual suspects on the bus. When his stop came he gave a cordial smile to them and walked off. 

He stamped his timecard at the warehouse and went to work. Work was miserable, Zeke's main solace was his music. Still, music didn't make his eight hours of lifting boxes, moving boxes, and stacking boxes broken up by a single half hour lunch break fun by any means. Zeke didn't talk to anyone on his lunch break- he was fairly new, had joined just about a month ago, and all the veteran workers did was complain about how bad the work was. Zeke already had enough complaining in his head the whole work day long. He felt no need to express that or have that expressed to him. So Zeke mostly kept to himself. 

Click! Zeke punched his timecard and left it in his slot. Then he got back on the bus, rode back home and laid back down in bed. His whole body ached from the day at work. Only then did Zeke take out the earbud and listen to silence for a bit. He was comfortable enough that he didn't need to escape anywhere. Zeke grabbed one of his books off the shelf and started reading through it. Everyday Psychology. He was reading a chapter about The Bystander Effect- a psychological phenomenon where everyone walking by would leave a girl bleeding out in the street because they all assumed someone else would call the police. It cited a real example of that happening. 

Zeke had lots of little interests like this. He liked to read about psychology, about martial arts, about pharmacy, about plant nurturing, and dozens of other things. Zeke knew how to do a lot of things in theory. In actuality, Zeke understood that he had never executed these things. They were all just hypothetical skills. 

Zeke put in frozen pizza for dinner, and while it was cooking he did a quick jog around the block. He liked to negotiate with himself like this- "I can treat myself to pizza if I run at least a mile". Zeke considered it a net even. After finishing the pizza, Zeke flicked on the news for an hour or so before going to bed. A couple news stories about disappearing mail, a couple of local would-be-robbers that were quickly stopped, etcetera. Nothing interested him that much so he flicked the tv off and tucked himself in with his psychology book, slowly dozing off reading it.

Zeke felt like he woke up immediately. It was scary how quickly he woke up. It felt like he hadn't slept at all. He went to get out of bed but found himself lighter than usual. He stared down at his arms, and quickly put together what was happening. He was dreaming. Zeke had the arms of the shadow man he dreamt about every night. Taking a few seconds to gain his composure, Zeke looked around and saw that he was seated at a long table. At the other six seats of the table were the six Leaders that had been introduced to him many times, and at the head of the table was Pure King. 

"Ah Jet, you always seem to show up right when we need ya." The young girl, Indigo Bishop, said playfully. "Say, are you doing alright Jet? You seem a lot more... fidgety than normal". Zeke realized that he had been tapping his finger to get used to the weird feeling. He instantly stopped when Indigo mentioned it. It just felt wrong to be doing this as a shadow figure. 

"Indigo, you know better than to question Jet, '' Pure King said sternly. His face was sharp and distinguished. He had on the most extravagant white suit Zeke had ever seen, from the tie to the cufflinks. All of it was white with no blemishes to be found. "Let's get to why I've called you here. How are we going to change the world?"