Diego was lying on his bed, mindlessly looking at the ceiling as he waited for nothing. The pages from his contract were carelessly scattered around, after he’d grown so frustrated with it that he’d just thrown them away and avoided all contact. He had read the document several times, trying to grasp what he’d been roped into. What was clear is that right now, he had a roof, food and all his other basic needs solved as part of his new job. Dirtha had taken him to a large building where her company resided, as well as other people in similar circumstances, bound by similar contracts, but for two days he’d avoided all that, locked inside the safety of his room. He only left when there was no other choice, but whenever he’d set foot outside, his eyes were always glued to the ground.

He wasn’t just shocked about everything that had happened, but in all honestly, he was scared of what waited for him beyond those walls, so much that he’d kept the curtains closed at every moment. He didn’t even want to catch a glimpse of the strange city at the other side of the window, even if it meant living like a vampire. No one had bothered him yet, but every time he heard everyone leave the mess hall, there was always a plate of food for him outside his door. When he could finally join the outside world, he’d had to thank someone.

Despite how completely sick he was of it, Diego grabbed again a page from the contract. His head was spinning and hurting, as if someone was banging on it with a hammer, but he forced himself to read again the damn paper. He needed to understand the chains that bound him. Despite the mountain of stress over his shoulders and the cruelly obtuse legal language, he managed to get the gist of it. For the next seven years, he was forced to work for Brick’s Wrestling Promotions as a professional wrestler. He didn’t understand the long parade of obligations that he had to follow, but he did comprehend that failure to fulfill his responsibilities would bring the hammer of severe legal actions down on his head, something that would be best to avoid. Until he could finally convince his brain to hold to all that, he’d do best just doing whatever they told him to do, as much as he disliked the idea. Despite that, there was some bizarre reassurance in knowing that some things were the same as back home, even if he didn’t know the content of the laws in that weird place.

His head started to hurt more than before, and a deep fog began to settle behind his eyes. He couldn’t take it anymore and threw the paper away in frustration. The page did a loop in the air before timidly sliding away from him to a corner of the darkened room. Without anything but time on his hands, he lay on his bed, a part of him hoping that this was all a very vivid dream, like a child that couldn’t wait to get out of school. Sadly, that wasn’t the case, as the knocking on his door reminded him.

Half-heartedly, he went for the door, groaning all the way. He was more than ready to say that he wanted to be left alone, until she saw the pointed-eared woman’s towering frame at the other side.

“Good morning”, Dirtha said in a cold, yet polite tone.

“Hey”, Diego answered without mustering any semblance of effort. It was probably a very bad idea given his situation, but he just wanted her to leave so that he could go be a hermit again.

“You haven’t left your room in two days”, the woman said, her hands crossed over her waist, “It’s not healthy”.

“Might have to do with dying”, the young man was surprised that he still had energy for sarcasm.

“Still”.

“What do you care?”, Diego spat his words out, trying to make her leave despite the consequences, “Aren’t I just a wage slave?”

“My father likes to say that you can’t trust intentions, but you can always trust someone’s greed”, Dirtha spoke with more patience than most people would. It wasn’t a patience born out of saintly empathy, but of experience and calculated actions, “A happy employee is a productive employee”.

The young man couldn’t deny that logic, even if his emotions were making a good effort to. She had a clear interest in his mental state, a quantifiable and economic interest, but a genuine one at that. He looked at her, knowing that there was much that he couldn’t understand of the woman, but she was showing that she was straight as an arrow when it came to money. She wanted money, plain and simple.

“Why are you here?”, he asked, tired, but also trying to find a hand to help him climb out of his hole.

“To go for a walk, maybe even a cup of tea”, she said nonchalantly, lending out that hand to pull him out, “I think it’ll do you good”.

The thought of going outside sent a shiver down Diego’s spine. There could be anything waiting for him out there, more bizarre ways to shake his world down to its core. Anyone could think that after escaping in between Death’s fingers there would be nothing else to fear, but there was always more to life. Despite that, he knew that sooner or later he’d have to face his fears, and he really wanted to feel some fresh air.

“Fine”, Diego said before closing the door behind him, taking his timid first steps into the world.

Together they left for the ground floor and moved through the courtyard, crowned by an empty ring in the center. The squared arena awaited silently for its next contestants, since no one else was around other than them and the midday breeze. Diego had the suspicion that Dirtha had gone for him at that hour so that he wouldn’t have to meet his coworkers. Too much, too soon, and maybe she had a point.

Diego hesitated under the archway that led to the street. Everything he had been so afraid of these past days was on the other side. His heart felt heavier than ever, and his feet rooted to the ground.

Dirtha continued, her shoulders light as the wind itself. She turned and looked at the young man in the eye. With a flick of her hand, she invited him to come, observing patiently under the shade from the building at the other side of the street.

Diego breathed in and took the hardest step of his life, fighting against the claws that had dug deep into his legs and were trying to tie him to where he stood. He then took another step, and then another more. He kept on, trying to stop any thought that came to his head and focus on walking. He took one step more, and then dared to look around him.

To his surprise, the world around him was pretty mundane. He was in what looked like a residential area, with a cobbled road and apartment blocks that proudly showed their reddish bricks to the world. People moved up and down following their busy schedules, while dodging the group of kids loudly playing with a ball. He’d expected to see people with a third eye in the middle of their forehead, or some beast the size of a bear going about its business. Instead, everything was so…normal.

Seeing how his newest employee had managed to beat his fears, Dirtha moved again at a relaxed pace. The young man raised his speed to catch up to her.