The Dragon's Wrath: A Virtual Dream

Chapter 21: Freedom or Something like It

(Monday, March 8th Game Day / Saturday, January 23rd Real Day)

I collapsed from complete exhaustion after taking care of the Earl and his wives, but it was finally over. Selene sat down and brought my head to her lap, it was a bit romantic but I was in no situation to make commentary.

I closed my eyes and let the pain flow through me, it hurt but I was used to pain.

Pain is an interesting thing really, it's something you can get used to but at the same time never really get used to. The more you experience it the better you get at coping with it; you become adept at ignoring it.

But you can't truly placate yourself through pain just from previous experience; the pain never really goes away.

It's still there, it still hurts.

It nags and nags, minute after minute, hour after hour, day after day, month after month, and year after year.

I had no problem enduring the constant daily pain for two years in a row from a sport related injury before it transitioned into something else. As that injury healed I tore the ligament in my elbow and then I dealt with six years of aching, throbbing, and burning in my elbow from the scar tissue and a pinched nerve.

That was my daily life, unable to pitch, unable to throw a ball anymore, unable to really use my arm in any satisfactory way.

I still didn't break from that though.

I was still functional overall.

But then a flurry of problems arose: fiscal, mental, emotional, and physical. I could deal with the physical and mental, even though I had been through so many injuries before, when I got severely sick and lost forty pounds in two-week's time it brought me into a whole new world of pain.

Even though I had lost the forty pounds in two weeks I still had to work, physical labor intensive work… and when my forearms gave out I carried on until my biceps gave out… then my triceps tried to compensate and they too soon gave out, and on and on up through my shoulders, my chest, my back.

And then I woke up one day unable to lift a fork, unable to move a muscle.

I had severely strained every upper body muscle I had.

I had torn muscles.

The pain wasn't even that bad compared to everything else I had endured. The doctor's questioned how I didn't notice, but to a degree I felt I had lost the ability to notice such small amounts of pain.

Pain was a daily occurrence; I paid it no heed for it was normal after all.

Three days a week I went into physical therapy where I would receive deep tissue massages to break up the scar tissue, the adhesions, throughout my entire body… that was a new kind of pain. The process of breaking up adhesions is by forcefully tearing the muscles apart so they can heal properly, albeit "gently" and slowly rather than violently or suddenly.

Needless to say the process is slow and the more muscle you had, or the more adhesions you had, the more painful it was. I was a grown man who had experienced extreme pain before, but I would lie on that bench for thirty to sixty minutes a day, three times a week for a year with tears silently rolling down my cheek as the therapists worked.

It took three months before I could finally lift a fork and feed myself again; it was utterly pathetic but humbling.

At least I had the opportunity to get better.

Some friends of mine had gone overseas and some didn't come back entirely whole, some didn't come back at all.

I had no room to complain.

And if I did, they simply looked at me with disdain.

During that time I was suffering in physical therapy, I was also in a long distance relationship with a girl who simply wasn't right for me.

She was struggling with the fear of failure at school and her parent's wrath if they ever found out. She told me one day that she tried to kill herself after an argument the day before with me.

Here I was, bankrupt and beaten down mentally and physically, only recently capable of feeding myself… and my girlfriend of nearly two years tells me she tried to kill herself but was stopped by a staff member at her school and was given anti-depressants.

This all happened after we argued the day before about her problems with school and admitting to her parents that she was failing, she feared them and wanted to just give up, wanted to break up and just leave the country.

I tried convincing her to stick with it and work with her parents to finish school, it wasn't even about the relationship at that point, maybe it was… but it wasn't the number one thought.

From that day forward the relationship degraded to a point where she was verbally abusive and temperamental nearly every other day. All smiles and happy on Monday only to be raging and pissed off Tuesday.

I didn't get it.

At first when she started arguments I tried to reason with her but that always ended up with us both arguing and her storming off, hanging up or cutting off the internet connection.

Being in a long distance relationship was already hard but now I was put in situations where my only way of contacting her was over the computer or by phone. She readily cut those off when she was moody. In the back of my mind I couldn't help but feel like I was walking on egg shells.

Those fears weren't allayed.

It wasn't long before she was snapping at me randomly and then would throw out phrases like, "I should just kill myself" or "Ugh I want to die." Hearing that over the phone or reading it through text while she was raging at me for reasons unknown to me was heartbreaking.

I didn't know what to say, I didn't know what to do. I tried to encourage her, I stopped arguing with her, and I spent all of my emotions trying to cheer her up. I did everything I possibly could to be a purely positive force in her life.

All the while I was still bankrupt, still in physical pain, still suffering from the mental pain from the concussions. Still spending my days in therapy while tears rolled silently down my face… but I did my best not to complain.

She knew what I was going through, but I never once compared my situation to hers. She had fears of admitting her failure in school, I had my own problems.

Everyone handles a situation differently.

But then after supporting her for nearly six months through the constant threats of "I should kill myself," she had finally seemed a bit more stable. She now jokingly would laugh with friends and make suicide jokes to them. All the while I stood there thinking to myself, is she joking or is she real and pretending to laugh?

I anguished over it every day, not knowing, not understanding.

And then it happened, she had finally gotten over her depression and I was excited and happy for her. We hadn't argued in a few weeks and when she did get angry I just silently listened and was supportive.

I thought we had made it through the hump.

I was emotionally burned out at this point and didn't really care about the relationship to be honest, but I was still emotionally invested, I did love the girl in the past.

Of course, all that glitters isn't gold… as her confidence had recovered she changed her tune. Now she took the stance that I was weak for not arguing with her, that I was pathetic for struggling with my physical, financial, and mental problems that paled in comparison to her real issue of being afraid of her parents finding out that she failed a semester at school.

That I was beneath her for not being emotionally strong like her.

She called me and said to me, word for word over the phone, "You're beneath me," while comparing me to all of her exes. Complaining that I didn't do this as well as guy number one and didn't do this as well as guy number two. That the only thing I was better at was the physical aspect of the relationship.

I couldn't believe it.

I was pissed.

I had bit my tongue and kept quiet because she constantly held the suicide flag over my head, threatening me with her claims of suicide every time she was angry. And here I was "beneath her" because I stopped arguing with her and let her have her way the past few months.

Because I treated her as well as I could, spoiled her with my time, with what little I could afford… and now she was calling me to tell me I was worse in every aspect except for one compared to the boyfriends she had had before. Those same guys she complained about for years.

Her ego had inflated immensely.

She wanted to break up and my reply was simple, I was done with her emotional abuse months ago and was only holding on for her sake so she wouldn't actually kill herself. I told her simply, "Is this how you truly feel? Once I'm gone I'm not coming back, if you want to end this I'm done. I'm not coming back a second time."

She said that was what she wanted.

I smiled and left.

Two months later, nearly a year into my physical therapy I had finally progressed to the point where I could lift a two-point-five pound dumbbell.

I cried tears of joy with a huge grin on my face.

To go from hundred pound dumbbells per arm to not being able to lift a fork, to being able to lift 2.5lbs after a year in therapy… it was emotionally overpowering.

It was empowering.

Another month had passed and word had made its way to me, that my ex had been crying her eyes out every night wondering why I hadn't come crawling back to her, why I didn't call her for Christmas, why I didn't call her for New Years. She couldn't understand why I left and didn't come back.

I laughed.

I laughed a lot.

As the years passed I one day received a long e-mail from her, asking if I could detail what went wrong in our relationship so she could do better in her current relationship. I hadn't even thought about her in the longest of times but the day that e-mail arrived I had a dream about her trying to contact me the morning of, hours before receiving the e-mail.

I thought it was rather funny.

I wrote her a scathing reply and had a female friend read it over thankfully, to me it was straightforward and honest but to my friend, she said it was extremely harsh and would probably put her in another depression.

I didn't see it but I edited and toned my reply down considerably, into possibly the best three page positive encouragement letter I could ever write.

She didn't deserve it, but I would do the same for anyone. I just didn't hold grudges for long, if at all. She maintained some form of contact off and on with me but she was still being her moody overly-proud self, refusing to text or message first as it was demeaning in her mind and I didn't have any patience for that shit anymore.

All I remember, is she eventually apologized for saying I was beneath her, but it didn't really matter. Her words never meant that much to me. Deep down I doubt she ever truly considered my state of affairs, the pain I was in, the pain I endured to ensure she didn't kill herself so long as I was around.

I got no reward out of it, I only suffered for it.

When she needed a shoulder to lean on I was there, even though my shoulder was propped up on crutches I was there. When she no longer needed the help and I was still struggling, I was tossed to the wayside. To this day I still firmly believe in the saying, "no good deed goes unpunished" …and it's a motto I seem to live out far too often.

I only had one good year after that breakup before my health took a sudden turn for the worse when I had an accident while moving furniture up and down a flight of stairs. That issue rolled into numerous other problems as well.

If there is such a thing as catching a break, I would like the next one to last a lot longer if possible.

The reminiscence had come out of nowhere, somehow sparked by the intense pain I was in. An odd memory I would much rather forget, but it was an essential part my past. It was unlikely that I would ever forget those painful experiences.

I slowly opened my eyes to find myself staring up at a sleeping Selene; her face was rather serene… I wonder if that's how she got her name.

The pain had subsided and as I turned my head I could see that the sun was beginning to rise. Another day, another chapter… yeah, the past is what it is. I ended up shifting around and wrapped Selene up in my arms, she might just be an NPC but she could at least comfort me.

To think it has been over six years since I left that girl, and yet all I've done is casually date and had one, one-night stand that I didn't care for. There was no attachment or lingering feelings, I had had none since the day we broke up. The only time I remember her is by extension when I think about my life's struggles.

But from that experience I've become so unwilling to date a girl if she didn't meet all of the criteria I was looking for… I went from picky to insane. If I didn't feel it was a perfect fit I went the other way without even bothering to let things develop.

I just wasn't sure if I could take another psychotic relationship like that one again.

Not with all the problems I was already facing.

My friends often asked why I was still single and then one day in the middle of a movie at the house, a close friend of mine and his girlfriend told me that the only reason I was still single was because I didn't try.

I was good looking, intelligent, and had a good personality.

I was a better person than a lot of the guys you would see at the gym and I was getting looks just like some of those guys at the gym.

But I didn't even try.

I ignored those women while I lived in my own world searching for a perfect girl; one that was intelligent, athletic, attractive, grounded, confident, but also kind, understanding, and shared at least a few hobbies of mine whether it was outdoor sports, reading comics, watching cartoons, cars, guns, computers….

I liked damn near everything so the hobby part wasn't of real importance.

The previous girls had met almost all of those categories; the major girl had them all minus kindness, understanding, and athleticism. The first two were back breakers, literally.

Was I really too picky?

I didn't know the answer to that.

I continued to think about my situation, how I had wasted the past decade of my life trying to recuperate from injury, trying to overcome adversity… how I now sat here playing a virtual reality game rather than getting outside and trying to overcome my latest torn quadriceps that doesn't want to heal.

And then I started running my fingers through Selene's hair as she slept curled up in my arms and I couldn't help but think… why would I give up this world for my real world? I held Selene closer as I started to drift back to sleep.

This wasn't so bad, after all.