"the long and winding road"

"I'm getting real sick and tired of this," I mumble.

It's like I've been here before. The person in the bed has changed, but it seems like there's a core of us that have been here for the same reason repeatedly.

Destiny.

Tom.

Shinji.

Mattias.

Now my dad.

We've seen this room and walked this floor so many times, the nurse at the reception area knows me on a first name basis (and her name is Dina). Black Jones, Siobhan, Naiser, Gunnar, Chris and myself have done this before and I don't even know how I feel right now. My old man and I have never exactly been the closest. One of the last times we talked, he threw a punch at me and called me a homophobic slur when he found out I was getting into pro wrestling. We got into a fist fight that I had to eventually explain to my ex-girlfriend Cailey. Now about a year later, we're all sitting around and waiting to see if he's leaving me, setting me as the last of my family.

The last of my kind.

"Getting sick and tired of this crap," I mumble again while looking at my concerned friends who are realizing that my reaction is the same one I've always had. I haven't changed the look on my face no matter how many times my friends get hospitalized. There hasn't been an inch of joy or happiness on my face even in the best times, and here I just look numb and immune to whatever's going on in this place.

"Chief, you good?" Naiser asks me as I go up to go grab some coffee for Siobhan. I don't answer him. "Care, you can stay quiet all you want, but sooner or later you're going to have to talk to us about what's going on here, leading me to slam my hand against the machine."

"Mountain...stop," I say quietly through gritted teeth. I don't want to say it. I can't bring myself to say it.

"You don't gotta do this alone," he tells me and I look back at him, my face unable to dictate any form of emotion. "All you gotta do is talk to us."

And all I do is nod.





"Tell me something good," I say quietly on the phone. It's been a long day of hearing about what my next steps to tend to my father are, and I ditched out on things after Siobhan told me she'd handle it. Meanwhile, I'm back at the warehouse to pack a bag to go somewhere. All I want to do is leave the city, and I'm talking to a friend of mine, Gabby. Most people know Gabby for my tendency to ask to see her tits, which has parlayed into a weird friendship where I might have seen them.

That's really none of your business if I have or not.

Gabby has this tendency to see good things in me, and I don't understand why. She's never been against me and my dumb ideas, and she entertains my notions more often than not. Now here I am, talking to her to take my mind off things, and she's telling me she's not wearing a bra. The talk becomes me trying to figure out how someone random could take a liking to me because I know the story. I'm not easy to like, and the reasons are obvious to everyone. I'm abrasive. I'm loud. I'm occasionally very caustic to others and it's just not something that mixes with people. I burn more bridges than I make these days, and for what? Because I have no drive to improve things. I want to be a good man, a better man, but there's no good in me. I told people I didn't have a future because I was destined to fail. The idea had been put in my head for years that there was a timeline for me to fall off the earth. I committed myself to the end, the idea that I'd be meeting an end at 27 like the list of musicians that had met an early and unexpected demise. Considering that I'm rapidly approaching 26 now, I've been a deer in headlights right at the end.

Then everything happened.

Jon Collins believed in me. Chris Strike, until his turn to the douche, believed in me. I met Siobhan. My crew started having my back, and suddenly I became the (R)Evolution Wrestling World Champion. Gabby started to see it, which was good because I didn't.

"Where you at now?" I ask her, and she tells me North Carolina.

"Maybe I might magically show up," I respond, a small smile. Playful flirting turns into her bringing up Siobhan, and I sigh, realizing that someone is going to make me talk about this whether or not I want to.

"We're something, just don't know what," I say with an audible sigh, listening to Gabby ask me if we're even sure what we want. I give her the honest answer. "Afraid that what it is will do more harm that good," leaving her to sigh at me.

"My mom always told me to follow your heart. Cliche, I know, but you can't always be afraid of what might happen next," she tells me, and I just listen.

"Fear is the one thing I'm sick of fighting," I reply, frustrated and lamenting the truth that spills from my mouth for the first thing. It's a confession that I haven't even been able to tell anyone else, but it's true. To change the subject, I tell her that had we managed to find our way to be something, we could've been electric. Maybe electric as sex partners. Maybe we could've been good for another. Just something.

"Is that what you want...to be something?" she asks me, and I rub my temple as I lean against the wall and talk to her.

"I want to be better. Better than...this," I say quietly.

"I believe you can do it," she replies without hesitation.

"Why?" I ask honestly, and she replies as honest. "I see the best in everyone."

"Sometimes, there ain't no best in people. This dude in EXODUS, he's hospitalized three of my friends, he's a monster. I watched what New Eden did to people. Sometimes people are horrible," I tell her, and I'm having flashbacks of the girl Cassidy Carter was to who she is now. Flashbacks of seeing Aiken for the first time with those lifeless eyes. Flashbacks of meeting those monsters, and she gives me an honest reply.

"Not everyone has good in them, that's true. I believe you do, so have faith in that," she tells me and I sigh, exhaling loudly before glancing down at the floor.

There is literally nothing left for me to say, and I feel covered up and broken.

I've said before when I get to the point when I've opened up too much, I feel exposed and I can't take it. Gabby's put me at that point, and while I'm there, I think about a few days ago.

NoVaK.

"The suffering didn't end, it just multiplied."

And focused on nothing but that, I'm still left to wonder where it's going and what's powering that ghost in the shell.





It's been two nights since I left San Diego. I have no idea how far I've gone, because the scenery has started to just all blur together. Amongst the sea of condolences and touching base with familiar faces, Rachel Frost told me to come to Texas. Here and I were never particular close, but she had been there for me in a time when I needed her. Instead, I'm in a one stoplight town and as I look around, it feels like it's straight out of a horror film. There's an element of it being abandoned and a mix of it being the kind of place that I'd find Road House in. I'm just stopping through for gas, but it's a surprise to me that someone talks to me.

"Have we met, son?" the older man asks me.

"I just have a familiar face," I shoot back, glancing at him.

"No, no, I've seen this one before. I'd recognize that wit," he tells me.

"Well, you know, you get on television, people start thinking you're their neighbor's cousin's dentist's boyfriend or some shit," I tell him, reaching for a bottle of Dr. Pepper before heading to find some chips.

"Yeah, I guess that's it," he says before we just glance at one another before parting ways. There's no interest in continuing that talk with him, and as I start to head back to my bike, I notice his. Polished and chromes rim as bright as the gold belt I won, I stop and admire it as I'm putting my helmet back on.

"You drive, kid?" he asks me as I slowly start to walk to my beat up Harley.

"Yeah. Something modest, but it's mine," I say. "Been thinking of upgrading soon. Been eyeballing a Fat Bob, got a friend who does some customization," I go on, and it seems to perk his ears.

"That's a nice little exhaust system there, those dual mufflers," he replies, talking up the bike I'm debating.

"I like the look. It just needs a little bit of a kick, just to have my personality," I say with a slow grin. "Way I look at it, it's got the type of chassis that I've been eyeballing when I thought of doing a custom, and I still might. My boys and I might dismantle it if I get it and help me put together a new one."

"Custom work? Why not get a Ducati for something like that?" he asks me.

"Fuck those sports backs and Italian shit. No offense to those who drive 'em, but the Harley is an American classic...and I've always been one for vintage and classics," I tell him.

"You're alright, boyo," he tells me. "You remind me of a kid I used to raise when he was about your age. Took 'em under my wing and showed him the ropes."

"What happened to him?" I asked.

"Decided the he wanted to run off and save the world. Guess being a miscreant wore thin on him," he chuckles.

"We're all looking to change," I tell him. "Sometimes we gotta," I sigh.

"And sometimes, the quest for change can consume you. Before you know it, that obsession has devoured you. Keep digging for something, and you may just end up in a bottomless pit," he tells me while I stop and think.

"I'll keep that in mind," I tell him, extending my hand. "Carey," I tell him.

"Jocephus," he responds. "Welcome to Ellum, we get a lot of your kind here."





"Carey, you're an asshole. Pick up the phone, will ya? I'm worried about you. I l....I want ye to know that I want you to be okay right now. Please," Siobhan's voice says and I just stare at the phone for a few, trying to find the right words. Any words.

And then there's nothing.

"Irish, it's Carey. I'm a stupid idiot. I keep trying to say something, anything, and I keep failing miserably at it. I keep hoping that I'll ramble at my phone and eventually telling you that right now, I'm not even anywhere near proud of the person I am. I'm bitter, and when I'm not bitter I'm numb. I'm just...I'm a horrible person except when I'm with you. When I'm with you, I'm a better person than I actually am. It's one of the few things I can tell you that you already know...and here i am saying it out loud in things I can't even tell you. I lo---care, Siobhan. And I'm sorry that I'm not good enough for you. I'm even more sorry that I can't even find the courage to flat out tell you this and I'm just talking to a phone that's almost dead," I say before I sigh and just tuck it back in my pocket. At this point, it's past dusk and I'm sitting outside a bar in the middle of nowhere. There's nothing that gives me a reason to want to be here. There's no reason why I want to be in San Diego. I don't feel like I want to be anywhere right now, and as I start to drive faster, I'm starting to wonder if I belong anywhere. That's the problem in all of this. When you're not sure if the person you are fits in with where you call home and you're even less sure that the person you want to be will even fit in over in that very same place, you wind up being confused as to where you can go and what you can do. Being on the road is the only thing that seems accepting of me. With just pavement and my thoughts, the only judge for who I am is me.

Riding is the one thing I do better than anyone. I've driven far enough to put miles between the ghost of what brought me to this company, the ghosts of what I just fought to get to this point, but there's still one thing that I can't speed past.

It's the oncoming storm. The bright lights behind me are nowhere near the bright light I'm driving toward, the realization that it's an oncoming clash of a ghost in a shell and a man with who's not sure if being alive or dead hurts more.

First, I need to figure out when to head home.

"I fell once again for believing, and in faith I began to drive. I left my home to search for a feeling that I lost, that must have died." | 8stops7 - "Uninspired"

Another bar, another bit of honky tonk music, and I step out with a bottle of Budweiser and out stumbles my friend. Rachel Tatum Lee and I were scarred by similar parties, people who put Aiken Frost and New Eden behind them. The two of us struck up an unlikely friendship on the basis that maybe we just liked to fight. Maybe it was something that we didn't need an explanation for.

"First time on a mechanical bull?" she asks me.

"If I said yes, would you be surprised?" I laugh, tipping the cowboy hat I had somehow managed to win.

"You needed to have a good laugh," she told me, looking me over before touching my cheek. "Sugar, it was great seeing you, but you really should go home. It's good to put a little distance between sorrow, but you ain't ever gonna be whole unless you're there to bury your old man."

"I know. I just need a lot of time to put distance between myself and everything. For the better part of the past year, I've been fighting, and...Rachel, I am so fucking tired of it," I sigh. "Don't tell anyone I said that," I sigh while I finish the beer before I toss the beer bottle into the street.

"So find your reason. That belt should be more than enough reason right now," she reminds me.

"I will. You know I'm gonna come back and meet the rest of your clan, right?" I tell her, and she laughs.

"Don't worry, I got you covered," she tells me while she walks me to my bike. "Get on outta here," she tells me before playfully punching my shoulder.

"Bring the big bastard over to my neck of the woods sometime," I say and she just laughs. She knows who I mean, and I know. That guy may just be big trouble.

And knowing my luck, I just invited more hell at my gates.





There's a motel in a border town between California and Mexico I head to often so I can clear my head. Plus it's neutral ground for people who deal with shit like I do. You check in for the night, you check your weapons and grudges at the door. Sharpie gave me the address to this place when he thought I was going to raid Mexico to go searching for someone. Given the adventures I thought I was going to get myself into, everything has been surprisingly tame this year. No war with New Eden to retrieve Cassidy now that Cailey is gone. No trying to beat Strike to these marks he's chasing. The only war I'm fighting is the one within me to feel something. I haven't cried once since my old man died, and I can't even remember the last time something moved me. The only thing that's actually made a part of me feel anything is her.

They call it the Midnight Run. It's becoming a second home to me when I need to escape whatever it is that ails me. Going into the office, it's no surprise that the man in charge is waiting for me. It was like he knew I was coming, and he hands me a key while I hand him a few bills.

J. Joseph Striker is his name, and he's one of the few I can count on right now.

"Word got out about the Sarge. Just rest your head for a bit, heard you went out on the road for a few days," he says to me while I nod.

"Yeah. Probably should shower or some shit. Maybe even get a meal or something," I say quietly.

"Wouldn't be a bad idea right now. She's called looking for you, same with Sharp. Thedy're trying to keep tabs on you, especially since your lady still seems to be looking for her cousin," he says.

"Any leads on him?" I ask, sighing as I reach to grab a mint off the check in desk.

"No leads, but it's not like anyone but you are looking. Hate to say it, but the Mexicans aren't exactly great on finding missing people. You ever heard the story of the luchador that got on a bus, never made his destination, and was found face down in a river?" he asked.

"I know shit about wrestling, Striker," I reply, popping another mint.

"Just know this...you either need a real good lead, or he may already be dead," he replies while I nod. "And for what it's worth, I hope you two find him. Last thing she needs to be doing is watching two people get buried. And the last thing you need is trying to help someone feel better when you don't."

"I feel fi--" and then he puts a hand up.

"You don't. That much is obvious, Ghost In the Shell," he tells me before I turn around and look. And there's stars everywhere. Turning back to Striker, he's not there. NoVaK, for better or for worse, has struck something in me I'm not particularly ready to confront.

Perfect, considering when I wake up, I'm already in my motel bed.





I can see San Diego on the horizon, and I don't know what about it makes me adverse to being there. I don't want to go home and deal with it, I don't want to face a future where my life is dealing with all this tragedy. Everyone in my life has been a fucking victim lately, and that's what I pulled these War Machines together for. We were going to stop them from breaking everything we loved.

We were supposed to be the answer. And maybe we can still be the answer.

But for now, it's time to buy the past and try to find out where the road to my future is leading me for however long I have left with this future.