<span style="font-style: italic">â€œExpose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.â€</span><br/>--Jim Morrison<br/><br/><br/>When he went to bed, he was snuggled under the warm blanket with his wifeâ€™s arms around him and the heat turned on so they didnâ€™t freeze during the cold winter night. Horrendously low temperatures have made this one of the coldest winters to hit England yet and she had been hounding him to get a new heater since the central air decided to stop working last year. Eventually he had broken down and decided to purchase one, ensuring that she was satisfied with it, a week ago. It made a hell of a difference and they were able to sleep easier. While he slept, he had been deep in some random dream that probably made no sense but was positive at the same time. Dreams were strange like that and often times his wife would often tell him about her crazy adventures thought up in her mind. Sometimes they were good, sometimes they were not so good.<br/><br/>He probably would have thought he was dreaming had he not been bitten by the cold snow against his cheek and cold night wind that caused him to practically jump awake. The first thing he did was make sure his glasses were on his face before he took in his surroundings.<br/><br/>Frantically, he glanced around at his surroundings and immediately got to his feet, wondering what the hell was going on. He was deep in some woods somewhere from the looks of things; the sea of trees went on for miles and there was no telling where the hell he was to go to get out. It was also still very dark, the middle of the night from the looks of things. Immediately he felt very lost, and he began to panic slightly. What of his wife? What the hell had happened and how the hell did he get here? His head was pounding and his legs felt like jelly as he tried to regain his balance. Groaning, he went to put a hand to his head but discovered he was holding a flashlight in one hand and a pistol in the other. Judging by the weight of the pistol, and Jeremy was no stranger to guns, it was not fully loaded. Curious, he thought to himself as he further examined the weapon.<br/><br/>The pocket of his coat â€“also curious since he didnâ€™t even recall waking up to dress in heavy winter clothes, complete with gloves and boots, everything- he felt a vibration, his hand nearly dropped the pistol when he reached for his phone. There was only one message in his inbox:<br/><br/>ARE YOU AWAKE, JEREMY VALLEN?<br/>GOOD.<br/>DID YOU DISCOVERE THE PISTOL AND FLASHLIGHT?<br/>DO NOT LOSE THESE ITEMS, OR YOUR PHONE.<br/>THEY ARE ESSENTIAL TO YOUR SURVIVAL.<br/>YOU HAVE BEEN A BAD, BAD MAN, JEREMY.<br/><br/>He glared at the message and snorted. A lot of people knew of his line of work, as it were, so it was no surprise that this could very well be a set up by one of his rivals to kill him. Forty three years of living, and finally someone grows some balls and tries to kill him? Well as soon as he finds out just who was setting him up he was going to give them a piece of his mind, â€œCocky little twat, whoever you are.â€ He said to himself as a reminder to definitely look into who was behind this. Jeremy shoved the phone back in his coat pocket and blew out a frustrated breath. He could feel his rage building but he kept himself under enough control to think rationally. Whatever this was, he would find his way out of here eventually, and then, despite the fact that he was certainly not amused by this, he could just look back and laugh at it. Just wait â€˜til he gets his hands on whoever did this.<br/><br/>Once he did get out of these woods he was going to rip them apart limb by limb and hang the twat by his own intestines.<br/><br/>Looking around again, however, he was definitely lost. And the strangest thing was there were no tracks leading anywhere to give him a direction of where to go. There wasnâ€™t even anything indication that such tracks might have been covered. It was so weird. Just what the hell was happening here? Oh, he couldnâ€™t wait to get his hands on whoever brought him hereâ€¦ However, unable to do anything now, he supposed the only thing he could do now was switch on the flashlight and keep walking in a direction that felt the best until he found something.