Her manager tried to reason with her, but it wasn't working. Kristen insisted, her voice echoing in the empty ring, “I'm fine!” It was well after the show. Her manager, Joss Riptide, shook his head and said, “You aren't. You've gotten clobbered today. I don't know what's the matter with you lately—you're not sleeping well. I can tell you aren't. And you've been bothered lately. Look, you don't have to wrestle seriously. You're a woman. People some here because badass hot chicks are a turn-on. Honestly, as long as your boobs bounce, you're fine, but you insist on the real matches, and you keep getting hurt.” She grimaced. This talk again. A shimmer filtered through her vision, like a dark gloaming over the ring, showing more seats in the empty arena than were really there. She shook her head. The image flitted away.<br/><br/>“Don't do this to me,” she said, her voice desperate. She pushed a strand of white hair out of her face—she'd bleached it ages ago, and her hair had taken to it. The additional stress had gone ahead and turned it white. Riptide shrugged and said, “You aren't leaving me a lot of choice. Trish Terrible banged you up pretty bad with that chair. You're actually not in good enough condition to be here. Take some time off, Kristen. It's for your health. Get anything you need from here out of your locker, and you know you can always use the gym here if you need to get back in gear. Needs to be at least three months of leave, too.”<br/><br/>Kristen clenched her fists. She was still in her wrestling gear, too—skin tight leather pants, a leather studded bra, and fingerless gloves with white skulls emblazoned on them. She stomped off, her whole body aching from getting her ass kicked, and she cleared out her locker. She couldn't shake off the tiredness, the weariness, but at the same time, she couldn't sleep at all. There was a flicker just behind her manager—had there always been a window in the wall far behind him out past where the audience sat? She didn't think so...but she couldn't be sure.<br/><br/>Over thirty hours now with no reprieve, without sleep. It was horrible. At the same time, Kristen couldn't admit it, but she liked it. Being able to stay awake, to handle more pressure than other people, to experience more, it was exactly something she wanted...until her manager pulled his little stunt to send her home. She was still suspicious that it had all been staged as an excuse to get her out of the ring. Well, she'd show them she was good at what she did. She got her stuff out of the women's locker room, and she made her way to leave the arena, but something felt off. It was like she could see things at the edge of her visions, darting shadows that didn't go away. She wasn't hallucinating; she was sure of it. It was just that the world somehow seemed...bigger...than she recalled. Especially the exit of the arena. Had there always been two doors there?<br/><br/>One door was the typical double door, made of glass, chic and clean, but the other door, just off to the side, was...not right. It was a door that Kristen Grim associated with Victorian times—a wooden door, anachronistic and solid looking, and just a little ominous. She gritted her teeth a moment; should she just do what the manager said? Go home? Take a break?<br/><br/>No.<br/><br/>She had nothing better to do. She honestly had no reason to really go home or relax. Sure she was hurt, but it wasn't anything she hadn't endured before. Folding chairs were a hazard of wrestling. Just like drama, surprise attacks, and stuff getting stolen that you liked.  Her manager just wanted her out of the way because she wasn't some sex symbol. Fine.<br/><br/>She took the wooden door out. She knew that this door was wrong in every sense of the word...but taking the glass door would be admitting defeat. The wooden door, the door that shouldn't exist, represented a chance at victory.