I have finally updated~! Just to say this out =( I actually have lost my flash once again but all my files are in the computer so I've TRIED to do this again. God, it's frustrating.

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Chapter Ten:
Corner Crossing - Zombie Love

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The next door was coloured in a light brown wash.

"Brown is an Earthy colour and texture. It's mostly used for remembering those memories where we used to play in the mud and dirt and where the Earth was just our friend and before we turn materialistic. Some of these memories Shannon does remember and some he does not. This is when Shannon was part of our Torture Society as we call it now."

Chris continued to talk and explain.

"And don't ask me how Shannon got involved into this—they usually just steal babies and feed them a certain type of red pill—it's amazingly strong and can knock you out for days and then after that, the use the trigger effect. This is by introducing the trigger into your system. In Shannon's case, the red door, was also the pill-taking experiment, when he'd first woken up and he'd been probably raped or so and the words that were said to him was probably the ones that are most stuck into his subconscious. When they think you've had enough of the trigger to keep you in a fit of rage about it when it happens or something, then they'd give you a white pill and you're knocked down for about a month before you wake up and everything changes to you. Your life becomes avoiding the trigger whilst subconsciously you make yourself open to the trigger. In Shannon's case, he wants to avoid sleeping with just about anyone but at the same time, as you've noticed he works out and his body language sometimes indicates something sexual—this is how the trigger is kept fresh. Because you're making yourself open to the trigger, you're exposed to it and it happens more frequently than supposed to so his life is all about avoiding it."

Adam nodded, trying to understand what Chris had just told him as they walked through the brown door. The hallway looked like it was made of stone and dirt. The atmosphere was quite depressing as Chris made his way towards the door and puffed some air in the centre, causing the memory slash to show itself.

"Durch Fleisch und Blut…Denn Du, Du lebst in mir…"

"It's that blasted thing again!" Adam growled.

Chris nodded his head at it and stared. "By blood and flesh…for you…you live in me…" he said in a very soft voice. Chris touched the doorknob and allowed a very lucid memory of him with that engraved onto a ring and given to him. Though his ring was not a purity ring as Shannon's, it was a dream-ring that was almost like a dream catcher. The door opened for them and Chris walked in, staring at the vision in front of him.

There was Shannon standing beside Chris whom was engraving his ring for him with the inscription. Shannon's arm looked like it was barely intact with the rest of his body and Chris' face was half-doused in blood but he still continued to engrave in silence. Chris stood up, with the ring into his hand as he grabbed onto Shannon's hand and knelt down almost as if he was going to ask him to marry him.

"Joined by the bond in which Castiel created for us…our German saviour…durch fleisch und blut…"

Chris forced the ring inside of Shannon's finger whom didn't protest as Chris took Shannon towards a furious fire and allowed Shannon to stand beside that until the ring was fully into his finger, no chance of removal seemed to be found for it and nobody wanted to suffer the pain of removing the ring. Chris stared at Shannon's fingers as the ring melted slightly to mend in with the fleshy texture of Shannon Moore before he pulled him away. Shannon now bowed instead of Chris, pulling his hand towards him and Chris seemed to nodding towards him.

"It's a form of thanks. We don't just say 'thank you'. We sit down and show you why we're thankful and then we stand up and descend. We're supposed to be grateful for the ring being into our finger because that means we can take the blue pill tomorrow and then we can actually start the training."

"Why are you giving Shannon the ring?"

Chris smirked at him. "Leader of a division. I had every right to present Shannon his ring. Division leaders are mostly picked on intelligence level rather than physical level but division crusaders were the opposite. Picked of physical level rather than intelligence level."

"Enlightening." Adam sarcastically spat out.

Chris moved towards another brown door that seemed to be there and Adam followed. "These usually can be multi-step doors and since we're probing deeper into Shannon's past, we have a better chance of seeing his subconscious."

With the other door opened, Adam saw that this one had Shannon holding a torch towards his arm and punishing himself for bad behaviour. Shannon had Chris looking after him and staring at him in apathetic nature. Shannon put down the torch to simply stare at his arm.

"Shannon doesn't have any of those! I'd seen him in that little white top before—wait, everything was white, wasn't it?"

"Yes." Chris smirked. "He is a virgin after all, Adam."

"I don't get it. How can he be a raped virgin?"

"He thinks he's been raped, Adam." Chris shook his head. "He thinks he's been raped countless of times. That's what the red pill does. It creates the illusion and the blue pills knock you out so that the memories can finally sink in. That's the sick part of it—he was about six at that time I think so he didn't really know what rape was. Just that he hated anyone touching him. He'd go insane. The pills he was taking was to try and suppress the red and blue pills' effects but those are very, very deeply into his subconscious. Sadly enough, I don't believe you can take a trigger out… it's something so buried into the subconscious…for years and years it's strengthened its effect."

"And the burns? They're not on his body anymore—"

Chris shook his head. "After we've been released, we went to fix ourselves to look like normal human. Artificial hair, artificial flesh, a lot of things on us aren't even us, Adam…interested, isn't it? That's how much damage has been made. We hated to look at ourselves then. A lot of us had to change our bodies completely. Shannon's Mother knows about this. And you're wondering why she turned to the stripper business—they had to pay for Shannon's fixing process and this is why Shannon also works for Jeff. He needs the money. Those kinds of things have two costs: money and something that only the person himself knows. For example, when Katie had to fix her body, it cost over 50,000 and even after she paid, she had to go back to the person who fixed her and run an errand. Usually it's quite difficult and sometimes illegal. That's how the sex slave service began. Katie was both the first person to create it and the first person to sell her body to it for about three years before her Master found her displeasing to look at because she'd gotten pregnant. She was thrown out. Katie's in the hospital now and Shannon went to her for pills. If you see Katie now, she's beyond happy despite her situation."

"Wow." Adam gaped in awe. "She's happy despite the fact that she's pregnant and that she barely has money?"

"Happiness doesn't come from money, Adam. She's happy she can get pregnant. Her Mother had to go to about five Doctors and was taking pills for years before she fell pregnant with Katie and she was around 38 when she'd given birth to Katie. Katie's 20 years old now. Her Mother's 58 and dying but her Mother's just happy herself that her daughter can get pregnant."

"Just wow." Adam shook his head. "I haven't met a person happy about that. But anyway—what's Shannon's errand to run?"

"Am I Shannon?" Chris snapped at him. "Had I not said that the person only knows the errand he's supposed to run unless he announces it to others?"

"Wait!" Adam exclaimed, suddenly understanding the situation they're in a little better. "Does this mean…that when you took Shannon and Jeff to the slave-trade thing…you were running an errand? And what about the colourful shop? The dream-catcher one? …are they all errands? How come you get so many errands?"

Chris laughed. "Well, when you ask for more than one thing, you have to get all errands completed but yes. Jeff was needed for the slave-trade as he's seen as beautiful and I had taken Shannon because he failed to complete his task but—I enjoyed intimidating them as you know. I enjoyed being the dominant one in it all. I was the one who brought in those into the trade and as for the colourful shop, I also worked there to get the dyes in the scarves and most of their materials. The dream-catcher shop—I made the little dream catchers and I had completed my errands by bringing Jeff and Shannon in and I'm the one that suggested that all three of them be linked somehow so that it would be easier for the trade to flow and be unrecognised."

Adam had thought. Three different errands. Chris had asked for three different things—one would be fixing his body but what were the other two? Adam was forced to get out of the brown door by Chris for they were wasting time Chris had told him. Adam simply stared at him whilst Chris looked for another door they can enter before they can finally go through the red subconscious door of Shannon's.

He pushed himself into a blue room and he stopped. "This is his dreams, Adam. Be cautious. There's nothing to guard them because they're usually just mindlessly floating upon in his scream of conscious and subconscious. It's not real so it's not guarded."

"So Shannon's rape memories are here too? Since they're not real—"

"You're an idiot." Chris snapped at him. "That memory Shannon feels and thinks it's real and he will deny it even if you have the proof in front of him. That's how we are. I don't even know what my trigger is…but I'm betting that I'd react the same way as Shaddin if someone tells me it's not real. It probably feels real and you might not understand the feelings associated with it. So don't you dare tell Shannon that he wasn't really raped—you'll just be breaking him further into the process of hating himself and thinking that he's tainted, understand, Copeland?"

"Yes, yes. I do!"

They walked through Shannon's conscious and subconscious stream of dreams. Suddenly, they were falling and falling and fell onto a flat surface on their feet as if they were cats. Suddenly, they could see Shannon laughing happily, with a cup of hot chocolate into his hands. He seemed to be alone and laughing to nothing as he stared down at something. "Confliction memory guard. He's obviously laughing with someone but that's a guarded part of Shannon that we are not allowed to enter at any cost. But there can be hints. Like can you see, he's drinking hot chocolate, and he seems around…10ish, what do you think he's laughing with that can't be seen to others around him?"

"An imaginary friend?"

"You're an idiot." Chris snapped at him. "It's obvious something not real and in a dream, an imaginary friend is something you see in your reality that you think is real. He's in his dream. He knows it's unreal. You used the wrong term. I think they call them Conjured Lives in Torture Society. You make some sort of conjured up person that either looks like you or knows you and you get attached to that conjured up person. Guess what that means?"

"…what?"

"For fuck's sake, Adam, whose the person that Shannon feels more attached to in his life?" Chris snapped at him with cold, glaring eyes.

"…Jeff?"

"Yeah. What quality of Jeff makes him part of Shannon's conjured half?"

"…er…the fact that he can't speak?"

"Yeah. Shannon would be laughing hysterically then and happily with someone who can't speak. It sounds more like a tragedy. I'm talking about the fact that Jeff's an imperfect model that seems happy most of the time! Don't you think Shannon's conjured half might be something of beauty and of happiness? This is what Jeff appears to look like all the time! That's why Shannon's attached because subconscious, he wants some sort of happiness to cling on and in the way, he found happiness in Jeff's happiness! His attitude is slowly fading since now he knows that Jeff's happiness is nothing but mere fiction and behind that smile, there's pain but somehow, on the inside, he's fighting back. Don't you see? He's trying to make Jeff appeal to him in his own way. He doesn't see Jeff as Jeff is. He sees Jeff as what he wants him to see! A happy, beautiful person. God, Adam, you're so fucking dense." Chris snorted.

"Can we get into his real subconscious now? Pull the trigger?"

Chris nodded his head. "Yes."

Adam was in a whirl of thoughts. So Shannon just wanted happiness and thrived on that when Jeff was known as a happy beautiful model…he thought of how he and Chris first met and he stared at Chris, blinking. "Remember when you were registering as a model…? You said that you'd take over Jeff's place…well, so we're going to see you around?"

Chris snorted at him. "You really think I'd register like a model? I wanted a story, didn't I? I wanted you to think me insane because I wanted to prove to Jeff that he should get away from me."

"…why?"

"That's for me to know and you to find out."

Suddenly, a cloudy mist formed around them and they found themselves suffocating underneath the scent of the white cloudy mist around them. They were suddenly in the middle of a road and everything seemed gray except for a sidewalk that was blazing in a bright yellow colour.

"Symbolism." Chris said, moving towards the yellow sidewalk and Adam followed. "A gray town just says that everything is sad and a yellow sidewalk is a symbol for both hope and happiness. Sunshine. You know? It's another Jeff reference. Can't find any happiness in himself so he clings onto Jeff for some sort of happiness. He's selfish. We all are."

Chris walked towards the side walk and crossed the corner and Adam found himself crossing as well and then there was Jeff, beautiful and pale with his yellow dress and his hair clipped back, staring at some sort of plushy toy he seemed to want. Chris stared at the plushy toy; it seemed to be made out of bones and flesh. Jeff was extended towards it and the glass seemed to disappear, allowing Jeff's hand to fully grasp the plushy toy as he pulled it out and held it tightly.

"The toy represents Shannon. Now Jeff's clinging onto Shannon and Shannon's the one who has to be happy in order to make Jeff happy. That's the part he's finding hard. Apparently, the past dream was just a fable and this dream is more close to reality. He sees himself as a sudden source of light and he might allow himself to paint his life in yellow and happiness even though he doesn't know how to find this happiness."

"That makes sense." Adam sighed softly. "But what if…?"

Adam reached over and took Jeff's toy from Jeff, causing Jeff to screech as his body twisted and peeled off its skin. The skin left nothing more than a skeletal body with angry glowing green eyes as he pounced onto Adam. "What?"

"Zombie love, Addy. It's a zombie-like dream."

"Get me out of here!"

"Scared of Jeff? He's a model for God's sake!"

"He's an…er…scary model!"

"…you suck, Copeland."

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Adam was finally out of the mess thankfully and was standing beside the doorway again, staring at it with wide eyes and a distorted sense of reality. "Now the red door?"

"Yes."

"We're probably going to have two guarding memory flashes. In this case, we'd both touch the doorknob and think of the memory flash that's more likely to us. Remember…we can't interrupt Shannon's mind if our memories are completely different from his own."

"Yeah, whatever."

Chris moved towards the red door, and trying to open it – and the doorknob allow Chris to open it, leaving a red hall in view and a slash of memory to overtake Chris Jericho.

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This was frustrating to upload! Nonetheless, updates since I FINALLY GOT ON MY COMPUTER. FUCK YEAH.

X Sam.