Epilogue
We survived the rest of winter, and by Spring it seems all the bad things are finally behind us. Everyone from our group has officially been welcomed into The Colony. As the weather warms with Spring more scouting missions begin to go out and our group starts joining them to learn the ropes of going beyond the wall. I enjoy going out on these excursions, it's fun to wander the world with no one around and explore the ruins of malls looking for things that may be useful to our continued survival, and bring a sense of normalcy back to our lives.
On one particular scouting trip, Dolph, Zack and Dilly come back absolutely giddy about something they found. They gather a big group of us, apparently needing lots of man power to bring whatever it is back to The Colony. We set off the next day, following their lead. I keep pestering Dolph to tell me what they found but he refuses to even give me a hint. Around midday we finally reach our destination, the boys gather us around and with great theatrics they fling open a set of double doors to a rundown building in the middle of a strip mall.
Inside its dark and musty. My eyes take a moment to adjust o the darkness, and when they do, my jaw drops. Standing in the middle of the room is a ring. It's in pretty rough shape but we could fix it up. I hug Dolph giddily, "I can't believe you found this!" I say going up to run my hand along the dusty apron. "She's pretty beat up, but it shouldn't be too hard to fix up." Dilly says, "we just need to disassemble it and move it back to The Colony." I want to scream with joy, I can't wait to train again.
We make quick work breaking down the ring and getting all the parts gathered up to take back to The Colony. We talk happily as we work, remembering the past, our times in the Indies or developmental, taking down and setting up rings. We reach home just after sunset. We hide the ring in our garage so that we can try to keep it a surprise for the original Colony inhabitants.
Over the next couple of days we work to make repairs to the ring between our shifts of our Colony jobs. Ravyn sews up the wholes in the ring mat, and even starts designing gear for us. When the ring is fixed up, we begin booking a card staying up late making all our final preparations. The night we get everything finished we sneak out in the middle of the night and begin setting up the ring and ringside area. We use the front porch of our house as the stage and ramp area. I take one final look at our set up before heading into the house to get a few hours of sleep before the rest of the town wakes up.
I wake up early, change into the gear Ravyn made for me and pace anxiously, occasionally peaking out the window to see if anyone else is up. All the performers gather at our house and soon all the towns people start emerging from their homes, they see our set up and begin to drift over with confusion. We wait until everyone is there before we start playing music through our solar powered CD player. New Day goes out first to entertain the crowd, pump them up and act as announcers. We change the music and I make my entrance first, followed closely by Ravyn. The moment we lock up it's as if the last few months haven't happened. All the death and destruction disappear and we are transported back to a sold out arena full of thousands of screaming fans. I get the win, reach down and help Ravyn up hugging her before I raise her hand. This is a victory for all of us, it's a step in the direction of making the world normal again if we can do this, there are so many more things we can do and I finally believe that we will get our lives and the world back to normal.
The End