Day Three

[Strazio Rockwell]

Even from the start I knew that today would be a shitty day. My head pounded and my legs started to burn from climbing up the mountainside. It wasn’t the worst mountain I’ve climbed up, but two days worth of fighting and wounds made anything brutal. The Rock wasn’t nearly as injured, or tired as me I wondered if he had even gotten into any fights before I came around. Even with my throbbing headache and bruised body I pushed forward, all I had to do was keep up with the Rock.

“Hey big guy, can you toss me a water, I’m pretty thirsty”

He unzipped the duffel bag and threw the last bottle of water over his shoulder. Thank god my partner was generous. Although something was off, he seemed quieter than usual. Maybe he was nervous? No I doubt that someone with as much braggadocio could even be nervous. Finally I decided to hell with it and asked him “something wrong? You’ve been pretty quiet.”

He looked over his broad shoulder at me and smiled “nothing’s wrong, The Rock is just enjoying the hike! We’re almost to the top of the mountain, I’m hoping that someone is up there because I am ready to layeth the smackethdown on some candy asses!” His enthusiasm gave me an unexpected burst of energy. I smiled back and gave him the thumbs up with my good arm “hell yeah! We’re ready to rock!”

I laughed and wondered if Dmitri was watching me make a fool of myself with this beefcake. Although, from what the Rock has said he must have an insane amount of fans. Hopefully I could leech some of his apparent star power and become a fan favorite when I leave this damn island. If I was to raise an army to fight Dracula I needed to make my name known and this was the best way to do it. Win or lose, I’d make sure to give the people at home a good show and the Rock intended to do that same.

We eventually found ourselfs at the outskirts of a village. There were only seven small buildings, each of them looking much older than the one’s back in Dante’s Town. There was an eerie silence that swallowed the town, the whole place felt cursed. My spine shivered and I took a deep breath to steady my nerves. The Rock had stopped walking and was now just staring at the several buildings that dotted the mountaintop. After my courage was secured I walked into the center of town, with the Rock following me.

“Will this do big guy? For the arena I mean?”

The Rock shook his head “no, we need to get higher, the Rock N’ Rock Connection can’t rock the mountaintop if we aren’t actually on the mountaintop.”

I shrugged “aight, your call. But before we start hiking again, let’s take a little break here.”

The Rock nodded and removed his sunglasses and threw them off to the side. One had to wonder where the man kept those things, hell were did he get these championship belts at? Even though he seemed like a big brute, the man was hiding some serious magickal power. I decided it was best not to ask him and walked towards one of the buildings. Slowly and cautiously I pushed the door open and stepped inside. It was a quaint little house, seemingly untouched by human hands. I shivered again, it was almost as if Karl just killed an entire island and took it over for his own sick game. Whatever Karl did to get this island was none of my business, but it still made me wonder how one man could become so powerful.