The familiar ring of an alarm echoed through the room as Scott awoke from his dream world adventure. Typically, he would be full of energy after a night's rest, but the events of the previous day left a mark of his psyche that carried over to the waking world. His body was perhaps willing to face the day, but his mind was cluttered with various thoughts and memories.

During his conversation with Jackie many things were discussed. Some broke his already overburdened heart, while other notable tidbits of her background enraged him to no end. Needless to say, he understood why she despised humans, but especially human men.

He looked up at the ceiling for a moment then grimaced. "People are shit, even in a fantasy world."

"You would know..." whispered a dark voice inside his mind, "King Turd."

"Seriously? Don't you stupid voices ever get tired? Take a damned nap, or something," he muttered to himself.

All throughout the night his inner demons held a merry festival upon his realization that he would soon be a slave master to a beautiful woman who could not allow herself to be set free. Suddenly, the snarky bastards were right, and they knew it. He would, for a time at least, technically be everything that he denied himself to be.

Scott rose from his bed and took care of his typical morning duties. Every day was largely the same in that way, just a series of cyclical events that took place until he was finally allowed to rest on a more permanent basis.

While he brushed his teeth, he looked into the mirror. Slowly, his eyes slid downward and his lackadaisical attempt at oral hygiene came to a halt. He spat the toothpaste from his mouth with little energy then closed his eyes tight. The mirror had shown him the truth once more. No matter what changed in the dream, he was still the same overweight loser he'd always been.

"Where do I get off..." he mumbled softly.

For just a moment tears began to well up in his eyes at the realization that nothing in the other world would ever change a thing about him in the real world. The voices began to dog pile him in that moment. He needed to know exactly what sort of worthless trash he truly was.

However, as quickly as that unworthy emotion reared its ugly head another rose to meet it. Somewhere in the depths of his broken psyche, a gentle childish voice spoke up as well. "You should smile. It's a happy day."

His eyes snapped open as the voice of his little sister echoed through his mind. A slightly hesitant smile slipped across his lips. "All those times I thought that I was the one who took care of you..."

"You should have taken care of me with your popcorn shrimp big bro—"

"Fuck off!" He snarled. His smile became a grimace and then his face shifted into a cold hard mask as the voices increased their hateful outcries with great intensity.

Scott gritted his teeth then curled his fingers into tight fists. His nostrils flared briefly then he nodded his head and reached for a handful of water to rinse his mouth out. It was time for things to change.

A few minutes later, he slipped out the door. It was not his uniform that he wore, but a pair of shorts, a shirt, and his mostly unused athletic shoes.

Determined not to continue to live his life in such a depressing manner, he drew upon the same inner resolve that he had begun to develop in the dream to change his real life into something worth living. Scott walked to the end of his short driveway, took a left, and set out at a light jog. All the while, his eyes stared only forward toward his as yet unseen goal.

He did not care where he ran that day, only that he moved forward. Within the first few minutes his side began to ache and his breathing became labored. However, he refused to let that hold him back. He walked to work most days. Despite his weight, his body was used to traveling at least short distances at a walking pace. He could do this!

As he jogged along images of his distant and recent past rose up to torment him, to motivate him onward. He saw his little sister's smile and then what happened to her due to his weakness. He saw what he did for Saelil when he allowed himself to become stronger. He saw what became of Jackie despite the fact that she was already strong.

The longer he jogged, the more the truth became clear to him. Whether in this world or any other, he needed to be strong enough to do what he felt was right. People were indeed shit. He needed to be ready to flush the worst of them when necessary.

Gasping for air in spite of his heart-felt desire to go on, he slowed his pace to a moderate walk after roughly a mile. He clutched at his side, but did his best to control his breathing.

"Dammit..." he growled in a moment between his slightly panted breaths.

He walked day and night in the other world. He could run, jump, and even dig a ramp down into the earth with his strength alone. Here he might very well kill himself just trying to jog for a mile, much less actually run.

His old fears began to well up once more as he walked past a local gas station. Why bother with trying to change himself? He couldn't do much on his own. Real life wasn't like the dream world, after all.

Scott might have fallen into a mild state of depression once more had he not heard the sudden outcry of an angry woman nearby. He looked toward the sound of her outraged shouting and noted that the source of the voice now stalked away from a somewhat familiar man.

"Wait..." he said softly, "Isn't that the douche?"

Ashton's Fiancé Bradly, hereafter known solely to Scott as The Douche, ran after the woman and grabbed her by the arm. "Don't you fucking walk away from me!"

She spun around on him and smacked his chest with both hands. "Just fuck off! Go be with your other bitch if you love her so much!"

"Don't be like that! Fuck!" snapped The Douche. "I can't help it if I have to drive her to work, it's her fucking truck!"

"So what? Driving that bitch of yours to work is more important than my birthday party?" she snarled at him. "You told me you were going to fucking leave her anyway!"

Scott stared at the scene. "Damn, and me without popcorn or my cellphone."

"I won't have anywhere to live if I break up with her right now" he snapped, "and she's already suspicious!"

"Oh, please!" snarled the woman. "Like that clueless slut could figure anything out."

"It was that damned perfume of yours," snapped The Douche. "She claimed she could smell it on me. Had to tell her I'd gone and spent the day with my fucking sister."

"Fuck!" exclaimed the woman. "You really expect me to believe that? I wear it all the time!"

"I don't fucking know! Maybe she just said that because someone saw us," he snapped at her.

"Who? Huh?" she asked him before she pushed him again. Her voice rose to a higher pitch and she practically screamed at him "Someone like that fat asshole over there? Yeah? Yeah! It was probably that guy, right? You fucking lying, shit!"

Trying to find somewhere to cast the blame other than himself, The Douche turned to look where his lover had mentioned. He stopped cold for a moment then his eyes narrowed. "Yeah..." he said, anger rising in his tone, "Yeah! It was that fat faggot over there!"

"Wha—" she began, only to cut herself off. "Have you lost your damned mind?"

"He works at Archers, one of the stock boys or something. The butt-fucker tries to flirt with her all the damned time!" snapped the Douche. A derisive smirk emphasized his next point, "Not that his fat ass would get anywhere."

"What!" she turned to look at Scott once more. "What the fuck's your problem, asshole!" she yelled.

Scott sighed loudly to himself. Yeah, people were shit no matter where he went. "You two do know you're in a public place, shouting obscenities like a couple of idiots, and are now trying to blame someone else for you being pure trash. Right?"

They stared at him like he had grown a second head. What had he just said to them? The nerve!

"This isn't news to you, right?" he asked again, slowly. "Right?"

The douche's eyes narrowed and he shouted, "Oh, hell no!" before he rushed across the parking lot toward Scott. Before the enraged man could make it to the sidewalk, however, a black and gold patrol car pulled up at the station.

The Douche skidded to a stop then looked back and forth between Scott, the newly arrived sheriff's deputies who were even now getting out of the car, and his female companion.

Scott stared at him with no hint of fear in his eyes. He was fat and unarmed, but he'd faced much worse than the rage of an oversized feminine hygiene product in recent days.

"Fuck..." snapped The Douche. He turned away quickly and began to casually walk back toward his truck like nothing had happened.

Surprisingly, the deputies only glanced his way then looked toward each other. They watched him drive away, then shrugged. "Wonder what that was about?" asked a tall skinny officer.

"Who knows?" asked his far more muscular partner with a snort. "I just need to shove something in my face. I'm starving."

The skinny deputy chuckled at him and said something too quiet for Scott to hear completely, but to him it sounded like, "That's what she said."

Whatever was said, the muscular deputy laughed and nodded. In high spirits, the hungry deputies went inside to procure something that resembled lunch while they showed no concern for what had happened. It was almost like they had not been called to the scene at all, did not actually witness the scene itself, and merely stopped in to get something to eat.

Scott blinked owlishly then looked to the woman who was abandoned in the parking lot. "Douche might not be a good enough word to describe the guy..."

The woman in question coughed lightly into her fist then took out her cell phone, turned away and started to walk away. Scott took that as a suggestion that he should leave as well. Self-improvement might need to wait for another day. Somehow, the streets seemed like they might be a dangerous place for him at the moment.