The first thing he noticed was that he was standing.
No bed beneath him, no tug of IV lines, no weight on his chest. Just his own two feet planted on something that felt like solid ground and not-quite-ground at the same time.
He blinked.
White.
Every direction was a soft, endless white—too bright to be fog, too gentle to be pure light. The "floor" under him looked like a thin layer of mist, swirling lazily around his boots but never quite reaching his ankles. Above, there was no ceiling, only more white, fading into a depth he couldn't measure.
His heart thudded once, clean and strong. The sound startled him so much he clapped a hand to his chest.
The bones there felt… right. No ache. No tightness. His fingers didn't tremble when he spread them and looked at them. The skin on the backs of his hands was smooth, not thinned and bruised. His forearms looked like they had in Florida—lean muscle, faint veins, a trace of callus where tape and ropes had rubbed.
He flexed experimentally. His shoulders rolled without grinding. His back didn't complain. He took a step forward and another, and nothing pulled at him, nothing dragged him down.
It felt like walking into the ring after the best warm-up of his life, everything loose and awake and coiled, without any of the fatigue.
Then the memory came back in a rush.
The white ceiling above his hospital bed. His mother's hand in his, thumb drawing circles on his skin. His father's grip on the bedrail. Emily's soft laugh, Josh's shaky one. The low murmur of wrestling from the TV and the slowing beeps of the monitor. The way the light had seemed to swell and swallow the corners of the room.
He remembered exhaling.
So… this is what comes after.
He turned slowly, searching for a wall, a door, anything.
"You're taking this better than some," a voice said behind him, amused and mild.
Alex spun.
A man stood a few steps away, barefoot on the fog, hands tucked in the pockets of a simple white shirt and slacks. He looked… unremarkable, in the way someone could look like any age between thirty and fifty depending on the angle. Dark hair, no lines on his face that stayed long enough for Alex to pin them down. The only thing that felt solid about him was his gaze—clear, steady, like he'd been watching a long time.
"You're… him," Alex said slowly. "Aren't you."
The man tilted his head.
"If 'him' means the one who talked to you when your heart stopped the first time?" he said. "Then yes. We've met. Briefly."
Memory flashed—another white place, another version of this room with less detail. The first time, when chemo and infections had finally pushed him over a line he hadn't been able to fight back from. The Stranger in White, speaking as if he'd always been there, telling him he'd been robbed, that his love for this life had left a mark.
Back then, Alex had been too tired to do more than listen.
Now, he felt… awake.
"Am I dead?" he asked, because sometimes the simplest question was the only one worth asking.
"Yes," the man said, without flinching. "That part hasn't changed."
Alex swallowed. The motion was smooth. No dryness, no pain.
"Then why do I feel like I could go run drills?" he muttered.
The man smiled slightly.
"Because this time, we're talking after the work is done," he said. "Not in the middle of the worst of it. You've reached the end . Alex, now we decide… what's next."
The word we made something twist in Alex's chest.
"Last time," he said slowly, "you said I got robbed."
"I did," the man replied. "And I meant it. Young man makes it to FCW, gets signed to the biggest company in his world, steps through ropes he's spent a lifetime staring at on TV…" He flicked his fingers, and an image shimmered into the air beside them.
Alex saw himself, younger, in FCW gear—black trunks, taped wrists—running the ropes in the Tampa warehouse ring. Sweat flew from his hair with each rebound. Regal watched from the apron, arms folded, expression unreadable.
"…and then your own blood turns on you," the man finished. "That's not a story that ever sits right."
The image shifted.
Uncle Dave's living room appeared in faint lines and color, like a memory projected on fog. There was the old TV, the PPV graphic, the bowl of popcorn, a much smaller Alex in boots too big for his legs, posing awkwardly while Dave laughed and called him champ.
Another flicker.
Leo in his wheelchair, notepad in hand, scribbling with a determined grin as they talked about entrance music.
Another.
Maggie's hand on his, Tom's hand on the rail, the hospital room washed in white.
Alex's breath hitched.
"You've… been watching," he said.
"I pay attention," the man said lightly. "You burned bright, even stuck in that bed. There's not a lot of people who can't stop loving something even as it's being taken from them. You kept booking matches with your friend in the hallway when you could barely walk twenty steps. You kept teaching psychology with tubes in your arms. You made promises."
He turned his head. More images appeared, circling them like slow satellites.
Alex saw himself holding Leo's hand earlier that day, saying, I promise, if I ever get back, I'll wrestle every match like you're in the front row.
He heard his own voice again, hoarse and breaking.
He saw Uncle Dave's rough hand holding his in front of that first PPV, making the "no-quit" pact.
"And that," the man said, nodding toward the floating scenes, "is why we're back here again. Not because you were perfect. Not because the universe owes anyone fairness. But because something about the way you loved that life—wrestling, your family, those kids—left a strong imprint."
Alex watched Leo's spectral grin for a moment, the pen moving across the page. Survivor's guilt twisted under his ribs.
"Leo didn't get another shot," he said quietly. "Neither did… a lot of people in that ward. You can't just… rewind everybody. So why me?"
The man didn't look away.
"Because you made that love into a promise," he said. "More than one, actually. You promised a truck driver with cheap boots you'd chase that dream until your body gave out. You promised a scared kid in a hospital chair you'd wrestle like he was watching, even if he never got to buy a ticket. When someone ties themselves to others that deeply, sometimes the echo sticks around."
He shrugged, bare feet sinking a fraction into the fog.
"Call it luck. Call it grace. Call it a glitch in the system," he said. "Labels aren't my department. What I can tell you is this, the mark you left was strong enough that there's room to do… something with it."
Alex looked down at his hands again. They shook now, but not from weakness—from the sheer weight of what he was hearing.
"Something like… sending me back," he said slowly.
"Something like that," the man agreed.
The fog floor rippled gently, like a mat after impact.
"I'm offering you a second chance" the man said. " No one way to stardom. No guaranteed WrestleMania main event. Same world. Same timeline you left. The difference is… the volume gets turned up in three places. Those are gifts for you, for them."
"First," he said, "when you stand in a room, people will feel it more. They'll notice you a little sooner. They'll lean in when you talk. Call it presence. Call it charisma. Whatever you want. It's … amplified."
"Second," the man continued, "The body. You already had a good one but you also suffered because of it. This time, it holds up better. You recover faster. You get tired, sure. You can still get hurt if you intentionally try to do something stupid. But the everyday grind won't chew you up as easily."
Alex pictured running the FCW ropes without that creeping fatigue, pictured finishing a long heat segment and still having gas for the comeback. His chest tightened with something like hope and fear mixed.
"Third," the man said, "your learning curve. Or you could say your talent. In the next run, that study lands faster.
"These aren't magic tricks," the man said. "No one will see lightning bolts when you walk into a room. You'll still have to work. You'll still sweat. You'll still fail sometimes. I am not giving you guaranteed shots."
"Then what are you doing?" Alex asked.
"Resetting the start," the man said simply. "Giving you a chance to run the race at full speed instead of with your legs tied together."
He let the words hang there for a moment.
"You don't have to take it," he added. "You did more with the time you had than some do with twice as long. You can rest. Stay. Be done. No one's going to drag you back into bump drills against your will."
There was a gentleness in his tone now that hadn't been there before.
Alex looked at the images circling them.
His parents at the bedside, hands on him as the world faded.
Emily taping up photos in a room that smelled like antiseptic.
Josh clutching his hand like a rope.
Uncle Dave in that dim Ohio living room, holding out boots and a promise.
Leo, head tipped back in his wheelchair, grinning as he imagined boss battles with Cena and Undertaker.
He thought of the vow he'd made to Leo.
He thought of the quiet promise to Uncle Dave—no quitting when it got hard.
He thought of his mother whispering.
The guilt was still there. It probably always would be. He'd gotten one run. A lot of people hadn't. He could carry that into a rest, let it fade into whatever came after.
Or he could carry it into another ring.
"If I go back," he said slowly, "it's not just for me."
The man's eyes crinkled at the corners.
"I'd be disappointed if it was," he said.
Alex drew in a breath. It was deep and easy, the kind he hadn't had at the end.
"I'll wrestle for them," he said. "For my parents. For Em and Josh. For Uncle Dave, who put those stupid boots on me when nobody else took it seriously. For Leo, who's probably booking my whole career on a notepad somewhere."
His voice roughened.
"I'll wrestle for me, too," he added. "But I won't waste it. Not the hope spots, not the comebacks, not the little shows nobody tweets about. If I go back… every match is for two. Or three. Or however many lives got tied up in this one."
The man in white nodded, satisfied, like a coach hearing the right answer to a question about ring psychology.
"Then we have our decision," he said.
The images around them began to brighten, their colors bleeding into the white, the scenes stretching until they were more feeling than picture. The fog at Alex's feet swirled faster.
"Remember," the man said, his voice echoing oddly now, as if coming from all directions. "This isn't a guarantee. It's an opening bell. You'll still have to fight for your spot."
Alex gave a small, humorless smile.
"Story of my life, but this time with a booster." he said.
"Exactly," the man replied. "This time, you're not running into the cutoff with your lungs already on fire."
The white around them thickened, brightening until the man's outline was the only dark shape left.
"One more thing," the Stranger in White added. "You don't owe anyone perfection. Just honesty. In the ring. With yourself. The rest… you figure out along the way."
Alex wanted to ask what that meant, but the light pressed in, gentle and absolute. The man's form dissolved into it like ink in water.
For a heartbeat—or an eternity—there was nothing but brightness.
Then—
He sucked in air like he'd been held underwater and suddenly broken the surface.
The ceiling above him wasn't hospital white. It was off-white, with a faint stain in the corner and a buzzing ceiling fan that wobbled on its fixture.
His heart hammered in his chest, fast and strong. His lungs burned—not with sickness, but with the shock of a full, deep breath.
He shot upright.
The room around him was small and messy in the way only a young wrestler's apartment could be. Cheap dresser. TV on a stand. FCW poster on the wall with faces he knew: Rollins, Big E, Husky Harris. A gear bag lay half-open by the door, one boot half out of it like it had been kicked off in a hurry.
Sunlight bled in around the edges of blinds, warmer and harsher than the filtered light of a hospital window. Outside, somewhere, a car horn honked. Florida.
His hands flew to his chest, his arms, his legs. Muscle. Thickness. No IV tape, no plastic bracelets. The same body he remembered from before the tests, but better—denser, sharper, like the Stranger in White had taken what he'd built and turned the dial up a notch.
His phone buzzed on the nightstand.
He turned and grabbed it with reflexes that didn't feel rusty at all.
A notification blinked:
FCW Group:
"Reminder: Training at FCW Arena, call time 9 AM. Be dressed and ready. – Office"
The date on the screen made his scalp prickle. 2011. The same stretch of weeks where, last time, his blood had started to betray him.
His heart pounded harder.
For a second, fear tried to rise—what if this was some cruel loop, some last hallucination?
He pushed it down.
No. Not this time.
He swung his legs off the bed. His feet hit cheap carpet. His body moved smoothly, no vertigo, no wobble. He stood in one fluid motion, feeling the weight distribute through his frame like a perfectly executed base spot.
In the back of his mind, he heard Leo's voice: If you ever step through the ropes again, do it for both of us.
Uncle Dave's laugh. His parents' hands. The Stranger's calm eyes.
Alex exhaled, steadying himself.
"Okay," he murmured to the empty room. "Round two."
Outside, the Florida light was already bright. Somewhere across town, the FCW Arena waited—hot, cramped, and holy.
The bell had rung again.
This time, he intended to wrestle the whole match.