He was on the football field, grabbing a pass straight from the hand of his QB, racing toward the goal line like a stallion on speed.

Then he was in the locker room, telling some stupid story about his weekend, and everyone was laughing, their faces distorted as though under the power of a cosmic slow-motion button.

Then he was in a soft-lit bedroom, making long sweet love to a pretty young thing on a canopied bed, a scene straight out of a Skinemax Friday night feature. He humped and humped and humped for hours, slow then fast, intense then laid back, exploring ranges of passionate sex that he had never known he was capable of. As the moment built into climax, the white light surrounding him grew blinding, until...

...it flashed in an intense burn of white-hot brightness, and he was in a plain white room, sitting on a chair, staring at a door.

"Mr. Reynolds?" a man queried of the college football star, glancing down at a file folder in his hands. Clad in a flowing white robe, he hadn't stepped through the door to enter the room--he had simply appeared, as though several seconds of time had slipped from existence and the whole of Ricky's life had skipped ahead without warning.

"That's me," Ricky replied. He wasn't sure about that answer--to be honest, there wasn't much of anything floating around in his brain at this very moment, even less than usual. He was drawing complete blanks, just like his Uncle Mick did until he got his urethra fixed.

"I know you're not sure about that answer," the man telegraphed, reading Ricky's mind.

"Creepy," Ricky thought.

"And you think it's creepy that I'm reading your mind," the man said. Ricky tried as hard as he could to stop thinking. "That's fine. I won't be doing it for long. You'll be out of here in a minute or two."

"Where am I, anyway?" asked Ricky.

"You're in...well, it doesn't much matter, does it? You're not alive right now, nor are you dead. You'll be waking up from a scary bout with unconsciousness in just a minute, and you won't remember this or even much about your life before this very moment."

"That sucks."

"Yes, it does...'suck,'" replied the man with slight disgust. "But that's the way it has to be. You're being taught a lesson--you'll be suffering from selective amnesia, in which you remember small bits of your former life, like your parents and how to play football, but you won't remember what a reckless jackass you used to be."

"Why?" Ricky didn't understand why life had to start being sucky just when it was not being sucky.

"You are not now who you should be. You have to learn who you really are--find your purpose--you're being prepared for a greater goal. You will know the moment. You will realize everything in a split second and every day you've ever lived will snap into a new focus."

"What if I don't figure it out?"

"You will."

"But what if I don't?"

"But you will." The man was losing patience quickly.

"But, dude, what if..."

"You'll burn in hell, okay? If you don't figure it out, you'll rot for eternity. But you will figure it out."

"But if I don't...man, that would suck."

"Yes. Well, that's all."

The man snapped his finger and Ricky was in a hospital bed, his lids slowly rising to Veronica DeVrie. As promised, he remembered nothing of what had happened.

"Heeehuheeeehuh..." he mumbled in a hazy stupor.

"Honey?" whispered Veronica. The doctor was hovering nearby, and this was her moment of truth. If she couldn't make it work now, then her lie would be majorly exposed. Though she was really just a failed one-hour stand, she had claimed to be Ricky's loving girlfriend after their auto accident, in a mad attempt to ingrate herself into the life of a man she had desperately wanted ever since she had seen his tight ass slipped into a pair of football pants. It was more than just sexual lust, though--it was lust for everything he represented, the cutting hip edge of a campus where status meant more than any grade or midterm. She wanted the fast track to the upper eschelon of campus life, the Autobahn to Party Central, and Ricky could put her onto it.

"Honey?" Ricky didn't remember this woman, but he didn't remember much of anything, so that wasn't such a big deal. She was very cute, almost gorgeous, so he figured that even if she really didn't belong in his life, he wouldn't mind having her there anyway.

"Honey!" Veronica planted a desperate kiss, dripping with passion, upon his lips. She rubbed his head vigorously, and he groaned. Maybe she was pushing it a bit too far. The doctor glanced over from his clipboard.

"Um, you might want to be careful," said Dr. Ross. "He's still a bit groggy. You two can cuddle and fun around with each other in just a few days."

So he bought it, Veronica mused to herself. A few minutes of lies, and she was the main squeeze of Northsouthern University's most hunky and eligible bachelor. This whole living a lie thing might be easier than she thought.

"Mr. Albon?"

Another plain room, another near-death experience. Only this room was pitch black, so dark you might believe you could disappear into the chairs if you weren't sitting on them in slight discomfort. And the man in the robe was clad in red with a grotesque yellow glow to his skin.

Before the man sat Dave Albon, roommate to Ricky, Stephen and Alexis; mystery informant to Dean Daniels. Just a few moments before, he had collapsed from shock on the side of a highway, staggering toward home after a ruthless and bungled attack from the campus police, Daniels' personal Gestapo in the war against campus fun. The two had been embroiled in a near-blackmail situation, in which neither could flinch for fear of sending the other into a talespin from which they could never recover. To sever the relationship, Daniels had sent his boys after the young mystery caller.

But upon the advice of the even more mysterious man in red standing before Dave, the geeky kid had snuck off into the seediest part of town at three a.m. on a Tuesday morning to buy a small gun. He had carried the gun in his coat pocket all night on Saturday, and when the police had traced his call to the Dean and appeared to exact their vengeance on him, he had used it to fire a few harmless shots at the cops, sending them into enough of a chaos that they had done more harm to each others' cars than they had to Dave. But they did manage to get off one shot into the nerd's arm, and the shock of the pain had led to his collapse...and this unexpected visit to the realm of the mysterious figure who had helped motivate Dave to the desperate ends of his recent schemes.

"Um...yeah, that's me," stuttered Dave nervously.

"Mr. Albon." The man in red took a seat at the table across from Dave. "We've commissioned you to participate in a large-scale scheme of deception, lies and brutality against one of your collegiate classmates, and so far, you've failed to produce any significant results."

"But they had him in the car chase, and I think that if you just give me a few more chances..."

"SILENCE." The tone of the man's voice didn't change, only the volume. It made Dave's ears sting to hear it. "We had an agreement. You deliver the boy to desperate pain and we will deliver the popularity and acceptance you've dreamed of all your life. You are in danger of failing your end of the bargain."

"I'll do it, I promise. I'll make Ricky Reynolds' life a living hell."

"Good," said the man, his tone hardening. "Because if Ricky's life doesn't go to hell, then yours most certainly will."

With a snap of his fingers, the man sent Dave back to the side of that road, his arm mysteriously healed. He stood unevenly, brushed off his tight corduroy pants and began the hike back to his apartment, a new dark resolve in his every step.