Lovers of Freedom

Prologue: Offer

Music tip:
Muse – Undisclosed Desires
(look at the beginning of the chapter!)

Lovers of Freedom

Prologue:
Offer

The worst was the silence.
Suddenly the beautiful house he owned seemed way too big and intimidating. Before there had been Alesa and her laughter had often filled the house, to which Adam had woken up with a smile on his face. Whenever he had sneaked down the stairs to the kitchen, Milton and Bailey had happily joined him, before he had enjoyed the soft kiss on his lips by his wonderful girlfriend.

Ex girlfriend. Right.
God, the very thought of it was crushing him.

The louvered blinds kept the bright sun outside and made Adam believe to be in his own little world, as he stayed in his bedroom filled with sweet darkness and calming silence. Curled up beneath the sheets he tried to hide from everything and everyone, already knowing that countless tweets were waiting for him. Tweets, comments, haters... It was always the same. Aside from the fact that this time would be even worse. A lot of people loved Alesa and he knew that the fans would behave more extreme as it had been with other relationships before. Not all would respect their decision, not all would believe that both had agreed to end it once and for all.
After he had read the first horrible comments yesterday evening, he had gone to bed.

Nonetheless he had to get out of the bed at some point.
The world would go on without him, oblivious of his problems, fears and emotions.

It took him ten minutes of just standing in front of the closed door, before he took a deep breath and finally exited the large room. As soon as he walked down the corridor to the bathroom, the silence and the reality of the situation began to overwhelm him. Alesa had left. She had taken their two dogs with her. It had not been the first time for her to go, they had many nearly break-ups before, but this time...

They both knew that there was no going back.
Not this time.

His hands began to shake again, but it was worse than the day before. He could barely contain himself – not that it was necessary with nobody else in the house – and when he reached the bathroom, he grabbed the first object he could get and threw it across the room. The glass in his hand shattered on the wall and with his loud and angry scream the silence in the house was finally destroyed.

The next minutes went by in a blur. He panted heavily, as he splashed cold water onto his face. It was pale, dark circles were under his eyes and his trademark cheerfulness was completely gone. The trembling of his hands didn't stop and tears welled up in his eyes. Before he had to watch himself cry in front of the mirror, he left the room and fled downstairs to the kitchen.

The sun threw soft patterns onto the floor and all in all it would've been a beautiful morning, if things had been... different. Normal.
Adam tried to tell himself that one day everything would be all right again, but with every passing second, with every blow of fate hope disappeared more and more and more.

Because someone up there had to be messing with him, right?
His past.
Dawn.
Team Crafted.
Alesa.

Had there been anything good in his life that had lasted?

The ringing of his phone disturbed his pessimistic thoughts and slowly he went to the living room. His hand was already reaching out to grab the phone, but he stopped shortly before he was able to answer the call. There could be no good news, right? It was probably his family or friends, who wanted to check up on him. He only had written them a short message at the same time as the fateful tweet had been published.
They knew he wasn't in the mood for an encouraging speech, so he turned around and picked up his mobile phone instead. Time to face reality. He had to be there for the fans, they needed the videos and even though the thought made his heart beat faster out of fear, he felt slightly comforted by it as well. This was something good he had accomplished in life. His career. His fans.

The answering machine finally picked up the call.
"Hello Mr. Dahlberg, this is Tom Murphy."

Murphy? While he checked his various messages, Adam strained his ears. He didn't know why, but the name sounded strangely familiar. Then he was distracted by a confusing message of Ty and a link. What could be so important? Ty knew that Adam needed a few-
Holy shit!

"I am Microsoft's director of corporate communications, corporate citizenship & community affairs. You probably know already the reason for my call."

Adam held his breath and stared at the screen with wide opened eyes.
No-fucking-way. The possibility had been there, yes, but that they would actually sell it-
"We are so screwed," Adam whispered and lowered the hand covering his mouth. Then he remembered the call and his head snapped back to the answering machine.

"This is about your future, Mr. Dahlberg. I recommend you to pick up the phone."