The Lawyer left, albeit reluctantly.

Charlie left to take care of the Thomas Matter.

Ikaris had yet to see a doctor, but chances were, they had already left for the night as well. Ikaris was only allowed to stay because the Lawyer had listed him as one of Julia’s emergency contacts.

And The Eternal only stayed because sleeping in the hospital bed was much more comfortable than sleeping on the floor in some theater closet. As a matter of fact, Goose2 had already found herself cozy on one of the beds.

Ikaris had little doubt that a couple of things in the hospital would end up in the feline’s stomach before tomorrow – the little girl was a thief after all. Ikaris knew he would have to discipline Goose2 at some point, but he also really wanted a bed to sleep on.

‘One more steal won’t do anything.’ He reasoned.

Julia’s chest moved up and down, but the machine was the thing breathing for her, feeding her, and another machine was cleaning her blood. Ikaris knew he only had to turn off one of the machines for her to slowly fade away, but he was curious.

What curiosity?

The first thing was how she survived coming in contact with his Cosmic Energy, the second thing was why she left all her wealth to him, and the final thing was what was she doing with the chunk of Vibranium in the files.

It was obvious she didn’t know what it was since the file only said – Strange Metal.

Ikaris could not exactly remember what Vibranium was, but he knew it was much more than a Strange Metal – it was capable of absorbing and redirecting kinetic energy, and could be enhanced with all forms of energy, including Cosmic Energy.

“What are you doing with something so precious?” Ikaris hummed the question as he stared at Julia. “I knew you messed with a lot of chemicals but what are you doing in a place like Forks?”

It seemed that Ikaris would have to stick around much longer than he realized.

In a hidden compartment in the closet he and Goose2 called home, Ikaris had a stash of funds and he was weeks away from buying a ticket to leave for New York City, but apparently, he needed to stay in Forks for the time being.

Julia was an anomaly.

Goose2 was an anomaly.

The Vibranium was an anomaly.

‘Who knows what else strange things are out there?’ The Eternal thought, his cautiousness growing with each passing second.

Goose2 suddenly sat up on the bed. She leaped to the ground and tentacles rushed out of her mouth, consuming the three hospital beds that weren’t being used. Then, she proceeded to pull the cabinet of medicine into the depths of her stomach as well.

When everything was finished, she turned to Ikaris.

MEOW – MEOW

“What’s coming?” Ikaris grew tense, thinking Goose2 had sensed something. “I can’t feel any signs of danger. Is there something I am missing?”

MEOW – ME— (Translation: Mahd--)

Ikaris suddenly kneeled and held his head as Cosmic Energy rushed through his brain, stimulating all memory fragments all at once – millions of years of memories in less than a second, and The Eternal had to process them all.

Ikaris’s surroundings started to glow a brilliant gold, but somehow, The Eternal managed to hold on to bits of his sanity regardless of the memory bombardment. Goose2 darted to Ikaris’s side, wrapping herself firmly around his neck.

Cosmic Energy would not harm her in any way, but the same didn’t go for Julia and everyone else in the hospital and the surrounding buildings.

It took a bit of a running start, but Ikaris was out the window in a split second, falling from the second floor of the hospital. The fall lasted until The Eternal almost touched the ground before the Gravitons reacted and shot him forward and into the air for a thousand meters.

BBBBAAAANNNNGGGG

BBBBAAAANNNNGGGG

BBBBAAAANNNNGGGG

Ikaris couldn’t hit the breaks – actually, he didn’t know how to hit the breaks so it was only natural that he came crashing through the roof of an abandoned factory on the outskirts of Forks.

It was his third crash in as many days.

Obviously, learning how to fly would be an incredibly difficult task, but at least the impact gave Ikaris some of his former clarity. It was only after growing a bit sober that Ikaris realized his hands were charred from the Cosmic Beams that had erupted from his eyes.

This tended to happen.

Whenever he felt threatened, angry, or out of control, his Cosmic Beams would be the first thing to respond. Ikaris found that he could not utilize his Cosmic Beams in any other way since it required a mastery of the three energy conversions – Heat, Force, and Light.

Thus far, The Eternal had only mastered Heat.

The Force aspect was coming along, but much slower than Ikaris would have liked, while Light was completely out of his current reach. Ikaris flexed his hands and the burns healed in a minute or two.

And there he was, kneeling at the center of an abandoned factory, clutching his head as if his hands could somehow keep the memories from exploding. This was not a physical issue, but something even Eternals – in all their millions of years and advanced technology – could not find a way to cure.

Memories flickered in his mind.

Ikaris believed it was a matter of the soul – the mind could hold memories, but if the soul held all the life-changing memories, then wasn’t the soul bound to run out of space in millions of years? Just how many life-changing memories were those?

How much could one Eternal remember?

AAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

AAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Ikaris smashed his fists into the ground, causing an explosion of cement. He smashed his fist again and a small crater was found, then again and the entire factory shook with instability.

BOOOOOOM

BOOOOOOM

BOOOOOOM

Then, Ikaris smashed his fist into the ground again and again, until the factory could hold no longer. Metal creaked all around the Eternal and finally, something snapped and the entire factory came tumbling down.

BANG

BANG

BANG

The pain kept him lucid, but that was not gonna last for long and when he did lose control, Ikaris dreaded the damage he would cause – Forks had a real chance of being destroyed.

The current Ikaris could be defeated by five well-trained humans, but an Ikaris suffering from Mahd Wy’ry had no limits. Such was the curse of all-powerful beings – what really kept them from committing atrocities – even the monsters – was sentience.

Sentience was a natural limiter to good and evil beings alike.

But Mahd Wy’ry bypassed Sentience, conscience, and every other bit of Humanity that lay between those concepts.

----------------------

Ikaris tumbled out of the rubble he had caused, heading away from the numerous flashlights coming from the opposite direction. Eventually, his limping and bloodied appearance turned pristine once more, but The Eternal still held his head.

The battle was still going strong.

There was no way to control Mahd Wy’ry, at least none that Ikaris could recall. Slowly, his eyes started to turn a shade of white, and Ikaris knew he would soon reach the point of no return.

Some Eternals have managed to come back from the madness, but Ikaris knew with the volume of memories he possessed, that coming back was not a possibility if the madness took him.

“Damn, you look worse for wear, kid!”

Ikaris paused and examined the teen standing near the turn – high cheekbones, baggie clothing worn by choice, dark clothing to boot, and a distinct smell of narcotics.

“You should get out of here, KID!”

“I can get you anything you need,” The Drug Dealing Teen opened his jacket to show Ikaris the wide range of pill bottles stored within. “I mean, we aren’t supposed to deal with children, but with how you look, a good night would probably save you from suicide.”

Ikaris was about to refuse and dash away since the heat building in his mind would only have one end result – roasting the drug dealer in front of him – but one specific bottle captured his attention.

‘It might work.’ Ikaris thought and quickly asked. “What’s in the purple bottle?”

“Some new shit,” The Drug Dealing Teen winced as Ikaris clawed at his own head. “But I think you need the blue shit more! The purple shit is like reverse ecstasy – it kills all the high and grounds you in reality. The Blue shit makes the world sparkle and you look like you need a bit of sparkle in your life.”

“GIVE. ME. THE. PURPLE. BOTTLE.” Ikaris’s Scottish accent thickened as he pronounced each word, his eyes glowing an eerie golden white at the end.

“FUCK!” The Teen tossed the bottle into Ikaris’s hand and bolted, leaving only a reminder in the wind. “Don’t take too much, bro!”

Ikaris, as mentally unstable as he was, didn’t even hear the warning, not that he would have listened if he did. The Eternal crushed the bottle in his raised hands, allowing the powder to slip through his fingers and into his mouth.

It took exactly three seconds for the drugs to disappear.

Ikaris still clutched his head, but gradually over the next five minutes, the pain began to lessen until… the world exploded into varying shades of black and gray, and everything became clear – all thoughts had a foundation somewhere in the subconscious.

Worries became solid and complex matters suddenly became basic.

What happened next was a blur of blurred blurriness.

--------------------------

ONE WEEK LATER

BLAKESLEE LONGUE & BAR

Ikaris came to his senses inside the club, blaring music, powder, blinding lights, and high-frequency vibrations offsetting what little sensations he could perceive. It was a sudden awakening, and if it wasn’t for Goose2 twirling atop the bar a few feet away, Ikaris would have thought he had been kidnapped.

Countless people surrounded The Eternal – two females, in particular, were rubbing against his body, sticking to him, and holding him as if they owned him. This was not surprising considering the environment, but Ikaris was surprised to find himself in this environment.

“Goose2! Goose2!”

Ikaris shouted at the top of his lungs, but the cat was too busy twirling, jumping around, and swaying to pay him any mind. The Eternal tried again and again to call the cat, but even when Goose2 glanced in his direction, she was quick to turn her head away.

Ikaris knew he had to change the strategy.

“Free FOOD!”

In an instant, Goose2 had her tail wrapped around Ikaris’s neck, her eyes darting from one end of his body to the next. Clearly, the little devil of a feline had heard his call before… all this time, she had been simply ignoring him for some reason.

MEOW

“There is no food,” Ikaris admitted, earning a couple of heavy pats on the face.

MEOW – MEW – MEW – MEW – MEOW – MEOW – OW – OW

“You’re talking too fast, I can’t even hear what you’re complaining about in all this noise,” Ikaris glared at the speakers in the room, noting there was more than one – it was a surround sound system.

MEOW – MEW – MEW – MEW – MEOW – MEOW – OW – OW

“You’re mad at me because I wouldn’t let you sing?” Ikaris rubbed his head. “If you wanna sing, go ahead. What are you blaming me for?”

MEOW – MEOW – MEOW

“You want to be famous?” Ikaris asked irritatedly. “I don’t see how I can make you famous.”

MEOW

Goose2 released an exaggerated sigh, tilted her head back, and barfed a slimy phone into Ikaris’s outstretched hands; then, her paw flicked across the screen until it settled on a certain video on a certain website.

Have I found you 🎵🎶

Flightless bird, jealous, weeping 🎵🎶

Or lost you, American mouth 🎵🎶

Big pill looming 🎵🎶

Ikaris crushed the phone in his hands after trying and failing to delete the video a dozen times. In the end, the views only kept increasing and Goose2 was unwilling to give him the password for her account – he didn’t even know when she created the account.

It also didn’t help that she was relatively famous online, posting a lot of kitty photos and all. Now Ikaris knew where her sudden attitude was coming from – the accursed social media that corrupted all children.

“We need to take it down.”

MEOW – MEOW – MEOW – MEOW

“What do you mean there are too many to take down?”

MEOW – MEOW (Translation: We have been partying for a week and you performed everywhere we went. Why wouldn’t there be a lot of videos? I told you to stop but you just kept partying and partying – bad pet!)

Ikaris held his head and groaned, finally connecting all the dots. It was appalling that he hadn’t figured it out before – every time he had a blackout, instead of remaining unconscious for a couple of hours like most humans, he would go weeks at a time before recovering.

This was definitely a side effect of Mahd Wy’ry.

At least if nothing else, now Ikaris knew he could not afford to lose consciousness no matter what. The drugs had helped him channel his madness into partying, but it was in no way conducive to his plans for the future.

‘I do feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders, though.’ The Eternal had to admit that letting loose had benefitted him somewhat. “Now, I hope I don’t remember everything I did since this cherry taste in my mouth is definitely lip balm – I hope!”

Ikaris made his way to the door and Goose2 could tell their week of partying and living a life of luxury was over so she hopped off The Eternal’s shoulder and made her rounds in the club, brushing her tail against all the friends they had made during the week.

A couple of people gave the cat one last brush before saying goodbye.

Ikaris and Goose2 had left the party scene.

-------------------

FORK’S THEATER

Ikaris snuck into the theater using one of the forgotten doors in the adjacent building. Of course, he wasn’t the only one who knew about the secret entrance, but Jessie – the other employee – mostly used it to hide her boyfriends from each other.

One corridor led to another, and some cameras had to be dodged.

In five minutes, Ikaris and Goose2 found themselves back at home – the familiar closet where they had spent most of their days not long ago. It felt like a lifetime ago now that they were back, and Goose couldn’t hide the bit of disdain lingering in her eyes.

After all, one doesn’t simply live a life of luxury and come back to sleeping in theater closets, scraping gums from beneath the seats. Actually, Goose2 was already running calculations inside her mind, trying to figure out how best to monetize the views Ikaris was gaining on YouTube.

Ikaris was just about to open the closet door when he heard a subtle noise coming from the theater. The duo made their way into the theater, wondering if someone else had rented the place, and decided to get handsy.

It was not likely to happen, but they had to be sure nonetheless.

There, in the middle rows of the theater, Ikaris recognized someone familiar. He made his way through the rows and took a seat next to the person and started to enjoy the movie that was showing – The Wizard of Oz.

“It’s my daughter’s favorite,” Charlie explained, wiping the tears lingering in the corner of his eyes.

Ikaris glanced at the screen to make sure this was not a sad scene, and it wasn’t – it was the scene where Oz and Glinda the Good Witch kissed at the end of the movie. The Eternal didn’t need to think twice to realize Charlie was a sad man living a sad life.

“You said your job was all you had,” Ikaris chewed on his words. “What happened to your wife and daughter… did they?”

“Oh, no…” It took Charlie a while to understand Ikaris’s implication. “They just… left?” Charlie finished in a questioning tone as if uncertain of something. “I guess, they were like you… ran away from home and found happiness elsewhere?”

“Trust me,” Ikaris sighed, thinking about his videos on Goose2’s online profile. “I am anything but happy…”

The Police Chief and Eternal fell into a tense silence.

“We should watch it again,” Ikaris offered.

“Yeah,” Charlie replied.

And so, they did – they watched The Wizard of Oz together.