The lights were blinding. I felt hot and sweaty, my breathing quick and uneven. I sat up and gasped, bringing my hand up to my throat and feeling an aching pain in my chest. There was no slit, not even warm blood. That dream felt so real, I was sure something must've happened while I was asleep, but it only felt sore. There was, however, something on my face, and I instinctively tried to tear it off, but it wrapped around the back of my head. I reached for the strap behind me and slipped it off the top of my head and looked at it.

It was an oxygen mask, and it was pouring out gas. I didn't know how long I'd been breathing it in. I glanced around, my head feeling as if it was splitting in two. I just needed to find out where I was.

I was back in the hospital, my vitals displayed on another monitor next to me. My lower body was under the bed sheets, but I could see that my arms were covered in ash and soot that smeared on my skin as a weak attempt to wipe it away. The cuts on my fingers had healed, and the gash in my arm from Moon had become a scar, but a large burn remained on the back of my hand. How long was I out?

What happened? I tried to remember, but the last thing I could recall was being knocked out from Michael's bomb.

Michael. Where's Michael? I glanced around the room, trying not to let the bright reflections make me wince. Michael sat across from me at the guest table. He was resting his head on it, using his arms as a makeshift pillow as he slept. The shades to the window were open, as I could see it was quite dark out, but the lights inside the hospital room were still bright, and they made my head spin.

"Michael...?" I whispered over to him. He didn't move. I wanted to wake him up, but I didn't think shouting at him would be great. I needed him to tell me what happened, and I needed him to turn off the lights. I supposed I could get up and shake him awake, or even turn off the lights myself, but I felt so exhausted. I gave myself a minute to recollect my energy before I attempted to get out of bed.

I slowly tried to get up, but I dropped to the floor from failing to balance myself. My IV that was attached to the vein in my arm was pulled down and fell on top of me. I turned around so that I was laying on my back and pushed it away from me, but that's when I spotted the lower half of me.

The calf that Vanny had cut into and shot was gone, leaving a stub wrapped in bandages beneath my kneecap. I felt queasy, but there was nothing in my stomach, so instead I gagged as I tried to scramble across the floor. I reached the guest seat and leaned against it, letting my head rest on my shoulder as I started wheezing.

The crash must've woken up Michael. I heard him yell my name before he got up from the chair and put his hand on my shoulder. He was saying things to me, but they sounded too far warped for me to understand.

A few nurses scurried in, and they forced Michael back and surrounded me as they tried to take me back to the bed. I held on tightly to the chair and cried. One of them attempted to pick me up by putting their hand on my back and their other arm reaching around my stomach, but I pushed away and screamed at them.

"Stop! Get away from me!" I shrieked, but my cries didn't matter to them. The only thing I could hear clearly was my own sobs while everything else was muffled and drowned out by static. A nurse grabbed my arms from below and dragged me back to the hospital bed while I screamed. I knew they were just doing their job, but I just wanted to sit and cry and be left alone.

They threw me onto the bed and strapped the oxygen mask back on. I tried to take it off, but one nurse kept her hand on it. I hit at her arm to try to get her off, but another nurse took my hands and pinned them down. I wailed hysterically, thrashing around whatever I could move. The air was clean, almost too clean, and I coughed a bit.

"Stop! That's not fair, this isn't fair !" I wept. Everything felt heavy. There were too many thoughts and questions running through my mind, too many things happening at once, and I was too weak to get these nurses off of me, too weak to stay awake and stop Vanny and William.

My tears rolled down the sides of my face and soaked my pillow. I got tired, and eventually gave up fighting, but continued my sniffling and whimpering as I wasn't able to calm down completely.

The nurse keeping the oxygen mask on my face tried to rationalize everything to me. "I know this is scary," she assured me, "but this is going to help you."

She didn't have to talk down to me like that. I was shaking and trembling, but when I felt like I could, I asked between gasps, "Where's Michael?" My voice sounded strained and muffled from the mask.

"Right here!" Michael yelled from behind. He squeezed himself between the nurse and the machines by my bedside and ran his fingers through my hair comfortingly. "I'm right here, it's okay," he murmured, letting his volume sink.

The nurses let go, and while it was a relief to be free of the restraints, I still felt as if I was being held back. I put my hands on my mask, not in an attempt to take it off, but just to hold something as I cried.

I had no idea what happened to me. Everything after that explosion had just vanished, and I didn't know if I was asleep the whole time or if something else caused my memory to be so foggy. My chest hurt a lot more now, unable to keep pace with my quick breaths.

"Michael, my chest hurts," I told him, still trying to hold back my sobs.

"Can you describe it for me?" the nurse asked, not letting Michael answer, and she pulled one of the machines by me closer to her.

"It's sharp... and stinging," I said.

"Can you rate it one to ten? One being not painful, ten being the most painful," she said, seeming as if she was reciting some kind of memorized routine.

"Eight," I answered, and I feared it was only the beginning. It felt like it was reaching through my spine, stretching from my mid stomach to my lungs.

"Does it feel like bruising or bleeding?" she asked.

"Bleeding," I said. I could feel my heavy pulse around it.

"Okay, kiddo, don't worry," she tried to assure me.

Michael rubbed my arm gently as she did her thing. After some time, someone else came in and helped her replace my IV bag. I didn't know what they were doing, but I assumed it had something to do with my pain.

I wanted to ask Michael what had happened after I blacked out. Where was Vanny and William? Where are the animatronics? What happened to my leg? But every time I opened my mouth to ask, I choked back on my words and seethed in my aching. It was getting worse the more awake and aware I became, and I was going to have to wait for that medicine to kick in.

A doctor walked in and tried to talk to me, but I couldn't pay attention. Everything was too fuzzy. It was something about how amputation was their only option, and the word "coma" flew by a few times. I was in too much pain to listen, and I didn't want to hear it from him. I'd rather Michael tell me.

My body shivered and convulsed uncontrollably as I tried to keep my wails in. I tried to sit up, just so that I didn't feel so weak and vulnerable laying down. Michael helped lift the bed up, and he organized the pillows and straightened my back. My chest stung more, and I realized how tight it felt, as if something was wrapped around it.

I'd calmed down enough to see clearer. Michael was still beside me, but those nurses and the doctor must've left at some point. I didn't know when or why, but I actually felt better being alone with just Michael.

"What... what happened to me?" I finally managed to ask. I needed to know. I felt a bit calmer than when I first realized, but it was still mind boggling to look down at the bottom half of me and see some of it missing.

Michael was holding back his sobs while looking at me. I waited for him to answer, but he wiped his face before his tears fell down his cheek.

"Sorry," he apologized. "It's... it's Christmas."

I was a bit confused, but then it clicked. If it was the 25th, I'd have been asleep for six or seven days. Was he waiting for me to wake up for that long? The shock of my missing leg must've passed for him already.

"Gregory... the explosion tore your leg too far apart," Michael explained. He scratched the back of hand uncomfortably. "I, uhm, tried to keep it together but... But it's okay! I'll get you a prosthetic, and you'll be able to run and walk."

A prosthetic. I could imagine the visual of my leg being severed from the blow. It was already badly injured, but I supposed there was no way to save it after that.

"A-and my chest?" I asked. This pain wasn't something normal. Maybe it was from hitting my back after the explosion, but it still felt unnatural.

"Oh... You were impaled," Michael replied.

" What? " I shouted, and I moved too much and it made my wound ache.

"Don't worry! Everything's fine! You got lucky, it didn't hit any nerves," he explained.

"I was impaled? Something went straight through me?" I tried recounting my last moments. I felt something hit my back, but I never imagined whatever it made its way all the way to the other side!

"Yeah, but you're fine! Everything's okay," Michael assured me. He was really bad at this.

"But it isn't!" I argued. "I-I should be dead! Why am I not dead?"

It was a weird feeling, but the best way I could describe it was a longing of the unknown life beyond death. I didn't want to know or understand it, but rather I just wanted to be there, in whatever heaven-hell-purgatory that awaited me.

"Gregory, I know how you feel, but–"

"I'm stuck in this hospital again ! And I'm in even worse condition!" I cried out, interrupting Michael. My first hospital visit, I was really only there for the police to write a report on me. This was different. I was out for so long, I imagined I probably went through some life-saving procedure. Everything hurt, my mind was still having so much trouble adjusting to where I was and what was happening. I wanted to freeze time and give myself the opportunity to recollect my thoughts, let them roam free without having to worry about my leg or being impaled or the animatronics. "I want to go home–" I sobbed, but when I said "home" I remembered what was there the last time I'd seen it.

"I can't go home," I muttered, and I put my hands on my cheeks as I tried to keep my cool. My oxygen mask got in the way. I took it off again.

"Well... you have a new home," Michael said. He didn't attempt to put it back on me.

"Huh?"

"With me," he said, "and it'll be nice and fun and we won't have to worry about anything! Once you recover, you'll come up to Maine with me and–"

"Woah, woah," I interrupted. He was moving too fast. I just woke up from the worst nightmare I ever had, learned about these severe injuries, and now he wants to take me up to Maine? "I don't want that!" I yelled.

"You don't?"

"No!" I said.

"Okay... What do you want?" Michael asked me.

"I don't know," I answered honestly. I thought for a minute. "I... I want my mom," I said softly. I couldn't help it. I started crying again. I felt so weak for crying so much, but I started to wish that I really had died back then. I didn't even care about my injuries. I was just so drained. I hid my face in my hands and tried to sniffle away all my tears.

Michael hesitated for a moment, but when he noticed I didn't have any animosity towards him, his lip quivered as he held back his tears and wrapped his arms around me like he always did. I grimaced from the wave of pain I got that shot up my back, but I was so glad he was here. He sat down on the empty space of the bed to get closer, and I brought my hands up to his back as I started to sob into his shoulder. He held onto the back of my head and lightly kissed my forehead.

"My sweet boy..." he murmured, and he brought me closer and let me rest my head on his shoulder. I didn't expect him to call me that. I tried to move up to hug him tighter, but it was hard to maneuver around.

He slowly let go and immediately tried to apologize. "I-I don't have any good excuses. I know what I did was awful," he frantically said. It sounded as if he was trying to remember whatever speech he had memorized before this. "I'm a horrible, deadbeat dad and I know it. A-and I don't expect you to forgive me, but I hope you'll give me another chance." I knew he wanted to get this off his chest, but I felt like there were more important things to be addressed.

"Where is everyone?" I asked. Michael looked taken aback. He was probably hoping I'd forgive him on the spot, or accept what he did, but my mind was lingering elsewhere.

"Uhm... the rental warehouse," he slowly replied.

"Bowtie too?"

He nodded. I wasn't sure if Bowtie would be the type to stay behind at the warehouse while I was here, but since I was out for so long, I understood a bit more.

"And Vanessa...?" I asked.

Michael looked away from me. "She didn't make it," he said simply.

I knew she was gone, but I had secretly hoped that maybe she'd get out of it somehow. Maybe one of the animatronics could've found her bleeding and carried her out, or Vanny would have a change of heart and save her at the last minute. But I saw what happened to her, and if she somehow didn't die instantly, she certainly wouldn't have lasted long enough to get out of the pizzaplex. Now, she was another death on my shoulders, but she was different from Mom and Joel. I'd watched it happen. Not only did I watch it, her death was directly caused by my inability to help. If I'd just sucked it up and tried to run, or pushed her off of me, or distracted Vanny, she could've survived.

"Are you okay?" Michael asked me. I shook my head and felt like crying again. He leaned back against the back of the bed frame and pulled me close, rubbing the palm of my hand with his thumb as he tried to calm me down. I hid my face by burrowing it into his arm as I fought back my sobs.

I just got up from this coma, but I was so tired. I didn't want to dream like I had earlier. I wanted to see darkness, the empty void, for hours, until I slowly got up from the warm sunlight that hit my bed's covers through my window. Not quite dead, but not quite alive. That comforting feeling of being unconscious, yet also knowing that you'll wake up any minute, blocking out my senses until it was abruptly broken by waking. That would calm me down much more.

"Why didn't you tell me...?" I asked Michael. I knew I didn't have to be specific; he'd understand what I meant. It was hard to talk. My throat was hurting and everything below my abdomen felt numb. I felt like my body wasn't recovering.

"I wanted to, I really did," he said, resting his head on mine. "But you were missing for four days! You were stressed out, and I didn't want to make it worse. I was going to tell you once everything had settled, I swear."

"I wish you had told me sooner," I told him.

"I... I do, too," he replied.

"I don't understand why you left," I said. I knew he was upset about Evan leaving, but why'd he have to leave, too?

"Evan's death sent me spiraling," Michael said. "I wasn't well. I had dreams about burning the house down. I-I really believed I was going to hurt you." He didn't mention that he had also attempted to end his own life, but he didn't have to. I saw it. If he was unwell enough to do that, then I supposed I could believe he feared hurting me, too.

"Why didn't you come back?" I asked him. Things would've been better if he came back sooner. I wouldn't have had to live alone with my mom. I wouldn't have hated my brother for so long. I wouldn't have gone to the pizzaplex, and gotten my mother, that detective, and Vanessa killed.

"I wanted to, but... the longer I waited, the worse it got," Michael tried to explain. "But Gregory, I never stopped thinking about you, or your mother. We were thousands of miles apart, but I still watched you grow. I just wish I could've been a part of it."

I wasn't angry about him leaving anymore. Now I was just mad that it took him so long to return.

"You could have," I told him. "At any point in time, you could have, but you didn't. That's on you."

"You're right. It is," he agreed. I turned away from him. I didn't have anything else I wanted to say. He was being annoyingly cooperative.

"Do you remember the journals you asked me about?" he asked me. I winced a bit at remembering the contents, but I slowly nodded and glanced back at him. "Bowtie told me you read 'em," Michael said with a smirk.

I put my head back and groaned, "Dammit, Bowtie!" Michael chuckled, but I was still hesitant to believe he wasn't angry. "Are you mad at me?" I asked him.

"No," he said, his smile never leaving his face. "But did you know I have more than one?"

I shook my head, though I supposed it made sense. He was gone for six years, and if he had started those journals after he left, he'd probably have a few. He got up and picked up a tote bag that lay beside the guest table. I hadn't even seen it earlier. It must be the same bag from his car. He took out one journal, the exact same one I had found and read entries from, but then he took out another, and then another, until the table was stacked with a total of eleven journals.

"Oh my God," I gasped. I had expected maybe two or three, but eleven ? That was quite excessive.

"Each one is one hundred sheets, or two hundred pages," Michael began. "I had to write or draw something every day. It didn't matter what, so long as it was done. At first, I thought it was kinda dumb. But then I kept going, and they started to pile up, and I'd look at them and go, 'That's how many days it's been.' Two hundred days for each journal..."

Michael sighed. He picked one of the journals up and said, "I think the intention was to be, 'You survived this long since the incident!' but it was just a constant reminder of what I'd left behind. 'It's been this long since Evan died. It's been this long since you've seen Brooke. It's been this long since you've seen Gregory.'"

"When you get as old as I am," Michael continued, placing the journal back down, "time flies by, but when I was away... I could feel every second of every hour. I desperately looked for an excuse to come back, but what was I going to do? What was I going to say?"

I could understand him a little more. I still wasn't fully ready to forgive him completely, but I knew he meant what he was saying. He was still the kind and caring father I'd seen on the tapes, the one who was so eager to help me, and the one who carried the guilt of so many deaths.

"I'm ashamed of my choice," Michael confessed, "I really am. I know there were better ways I could have dealt with my grief. But I don't hate you, or your mom, or Evan. And I'd never trade your life for his. You were both my pride and joy, and I'm so happy that you're alive."

I felt like crying again. I shut my eyes tightly and covered my face with my hands. Michael sat beside me once again and tried to comfort me by rubbing my shoulder, but when I realized he was there, I flung myself at him and hugged him as hard as I could. I couldn't stop my tears from flowing, and he pulled me up so that I was sitting closer.