"So how was your first morning of physical therapy?" Amy asks as she pours herself a cup of coffee. Her words begin to pull me out of my sleepy state and I yawn, "Definitely."
She turns around, "Definitely?"
I blink a few times and then rub my eyes, "Sorry, what was the question?"
"I asked how therapy went." She turns back to her mug before she grabs it and joins me at the table. She places down a second mug in front of me, scooting it slightly closer.
"Oh, uh, it was painful, just like Rose warned me about." I grab the mug and blow on the hot liquid for a few seconds before taking a sip.
"Didn't sleep well?" She takes a seat across from me, sipping out of her own mug.
"No, not really." I set my mug back down and hang my head a little. I was extremely tired and it was hard to think.
"Is your leg bothering you that much?" She asks.
"Hm?" I rest my elbow on the table and prop up my head, "No, it's something to do with what Felix called the Tears of the Demon or whatever."
"Oh," She hums, also setting her mug down on the table. "So it's your turn for the nightmares."
"My turn?" I blink a few times, trying to stay awake.
"Mhm." She leans back in her chair, grabbing her mug for another drink, "Everyone else has already dealt with the black tears and haunting memories."
"What? But when the others saw me, only Felix seemed to recognize it." I explained, now I was curious on what she has to say.
"That's because after fixing what causes the tears, it's like your memory of it is wiped clean." Amy yawns a bit. It's still super early in the morning, the sun has barely risen and the village was peacefully quiet.
"But Felix...?" I frown.
"He can't forget. He wasn't able to fix his haunting nightmares. At first he came to me for medicine to put him to sleep as it was very draining to relive the same nightmare every single time he closed his eyes to sleep, but even then, it just wasn't enough. Now anytime he sleeps, he's just trapped in the same nightmare. I think he got used to it, probably why he is able to sleep almost regularly now." She fills me in.
"Is that why he's grumpy all the time?" I pick up my mug and drink more coffee, hoping it will kick in soon and wake my ass up. Amy chuckles lightly, "That could be one factor in the equation, but I think that's just how Felix is now. I don't know what he was like before this hell. I think Hailey is trying to break him out of it, hence his strange shifts to strained kindness, but he's having a difficult time."
"I kind of feel bad for him. I mean, I know we all got dealt a rough hand, but it just seems like life keeps kicking him while he's down." I set my half empty mug on the table and lean back in my seat, staring up at the ceiling. Amy scoots her chair back and takes her mug to the kitchen sink. I hear the water run as she washes out the mug.
"Did you find someone to train under you?" I sit back up to look at her. Amy pauses in her cleaning, "I..." She doesn't seem to know how to answer my question. She goes back to cleaning the mug and then sets it on the counter to dry. She rests her hands on the counter, leaning her body forwards a bit.
"Amy, are you okay?" I scoot my chair back to stand up.
"I'm fine, I'm fine." She moves one hand up to her face and I can barely make out a sob. I make my way over to her, albeit slowly, and place my hand gently on her shoulder, "Are you sure?"
She turns to me, suddenly a sobbing mess, and hugs me, "I miss her so much!"
Right, May was killed, and come to think of it, I don't think Any was given the opportunity to grieve her wife.
I hug her back, doing my best to comfort her in her time of need, "Why don't we sit back down at the table?" I was asking more for myself because I couldn't stand for very long with my bum leg. It already ached enough after Rose worked it out. Amy steps back, wipes her eyes and nose as swiftly as she could, "I-I'm sorry, I don't mean-"
"Don't apologize, you're allowed to cry." I cut her off, "You just lost someone dear to you. I was actually a little worried that you had shut down completely."
"Comes with being a doctor, you learn to set your own feelings aside while dealing with such traumatic things." She shifts to lean her back against the counter, her arms crossing her chest to hug herself. I have no choice but to pull myself a chair up and take a seat, "How did you two meet? Was it there at the hospital?"
Amy wipes a few stray tears, "Oh, goodness no, we met long before that. Actually we used to be frenemies back in high school. She was the top dog in all of her classes, until I was transferred to her school. My grades were just slightly better than hers." She smiles a little as she walks down memory lane. "She very publicly announced her dislike of me and thus began our rivalry. It lasted all the way through highschool and it peaked in college as we happened to be accepted in the same one. But what threw us for a loop and set us on our path to becoming married was being housed in the same dorm room."
"I bet that was a rough college start." I speculate.
"Oh you won't believe the lengths we went to to get on each other's nerves. We might as well have been kindergartners!" She chuckles softly, "It all changed one day when a scandal broke out throughout the campus. Some guy that lived a couple of dorms over had been obsessed with May and was mad that she kept turning him down, not just because she was lesbian, but also because that dude was a real creep." She makes a face at the mention of this guy. "He was spreading lies through the school that she was super easy to bed and somehow got her number, passing it out to any one that would ask. It was starting to affect her grades as she couldn't sleep properly due to her phone constantly blowing up or people just randomly banging on the door, trying to get her to let them in. At that moment, it didn't feel like a rivalry anymore but my friend was being harassed." She pauses as she thinks over her story. I give her the time to gather her thoughts, invested to learn more about the two.
"So one day a bunch of guys were gathered outside the dorms, chanting over and over for May to come out and finally give everyone answers. Led by none other than that stupid creep. It was like 3 in the morning too. May had locked herself in the bathroom, she was beginning to have a mental break with all of this constant harassment. So I took matters into my own hands. I leaned out of our bedroom window that faced the courtyard and yelled as loudly as I could, 'Quit harassing my girlfriend or I'll call the cops!' It was a slip of the tongue. I haven't meant to say girlfriend but it was enough to shut the crowd down briefly. When they started chanting again, I went to our fridge and began to pelt everyone with rotten eggs. The rotten eggs were originally supposed to be a prank pulled on May, but I found a better use for them.
A couple of weeks later, I managed to gather enough evidence to get the creep arrested and thrown off campus. May, of course, teased me about my accidental slip, but she also thanked me. Announcing that I was her girlfriend to practically the entire school meant that most people left her alone. They respected that she was 'in a relationship'. And the rest is pretty much history."
"Wow, that's a crazy story." I sit back in my chair.
"Yeah, I kind of wonder sometimes how our relationship would have turned out if it wasn't for that moment." She stares off into the distance as she thinks about the past. A few more tears begin to slip down her face, "I think I'm afraid to train someone else. I know it's not like this trainee is going to replace her, but it feels like it for some reason. I'm afraid that it'll set off some kind of chain reaction and I'll just completely forget her."
"Then why don't you make yourself a reminder? Like a ring?" I suggested.
"A ring in my line of work would only cause issues." Amy shuts it down.
"Uh hm." I rest my chin on my hand as I try to come up with something.
"I'm sure you'll think of something." She starts to relax a little bit.
"Probably, I can't think properly right now." I yawn and then stretch my arms above my head.
"I wish you good luck on ending that problem. I'm sure Felix could give you more information if you need." Amy suggests before she makes her way over to the door to answer it.
"Good morning Amy, I'm not bothering you, am I?"
I recognize Travis' voice.
"No, not at all, what can I help you with?" Amy replies.
"I was just bringing by the medical sheets you had everyone fill out." Travis steps inside after Amy moves out of the doorway.
"You can sit the papers there on the coffee table, I'll read over them." Amy gestures to the small table. Travis makes his way past her and sets the papers on the table. He turns with a small smile and then his eyes meet mine, "Oh, hey Ethan."
"Hey." I can't help this irritating feeling that bubbles in my chest. He's never given me a reason to feel this way, man, I must be really tired. "I think I'm going to excuse myself," I stand from my seat, "Maybe find Felix."
"Oh, of course, remember to give yourself plenty of time to rest." Amy smiles softly at me. I smile and then give a curt nod to Travis before I make my way out of Amy's house.
I let out a tired sigh as I start my way down the footpath. I don't exactly have a destination in mind.

I catch Felix standing outside of his residence, leaning against one of the posts that held up the porch. He was fiddling with some yarn, it looked like the yarn his daughter used.
"Hey, Felix, can I talk to you?"
His head raises slowly and then turns in my direction, it seems to take a second for his eyes to focus on my person. He just waves me over and then looks back down at his yarn work. I hobble my way over and take a seat on his porch.
He continues silently working on whatever it is he is doing with the yarn.
"...I wanted to ask you more about the Tears." I speak after a few minutes.
"What do you want to know?" He brings the yarn up to his mouth and nips at a piece with his teeth, pulling the string through a loop since both his hands were in use.
"Actually first, I feel I have to tell you that Amy informed me that each of us have gone through this, it's just that if you don't fix it you never forget." I tell him. He nods his head, "Yup, that's why Mark and Jack were confused on seeing the black tears on your face."
"And it's the same nightmare?" I ask.
"Same every night." He pauses on his handiwork and eyes it.
"...is it easy to solve the issue?"
His eyes meet mine. For once, he isn't glaring harshly at me, but looking at me with gentle eyes. Eyes that seemed to completely understand the pain. He breaks our eye contact and looks back at the yarn, beginning to knit it together again, "No. It's not that simple. The nightmare makes it seem like it has to do with whatever is happening in the nightmare and if you resolve it that way, it'll be over. That's not true, it's merely a message of some sort in disguise."
I started to massage my leg, trying to relieve the aching pains, "A message?"
"Yup." He popped the 'p'.
I thought about what to say and decided if he had more information he could probably help me decode it.
"It mostly focuses on my mother. I lost her when I was six."
"Mhm." He brings the yarn back up to his teeth, pulling the string through again.
"My father missed her death because he was wandering the hospital looking for me. He was pretty upset with me." I continue to explain, "My bitch of a stepmother comes into our lives not too much later. And she overtakes everything and I'm out on display for her wealthy friends and family."
"So the nightmare is feeding on family issues and relaying it to you." Felix shifts his feet a bit to get in a more comfortable position.
"Yeah, I thought it was telling me to find my mother's grave and try to make peace with her." I reply, rubbing the back of my neck. I felt a mix of embarrassed and stupidity.
"Well it would probably be nice to speak to her." He shrugs his unoccupied shoulder, "But that isn't it. There is something deeper in that nightmare. It's trying to tell you something."
"Why does it come in the form of a nightmare? Why can't it just straight up tell me? It's talked to me before, why is it silent now?" I frown.
"The Songbird?" He asks.
"Yeah, it's told me before about wanting to take revenge and stuff." I answer, "Does it not talk to you?? Jack says he hears the same voice."
Felix lifts his gaze to me once again, "I don't hear a voice. Maybe it's the way the experimental testing works. It's not the same between the four of us."
"It's not?" I was a little confused by this.
"Yeah, the only thing that is the same between us is just the way the transformation works. And how we break. But everything else is different. Mark didn't cry black tears like you and Jack." Felix explains.
"Did you?"
He is quiet, fiddling a little harder with the yarn in his hands. He stares at it before he slows to a stop, "...no, no I didn't."
I felt that he might be lying to me but I let it slide. His emotional plate can only hold so much, I'm not going to blow up over something so trivial.
"What about that memory sharing thing you did?? What's that about?" I ask.
"Memory Shar-? Oh, that. It's a thing that I can just do. It took a while to understand what it was and how to turn it off. Being overwhelmed by memories that don't belong to me is ridiculous and not something I want to be a part of. I can leave ripping through someone's private life to Bob." He seems a bit frustrated and sets down a finished piece of knitted yarn before starting on a new piece.
"Can Mark or Jack use it?" I ask.
"No. The most I ever got through to them or even out of them, was an overwhelming sense of emotion. Whatever is driving them at that moment, whether it be anger or sadness." He shakes his head.
"I thought everyone was only subjected to two abilities. The main one like Tyler's skin and his second one." The conversation was asking more questions than it was answering.
"The majority only have secondary abilities." He answers, he moves positions to rest on his other shoulder, "But there are a few that have more than one. Clearly they favored their demons, but I don't think they have an understanding of what they were giving to us."
"It just feels like it's getting more and more complicated. I thought I had an understanding of us, but now, I'm not so sure." I rake my fingers through my hair, going over the information that was just given to me.
"I stopped trying to understand years ago. The answers only left me asking more questions." He yawns and stops to wipe his eyes.
"Felix?" I needed to be careful how I navigate this next topic or he could shut down completely.
"Hm?" He yawns again, focusing back on his little yarn project.
"I wanted to ask you about Maria."
His hands still and he seems to completely freeze in his place. His eyes don't blink. He doesn't seem to take a single breath.
"Felix?" His actions make me nervous.
His hands shake ever so slightly and then his eyes glance at me, "What?" He sounds breathless. His eyes seem unfocused. A slight gloss over them. For once, he seems purely human.
"I want to know about her, if you don't mind sharing." I speak softly, in hopes of easing his tension. I recall Hailey pulling me aside once, a few weeks ago in the mountains, asking me if I knew anything about her mother. I told her that I never met her mother which seemed to upset her; she reveals that Felix won't open up about her mother.
"Why...?" He whispers.
"I heard she was a wonderful woman." I reply, which is true. I'm hoping that I can coax it out of him. He seems to fall into a blissful memory at my words, "She wasn't just wonderful." He shifts to look up at the blue sky, breathlessly, "She was my heaven. Never in my life have I ever felt such a fire deep within. She was always smiles, and uplifting words. Nothing seemed to bring her down. And in her absence I feel hollow." He grips the yarn in his fingers, a shuddering breath leaves him. "And I know I need to let it go and focus on the here and now. I have my daughter Hailey to care for and make a proper bond with her, but it's been hard. She looks like Maria so much so it scares me."
"Why don't you tell her? Be completely honest with your daughter so she can help you and understand that you're trying?" I ask him.
He brings his gaze down and just shrugs his shoulders, "I don't know, I don't want to burden her with such a story."
"But what if she asks about Maria? Surely she has questions about her mother." I hadn't expected to get this far with Felix. I thought he was going to either shut down or blow up in my face. Maybe after so many years of carrying this pain, he can't keep fighting.
"I know, she's asked me before. I just don't think I could bring myself to tell her the story. It's not as simple as one would think. I bet to you it sounds like they just came in and removed her from the hospital. Simple, right?" He turns back to me.
"...right?" I ask hesitantly.
"Wrong." He states bluntly. He starts to unbutton his shirt and I'm starting to wonder what I had unraveled.
He pulls his shirt out of the way and points out some smaller but deep scars that I had never noticed before.
"I got these from her."
"Her?" My gaze flicks up from his body to his eyes.
"Yes, her." He nods his head, "We were sitting in one of the rooms to recover after you came back from more testing. She said that she wasn't feeling very well, which is usually normal. I'm not sure what happened exactly but suddenly she was on her hands and knees just screaming in pain. I tried to help her and she struck me. It only took a few minutes before the room was filled with the scientists. They were strapping her down on a cot, trying to get her to calm down so they could take her out of the room. It's pretty blurry from memory. I tried to follow them..." He closes his eyes, "It doesn't seem so bad once spoken out loud but I don't think I could fully put it into words what happened." He ruffles his hair.
"Screaming in pain?" I ask.
"I found out much later that they had changed her testing, it was physically tearing her apart on the inside as her ability didn't know how to react to it." He starts to re-button his shirt but only gets half way before he stops, "...do you think maybe that's when she was pregnant?" His voice was barely above a whisper. I had to strain my ears to make out the words. I could only shrug.
His hands fall to his sides, "I should have done something. I should have fought harder for her. I should have-" He lets out a breath but falls silent.
"You couldn't have known, Felix." I try to comfort him, "It's not like you can predict the future."
"No I can't."
It was so strange to see him this way. Felix was usually so harsh and icy cold but suddenly he seemed so lost and empty. A hollow shell, unable to be anything but this pain. His front that he always put on made me believe that he had a grip on this life but this breakdown was showing me, he hadn't a single clue. We were all in the exact same boat.
The door behind me creaks open and we both look to see Hailey. She peeks out of the door and she has a look on her face, "Dad..."
"Hailey?" Felix asks softly.
It was clear that she heard the entire conversation.