My dad fell to his knees. “I remember now... Oh, God, what have I done? That poor boy!”

I slid out from under the Truth Skeleton’s foot and sat on the ground, feeling completely numb as I stared at my dad in disbelief. I wanted to believe this wasn’t really happening, that it was all part of this game we were in. But I couldn’t deny it. This was real.

Ashamed, my dad blocked his face with his trembling hands and pleaded for me not to look at him. He then sobbed and sniveled, and he apologized too many times to count. “I killed myself on that night, too,” he finally said. “I let you down, Emerson. I’m so sorry.”

He had finally recognized me. I had imagined a thousand different ways in which this moment might unfold. None of them involved his memories being jogged by his recollection of murdering a child.

He had reverted to his old self. His voice, his whole demeanor, was much meeker than it had been, and he suddenly seemed much too small for his suit of armor.

Mag approached my dad, her body a raging fire. “YOU!” she bellowed. “You killed Archie!”

My dad was too ashamed to look at her. “I’m sorry.”

“You monster!” she yelled as she hit him in the face with an Inferno Fist.

My dad’s head flung back, but other than that, he was unfazed. He was numb with sadness. “Do with me what you will,” he said. “No punishment is too severe.”

Mag accepted the invitation and whaled on him with fiery fists. She told him what he did was unforgivable. Even the Abyss was too good for him.

I agreed with Mag. My dad deserved neither forgiveness, nor salvation, nor anything but eternal pain for what he did. He had abandoned me, and he had murdered Mag’s brother.

As Mag pulverized my dad, I encouraged her by saying, “Yeah! Get ’im, Mag!” or something like that. But I shouldn’t have done that, as it drew her attention to me.

She stomped over to me, her fiery eyes piercing my soul. They weren’t her eyes. They were the eyes of a madwoman. “And you!” she shouted. “You little runt! You pathetic excuse for a human being!”

As she insulted me, the flames around her body intensified as though someone had dumped ten gallons of gasoline onto her. The blast sent me into the wall behind me—literally into it, as in I was shot into it so hard that I was stuck. The searing pain consumed my body. I could barely hold my eyes open as my HP drained from me.

Mag stalked over to me and yanked my hair, forcing me to look at her. “If I don’t get to see Archie, there’s no way in hell you deserve to see your dad.”

She was so angry she was crying. “It’s not fair! Archie was innocent! He didn’t deserve to die!” she screamed, each word amplifying the flames. “I want him back! I hate you for not being him! You hear me? I HATE YOU!”

She pulled her hand back. The flames around it intensified as she loaded up a deadly fire-infused punch. A kill shot.

But my dad was now behind her, and he restrained her arm. “Please, take your rage out on me all you like,” he begged. “Just don’t hurt my boy!”

Mag turned around and swung her charged fist at him. The sound of his jaw cracking made me want to throw up.

Surprisingly, the blow didn’t knock him down. But, willingly, he dropped to his knees and held his arms behind his back. “Please, end me. You may make it as painful as you wish. I only hope that you take every ounce of your anger out on me so that no harm will come to my son.”

With that, Mag unleashed a barrage of fire-infused punches and kicks on my dad’s skull. I closed my eyes and focused on the burns that continued to incinerate my health, as they were much less painful than watching my dad get beaten to death, despite how disgusted I was with him.

The burning became so severe that it felt like the room was spinning, and I soon passed out.

The next thing I remember was the taste of a green potion as I lay on a cool bed of sand, a breeze caressing my face. The liquid felt nice and cold in my throat, and I could feel my burns heal like magic. I was then given a blue potion, followed by a red one, which gave me the strength to sit up.

I opened my eyes to see that I was now outside, not in the Avarian Desert but on a beach by a serene lake. The sun had just risen, and families of birds chirped from nearby coconut trees. Or I guess I shouldn’t say they were just birds. They were European pied flycatchers. (I’ve almost certainly guessed wrong, but I just know Mrs. Lennon will eat that detail up, so we’ll leave it in.)

Mag was sitting next to me. “I am so sorry,” she said, sniveling. “I broke my promise to never hurt you. And I’m even sorrier for saying I hate you. I didn’t mean it. I don’t know what came over me. When your dad said he killed Archie, I saw red, and I…”

“It’s okay,” I said. “We knew what the trial was going into it.”

“No, it’s not okay. I wanted to kill you, Emerson. I don’t even know what I’d do if I…” She couldn’t get the sentence out because she began sobbing.

I held her hand as she cried. After a minute, she said, “I thought I was getting better, you know? But I’m the same angry person I’ve been since Archie died. And I broke my promise to never hurt you. I’d understand if you want to hate me forever.”

“I don’t hate you,” I said. “You’re not responsible for what happened in there. It was obviously part of the trial. Something possessed you. Whatever it was, that’s what hurt me. Well, that and finding out my dad’s a murderer. And that he killed himself. It’s a whole soup of sadness I’ve got simmering inside me.”

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I looked to my dad’s motionless body lying next to a coconut tree a hundred yards away. I was still shocked by his admission. I couldn’t believe he had actually killed himself after all. And then throw a murder on top of that. He obviously wasn’t the man I thought he was.

My hatred for humanity was restored. If the person I loved the most was evil, then so was everyone. My dark thoughts were not merely a reflection of how I felt about myself. The truth was that people were bad. I shouldn’t be resisting my dark side, I thought. I should be embracing it.

“Did you kill him?” I asked. “Please tell me you killed him. Please tell me his soul is being shredded endlessly as we speak.”

“I actually don’t know. I don’t remember much of what happened after he confessed. I kind of blacked out and can only remember bits and pieces. But I wouldn’t be surprised if I killed him. I don’t think he fought back.”

“Good,” I said. “I hate him, and I’ll never forgive him for what he did.” Unlike Mag, my dad had committed his heinous act on Earth, a world free of Vulgra and whatever had possessed Mag in the pyramid. And his victim was an innocent child. Moreover, Mag hadn’t masqueraded as a good person only to break my heart by revealing who she really was thirteen years later. Unlike Mag’s actions, my dad’s were unforgivable.

“He deserved whatever you did to him,” I said.

“But what about what I did to you?” Mag asked.

“I kind of deserved it, too.”

“Don’t say that. You didn’t deserve it.”

“Sure, I did. I’ve been a huge jerk to you, and I’m sorry.”

“Please, Emerson, don’t apologize. I’ve been way worse to you than you’ve been to me. Besides, you weren’t nearly as bad of company in the desert as your dad.”

“Oh, yeah,” I said, feeling a little better about myself. “Yeah, he was a real fart-popper, wasn’t he?”

“Yeah, that’s one way of putting it,” Mag said, managing a half-smile.

I was thankful we were no longer fighting. Right now, she was the lone ember in my soul preventing my darkness from conquering me.

“Hey, Mag?”

“Yeah?”

“We’re friends again, right?”

“Fuck that. After everything we’ve been through, we’re family.”

I had considered myself part of Mag’s family since I spent so much time at her house, but that was the first time either of us had explicitly stated it. It usually annoys me when people refer to non-family members as family. In most cases, it’s not warranted. People have thrown the word “family” around so often by now that it simply means “close friend,” and so there is no word for “family” anymore. It’s just another thing that people have ruined by overusing it. However, when Mag said “family” here, I felt the word’s original meaning.

“So, I guess we head for Zolptoria?” I said. “At least we got something out of this crazy journey. I no longer care that my dad’s not in my life. I know what he is now, and I know I’m better off without him.”

“But what if he’s just been knocked out?” Mag asked. “You don’t want to check and see for sure if he’s dead?”

“No. He’s dead. Whether he’s got any HP left or not, he’s dead to me. And if he does still have HP, the doctor said we should abandon him anyway. I don’t care what happens to him. I wish I never knew him.”

“Hey, speaking of wishes, I wonder where the Dream Ring is,” Mag said.

“I dunno. Truth Skeleton probably still has it. It’s unattainable, like the wall said.”

“But the scenery has changed, just like when we got the Knowledge Bracelet. The pyramid’s gone, there’s a lake here, and this area’s called Repentance Beach now, not the Avarian Desert. And, when I came to, I had a bunch of potions that I didn’t have before. Why would all of that happen unless we collected another talisman?”

“Oh, yeah. Maybe the Dream Ring is around here somewhere.” I rose to my feet and scanned the area around us for a yellow glow.

“Oh, so you do still care about your dad a little.”

“Nuts to him! I want to find the ring so I can wish us back home. I want to get out of this dimension as soon as possible and never have to think about that… that… thing over there ever again.”

We searched for the Dream Ring for some time, but we couldn’t find it. Mag concluded that it must have been in the “damn lake.”

I gazed into the lake but saw only my reflection. Although I felt fine and my burns had healed, I did not look fine. Being blasted into the pyramid wall had given me several bruises, and one of the sleeves of my robe had been singed right off. I looked like one of the homeless people from my town—specifically, the one the boys at my school often threw rocks at. Rocko, they called him, but I’m pretty sure that wasn’t his real name.

“Searching the lake will take longer than walking to Zolptoria,” I declared. “Let’s just go.”

I started walking, but Mag hesitated. “I think we should check on your dad before we go,” she said. “If he’s alive and we walk away without confronting him, I know I’m going to regret it for the rest of my life. This is our only chance to find out what happened on the night Archie died. To understand why your dad did it.”

“But I don’t care why he did it. I don’t care about anything anymore.”

“I know. I know you want nothing to do with him, but I think I need to know what happened. I need the closure or whatever. Maybe if I learn what happened, I can finally start to move on.”

“I don’t feel the same way, but I understand where you’re coming from. If you need to talk to him, I won’t stop you. But I’m waiting here.”

“Actually… I was hoping maybe you’d come with me? I’m not sure I can face this alone.”

I couldn’t say no. Not with the lost puppy-dog look she was giving me. She was letting herself be vulnerable with me, and now I knew how hard that was for her.

So, I accompanied Mag to where my dad lay and kicked him in the face to see if he was alive. He stirred and soon woke up.

We explained that we deserved to know why he murdered Archie. “We DEMAND to know what you did!” I said, pounding my fist on a coconut tree for emphasis. This caused a loose coconut to fall and hit me on the head. But I couldn’t show weakness, so I sniffed hard and folded my arms across my chest like a tough guy, like I hadn’t even noticed the coconut. Tough guys never notice anything.

“You’re right, Son,” my dad said in a shaky voice.

“Don’t you dare call me Son,” I threatened. “You can call me Emerson, just like any other stranger would.”

“How would a stranger know your name?” Mag asked.

“They just would, okay? The point is, this piece of crap has no right to call me his son.”

“You’re right again,” my dad said. “I don’t deserve to call you my son. I can’t imagine the anguish you’ve been through, wondering all this time why I left you. And, Mag, no words could even begin to express how much I regret what I did to your brother. I know nothing I can say can undo the effects my actions have had on either of you. But you deserve to know what happened that night, and I’ll tell you everything I remember.”