As my dad told his story, he cried and often coughed up more black gunk, so it took him a while. I’ll give it to you straight to save some time.

“As I’m sure you remember, on the night of your thirteenth birthday, me and your mom got into an awful fight in the bedroom. I had never physically harmed your mom, not even when she had done so to me. But on this night, the things she said to me, the names she called me… It was like she wanted to get hit. I eventually had all I could take—not just on that night but for our whole marriage. I put over a decade’s worth of pent-up anger into my fist and hit her with it in the side of the face.

“She dropped like a sack of potatoes next to the bed, screaming and crying like she’d been shot. I felt terrible. I checked to see how bad she was hurt. But as I did this, she screeched, ‘Please! No! Don’t do this!’ And then she made dreadful choking sounds as she screamed, ‘Stop! Please! Let me go!’

“I went to the kitchen to call an ambulance, but then your mom came out from the bedroom, wearing a shit-eating grin. She had set me up. She had gotten your Aunt Claudia to record what I had done on her camcorder—which we had gotten her for Christmas and which I had paid for, mind you—through the open window from the lawn. Your mom said she was going to give the footage (which I assumed would be unfairly edited) to a divorce lawyer (who I assumed was crooked) who she’d secretly been meeting.

“She danced and gloated and said I’d never see you again. And she was right. No judge would believe the truth: that your mom hit me all the time, that this was the only time I had ever hit her, that she had set me up, that I didn’t actually strangle her on the floor. She was going to leave me and get full custody of you. She knew taking you away from me would destroy me. I knew she never loved me, but I never imagined she’d want to hurt me like that.

“I was afraid I’d hit her again, so I went for a long drive to nowhere. I wound up at a liquor store a few towns over. I hadn’t touched the sauce since your mom told me she was pregnant, but I was spiraling out of control. I bought a bottle of whiskey and parked in the alley behind the liquor store.

“As I stuck my tongue into the bottle of whiskey to soak up the last few drops, ‘Wild Horses’ came on the radio. It made me think about you. ‘Wild horses couldn’t drag me away,’ the song says. But I knew that even if wild horses couldn’t drag me away from you, a raging bitch sure as hell could push me away.

“My sorrow intensified. It got so strong that it became a different emotion altogether, one I’d never felt before. It felt physical, like it was an external entity, a thick, dark cloud that was suffocating me. With each breath, I got sadder and more desperate.

“The feeling was surreal, and now I know why. Vulgra was in that truck with me. I don’t know how Vulgra got to Earth, but it did, and it infected me. But please, don’t think I mean to use Vulgra as an excuse. At the end of the day, I let it infect me. I liked feeling powerless. Losing my free will was the most freeing thing I’d ever experienced. It was like it wasn’t my fault that my wife hated me and I was going to lose my son.

“Once Vulgra had me, I went into a trance, and I remember little of what happened next. At some point, I noticed some movement. I looked out the window, and there was my boy. You had come looking for me. I called you over, but you didn’t hear me. I drove alongside you and tried to get your attention, but you started running.

“You were next to me in the truck, duct taped to the passenger’s seat. You insisted that I had the wrong guy, that you didn’t even know anyone named Emerson, that Emerson was a girl’s name. I shouted, ‘It’s gender-neutral!’ and smacked you in the face.

“You were making a lot of noise, yelling and kicking the window. I told you to stop mucking around. You could get us pulled over, and I’d be arrested for driving under the influence. You said, ‘Yeah, under the influence of being a jerk! I hope they lock you away forever!’ I couldn’t believe it. My own boy had turned on me. I was enraged. I pulled over and took out all my hate for your mom on you. I even called you by her name as I beat you mercilessly. You kept telling me your name was Archie, but I didn’t believe you.

“I observed the dead body in the passenger’s seat. This wasn’t my boy. He was too young, had too many freckles. I felt no remorse. I had enjoyed murdering this boy and wanted to do it again. I was a terrible person. I didn’t deserve to live.

“I stopped somewhere to dump the body. Someone loved this boy, and they needed to find him.

“I drove until I got to the ocean. Then I rolled down the windows and kept driving. And then I was fighting huge spiders in a blue forest.

“As time went on, Vulgra took more control over my actions and thoughts and stole more of my memories. So, I put every ounce of strength I had into protecting my memories of you, Emerson.

“I never forgot about you. Thinking about you was the only thing that helped me maintain a shred of myself in this world. I couldn’t tell you before because Vulgra wouldn’t let me, but I recognized you the instant I saw you. This whole time, I’ve wanted to tell you how sorry I am for leaving you. I’m sorry for the pain I’ve caused you.

“And, Mag, I’m infinitely sorry for taking your brother from you. You were right when you said I don’t deserve to be here getting a second chance. It should be Archie. I truly wish you could see your brother again. If there was anything I could do to bring him back, I would. You don’t deserve what I’ve put you through.”

“Damn right she doesn’t,” I said. “You left me, and you made my best friend hurt in a way that no one should ever hurt. So, from now on, I have no father. The man I called my father would never do what you described.

“And I don’t believe your story about Vulgra. You did what you did because you’re evil. Because you’re no better than any other human. I want nothing to do with you. Me and Mag are going to Zolptoria. Alone. Goodbye, Sir.”

“Please, don’t leave,” my dad said. “I want to make it up to you. There must be something I can do.”

“You can stay here and rot.” With that, I turned my back on him and left.

I hadn’t gone a dozen steps when Mag grabbed my arm. “We can’t abandon him, Emerson.”

“I’ll abandon him if I want. I’ll abandon the crap out of him. Just watch.” I continued walking.

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Mag stopped me again. “No, I mean we literally can’t abandon him. It’s a long way to Zolptoria. We’re bound to run into enemies, and we don’t know how powerful they’ll be. We won’t make it on our own. We need someone with his fighting skills, someone with lots of item slots, someone who doesn’t need MP to kill monsters. I know this is the last thing you want to hear, but if we want to get out of this dimension alive, we need your dad.”

“He’s not my dad anymore. And I don’t care how bad we need him. I can’t be anywhere near that sludge-humper. And I’m surprised you can. How are you not as angry at him as me?”

“Because I can understand why he did what he did. If Vulgra really did infect him, then he had no control over his actions, just like when I lost control.”

“Don’t tell me you believed him when he said that. There’s no way he was infected by Vulgra on Earth. If Vulgra could show up on Earth, we’d know about it.”

“Not necessarily. There’s a lot we don’t know, and I wouldn’t rule out anything. Either way, we need your dad’s protection to get to Zolptoria, whether you like it or not. He doesn’t even need to travel with us. He just needs to be close enough to help us if we’re attacked. You can pretend he’s not even there.”

We discussed the matter for some time. In the end, I reluctantly agreed. We returned to my dad and told him he could accompany us. “But you’re to stay at least a hundred feet behind us at all times,” I told him. “Also, you’re not to say a word.”

“Which one?” he asked, grinning proudly.

I slapped him and said this was not the time for his terrible jokes.

“Sorry, Son—I mean, Emerson. I thought we were on better terms now.”

“Why the hell would you think that? We’re on crap terms. We’re on the worst terms any two people have ever been on. So no more jokes. No more words. Understand?”

“But what if I need to get your attention?”

“Those sound like words. Almost sounds like you don’t want to come with us.”

My dad gave me a look of understanding and mimed zipping and locking his mouth shut. Then he mimed eating the key, which made no sense. But I didn’t care. He could mime whatever he wanted as long as he didn’t talk.

We left Repentance Beach and walked north toward Zolptoria. By the afternoon, we were back in the Great Grasslands. I’m not sure if that makes it sound like we were going backward, but we weren’t. The Great Grasslands was a neutral zone that covered a large portion of this island, connecting its various regions through a network of pathways.

We had been in the grasslands for only a few minutes when my dad yipped from behind us to get our attention. He had removed his gauntlet, revealing that he was wearing the Dream Ring. Its yellow light flashed on his hand.

“I swear I didn’t know!” he said as we approached him.

“Damn you!” I said, throwing my staff at him in frustration. “We could have used that to get home if you weren’t such an idiot! Like, come on, who doesn’t notice an enchanted ring on their finger?”

“I don’t know how it got there, honest! My memories are splotchy. You guys know that.”

We were perplexed as to how the Dream Ring had found its way onto my dad’s finger. But since I’ve now had years to think about it, I’ve come up with a theory. The wall in the pyramid had said, “The Dream Ring is protected such that only a person of measureless virtue might obtain it, and raw honesty, without the harmony of humility, is not a virtue.” So, my dad obviously wasn’t awarded the Dream Ring merely for revealing his darkest truth.

However, the Truth Skeleton may have offered it to him upon seeing how he reacted afterward. He took responsibility for his evil deed, and he showed remorse in its purest form. He made no excuses. He didn’t even bargain for his life. In fact, he had pleaded for his life to be taken so mine might be spared.

I don’t know all the details. I don’t know if the Truth Skeleton became re-animated, extinguished the flames on Mag’s body, and gave the Dream Ring to my dad, or if something else entirely happened.

Still, I think my theory about why my dad was given the Dream Ring makes sense. There were reasons behind the mechanisms that guarded the talismans. We hadn’t gained the Knowledge Bracelet through our bravery in fighting the Mother Araknor but through friendship—we never would have even found the lair if not for that sapling and his offspring. In the same way, the Dream Ring wasn’t gained through honesty as much as through humility. But I didn’t think of any of that at the time. To me, my dad was as far from humble and virtuous as a person could get.

“What the hell did you wish for?” I asked.

“I don’t think I wished for anything. Did I?”

“Obviously you did.”

“I honestly don’t know what I wished for. I’ve been thinking it would be nice if you’d stop being upset with me. But I get the sense you’re still upset, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. I’m effing pissed.”

“Well then I don’t know what I wished for.”

We were interrupted by a playful voice that called out, “He wished for meeee!” We scanned the area but could not find its source.

“I swear to God, if you wished for an invisible talking sandwich...” I growled, my fists balled up.

“What are you?” Mag asked the voice. “Are you a sandwich?”

“That’ll always be the dream,” the voice said, “but, no, I am not a sandwich.”

“Then what are you?” she asked.

“Ah, the mysteries of life,” the voice said. “No, it’s actually not a mystery—I’m a hologram, but the video takes a minute to catch up to the audio since it’s being transmitted from another realm.”

“Can’t you tell us who you are in the meantime?” Mag asked.

“I can tell you I’m a member of the Butterfly Guild. Which I’m sure you’ve never heard of, so I don’t know why I said that like it should mean something to you. If you did know what it was, though, you’d be impressed as peach pie… Put a little ice cream on there… Ooh, now that’d be nice. I could actually go for a slice o’ that right now.”

“Stop stalling and just tell us who you are,” Mag demanded.

“Sorry. You’re right. I was stalling. But I was only doing it because I wanted the dramatic effect of revealing my identity just as the visual part of the hologram kicks in, which it’s going to do any second. And I don’t appreciate you trying to spoil the moment with your impatience. Patience never was your strong suit, was it, Magdalena?”

Wait. Did that voice just call her Magdalena?

No.

No, it couldn’t be.

As the air in front of us glitched and swirled, I recalled part of my dad’s apology to Mag: “I truly wish you could see your brother again,” he had said. He had wished for Archie to appear.

But such a thing was impossible. I’d seen Aladdin, and I knew you couldn’t wish someone back from the dead. Although if my dad could exist in this world, then maybe Archie could, too.

And indeed, when the air stopped glitching, there stood a small boy who, aside from his green butterfly wings, a few extra freckles, and the glimmer of hope in his eyes, looked just like a younger version of me.