With every passing day, Kael felt better. He was still far from having a full recovery. But he could eat normally and even began to regain most of his mobility. Recently, Kael had begun to explore his surroundings a little. There were still moments, sometimes days at a time, that he felt simply thinking was too much for him, but those were also becoming less common. The house he was currently living in was a quaint two-story building. The room he had been occupying, plus a nice bathroom and, what appeared to be, a library, was all that fit on the topmost floor. Old-looking wooden stairs lead down to the ground floor. A combined kitchen and living space dominated most of it. There were also a few nooks and crannies left over for storage space and a second bathroom. Surrounding the house was a garden, split from the forest Kael had seen from his bedroom window by a red wooden fence. Although autumn was slowly winning over summer, spending a few hours out in the sun had become one of his favorite activities, with reading being a close second.

That was also what he was doing right now. Or, at least, that was what he had set out intending to do. Instead, Kael was brooding. Sarah had visited for the first time in three days, and their conversation had not gone the way Kael had expected it would. "So, what now?" Kael said to no one but himself. That had been the question to kick off this entire thing. A question so easily answered by most, it had stumped Kael entirely. Living day to day, distracting himself with unimportant activities had allowed him the freedom to ignore the broiling ball of emotion and memories that still simmered in him. In retrospect, Kael realized, he had never expected to return to the restaurant. The letter had been his goodbye to his friends and, most likely, to his life. Suicide by Monster, magical or otherwise. So what now that he had survived? Go out and try again? That sounded a little stupid to Kael right now. He had wanted revenge on the Thrizon, had wanted to hurt and kill the thing that injured his friends. So, now that the beast was dealt with... what was he supposed to do now?

His memories of the days he spent on the streets were a little foggy, but he still knew that something inside of him had changed. Like a drug addict that had tasted the most potent concoction, he could not go back. There was so much more to life. Kael wanted to explore Magic, wanted to see the world for what it really was, unimpeded by anyone's barriers, even his own. He wanted to cook and eat delicious foods made from the most exotic ingredients possible. A safe place for him, his family, and friends to call home. These dreams had been buried by all the shame, all the pain he felt for himself and his actions, but they were still there nonetheless. His mind reeled, struggled with finding a way to rationalize and combine his polarized thoughts. He wanted more, but who was HE to deserve anything? Useless Kael, you could not even keep your only two friends from harm. No, he did not deserve to be happy, right? That was what the vision had been about, no? It showed him the consequences of his happiness.

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Kael did not sleep that night. He could not find peace as his mind raced through the same loops over and over again, struggling to, somehow, find a solution. Tossing and turning in his bed, not just once did he speculate that he could not sleep because he was undeserving of the comfortable bed. The floor should be enough for someone like him. But this room had been given to him by Sarah. Could he reject her kindness, spit in the face of her character and prove his place as trash in society? He did not know what to do. Kael felt his soul slowly being ripped apart. Something precious in him was on the verge of destruction, and he knew not how to fix it. The next day was more of the same. He never even left his bed that day, refusing to interact with the world surrounding him. On his third day without sleep, Sarah returned. She found him exhausted, dehydrated, and almost incoherent. They connected him to an IV after failing to get him to drink. In the end, it took medication to get him to sleep.

The doctor taking care of Kael had hoped that sleep would bring some peace to his patient's mind, but seeing the boy toss and turn as nightmares tormented him crushed that hope. As a mage and general practitioner, he had seen all kinds of diseases and afflictions, but this was turning into something he felt ill-equipped to deal with himself. In coordination with his employer, he began arranging a bed in a psychiatric ward for his patient. At the same time, Sarah felt horrible herself. She had pushed the boy. From his story, she knew that he was not well, but the status quo was untannable in the long run. So she had acted, vastly underestimating the volatility of his reaction. How could she forgive herself if she was the reason the person that had saved her life broke.

While the world around him worried, Kael experienced one nightmare after the other. What little of his mind was left was cowering, hidden in some hard-to-reach recesses of his brain. Sarah's comment had started a process that needed to reach an end, no matter what kind before it would stop. For the first time, maybe ever, Kael was working through his grief. Everything, from the death of his parents, the rejection of his sister, his time on the streets, and the encounters with Jason and Martin, was on the chopping block... at the same time.