"Adventures?" Dr. Aureus asked me. I was sitting in a chair amid a circle of eight other people in chairs, all in straight jackets and white hospital gowns and such. I had nothing to remember from the time I had spent at Dellfriar or from my conversation with Liminiel.

"Did I say adventures?" I asked. I got indications from those that were seated around me that I had indeed told of all of my adventures.

"You told us all your adventures." Dr. Aureus smiled keenly. Dr. Aureus's glasses shone brightly in the weird light that made only our circle of chairs illuminated and the rest of the world around us in darkness. I was afraid of darkness, as my tales had explained.

"And now I am here." I shrugged, recalling nothing of how I got there.

"What happened to duh crow. Cawey?" One of the patients asked me. I did not remember the name of that patient. I found out later what their name was, and all the names of the other patients and staff and so, for the sake of a brief narrative, shall forego introductions to those who I spent a lot of time with at Dellfriar and would have known well, despite having a lot of amnesia-like-symptoms.

"I don't know what happened to Cory, my crow." I smiled. I wasn't worried about Cory. I should have though.

The patient suddenly convulsed and fell out of the chair. Medical attention was given with a paramedic's bag but the patient was already dead by the time they had cleared the room of asylum patients and administered aid. I was taken to the office of Dr. Aureus.

"I have something to show you." Dr. Aureus told me.

I looked at Dr. Aureus and then at the object I was being pointed to. It was a silver cage. Inside of the cage I saw Cory.

"Cory!" I said in Corvin.

The bird looked up and spoke back like an ordinary crow, just repeating a distressed cawing noise. I could tell he was Cory, but the cage was somehow depriving him of his faculties. He was as a beast is to a man, in crow form. He stopped cawing, looking at me intently and with something of Cory in there.

"Let him out of his cage." I told Dr. Aureus.

"Not until you are all better, and I prove that these are all just delusions, all of your adventures." Dr. Aureus determined.

I wanted to set Cory free but I felt complacent and had no true agency. It was as though I had become pathetic and helpless, doped and insecure. All I could do was stand there and contemplate whatever Dr. Aureus said to me. I didn't like it. I realized I was happy before, and then I had realized Cory was gone, and now seeing him trapped in a cage I was not, in my spirit, content anymore. I was fighting the drug and it was making me nauseous. I sat on the floor and rocked myself slowly, trying to find some sort of balance.

"You alright?" Dr. Aureus asked, offering me a wastebasket with a liner in it in case I had to throw up.

"I will be fine." I gave a weak and humble smile. I was, in my mind resisting though. As I did I felt my memory expanding. It became easier to correlate seemingly unrelated parts of my adventures and see so much of the horror in retrospect.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

"You can take a furlough. Your family needs you at this time, to briefly attend a funeral." Dr. Aureus told me.

"Who died?" I asked, feeling sad and scared.

"One of your nephews." Dr. Aureus frowned. "I'm afraid all I know is that he died in service to his country, fighting against those enormous animals coming out of the oceans and flying everywhere. It is quite the headline. I want you to avoid news and stuff like that since it could be a problem for you, with the progress of your therapy."

"And then you will let Cory out of that silver cage?" I asked.

"When you have fully recovered, yes." Dr. Aureus promised with a handshake. It seemed sincere.

I went back to my room and sat on the mattress and waited until it was time to go. Aldrick and my younger nephew, Gladen, both arrived, dressed for the funeral. They had clothes for me as well and I put them on before we left.

After the funeral I asked Aldrick how his son had died and he said it was while fighting against one of the creatures in the Keys called Anchora, after the Key it had first massacred beach goers, partying at night. Aldrick described how one survivor had said that Anchora had exploded out of the water and the spouts had knocked them off their feet and washed one unlucky couple into the large fire, which wasn't entirely extinguished by the wave's retreat and blazed back up all around them.

Anchora was many tons in weight and many meters tall and was a giant crab, heavier and flightless. Most of the creatures could fly, but Anchora was built for ground combat, with claws and armor and speed on its pointy crab legs. It had massive quills like a porcupine that could impale and poison victims and those had translucent peacock feathers on them that could shift the light and render a veil that made the crab almost completely camouflaged, invisible to a casual glance. And after it killed and ate it laid eggs in the remains and scuttled the boats and scurried away. Soon Anchora sightings were everywhere and it was multiplying. A swarm of the creatures were attacking a coastal town and the military was deployed to stop them. My nephew was killed in the battle against the creatures. Anchora had killed Aldrick's boy.

"I want to get you out of here so you can help me. I want to organize something to deal with Anemesis bloom and Anchora spawn. The sea is fighting back against humanity. I say we defend ourselves." Aldrick told me.

"I have to get back." I told Aldrick. We went and got into the car and it was stated that I was going back to Dellfriar, for Gladen's benefit. I just shrugged when he asked:

"Don't you want to see Aunt Heidi and my cousins?" Gladen asked me.

Back at Dellfriar I reported to Dr. Aureus after the funeral. I had returned the borrowed suit and wore a straight jacket instead. Dr. Aureus asked me some questions and when the doctor was satisfied that my progress was not compromised they let me go back to my cell. It was a room, but I realized it was a cell, because they locked me in there. All of the patients were locked in cells. I wondered how many there were. Then I realized I knew that there were twenty three. Somehow I had guessed, from the memories I had forgotten. I subtracted one and got twenty three patients left.

I lay awake and heard two orderlies talking. Charlie was saying that more nuclear weapons were used and people were really scared out there. The other one said:

"It's insane when the nuthouse is the safest place to be."

"Yeah this place is built like a medieval castle. It could probably take it if a nuke went off nearby." Charlie guessed.

Then their voices trailed away as they walked their inspection of the sleeping patients, counting heads. I listened when they said in agreement:

"Twenty three!" And laughed as they broke their stride and raced away to go play cards or to do whatever it is they did all night.

I thought about all of my adventure before, as Dr. Aureus had called my days and my deeds. I wondered if it was real, as the world seemed to be coming to an end. I didn't really get the strange stories about nuclear weapons and giant crabs and other creatures and the military battling monsters and even my own stories all seemed to be just stories. None of it could be real, I partially believed. It was easy, on the drugs, to forget any faith that I had. I had become an infidel, guilty of all the deadly sins, broken in spirit and a mad exile. I wandered in an inner landscape, populated by the past, unsure of the present and certain of the future.

I began laughing, crying, laughing some more. I could not stop. They had upped my dosage and I felt happy. I felt whole and complete. It was the most horrible feeling of all.