Amity sat up, feeling lighter than ever. Her wounds had healed, no scars whatsoever, and her head was okay. She stepped off the bed, her legs gracefully moving as she went to the hotel room’s bathroom. She felt something odd as she walked into the room, a new feeling on her chest.The weird weight bent her back, making her uncomfortable as she closed the door behind her, acutely aware of every odd feeling on her body.

Amity turned her back to the door, facing the restroom, only to feel a sense of dread run through her, sending a shiver down her spine as her vision dulled, blurring and smearing before gradually returning to normal, finding that the room had completely changed.

She sat up, confused as to how she got onto a bed again.

“How..”

Her eyes blinked and the now entirely gray room became clear again, for a short time. The outlines of everything around her were clear, until they blurred into the surroundings. Everything around her was the same monotonous monochrome.

Amity reached for the nightstand to the side of the bed, but it was seemingly floating away. She stood up on the bed, feeling it shift under her and the newfound imbalance sent her tumbling off of it.

The void encroached, stealing her from the fall and stashing her within it’s infinite enclosure.

“Room service!”A voice called out from the door.

The groggy Amity replies,

“No thanks!”

She stands up off the bed. The floor is there. The nightstand isn’t floating away.

The pressure on her chest is gone.

“The one thing I wanted to keep from that… dream…”

She felt her head pound again, pressing into her skull. The force pushed harder, as if it was trying to crack her skull.

Amity remembers something - her bag. She grabbed it from the bed, where she had forgotten to take it off, and rummaged around until finding the small container she keeps medicine in.

She downs an ibuprofen, hoping it would stop the headache and…

It works.

She feels her head, the pounding stopping, though the scab - and likely soon a scar - remains. Amity immediately collapses onto the bed, tired and relieved.

Then she gets to thinking.

“What the hell was that dream?”

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Amity realized something. She had seen that gray room before, somewhere she never expected to have to return. She knew exactly where her dream had taken her.

Although, it was odd. Why, a year after the event, did she suddenly remember that day, and why did her subconscious force that memory into her dream?

Why did he do what he did? It was certainly more trouble than she was worth, and more expensive than she valued herself. And, it led to that day…

“Hey! Amity!”

The familiar voice coincided with a banging on the door, and she went up to it. Looking through the peephole, Himiko was there, along with the rest of the people who went to eat at the diner. Kaiya held a foam box, likely Amity’s breakfast. She turned the doorknob, opening the door and allowing them to come in.

“Hey!”

They sat down on a bed, Amity eating the food that Kaiya had bought (and thanking her immensely), and again going over their plan. Except this time, Raleigh added something.

“Hey, do you all think we could, uh, take a break for today? I think we’re all still super beat up, even after the inn, and we could probably use some time off.”

They all agreed, and Amity had an idea.

“Oh! I could heal you guys. I do still have the green rock, somewhere.”

Amity pulled it out of her pocket, wielding it and shining a beam of the healing magic towards a scrape on Himiko’s arm. The scrape immediately vanished, her arm feeling better than ever.

“Oh, yeah actually. I kinda forgot you had that…” Himiko chuckled.

Amity used it again, this time on the cut on her other arm. The scab vanished, and her arm felt like it had never been cut!

“That works wonders, Amity! Thanks.”

“No problem. Who’s next?”

She went around the group, healing everyone around her and exerting herself until she collapsed back onto the bed immediately after the final person.

“Hey, are you gonna heal yourself?”

“Oh, I, uh… I’m not sure it works on myself. I know the glyph worked, but if I do it with natural magic, I don’t think it’ll actually heal anything. I’m exhausted, so what it heals will just be taken away by me having to use magic in the first place. Magic takes a toll on you.”

They all sat, waiting a second, before Kaiya sat up.

“How.. did you get natural magic?”

“Oh, I had to inject myself with the magic stuff. It’s really not particularly safe, and I only did it because I’m in the nurse training thing.”

“If you’re okay with it, is there a way that you can… give me natural magic?”

This came as a shock to Amity, who hadn’t expected this level of courage.

“I, uh, okay! Give me a second.”

She rummaged in her bag, pulling out the small container of the solution as well as a syringe.

Amity brushed Kaiya's shoulder off, pressing the needle directly to the skin after sucking up some of the solution.

She pressed it in, gradually pulling the syringe out as the magic solution entered Kaiya's blood.

She felt something flow through her arm, rising from her wrist to the shoulder, flowing into her torso and filling it up, as the same feeling that Amity had felt when she first got her magic built inside of Kaiya.

“Okay, do you think you’re ready to try magic?”

“I.. think so.”

“Great, uh, here’s this rock. You have to imagine what you want to come out of your hand. This rock can make fire, ice, or water.”

Kaiya stood back from the group, red rock in hand, and focused. She closed her eyes, breathed steadily, imagining a small ice cube, like you would put in a drink.

She felt something run through her arm, down the length and out the tips of her fingers, coalescing in a cold mass that rested in her palm.

“Wha- Did it, work? That easily?”The ice fell from her hand, opened in surprise, hitting the floor and shattering.

She focused, again. Breathing in and out, another ice cube. This time, bigger. As big as her hand, then bigger. She felt a small mass of cold less than an inch away from her hand, growing steadily with her command. It expanded, mostly evenly in every direction, and she opened her eyes to see a block of ice about as big as her hand. It nearly fell, Kaiya accidentally dropping the hold, but Amity managed to catch it, and shrank it back to nothing.

“That was really impressive! For your first time with magic, at least. In a little bit, do you want to practice some other stuff?”

Kaiya agreed, for later that day.

There wouldn’t be time for that, though.

A knock at the door rang through the room.