Archive of Our Own

“We aren't going home tonight, a-are we?”

“That's your biggest worry?! This is not the day to be complaining about overtime!”

“W-Well, it's not like he'll hear us!”

“It's not about tha- wait, he's waking up! Dr. Edega? How are you feeling?”

Opening his eyes, the lights in the emergency room were so bright they made his head throb. Everything was blurry, but he could manage to make out the silhouettes of Paige and Ian leaning over him. Nothing made sense for a few moments. 

“Sir, do you know where you are? Do you remember what happened?” As if the lights weren't already blinding enough, Paige shined a flashlight into his eyes, making the already unbearable headache even worse. “Sir?”

“I'm fine, Ada, I…” But Edega quickly realized he couldn't remember how he ended up here. He was laying in one of the E.R. beds, his usual lab coat and scrubs nowhere to be seen. Instead, he was in jeans and a ripped up sweater. And was that… blood on it? Only then did he realize what was dripping from his head. Ian was frantically trying to stop the bleeding. 

“A-Ada, I think he's got a concussion!”

“I'm not concussed! I'm fine. Just…” No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't make sense of why he was here and how he got injured. 

“Sir, you don't remember anything at all?” Paige was scribbling down something in a patient chart, presumably his own. 

“What happened? And why is this place in utter chaos?” Only now did he pay attention to the rest of the emergency room. Not a single bed was empty, many people even sitting on the floor or in office chairs meant for staff. Nurses and doctors were frantically rushing around, trying to get to every patient. Everybody he saw had some form of injury – some less, some more severe.

“Y-You were in a bus crash. Everybody here was in the accident as well. You don't remember that either?” Ian questioned him while trying to suture the wound on his head. 

As if his words zapped something in Edega's brain, images, sounds and feelings began flooding back. 

...

A poorly lit bus, crowded with people of all kinds.

…

The sound of passengers talking, of papers being flipped, of phones ringing, of the engine whirring.

…

An impending sense that he was forgetting something horrible. Something vital.

…

...

…

Someone is dying.

The thought came out of nowhere, but he somehow knew it was an undeniable fact. Though he didn't know how or why he knew this, or who was dying, there was no mistake. His mind was trying to make him remember something he saw on that bus. 

“...Somebody here is going to die if we don't find them.”

“H-Huh?”

Ian looked at Paige, her expression equally puzzled as his own. “What do you mean? I- I mean, there were a lot of casualties, some people are in the ICU here. I'm s-sure some patients won't pull through, but-”

“No. Someone is sick. Someone is dying of something completely unrelated to the crash. I... I know I saw something, I just can't remember what! If we-” As he spoke, he pushed Ian's hand away, pulling the blankets off himself and sitting up. His head throbbed with pain, but he barely even noticed it. Only the inexplicable need to find the answer rang in his head. 

“Sir, I don't know what you're talking about, but you need to rest!” Paige pushed him back down by his shoulders. “If someone is sick, the staff here will take care of them. You have to lay back down. We don't know the extent of the injury or whether you have any brain damage.”

As if he didn't hear anything she said, he continued looking around the emergency room. Absent-mindedly, he only told her: “Ada, get histories from everyone in here.”

“You're hurt! You're bleeding! You probably have brain damage! Whatever you think you saw, you need to leave it to the doctors here!”

“Ms. Paige, that was an order.” While she tried to think of what to do, he had already gotten out of bed. Standing in the middle of the crowded room, he did his best to regain some of his professionalism, despite his disheveled looks. “Attention, everyone!” He pointed to the closest patient he saw. “This man has meningitis. This wing of the hospital is now on lockdown until further notice. No patient leaves without my permission.” 

“Ada, I think he's lost it,” Ian whispered to his friend. She could only sigh at the man's stubbornness. 

Trying to pry open the locked portion of his memory, he began going up to every patient in the E.R, reading their charts and observing their faces, hoping something would click. But nothing seemed out of the ordinary in the sea of trauma patients, mangled limbs and pools of blood. If anything, he really got off easy compared to them.

Just as he was about to turn back and begin searching in another place, something caught his eye. He jumped to the patient's bedside, pushing aside a befuddled nurse.

“Ma'am, do you have any history of epilepsy?”

The woman laying in the bed was lucid, but clearly shaken. Her half-bandaged arm was still bleeding. “U-uh, no? What's this about?”

Ian and Paige rushed up to them, knowing they couldn't leave the man to his own devices. “This is Dr. Edega. He's our chief of medicine,” Paige rushed to introduce him, realizing that his appearance was currently far from that of a respectable doctor.

“Multiple sclerosis?” he kept questioning the woman.

“N-no! Why-?”

“Your leg was twitching just now.”

“...Seriously?! He's scaring this woman over a twitch?!” Ian whispered to Paige. Knowing she could only try to keep the situation under control, she began reassuring the patient. “Ma'am, we are just... making sure everything is alright, but I don't think you have anything to be worried about right now. We'll just, uh… run some tests, alright? Then we'll get back to you.” Saying that, she grabbed Edega by his arm and pulled him away from the bed.

“The twitch could be what I saw. If she has an underlying condition triggered by the accident- no, no. I wouldn't have seen any symptoms prior to the crash. It could be that she has had symptoms even before the accident, but never bothered to check with a doctor.” Edega kept brainstorming through everything the twitch could indicate, hoping something would pop up from his memory. But nothing did.

“Sir, are you sure you're alright?” Paige didn't bother to hide her concern. “I- I don't want to doubt you, but with this kind of head injury, it's very likely your mind is trying to fill in the gaps, making up details that didn't happen. Maybe there's nothing that-”

“I’m not out of my mind! Somebody is ill or dying and you'd rather brush it off as me being insane than do your job!" he snapped at her. "Ada, if you aren't interested in saving this patient, you're free to go home. You too, Ian.” He glanced at the nervous doctor staring at him from a few meters away. “If you two don't want to help me find out what's wrong with this woman, get out of my way. There are dozens of doctors in this hospital, I'm sure a few of them will be more cooperative.” His voice cut through the air like cold steel. Ian and Paige looked at each other, trying to converse only through their body language. 

“...Fine. We'll help. But you need to lay down.”

“Nonsense. Get a full patient history from her, then we'll begin eliminating possible causes.”

He wants to do a differential diagnosis based on a twitch??? Ian thought to himself, but didn't dare critique his boss. Instead, he only nodded and went back to the patient, leaving Edega and Paige to begin diagnosing.

***

“Her history is clean,” Ian sighed as he placed down the chart on Edega's office desk. He then sank into the couch across from the desk, sitting down next to Paige.

“So, we can most likely write off congenital defects. We need to think of something other doctors could've missed.” Edega flipped through the file, lost in thought. Despite waiting for ideas from Ian and Paige, the two of them sat in silence. 

“Are you two expecting a diagnosis to fall out of thin air?” he snickered at them.

“Respectfully, sir, I don't think a muscle spasm in a patient with severe trauma is much to go off of…” Paige dared speak up.

“Then start listing everything it could be! Unless you'd rather we sit around here doing nothing!” Edega slammed the table. The frustration of not being able to remember anything wasn't being helped by the debilitating migraine that just wouldn't go away. The bandages wrapped around his head were already starting to turn crimson red.

“W-Well…” Ian hesitantly began, “Epilepsy is the most likely cause of involuntary muscle movement in adults. Some don't get diagnosed until later in life. She could've missed the fact she's having seizures, written them off as stress or exhaustion.”

Edega nodded. “Good enough for now. Start there. Do an EEG, flash lights in her eyes, see if she seizes.”

“Whoa, wait!” Paige stopped Ian as he was about to leave the office. “If she really does have epilepsy, inducing a seizure could be risky! She could-”

“Riskier than letting her leave the hospital ill and undiagnosed?” Edega cut her off. “Do as I say.”

Realizing there was no changing his mind, the two young doctors made their way to the emergency room, leaving their boss sitting at his office desk, fidgeting with a pen.

Why was I on the bus?

He kept trying to make sense of what happened, but none of the clues lined up. 

If I was going somewhere, I'd have no reason to take the bus. I'd drive. 

At that thought, he instinctively checked his pocket for his car keys. Nothing. Making his way to the pile of bloodied, torn up clothes he's changed out of, he checked the pockets there too. Still nothing.

Where the hell are my car keys?

Confused, he leaned onto the window, observing the view behind the hospital. From where he stood, he could see the parking lot reserved for staff. His usual parking spot was empty.

Actually, where the hell is my car?

Completely sure he was forgetting something obvious, he logged into his home security cameras from his computer and checked the video feed of his garage. Still, his car was nowhere to be found.

Now even more lost, he turned off his computer and sat in silence, holding his head in his hands. He kept his eyes closed, hoping something would magically pop into his head to explain what could've happened the day prior to this. To his disappointment, the only images repeating in his mind were of what he already knew.

Suddenly being jolted out of his daze by the door opening, he sat straight up, shaking off the fog forming in his head.

“It's definitely not epilepsy,” Paige announced, slightly defeated.

“But her blood work is back from the lab,” Ian added. “H-Her T3 and T4 are way under the normal threshold!”

To this, Edega only frowned. “So, her thyroid is shot.”

“I- I can't believe it, but you were right.” Paige had to admit. “We'll start treating her for hypothyroidism and-”

“We diagnosed her, but I wasn't right.”

“...Huh?”

“This sudden onset of symptoms signifies her condition was triggered by the trauma she suffered in the accident. She wouldn't have had the twitch prior to the crash. It couldn't have been what I saw.”

Paige and Ian remained silent, trying to understand what he meant.

“Thanks to a stroke of luck, she now has a diagnosis. But she wasn't who I saw. We saved the wrong person.” Though he tried to keep his cool, he was getting more and more frustrated by the second. “This isn't going to work! There are dozens of patients from the accident in this hospital, and dozens more in other trauma centers! If we start testing each one for every possible illness, it'll be like looking for a needle in a haystack!” He clutched his head in his hands. “There has to be another way. I have to remember what happened.”

“You're tired, you have a head injury and you just survived a horrific accident! It's no wonder you can't remember anything! You need rest!” Paige criticized him.

“Alright. I meant a way that doesn't rely on waiting eight hours for me to take a nice nap,” he retorted. 

“U-Uh, there is something we could try,” Ian inserted himself into the conversation, unsure whether what he was about to suggest was a good idea.

“Go on.”

“Hypnosis can help people access repressed memories. S-Sometimes. I- I mean, it's not like you don't know that already! Just… it's usually not used in cases like this one.” Seeing that the two doctors were looking at him slightly confused, he added: “I, uh, did a rotation with a psychiatrist in med school once. They showed me some basics.”

Although it was generally difficult to read Edega's facial expressions, it was clear he was fond of the idea. Usually, he'd be against this kind of psychologically-based solution, but at this point, he was grasping at straws. “Good. Let's do that, then.”

…

“A-Alright. I need you to relax.”

“I am relaxed.”

Edega was laying on the couch, his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes closed. Still, it was obvious he was tense. Ian was sitting on the floor beside him. Paige instead chose to only lean onto the desk, clearly uneasy about the whole ordeal. 

“Okay. Try to clear your mind of anything that could distract you.”

“It might be slightly difficult to do that, considering the fact that my head feels like it's exploding.”

“T-This won't work if you just keep going against everything I say!” Ian whined.

“Fine. I'll focus.” Edega took a deep breath, trying to concentrate on the darkness inside of his eyelids. 

“Keep focusing on your breath. N-Now, you said you remember a few things from when you were on the bus. You need to concentrate on those sensations.”

This all felt incredibly silly to Edega. Still, he needed answers. Breathing in, he tried to remember the smell of the bus, the sounds and voices. 

“Ian, I don't know if this is such a good idea. He's already got a head injury, making him strain himself could-”

“Stop distracting him!” Ian whispered to her. She only sighed in response.

“Okay, b-back to where we were. Try to visualize the surroundings, the people.”

“I'm not sure if this is going to wor-” Edega began, but didn't get to finish the sentence. As if falling into a lucid dream, he suddenly found himself in the memory he was recalling only a few seconds ago. He was standing in the middle of a worn-down bus, the surroundings almost as clear as reality. But nothing else was there.

“What do you see?” He heard Ian's voice. Turning around, he saw the young doctor sitting in the back of the bus. Alright, that definitely wasn't accurate, but it'd have to do. 

“I’m on the bus. But it's empty. I see no one here,” Edega spoke into nothingness, hoping he was speaking in reality as well.

“G-Good! It's a start.”

Apparently, he was. This could work.

“Now, try to imagine the people. T-Try to focus on the things you remember. Maybe you can connect a voice to a face.”

“This is insane,” Paige muttered under her breath, now sitting in the seat next to Ian. That was even less accurate.

“Paige is done talking now!” Ian hissed, gesturing to her to keep quiet.

The seats were empty again. Good.

He turned around, instead taking a look at the seats in front of him. A few people were now sitting before him.

Carefully, he observed each of them.

A middle-aged woman, digging through her purse. Nothing seemed unusual.

A teenager hunched over his phone, typing away frantically. Except for the horrible posture, nothing seemed medically wrong with him.

A distressed little girl sitting beside her parents. The father was absent-mindedly looking out the window, the mother was trying to calm down the crying child. Other than the awful parenting of the father, nothing was wrong there either.

“Anything seem unusual with any of them?” Ian's voice rang in his head.

“No… nothing. But I still can't remember most of-” Before he could finish, he noticed something in the corner of his eye. Turning to his right, he saw… nothing. But not another empty seat. It was as if there was a hole in the fabric of the memory itself. A vaguely humanoid shadow was in one of the seats. Though it had no features to speak of, he still somehow felt like it was staring right at him. A chill ran down his spine. 

“Sir? What do you see?” Ian asked him from outside.

“I… I don't know. There's something… missing. Someone missing.”

“Your memory is still a little shaky, it's expected,” Ian reassured him. “L-let’s move on from this place. Try to pry deeper into your memory. Focus. Where were you before this? Before you got on the bus?”

“I had to have been at home. Nothing else makes sense.”

“D-Don't rationalize, just try to remember! Anything at all. An image, a feeling, a sound.”

Edega closed his eyes, clearing his mind once again. 

There was something.

A smell. 

The smell of… alcohol?

That makes no sense.

Opening his eyes, he was in a completely different place. 

The clanking of glasses and chatter of tipsy people flooded into his ears. He was sitting in a bar, a glass of whiskey in his hand. The bartender before him was mixing a drink, talking about something he couldn't understand. But once again, something was missing. The memory made no sense, he couldn't understand why or when he'd be there. 

“Anything?” Ian's voice sounded again.

“I… I have no clue where this is.”

“Describe it.”

“This is most definitely a bar. But I don't recognize it. I don't believe I've been here before. Not before this, at least.” 

“Not like he's exactly the going-out type,” Paige whispered.

“Ada, I heard that!” he snapped back, yelling at nothing, unsuccessfully trying to hide the offense he took at the comment.

“Okay, okay, concentrate!” Ian tried to steer him back on track. “Can you see the people in the bar? Does anyone seem off? Maybe one of them was sick.”

Straining his mind, Edega looked around the place. One person had a slight cough, another was blowing his nose. Someone was most definitely throwing up in the corner. But, considering the setting, nothing seemed like a symptom that would indicate an actually serious condition. Beside him, another rip in the memory formed. Another void, a formless shadow, sitting on the bar stool next to him. Once again, the feeling that something was on the tip of his tongue returned. He reached out towards the shadow. But he touched nothing. Like a black hole was sucking him in, he only fell forwards.

…

“Sir?! Are you alright?!” Ian and Paige were sitting next to him, scared like lost little kids.

Jumping awake, he sat up on the couch. He struggled to catch his breath. 

“You weren't answering us at all for a few seconds, are you okay?!” Paige blabbered.

“I'm fine.” But he couldn't collect his thoughts, trying to make sense of the disjointed images he recalled.

“Wh-What did you see?” Ian asked, curious despite not wanting to admit it.

“Nothing was wrong with anyone at the bar either. But I'm missing something. It's like a gap in my memory, it's-”

“O-Okay, let's focus on what we have instead. The crash wasn't that far away from here, maybe we can figure out where you were. Is there anything specific about the bar?”

Edega squeezed his eyes shut, trying to remember the details. “The place looked like a shack. I have no clue what I could've been doing there. There were barely any windows, I felt like I could hardly breathe. It was as if I could puke from the stench of alcohol."

“What were you drinking?” Paige asked, some of what he said ringing a bell.

“Uh… Whiskey, I believe. What does that have to do-”

“Oh, I know where that is!” she suddenly yelled, her face finally forming into a smile. “There's a whiskey bar down in Kompocity, it looks exactly like what you described!” Seeing the two men looking at her strangely, she had to add: “A friend of mine celebrated her birthday there. I'm not an alcoholic!”

Edega wanted to make a snarky remark to get back at her for her earlier comment, but he had more important things on his mind. “We're going there.”

“We?”

Though he wouldn't admit it, the headache was getting so bad he felt like he might faint. If that were to happen, it would be best to not be alone. “...I might need your assistance at some point.”

The two doctors shrugged. If nothing else, it would get them out of the hospital for a while. And things seemed to be getting interesting.

***

“Uh, why are we taking a taxi?” Ian asked, barely managing to gather the bravery for the question. The three of them were standing in front of the hospital gate, shivering in the cold.

“...Because I don't know where my car is,” Edega answered bitterly, pretending not to see the two young doctors holding back their laughter. 

“Do either of you know if I was invited to the conference in Kompocity General Hospital about their new cardiological treatment?” he asked the two of them, ashamed of the fact that he had to rely on his own employees to serve as his memory. Paige shrugged. Ian shook his head.

“I mean, you probably were? Why?” she responded with a question.

“That hospital is only a few blocks away from the bar I was in. It would be the only explanation for why I was there in the first place. But I didn't find an invitation in my emails. Then again, I might have simply deleted it. I don't usually… bother going to such events.”

Well, if you actually talked to people about your life, maybe we'd know! Paige thought, but didn't say it out loud. The three of them cramped themselves into the taxi when it pulled up to the gate, spending the ride in silence. 

Grateful he at least still had his wallet, Edega paid the taxi driver and they got out of the car, finding themselves in a much less urban part of the city. Before them stood an old-fashioned bar, but the wooden door wouldn't open when Edega reached for the knob.

“Still not open,” Ian stated.

“Fantastic observation,” the older man fired back. “We don't have the time for this.” He began banging on the door in a steady rhythm, much to the dismay of his two assistants.

Finally, they could hear the door unlocking from the inside. A tiny, older lady greeted them at the doorstep. She didn't seem very happy to see them.

“I swear there was a sign on the door saying we aren't open yet.”

Unusually surprised at someone treating him this way, Edega took a few moments to respond. “Excuse us, ma'am, but-”

“I'm guessing you're the one here for this?” she asked, returning inside and going over to the counter. After a few moments of digging through the boxes behind it, she tossed him something shiny. Barely managing to catch it, Edega took a look at what he was now holding. His car keys. And... another pair of keys?

So I really was here.

“You had to be real drunk for the bartender to take your keys. Your car is parked behind the bar. Now, get out!” She kept swinging around a broom as she spoke.

“Ma'am, these aren't mine,” he answered, tossing her back the second pair of keys. 

“So, two people got hammered enough last night for the bartender to take their keys? Good lord."

Edega was beginning to lose his patience. But he didn't want to give up just yet. “Is anybody who works here sick? Or maybe somebody who frequents this place?”

“For the love of god, kid, I just clean here! Take your damn keys and get out!”

Too dumbfounded at being called a “kid” at the ripe age of 40, he quietly turned around and left the bar, Ian and Paige following after him.

“That was an utter waste of our time,” he gruntled as they made their way to his car.

“H-Hey, at least you got your keys back!” Ian tried to cheer him up, but immediately shut up when he saw the death stare Edega gave him.

“Just get in the car. We're going back to Middlesea. There has to be something we missed.”

***

There he was again, walking in circles around the emergency room. He kept picking up the clothes and burned items of the victims, staring at them, running his fingers over them, trying to dig something else out of his memory. But it was like hitting a brick wall. No matter how much he focused, he couldn't get his mind to break through the figurative barrier to his memories. 

No. There's a more effective way of going about this. 

“I need you to electroshock my brain,” he bluntly exclaimed as he barged into the office of their head neurologist.

“Ian really is right about you having a concussion, isn't he?” Amy replied, sighing and leaning back in her chair. She's worked here long enough to be used to the man's insanity.

“I'm not brain damaged! My memory is still missing parts! I've tried everything there is, I still can't remember half of what happened last night! Transcranial electromagnetic stimulation could-”

“I'm not poking around in your brain so you can remember a day of your miserable life before the accident!” she interrupted him. “Just so you know, Paige already guessed you'd try this. She told me not to entertain your nonsense.”

“Do you think I'm doing this for fun?! I know I'm forgetting something important! One of the patients needs our help and I can't even remember how I know that!”

“You're losing it! God knows what you saw and what your sick brain made up! You need to let us admit you and give you a CT scan! You're not in your right mind to-”

“I'm walking, I'm thinking clearly, I'm fine!!! Now help me do this before I find somebody else who will!” Yelling this much made him dizzy, but it was the least of his concerns.

“And if you die as I'm prodding around in your head?”

“At least I'll die knowing.”

***

“Inserting the IPG probe into the ventral hypothalamus.”

Despite the insanely dangerous procedure he found himself in, Edega was somehow grateful for the sedatives they put him on. At least they helped the headache. What didn't help the headache was the fact that he was sitting in an operating room, his head fixed in place by a complex metal contraption. Though he couldn't see Amy standing behind him, he could see the freaked faces of Paige and Ian, who insisted they be there to assist. He tried not to think about the fact that Amy was probing at his brain.

“Let's start with three volts,” she told Paige. The girl nodded and carefully turned the knob on the machine beside her.

A blurred picture. A familiar place.

His home?

It was too blurry to make out. Not of any use.

“Turn up the voltage.”

“Are you crazy?! You want me to fry your brain?!”

“If I'm risking my life, I might as well actually get answers. Turn it up to five volts.”

Amy sighed and nodded to Paige.

“...Increasing charge to five volts. Sending impulse.”

Yes, that was definitely his living room. It was dark outside. It must have been only a few hours before the accident.

A sound. His phone ringing?

But he couldn't make out what was on the screen. The memory wasn't clear enough.

“Increase to seven volts. I can't… None of this is helpful.”

“A-Alright, now even I think that's too much!” Ian protested.

“And I'm the doctor, the patient and the chief of medicine. Let's get this over with quickly. I prefer not having a part of my brain exposed to the fresh hospital air.”

“Just listen to him. If his brain gets fried, it's on him,” Amy shrugged.

Without a word, Paige adjusted the machine once again, her hands shaky. She pressed the button.

He was talking to someone over the phone. An unknown voice.

...Was it?

Did he hear that voice before?

He was sure he did. But where?

That's right. The bartender he saw in his hypnosis. It had to be the same voice. 

The next image was of him in his car. He was driving. Turning to look through the window, he saw himself passing by the Kompocity General Hospital without stopping.

He parked behind the bar.

Why?

He couldn't see anything else.

“Shock me one more time. I just need to… I need to see…” He was beginning to get lightheaded. His heart was racing. The worried faces of Ian and Paige became blurry.

“Your blood pressure is dropping. We're done here,” Amy cut him off, pulling back the probe. “Ian, give him a shot of adrenaline before he passes out.”

But everything was already going dark.

…

Once again, he found himself in one of the hospital beds, this time in the ICU. The pain in his head was gone, at least, but that was explained by the morphine drip at his bedside. Nobody was there. Impatiently, he slammed on the call button.

It only took a few moments for Amy to appear. She stood in the doorway, not bothering to go up to his bed.

“What time is it? How long was I out?”

“Two hours or so. Based on how eager you are to get back to your insane investigation, I'm assuming you don't have brain damage. Well, based on that and the CT we did.” With that, she threw him a scan. He didn't bother to take a look at it.

“I'm still forgetting something. I… I need your help. I need ideas. I need to remember.”

She raised her eyebrow. “For you to ask for help, this is really serious. Why are you so sure you're forgetting something important? You survived a major trauma. You're shaken. This could just be your mind trying to explain the injury.”

“Either help me or don't! I don't need a pep talk. I know I need to remember. I don't know how, or why, but the… past me thought it was important that I know this. If I saw someone sick, it's our duty to help.”

“I'm afraid you already tried the riskiest option imaginable.”

“Well, what are my less risky options to retrieve my memories?”

For a second, she went quiet, leaning against the doorframe. “Your memory is still somewhere in there, it's just… locked away. We need a strong evocator, something that will remind you of what you saw.”

“Like?”

“Where you were. We recreate one of the scenes you remember. If it's similar enough, it could help jog your memory.”

“...That could work. I have an idea.”

***

“Stand there. You move here. And someone needs to sit there… You. Go over there.”

When Amy said recreate a scene from your memory, she didn't exactly have this in mind. 

Edega had convinced the police to let him and a few of the staff members back on the scene of the accident, under the guise of swabbing for infections and bacteria. Now, he was ordering doctors and nurses around the smashed up bus, making them stand in for the people in his memory. A few of the staff members cursed him under their breath as they carefully made their way through the shattered glass and scraps of metal scattered around. 

Edega carefully observed the image forming in front of him. There were only a few things left to do. He pushed aside the debris on one of the seats in the back, ignoring the cut that formed on his hand, and sat down. Yes, that was definitely the seat he was in that night. 

But that wouldn't be enough. Without thinking much about it, he pulled out a bottle of pills from his pocket, taking a few of them and swallowing them dry.

“I-Is that rivastigmine?!” Ian asked, not believing his eyes. “How many did you just take?!”

“Enough to speed up my neural firing. It'll make my memory clearer.”

“And it could also blow your heart out!” Paige fretted. Every idea this man had was just worse than the last one.

“Good thing I'm on a bus full of doctors, then.”

“Just so it's on record, the drugs were your idea, not mine,” Amy had to ad.

One last time, he scanned the entire bus. There was one last thing missing. The seat next to him was still empty. The one where the void would appear.

He reached out and grabbed Paige's sleeve. “Ada. You sit here.”

Confused, she obliged, sitting down besides him. “Why me?”

For a while, he only stared at her. She began to get nervous. “...I don't know.”

The image before him elicited the burning feeling that he was this close to remembering it all. All that was missing was a trigger, something to push him over the edge.

A phone ringing.

Ian frantically began digging through his pocket. “S-Sorry, sorry! I'll turn it off!”

A phone ringing.

Edega found himself in his living room once again. He looked around. Every detail was crystal clear, everything was exactly the way it usually is. The paintings on the walls, the paperwork scattered on the coffee table, the streetlight shining through the windows. It was all way to clear to be a memory. It was more akin to a hallucination.

His phone kept ringing.

As if he wasn't in control of his own body, he reached over to the coffee table and picked it up. An unknown number.

“Hello?” It somehow didn't feel quite like his own voice when he spoke.

“Hey there! Can I- shut up, stop complaining! Man, you're wasted!”

From the other side of the line, he could hear the chatter of people, loud music, and a voice that stood out among the rest. Someone was yelling at the man on the phone, but their words were unintelligible.

“Sorry about that, mate! Can you come pick up your friend at Lilachord Bar? I had to- Shut up, I'm not giving you the phone!” His voice kept cutting out as he argued with someone on the other side.

Who...?

“I- I'm sorry, you must have the wrong person," Edega stammered. Though what he said didn't exactly match his thoughts right now, it was what he was really thinking back then. 

“You're, uh, you're ”Gabe,” right? I found your contact in his phone, it was the first one on the list. I'm guessing you're his friend, yeah?”

…

Gabe?

…

No.

“He’s pretty drunk, I had to take his keys since he kept insisting he'd drive home by himself. Didn't want to call anyone for a lift. Can you pick him up?”

…

Only one person would have him in their contacts as that.

…

Mark…?

...

“Hey, man, you still there?”

As if the man's voice snapped him out of a trance, he managed to mutter something into the phone before hanging up.

He didn't dare question how he was now standing in front of the bar. All he knew is that his body was moving by itself when he pushed the door open.

The place was chock full of people of all kinds, and the stench of alcohol made him nauseous. Still, he pushed through the crowd. 

There he was. A man sitting slouched at the bar, an empty glass sitting before him.

Frozen in place, he opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. 

Mark slowly turned his head to look at him. His face was flushed, his eyes glassy. The bartender was definitely right about him being drunk.

Edega tried to think of what to say, but nothing came to mind. It seemed like his past self wasn't going to be of any help either. He could only stand in place, his mouth agape.

“...Gabe? I… I didn't… is- it's… really you..?” Mark’s slurred speech attested to his intoxication.

“H-Hey.”

Now his mind was running at a thousand miles per hour. Unable to think of anything appropriate to say, he managed to sit down on the bar stool next to him. “I… I'm here to drive you home.”

That's all I said?!

That's it?!

“I'm here to drive you home?!”

What the hell is wrong with me?!

Mark stared at him for a while. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't read the expression on his face. 

“You… you want a drink?”

He… offered me a drink? As if nothing happened? As if this isn't my first time seeing him in years? 

God, he really was drunk.

“No. You needed a ride. Get up. We're leaving.”

“Hey!” Mark turned to the bartender. “Get him a shot. I'll pay.”

“I'm not drinking. You know I don't drink.”

“You-” He hiccuped. “You drink your drink, or I drink it for you~”

Edega took the glass the bartender handed him. “Fine. One drink. Then you leave voluntarily.” Without hesitation, he drank the whiskey in one go. His throat burned.

“One more!”

“Absolutely not-”

But the bartender was already pouring him another glass. 

“Why are yu- you in such a rush…? C’mon… I haven't seen you in forever…” Mark grabbed his sleeve, pulling him back down onto the chair. Involuntarily, he took the glass into his hand.

Don't do it.

But he couldn't change what had already happened. He downed the drink. Then another. And another. The memory began getting blurry, but not because he was misremembering – but because this was what he saw at the moment. Still, he tried not to let it show.

“How’re… How’re things at Middlesea..?” Mark asked him, at this point half-laying on the counter.

“It's… fine.”

“I- I heard you're chiefff… whatever now.”

“I guess I am.” But even now that he was drunk, Edega couldn't think of anything else to say. It's just been so long. Way too long.

“So why are you here?” he dared ask after a while. 

“I… I was at the hospital overthere...” Mark slurred.

“You work there now?”

“Hah… No. Uh… long story.” 

Mark was too drunk to explain and Edega wasn't drunk enough to keep pushing. As he drank the last of his whiskey, he took the glass out of Mark's hand. “That's enough. We're leaving.”

“Mhh… Finee…”

“And where in the world do you think you're going in that state?!” the bartender stopped him. “I call you to pick him up and you get hammered too. You ain't driving like this.”

“I'm not drunk,” Edega snickered as he tried to hand the bartender the cash, only to realize he couldn't even keep his hand steady. 

“Hand over the keys.”

“...Fine.” He gave the man his car keys. “We'll take the bus.”

Don't. Don't do it.

Pulling Mark's arm over his shoulder, they headed to the bus stop on unsteady feet.

When they arrived at the station, the bus was already about to close its doors. At the last second, they managed to climb in.

Why the hell did we have to make it, why did we just have to hurry, why-

Edega barely managed to scrape together enough cash to pay for their tickets. They stumbled to the seats in the back of the bus.

His mind was screaming at him to get away, to get off the bus. But his body wasn't listening. 

He turned to Mark.

There it was. The piece that was missing.

Mark was the missing piece.

What he couldn't remember.

What he didn't want to remember.

He watched as the man pulled out a bottle of pills from his pocket. He squinted, reading the label on the packaging.

Metoprolol.

No.

Don't do it.

Don't take those.

But he couldn't do anything but watch as Mark downed two pills in one go.

Is he...?

He's sick.

He wouldn't be taking these if he didn't have a cardiological condition.

Is that why he was at the hospital?

Did something go wrong?

Is that why he was getting drunk by himself?

“Mark… you-”

...

A blinding light.

The gut-wrenching sound of people screaming.

A deafening crash.

Then... nothing at all.

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

It was dark. A sharp pain stabbed through his head. He tried to get up from the floor of the bus, but was completely disoriented. Something was dripping down his face. Blood.

Realizing what happened, he jerked himself upward, ignoring the aching in his body.

Mark…?

Wiping the blood out of his eyes, he looked ahead of him. 

There he was. Laying in a pool of his own blood, his breath hitched. He wasn't moving.

“Mark…! Mark-”

Edega crawled to his side. Through the blood clouding his already blurry vision, he tried to find the source of the bleeding.

A metal rod was protruding from the right side of the man's lower back, stabbing all the way through to the other side.

“Gabe...? I… I'm cold.”

No. No. No. No. No. No, you don't.

“Stay with me.”

He managed to grab the scarf he had around his neck.

“I'm… going to tie this around your hip, alright? Just… keep talking to me.”

Everything kept getting blurrier and blurrier. He managed to haphazardly bandage around the wound before his arms gave out on him.

“Mark…”

A distant sound of ambulance sirens.

The blinding flashlights of the EMTs rushing into the broken down scene. He could make out a few words.

“Take the most critical ones to Kompocity General Hospital! Get the rest to other trauma centers! Call for more help!”

His eyes wouldn't stay open.

Everything went dark.

…

…

…

“Call for help! Tell them we- Gabriel?! Okay, okay, call off the ambulance!”

Gasping for air, he found himself on the floor once again. Amy had her hands clasped over his chest. Ian and Paige were crouching beside him.

“You fucking idiot! Your heart stopped!” Amy kept screaming at him, but her voice was shaky.

“Mark! It's- It's Mark! The- the patient-!”

“Calm down! Everything’s fine! How are you feeling?” Paige tried to console him, but he had other problems on his mind.

“Amy, the- the person I saw, it's Mark!!! He's the sick patient, he's-”

“What the hell are you talking about?! You don't mean Dr. Booker, do you?! Our Mark?!”

“It's him-! He- I was with him last night! He was the person at the bar, he was the one on the bus with me, he was the sick person! It's not a symptom I saw, it was a treatment! H-he took metoprolol! I- I saw how he was injured, his kidneys have to be damaged, if his body can't filter out the drugs, he-”

The entire place was spinning around him. He couldn't catch his breath enough to say another word.

Paige and Ian looked confused, but Amy only stared at him in silence for a few moments.

“...And you're sure about this? You remembered everything..?”

“Yes! I'm sure!

…

Mark is the one who's dying.”