In the middle of a Friday morning, inside a modest independent clinic, a receptionist was just hanging up a call. Another cross in her tab, and the number of patients for the day dwindled down to two. Madeline Baudelaire grabbed her phone and sent a text message to the doctor, letting him know of the update while he arrived.

She started organizing folders through her desk, the least she could do for now, before pulling up the solitaire game on her computer to kill of the rest of the day. She could hear hurried steps coming along the hall and it made her feel awkward for having those thoughts. After all, emergencies would still happen, and the nurses would still have to run while she was off, 'wasting time', on her own.

She spent the rest of the morning checking her system, notifying families, calling Insurance companies just so that feeling would go away, and she would get some sense of inner peace. The doctor sent her a message letting her know he would be getting more files and he would be in the office soon, once he finished signing all the documents he had to do for him to get them.

Another call came, and Madeline knew what was about to happen. By the end, she was ready to have an early leave from her desk. This weekend was going to be chaos, especially since everyone in the city seemed to be running away. It didn't help that a national holiday was also going to happen on Monday, making everyone have a 3-day weekend, or 4-day, since they seemed to be taking Friday off as well.

More running could be heard outside, but this time, she didn't mind. She grabbed the phone once again and was about to start typing when the door slammed open. She dropped her phone in a panic, and looked upwards:

A young man, in his early twenties, gasping for air, sweating, was standing in the door frame, looking towards the wall, as if the impact wasn't registering in his head.

"Shit!" he finally said, grabbing the door and putting it back in place, closing it softly behind him.

Madeline examined him, Camilo Porras, as she did with almost everyone who came through the door. He was a cute kid, almost the age of her oldest grandson, his brown skin the slight difference. And his ethnic background as well. She tried to recall the usual information she had at her reach, since she wasn't one to pry at their diagnosis unless the doctor told her about it.

24 or 25 years old, she wasn't sure. Male, that much was evident. No record or memory of the doctor indicating his sexual orientation, but Madeline knew a 'queen' when she saw one. Always changed the sport he practiced when she asked, but recently had settled for skating. He wasn't wearing the glove he usually had on his right hand, but it seemed he had been in the last few days. Obvious lack of sleep, she noted for herself. The kid looked like a racoon.

"I'm sorry 'bout that, ma'am"

"Don't mind it, it's nice to see you today, Camilo… how was your week?" A bright smile adorned her face, and her acute and nasal voice made it sound child-like, helping her seem a little more honest, her way of talking clashed heavily with her appearance, since no woman over 60 should sound like a child.

"The usual, miss Baudelaire" Camilo's voice was still carrying his heavy accent, the one he'd been trying to leave for 4 years now, having been too blunt, he continued with his throaty voice "I've been practicing a bit of… skating"

"Ooh, we got ourselves a full-time rebel, don't we?" she said happily, winking at the young man.

"I'd wish, it's just… uh, figure skating" Camilo just wanted to go to his appointment and leave her be, he knew she was being nice because she had to, and in any other situation she would treat him differently. Surely, it would involve far less smiles "Did I make it in time? I rushed here from practice because I thought it would be late… shit! Sorry! I'm past my appointment!"

"Oh no, no, no, don't worry," Madeline calmed him down, sure, his appointment was supposed to be half an hour earlier than now, but to be fair, neither she nor the doctor had even noticed, "the doctor is just getting your history and he- oh look! Here he comes" Miss Baudelaire waved at the doctor in a very flashy way, the big necklace she had on was shaking from side to side and making quite some noise, catching the attention from the other walkers in the hallway "Doctor Massey, welcome back, here's Camilo waiting for you!"

"Yes, I saw his blur on the way here. Hello Camilo," Doctor Andrew Massey, a hulk of a southern man was standing behind Camilo with a small folder in one hand, and a mug filled with chocolate in the other, his enormous frame was eased a bit with the soft voice that came from his mouth "I trust you've been good this week"

"Ajá, I mean, yes doctor" Camilo stretched his left hand towards the doctor for a handshake and took it back quickly when he saw his hands full "uh, it's nice seeing you… again, like… like last week."

"Come on in, we got a bit of extra time today" Miss Baudelaire opened the door to the office and went back to her seat, winking at Camilo before he entered, in an attempt to ease his nerves.

The doctor came in and sat behind a simple desk. He put the folder by the phone and the mug on the opposite side, quickly taking it again to take a sip of it, and finally leave it alone. He was also writing information on a pad and looked at Camilo every so often, while everything was set in place.

Camilo sat in front of the desk and took a look around the office while the doctor checked his last notes from the previous visit, he knew pretty much from heart the way things were organized in this small office, from the little and almost dry plant on the corner, to the order of the degrees on the wall next to the door behind him.

He passed his hand through his hair, doing so, he noticed a small scratch on his left arm, the bright red mark looked like a small L on his otherwise clear brown skin. He didn't want to start the conversation today, he had made a decision 5 days before, but apparently, cold feet were a thing that happened at the actual moment to act. It was probably visible on his face.

He kept looking to the sides and behind the doctor. His head hurt, the heat, and running and lack of proper hydration plus being almost 2 in the afternoon and still going by with his breakfast and no lunch made him look like an addict looking forward to his next fix. The couple of books behind his doctor provided a good distraction while he tried to read their names again. He thought, after a while, there was one missing, the green one with the white letters on its back that he read thousands of times and still couldn't remember the name.

"Are you done?" the simple question brought him back from his head, the doctor hadn't lifted his face from the folder while he kept talking "I lent the Vademecum to the doctor in the next office"

"I… I see, I didn't mean to stare." He pouted like a child and averted his eyes, his neck itched, probably a bug bit him there while 'skating' earlier. A shy smile came through his mouth, and disappeared just as fast, remembering where he was.

"It's not a problem. How was your week, Camilo? did you have lunch already?"

"uh, no… Practice ran a bit late and ah, I ran here, I didn't have the time-I mean, my week was fine, I went hiking last weekend…I'm rambling again…right?"

"Yes, you are. Don't mind it, it's just a habit you have, like sleeping in late in the night, or not taking your medication" doctor Massey finally lifted his gaze from the folder and stared directly at Camilo. He wasn't mad, and his face showed that, but it was still a serious issue, and it had to be addressed as such. "Why did you stop taking them this time?"

"I'm taking them."

"I know you aren't taking them, Camilo. Want me to run a checklist?"

"why? I'm taking them."

"Fine: you tried to shake my hand with your left hand. Your right hand's skin is clearer than the rest of the arm. And you've been fidgety since you sat down" Camilo tried to avert his eyes, he didn't like being in this situation, but the doctor was right, and he wasn't finished "Camilo, look, you need to take your pills or the treatment won't work. Do you want to be back where we were 10 years ago? Back when you didn't even look at others in the face?"

Silence. The heavy silence that now impregnated the room wouldn't go away as long as Camilo wouldn't muster up enough courage to say what he had been trying to say since some time ago. Doctor Massey was on the edge of his seat at the same time. Today, for some reason, Camilo was different to what he was before: Usually closed, not giving a lot of information about himself, keeping sentences short, today he had actually explained what happened that made him late. He was tired, but not as the usual. He had been awake at least 2 days, maybe more. Something happened.

"I… I won't take them anymore" his body moved a bit on the chair and his voice came forced, yet he kept going and gaining strength in his voice with each word "I was right 10 years ago… and I still am today doc. This week- I've been- these days have forced me to think about something I tried to leave behind me all this time. I have to-"

"You have to answer my question Camilo." Doctor Massey interrupted, since Camilo's tone of voice was gaining volume, almost shouting the last sentence. It also had to be a step by step process. He needed to process what Camilo would do.

"I stopped taking them because they make me stop feeling the portals" his answer was unwavering, he had no shame in saying something like that out loud, at least this time.

"They make you stop feeling what?"

"portals. Like whirlpools of energy…I don't wanna lose the last bit of the real 'me' they left me, I'm not gonna take them"

"The last bit of 'you' that 'they' left you" disbelief was written all over the doctor's voice, however it had a bit of curiosity mixed with it "I'll assume that 'they' means people from 'there'"

"Yeah"

"The same place you kept mentioning lightly over the past years"

"Yeah"

"Are you finally going to tell me about that 'place'? About what you think you saw that day?"

"I didn't think I saw shit that day" The way Camilo looked at the doctor changed slightly along his tone of voice, it seemed he touched something sensible and now couldn't suppress the issue.

"What did you-"

"I LIVED that for gods know how long and you come and tell me that is just an imbalance and that I need to chug pills for it to go away" he argued, almost making it seem like it was the Doctor's fault

"Look Camilo," Doctor Massey said calmly, slowly, trying to steer the aggression in the young man "you and I have known each other all this time -10 years next month, can you believe it? - and you don't talk about 'that'. I can only help you with your dysmorphia because that is the only issue you have shared with me in our sessions"

"I know" Camilo said while he put his hand behind him and looked to the side, avoiding his stare again "it's just-it would take like, eh, a couple of days to talk about it. It's just, it's too long of a story to tell in a session"

"You know that's an excuse"

"Fine"

"Fine?" Doctor Massey said, inching forward on his chair.

"Fine, I'll tell you" said Camilo reluctantly "After all, I chose to tell you when I chose to stop the pills. How long do we have today and where do I start?"

"We have time, at least 3 hours if it were that lengthy of a story since-"

"See?" Camilo said, almost chuckling, "I haven't even started and you already decided that you're not gonna believe me"

"I didn't mean it like that." the doctor claimed slowly, yet his voice didn't sound as an apology and instead as a fact "let's start with what you did tell me, shall we?" he flipped the pages in the folder and stopped in the first handwritten part of the files.

"You said you were with some school friends in your previous residence -this was almost a year before coming here and about a month passed before your mother decided to get you help- and you were playing some videogames, your… your previous doctor didn't make much note of which one, but the next second, you were crying, screaming, hitting some of them and locking yourself in your room for about 2 days, according to your notes."

"Yes. I remember how much of a dick I was in that precise second"

"Stop being like that, I'm not judging or blaming you"

"It sure feels like it when you say it that way. Is that all it says there? I remember mom said a few other things that 'qualified' me for the treatment"

"Now you're just doing it on purpose"

"You got me" Camilo exhaled deeply as if taking a bit of space to run away "listen, Andrew-"

"We're dropping the titles now, then."

"If I'm gonna tell you the truth, you sit, you listen, you take notes, and then you come with snide comments, ok?" He sneered at him "I'm pretty much 100 years old by now, I can and will call you Andrew if I so fucking please. I'm older than you, kid… sorry 'bout cursing."

The doctor was taken aback by the sudden change in demeanor in the young man, it was as if it was a different person altogether, and the most impressive part of all was that it seemed as the truth, there was something in the change, and the way he started speaking that practically screamed that it wasn't child's play anymore and that Camilo would finally show who he really was and what really happened to him that day.

The doctor didn't let it show, but he was anxiously waiting for what had been the longest a patient had taken to open up to him, to finally being able to help the child that, so far, he had diagnosed with a very well hidden semblance of PTSD, body dysmorphia, and depression, a combination that would probably have ended in a horrible event in the case of any person, yet, the man in front of him, not only dealt with it, but he had kept the symptoms under check, and, overall, to the minimum.

Of course, Camilo had had many episodes of panic and anger besides the one that they just mentioned, and many of the sleeping issues he claimed to have were because of his combination of disorders, but he was 'controlling himself' better than many others with just one of them. This was unusual, borderline impossible to do, given the chemical cocktail that his brain produced, and even so, it was not easily detected, even Doctor Massey didn't diagnose the first of them until the 6th or 7th month of treatment.

"Ok, I'll play along, Camilo. Tell me what happened that day: why were you screaming 'they saved me, and they died for me'?"

"That's easy: My lifelong friends pushed me into a dimensional breach just before they were wiped out by an ancestral god that went cuckoo in the head"

"Uh…. You'll have to explain that a little better" Camilo's tone was so casual that he wasn't sure he'd heard right, if he did hear correctly, it meant that the diagnosed issues were just the tip of the iceberg and there were underlying problems far beyond the help of medication and specialists. "These 'lifelong friends'… are they the ones playing videogames with you?"

"Kiltha no, those were people that I knew, my friends are other people"

"'Are'? Didn't you say they were 'wiped out'?" Andrew was taking notes with his pen as fast as he could without looking desperate, dissociation? Maybe, there should be more if he keeps talking, let's probe a bit more, he thought while looking at him "It's kind of a contradiction, don't you think?"

"That's the fun part. I have to believe they are alive." The emotions of Camilo seemed like a rollercoaster, he was now on the verge of tears, just after he had been so nonchalant "If they died… I'll be completely alone in every world"

There! Doctor Massey's brain exclaimed, having pretty much arrived at a new diagnosis in just under 20 minutes of talking. 'every world', that means he thinks, no, he believes there's more than one, and that he's been to another. He's delusional as well, I need to see how deep his delusion goes, is it a hallucination? Maybe a response to trauma?

"Ahem!" Camilo's voice made him snap out of his thoughts "Andrew, you already got a diagnosis, don't you? Let me guess… schizophrenia, right? You should really listen to your patients; here I thought that you were a doctor who cared."

"I haven't said a word. Besides, schizophrenia wouldn't fit with you," Andrew claimed, nonchalant, while he tried to steer him back to his tale "after all, you do know what's real and what's not. Please, go on, when you mean 'every' world, how many are we talking about?"

"you think I'm nuts already, it's all over your face. Listen, if you want, we can just get this over with, you give me the prescription, and we'll go back to our lives. Of course, that'll mean that no one in this world will see me again"

"Now, now," he said, dismissing him for a moment "let's not be rash ok?" the doctor tried to sound calm, but he was worried, had he accidentally pushed his patient in the wrong direction? "why do you think that no one will see you again? Do you think your family would be happy with you gone?"

"Oh Andrew, you keep jumping to conclusions… I'm not gonna kill myself, some would say I'm too much a coward for that. 'sides, I already talked it with mom, she knows I'll be gone sometime soon."

"Then what are you going to do?"

"I'll go back to my world, even if it takes me years, I'll get there, find them and save them all. Or just get to the after party. There's a few things I need to confirm before I search for them"

Camilo took his bag and put it on top of his legs, taking some papers, notebooks and a map, as well as some newspaper snippets and spread them on the desk organizing some of them as if he'd memorized their positions "if you want you can read those notebooks wile I talk, they have some basics of the world"

"The other one?"

Dr. Massey flipped through the pages of the first one before coming back to the first written page. It had the first few pages torn apart, that, left a gap between the cover and the first page, which had in turn a very scribbly handwriting and a few smudges here and there.

"'they can't have died' huh? Also 'Kiltha kept info from us' 'my hand is no longer… blue?' 'I don't feel our… chat? Anymore', what is all of this? And since when did you have this? Why didn't you or your mother brought it with you when we started?"

"Perfect, you can read some spanish! Mom didn't know, and that's what I did when I locked me in my room, excuse me, when I locked myself, can you help me with my grammatical errors? They're becoming a bit more usual since a few weeks ago."

"I don't know, it would take time for that"

"Oh, ok. Anyway, it's not really important, just some bit of ramblings, theories and stuff, but it could help explain some stuff I talk about. Look, here" Camilo moved a few pages ahead and touched the page with a drawing on it "it's really crude, but it's a base to know how that guy looks, Menefar, I think his name is."

"God of… order? Why? Uhm, you said you and your friends were killing this thing?"

"Yeah, he's actually real nice and stuff, usually the most inactive of them, and the second to last that we were gonna kill, the last one was Kiltha. And we would be over. For a while"

"Ok, ok, ok, rewind it. Before… all of this, tell me how did it start"

"I don't really remember the start, start, but I remember floating like 10 cm, um…3 or 4 inches in the air in a room full of what I hope were people at the time, there's a drawing of it in the last page"

The doctor turned to the end of the book, in it was a drawing of a humanoid figure with a very big head floating in the center of the page, surrounded by figures that looked like melted candles, some had a cloak over their heads, but a few of them were on fire from what seemed to be the shoulders and above. They were unevenly placed around the humanoid, with most of them behind. In the corner was something that looked like a bird view, the figures still didn't have a recognizable shape, nor they were distributed in a pattern, at the back cover was etched the word 'fuckers' in what seemed to be a pen, the same that was used to draw.

"Anything to say about this?"

"I was angry? Well, it was more of a neumonic"

"You mean Mnemonic?"

"That thing, yeah, anyways, that's not important. Look, I'm no Picasso but I think you can get the general idea of the situation from there"

"I do, this seems like those things in movies where someone does magic."

"Sure, why not? So, a few weeks later I found out that they were the ones that called me there, to Jilemia, somewhere in the Balk mount, but as years passed by, I never found that place again. Anyways, they started talking and stuff, and then put me in a blue bubble and everything went black for like a couple of days, I think."

"Ok, a quick pause, what does 'culo' and 'can… canion' and 'aji' mean?"

"'ass', cañon means 'canon' surprised you didn't catch that one, and 'aji' is a chili pepper"

"You are quite… creative. Who's-"

"I'm on it. A few days later after being in what I call Uranus' ball sack, I was 'gently' pushed out through it and through a few walls, and also through a bunch of soldiers and mounts until someone stopped me, the guy there," Camilo said, his talking was fast-paced, sluggish and it didn't seem to care about possible questions from whoever he was telling it to. Andrew noted that Camilo wasn't even looking at him, but at the map in front of them, "pushed me aside and swept his hand, blowing up half the crowd in front of him, his name's Elkoala and ran the army for-"

Doctor Massey snorted and then laughed for a while, there was a monumental discrepancy between the drawing and the name. Most of the time, he thought, if someone was delusional they would have names that would seem appropriate to their delusions, 'Elkoala' was pretty much an animal name, and the creature drawn on the notebook was some sort of humanoid, emanating sort of blue lines from the simple-looking helmet and the tiny openings in the plate armor, two and a half burly arms, one protruding from his back, but certainly nothing about him called the image of a koala to mind.

"Look, Camilo, it's getting difficult to believe you when you're just spouting this kind of things. How do you expect me to think something other than delusions when you show me these things? Yes, this notebook is all stained in the first pages; I will believe you when you say you were still crying while you drew this. And I reckon that there's obviously a lot of anger projected here, but you must recognize that you have a problem."

"Oh yeah, I do, but it has nothing to do with delusions. I guess we're done then? I mean, I can go on talking, but there's no point in that. Quick question though, this building has a basement?"

"It does," Doctor Massey shifted in his chair, and looked at Camilo briefly, reaching for his cup "but you are not allowed there, if you're thinking about getting yourself there, for whatever made up reason you have"

"Funny way to imply that I'm going to get there, see this point on the map? It's this building, and if I'm right I assume that there's an odd occurrence in there, keys getting lost, finding things that shouldn't be there. Stuff like that, right?"

"I don't know, and you're being weird, do you want to explain?"

"if that's true, then I know where to go if I want to start my return to Yi-intakael, so nice talking to you, if anyone asks you can give them those notebooks and the papers and the map. If I manage, I'll come say hi later, if not, well, then I'll be spending my life where I belong, see ya." Camilo stands up and disappears before Doctor Massey has any time to react, leaving him there, with his hands full and a strange feeling in his gut.

"Madeline," claimed Doctor Massey through his phone "could you please call the janitor here for a couple of minutes?"

"Of course, doc, Camilo left in a hurry, is everything ok?"

"Yeah… yeah, listen, I also need to know when Doctor Carabalí is free, so we can chat"


"Did everything come out as you wanted Cami?" Sandra called out from the living room towards the door, she was watching an art show and was following along the instructions, her drawing was a bit off from the sample, but had brighter colors "Food's ready when you want, by the way."

"It… it went… y'know, it's what happens when I say I was trying to kill a god."

"Ooh, you started there… you probably should've waited a bit before you went there… you still wanna go back?"

"…" Camilo looked at his mother sadly, she had accepted his reasons, and believed him, and it hurt him to be so selfish "I want to… Mom they're my friends, my… my other family."

"I know negrito, and I know you don't want to leave me, but don't worry about me."

"But I do, mom, I don't want you to feel like I replaced you, you know that, right?"

"Of course, I do. If you replaced me you'd have a cleaner bedroom without me saying it four hundred times, right?" Sandra let out a hearty laugh, but Camilo could hear some sadness beneath it, and it was what hurt him the most "anyway, Stewart something called again, he said he left you an e-mail about the blueprints"

Camilo nodded and went upstairs to his room, he dropped his bag and sat in front of his desk, tapping absentmindedly on the table while his computer loaded, his thoughts were coming and going quickly without focusing until they stopped on a single question.

Why did I want him to know?

And so, his mind was flooded, there was no need for him to know, his mother would cancel his appointments and that would be the end, he would move on onto another patient and keep doing his job, this time, with people who would take his meds.

"oh right" Camilo took the tiny bottle in his desk and took an even smaller pill from it, this would help him later when he went to sleep to keep himself from dreaming, it was something from a natural medicine shop that was well known in his previous home and his aunts kept sending them every couple of months. His computer finally loaded and he opened his mail. On it was the one his mother mentioned, asking for some minor changes to the first floor. Since it was nothing too radical, he opened the blueprint and started working on it.