He awakens to the sounds of people yelling and sirens wailing.
Where is he? How did he get here? Why is he so cold?
He glances around groggily, and sees Jason sprawled across the grass to his left. He struggles to reach for him, but he's just so cold! He only sits up a few inches before someone shouts his name.
"Gregory! Guys, over here!"
Before he knows it somebody's grabbing him, and there's a blanket around him, and people yelling in his face. He thinks they might be asking questions, but he just shakes his head.
Somebody says something about 'keeping him warm' and before he knows it he's falling asleep again.
He wakes, and he's in a really white room. He's not so cold anymore, and there are thin, scratchy blankets around him. He pushes them off and sits up.
There are people in the room, but not as many as he remembered seeing around him the last time he woke up.
He spots his parents and tries to call for them, but nothing comes out. He clears his throat and tries again.
Before he gets the chance, his mom notices that he's awake and runs to his side.
"Greg! Oh, Gregory, I'm so happy that you're awake! We were so worried about you!" She continues talking like that and hugging him really hard and he hugs her back because he's happy to see her.
He wonders where Wirt is, why he isn't here with them, but is interrupted before he can ask.
"Oh, sweetie, you must be thirsty. Here, drink some of this."
His mom hands him a glass of water, and it's cold against his hands that have just barely warmed up. He drinks it anyways, because his throat did actually hurt, and when he's done he smiles and hands it back.
"How are you feeling, honey? Are you cold? Should we get you some more blankets?"
He shakes his head, and remembers Wirt.
"Mommy, where's Wirt at?"
Behind his mom, he hears some of the people in the room murmur. Some gasp, some whisper, and his dad makes a funny noise. His mom, though, just goes really white.
"Greg, sweetie, do you remember what happened? Do you remember what you and Wirt were doing?" She tries to smile, and he mistakes it for a real one.
He briefly wonders why she didn't answer his question, but he quickly forgets as he remembers the Unknown and Beatrice and the Beast.
"Oh, yeah! We were in the woods, and we were looking and the man with the axe and the lantern found us and he told us about the Beast! Then there was a dog and we thought it was the Beast but it actually wasn't and also we met Beatrice. And—"
His mother cut him off, more concerned about why we Greg and Wirt were in the freezing water in the first place.
"That's nice, sweetheart, but do you remember what happened before that? Why you and Wirt went over the wall and into the water?"
Before he can answer, a woman—his neighbor, he thinks—runs into the room and yells
"They've found something!"
His mom and dad both gasp really loudly, and, after his mom says sorry for leaving, they run out of the room and leave him with the people still in there.
He recognizes Sara the Bee and Jason Funderberker so he says hi, and they walk over to his bed.
He asks them why he's lying in a bed, and why it's not his bed, and why the room is all white, and why there are so many people, and where Wirt is, and where did his frog Jason Funderburker go, and they try to answer as many questions as they can.
"Well, right now you're, um, in the hospital, because when you got out of the river you were really cold. They put you in here to make sure you're okay…" Sara awkwardly begins to explain to him everything that she knows, except about where Wirt is.
He wakes up the next day, sometime in the afternoon, maybe, or at least later than he usually gets up. He sees only his father, sleeping in a little chair on the other side of the room.
"Hey, Daddy? I'm hungry."
This wakes his dad from his slumber, and slowly he begins stirring. Suddenly, Greg remembers that he didn't get to ask Sara about Wirt again before he fell asleep.
"Hey there, Greg. How're you doing? You feeling any better?"
"Daddy, where's Wirt?"
His dad makes the same noise as last night, all choked up, and gets really white just like how his mom did last night.
"I think we should wait until Mom gets back to talk about Wirt, okay? Why don't I grab you something to eat, does that sound good?"
Greg nods.
His dad looks really sad and tired.
It's a little while later, and Greg has already finished eating, and for some reason he and his dad didn't really talk much after that. His dad got up a couple of times and left for a few minutes, probably because he had to pee or something.
One time, he comes back and Greg's mom is with him, and also some man that he thinks he recognizes as Wirt's old dad. He sits in the chair in the corner of the room, and he looks like he's been crying.
Greg's mom walks up and sits on the side of Greg's bed. She looks like she's been crying, too.
His dad stands next to her and hold her hand really tightly, and her hand gets really white like her face did the night before and like his dad's face did earlier.
"Hi, Mommy, hi, Daddy. Why are you sad?" He doesn't sound as happy as normal, and he knows that there's probably a reason to be sad if his mom has been crying.
"Hi, Greg. Good morning." He mom wipes her eyes and tries to smile for a moment.
"But it's afternoon, silly!" He laughs, forgetting, for a moment, how sad she looks.
"Oh, of course. Silly me, I forgot what time it is." She tries to laugh, but it sounds kind of wrong.
They sit in silence for another minute while he fiddles with his blankets.
"So, Greg, you asked where Wirt is, right?" His dad tries, looking really sad and uncomfortable.
He nods, looking up to try and meet his dad's eye. His dad is looking at the floor.
"Well, sweetie, when we found you next to the river last night, you were really cold and you wouldn't wake up. That's why we brought you to the hospital, remember?" His mom takes over, struggling to keep her voice from shaking.
"Yeah, I was really cold and people were really loud and then I went back to sleep again. Silly me." He nods again.
He would be confused about what this has to do with where Wirt is, but he's already distracted by this seemingly-unrelated train of thought.
"Well, Wirt was also in the water. Remember when you and Wirt went over the garden wall and into the water? You ended up getting out of the water, we guess, but Wirt was still mostly in the water, and he was further away from us, so it took us longer to find him."
He guesses that makes sense, but he doesn't remember getting out of the water. He remembers waking up wet, but sitting on the grass.
He says so, and his parents nod and his mom starts crying again.
"That's okay. It means the Wirt probably pushed you out the water to keep you from getting too cold, but he must have—must've…" She pauses to take a shuddering breath.
"He must have fallen back into the water, because when we found him, he was further down the river and he was still lying in the water. You remember how cold it was, right?"
He nods vigorously, thinking about how he was so cold he could barely move until someone put a blanket around him.
"Yeah, I was really really cold. I tried to grab Jason Funderburker, but my arm didn't want to move until someone gave me a blanket and helped me get warm."
"Well, it was a good thing we found you when we did, because the longer you stayed wet and without a blanket, the colder you got. But it took us a lot longer to find Wirt…" She stops and begins to sob.
Greg's dad offers to take over, but she shakes her head and wipes her eyes dry.
"When… when we found him, he was—he…" she takes a moment to compose herself.
"He was really cold. Even colder than you were, because he had been outside and in the water for a lot longer."
"Wow, he must've been really cold, then, because I felt freezing when I woke up!" He responds, still not grasping the severity of the situation.
His mom nods; she would normally smile at a comment like that, but she can't force her face into such a deceiving grimace right now. He finds it odd that she doesn't.
"Yep, he was really cold. So cold, actually, that when we found him, he couldn't wake up. We put blankets on him to try and get him to warm up, but no matter what we did he wouldn't wake up. So we brought him to the hospital, to see if they could help him like they helped you. But even after a few hours, he still couldn't wake up. And then…" She can't go on, she can't say it.
Instead, Greg's dad places his trembling hand on Greg's shoulder, and grips it just a bit too hard.
"I'm sorry, Gregory, but Wirt's gone. He isn't coming back."
"You mean, he's not gonna wake up? Ever?" Greg is a little confused. He kind of knew what 'dead' was, because one time he had a fish and it died, and he hadn't seen it since then.
"No, he's not. I'm sorry." At this point, even he and his dad are crying, and his mom is sobbing in his father's arms. He hugs both of his parents very hard, and watches as the other man stands and prepares to leave the room.
"It's okay…" He thinks of the Unknown, and of Beatrice, and of Ms. Langtree, and Lorna, and Quincy and Marguerite, and the Woodsman, and somehow he smiles, even though he knows he's going to miss Wirt.
"He's in a better place now."