“Can you hear me, Ambrosius?” The Director called.

Somewhere in his mental fog, Ambrosius tried to snap to attention.

“Yes Director!” he responded.

“What’s wrong? Are you having another episode?”

Ambrosius took a deep breath, trying to focus. He was behind a desk in a waiting room. Nimona had gotten him here. At least, she’d gotten him here in his head. He knew Nimona wasn’t real, so if this wasn’t completely a dream, he must have hallucinated the morning’s events, in whole or in part. And apparently he’d escaped the psych ward in the process.

The Director’s voice came from around the far corner of the room.

“Put down the weapon and come out. No one’s going to hurt you.”

Ambrosius’s grip on the small crossbow tightened. Was The Director’s voice real? Or was it his brain playing tricks on him again? Everything around him had felt real, but so had his past day with Nimona, and that had been fake.

He looked down at Nimona next to him, still wrapped in electrified netting. She was still in a half-formed, dog-like state, twitching on the floor. He wanted her to be real. He wanted that more than anything. She was his link to a world where Ballister was innocent. Given the option, he’d choose it over cruel reality. If only…

“I want to get out of here.” He called over top of the desk. “Let me leave with Nimona. I won’t make any accusations. Just leave me alone.”

“Nimona? Your imaginary pink friend?” The Director replied, “Ambrosius, you have responsibilities to The Kingdom. You can’t be off playing make-believe with an imaginary monster!”

“She isn’t a monster!” Ambrosius had a knee-jerk reaction to the word.

“She’s consumed your mind - she’s a threat to who you are meant to be. If that isn’t a monster, what is?”

Ambrosius shuddered as he realized The Director was right.

Nimona, still twitching, looked up at Ambrosius with her single eye.

“dOn’t LiSten tO heR…” her voice came out guttural, almost like a growl.

The Director continued.

“Let it go, Ambrosius. Kill it if you have to. Think of your family - it’s what your father would have wanted.”

Ambrosius shut his eyes as a torrent of guilt washed over him. He’d avoided this topic in his therapy sessions for a reason. His father would have wanted a lot of things - things Ambrosius had failed at all his life. Expected to excel in classes? Ballister had been better than him. Expected to marry some blond-haired, blue-eyed woman? He’d fallen in love with a black-haired, dark-skinned man. The only expectation he’d ever actually succeeded at was keeping his hair bleached since childhood, and even that wasn’t by his own doing.

The Director’s voice broke into his thoughts.

“Kill the monster, Ambrosius. You were meant to be a hero, not a lunatic.”

Ambrosius couldn’t think. He could feel the disappointment weighing on him. So many failures. It didn’t matter how hard he tried. It just happened, piling on year after year. Now here he was, completely snapped. Withdrawing into his world with Nimona wouldn’t fix things. He wanted to be better. He didn’t want to keep failing. He needed to end this madness.

He looked at the crossbow in his hands. It was a knight’s weapon, and since he was a knight…

The electrified netting keeping Nimona down was only pulsing lightly now, but she was still too weakened to tear it off. The tip of the crossbow pressed against the side of her skull. Her single eye widened as she looked up at Ambrosius.

“nO…” she whispered, tears welling up in her eye. “pLease don’t be liKe thiS…”

Ambrosius closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. He didn’t want to do this. He wanted this hallucination to be over. He wanted to go home and take his meds and pretend this mess had never happened. He was good at pretending. Too good…

The sound of the crossbow going off resonated from behind the desk.

“It’s done.” Ambrosius called, voice heavy.

The Director was smiling now.

“Very good. Now place the crossbow on the desk and step away from it.”

Ambrosius stood on wobbly legs. He set the crossbow on the desk. The Director stepped around the corner.

“Come to me, child of Gloreth.” She said warmly, holding a hand out to him.

Ambrosius stumbled forward. The moment he took The Director’s hand, knights swarmed out from around the corner, charging past him, crossbows at the ready. Ambrosius glanced back to see them carefully surrounding the desk he’d hidden behind. Strange…

The Director pulled his hand to lead him away.

“Don’t mind them.”

A knight’s voice broke in.

“It’s gone!”

What was gone? The crossbow was still on the desk.

Another knight spoke.

“Seal off the area! We can’t let it get away!”

What were they talking about? It was almost as if…

The Director interrupted his thoughts.

“You’re seeing things again, Ambrosius. Come. Let’s get you help.”

Something in the back of Ambrosius’s head started going off. Hadn’t the Director acknowledged the knights’ existence a moment ago when she’d told him to ignore them?

Just then, the sound of wood splintering filled the room as something pink exploded from the desk, shattering it to pieces. Knights were knocked to the ground or flung against the walls as an enormous eel grew to fill the room,

The Director tugged on Ambrosius’s hand, trying to pull him away. Ambrosius wondered why she was in a hurry. It wasn’t like she could see his hallucinations…

The pink eel let off a burst of electricity, zapping the knights it had pinned down.

“How do you like them apples?!” Nimona grinned.

She turned to the solid window at the side of the room and rammed her head against it. The glass shattered. Ambrosius smiled. As he’d hoped when he’d fired the crossbow into the floor behind the desk, Nimona had recovered from the net and was free, even if it all was just in his head. No one needed to know his imaginary friend was alive.

He turned back to The Director. She was looking past him, terrified. Ambrosius turned to see what she could possibly be looking at. The only thing there was Nimona…

Nimona shrank back down to a human and hurried to the gaping hole in the wall.

“Come on!” she gestured to Ambrosius.

The Director’s grip on his hand tightened.

“Ignore her.”

Ambrosius blinked.

“Ignore… who?” He looked from The Director to Nimona and back again. They were definitely looking at each other. “Can you see her?”

“No.” The Director said flatly, trying to keep the edge out of her voice.

That was an obvious lie. Ambrosius loosened his grip on The Director’s clinging hand. Either he was flat-out dreaming - and no one needed to know what happened in his dreams - or Nimona was really there. And it didn’t matter which was true, he knew what he wanted.

He yanked his hand from The Director’s grip and made a stumbling dash towards Nimona. Nimona grabbed his hand and they both hurtled through the window, shards of glass slicing at them as they pushed through. Leathery wings sprouted from Nimona’s back as they went into freefall. She grabbed Ambrosius before going into a dive, gathering speed before shooting off between buildings, leaving the hospital far behind.

The Director stood in the open hole in the hospital wall, watching the duo disappear from sight. She turned to the knights sprawled around the room who were just beginning to recover themselves.

“Find them.” The Director said bitterly. “Nobody rests until they’re found and that monster is slain!”