Cleared vision, he was no longer standing in the present. The world around him was indistinct, yet familiar–the sterile smell of antiseptic, the sound of rain against the window. He blinked, his pulse quickening as he began to understand where he actually is.
It was the hospital. The place where everything had shattered.
Felix couldn't move. His body felt weightless, as though he were suspended outside of time, an observer of his past. Forced to watch himself relive the darkest moment he had ever known.
There, in front of him, was himself–younger, desperate, breathless, running through the hospital hallways, rain mixing with tears. Felix's heart thudded painfully in his chest as he watched him stumble, crash against the walls, and race toward the end of the hall.
The moment he saw himself stepped inside, Felix Froze.
He could once again see his father lying, pale, lifeless in the bed. The sterile beeps, the only sound breaking the silence. Felix dropped to his knees, hands shaking–both past and current, reaching a body of a silent man lying in bed.
"Stop! It doesn't have to be like this."
Felix cried, looking at himself showing the same emotion towards one man. Felix could do nothing but watch himself fell apart, his chest heaving with sobs, his voice breaking with desperation. He cried out, pleading with no response.
"Please," Felix begged, his fists pounding against his chest.
It felt like an eternity of torment–watching his own suffering without the power to stop it. The grief and loss were consuming, an endless tide of despair. Bearing to relive...
Then... a voice–so soft, yet unmistakable.
"Felix..."
Felix turned, his heart racing. The voice came from somewhere in the room, gentle but firm.
"Felix," it said again, echoing through the hollow space.
Felix staggered back, a wave of realization washing over him. His father's death wasn't something he could undo. No amount of tears, no cry for help, could change the truth. The trial showing him the depth of his own unresolved grief, the way he had held onto the past without ever truly letting go.
Hear his father's voice lingered and resonated in Felix's, stirring inside him. The loss wasn't going away, the pain wasn't vanishing. But he understood: he didn't have to be trapped in the agony of the past forever.
"I can't move on... at least, I'll move along with you.
...Dad."
The room began to fade, the image of his father growing distant. Felix's stricken self–began to blur. Releasing its hold onto him. The agony lingered, but he have to move forward.

His body had endured too much. His knees buckled as the weight of his grief, the exhaustion of everything he had just lived through, took its toll. His head swam and his vision darkened at the edges.
He could barely stand.
Before he hit the ground, a steady hand gripped his shoulder.
Gerard's standing next to him with a calm expression but filled with the weight of what was endured.
"Felix," Gerard's grounding presence "...you did great, kid."
Felix's body gave way, and his mind spiraled into haze with a heavy eyelids, cradled against Gerard's strength.

••••••

Felix jolted awake, his breath sharp and uneven as though had been pulled from a nightmare. His heart hammered in his chest, and for a moment, his body refused. His hands shot out instinctively, pressing against the bed as if trying to steady himself, as though the world might collapse beneath him once more.
Everything was all too familiar and real. He blinked, his pulse racing. He wasn't in the mountain or the abyss. He wasn't stuck in the suffocating grip of grief.
Felix's body felt as if it had been stretched thin, his muscles sore, his mind still a haze from the torment he had just endured. But the sudden rush of reality slammed into him, pushing the remnants of the final trial.
He sat up quickly, his body swaying, panic clawing at him as the room spun.
"..."
The room around him was quiet, almost too quiet. Soft light filtered through a window, casting a warm glow on the wooden floors. It was... peaceful.
"Easy, fella." came a voice.
Felix whipped his head toward the sound. Gerard stood beside the bed, watching him with an unreadable expression. His calm presence seemed to anchor Felix in a way that nothing else could at the moment.
Felix's breath hitched. He wasn't sure if he was still dreaming, if everything had just been more twisted hallucination. His mind was frayed.
"The trials.. the past... I... I couldn't..." He swallowed, his through tight.
Gerard's gaze softened, though his face remained neutral.
"You faced them. You faced what you needed to. But you're not there anymore. You're here, Felix."
"Am I?"
Felix wanted to scream, he wants to burst, he wasn't ready to let go. He didn't know how to deal with grief, the weight of his own past.
But Gerard didn't push. He simply stood there, offering a steadying presence as Felix tried to breathe through the fog in his mind.