Nowhere To Go But Up

Revival

The other four burst into the room upon seeing Magolor. He quickly wiped the tears from his face and turned to the others. "Oh, hello! I don't believe we've met. My name is-"

Elfilin cut him off. "You don't need to introduce yourself. I already know who you are!"

Magolor cast a sideways glance to Daroach. "This kid is scary."

The new face giggled. "I'm Elfilin. It's nice to meet you."

Daroach looked around the room that Magolor had been in. "What have you been doing in here?"

Magolor tilted his head in thought. "You know the last ten seconds of waiting for the microwave to finish heating up your food? Imagine that, but for a year and a half. ...Or, almost a year and a half. I may have forgotten a little bit of how time works. Also, I'm still not entirely sure where I am. Do any of you know?"

"Oh, man." Taranza tugged on his scarf. "How are we supposed to explain this to him?"

"If it's something abstract, give me a few hours to unfry my brain before you tell me. I'm not in the right mental state to hear something complicated. I didn't even notice until right now that Taranza's wearing my earpiece. By the way, that looks good on you."

As Taranza was internally screaming over everything that had happened in the last sixty seconds, Kirby nudged Elfilin. "Would he wake up now if we left?"

Magolor wasn't about to let that comment slip by. "Wake up? But I haven't slept in sixteen months!"

No one had a response to give before all the surroundings went up in a deep, endless white.

.- .-- .- -.- . -.

When vision returned, they were back in a world of colour. The real world. Magolor, on his bed, opened his eyes. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, what just happened? How did I get here? ...Damn, I'm starving."

"Uh, hold that thought." Daroach beckoned the other five out the door, where it slid shut. "Before we start actually talking to him, can we all agree that we aren't going to talk to him about anything we saw in his mind?"

Elfilin seemed to somehow get smaller. "Why not? All of that seemed like something he should definitely talk about."

Marx sat on the ground. "Won't work. King Dedede once assigned him a therapist and he went every week for two months just to say absolutely nothing for an hour and then leave. Eventually, the therapist ended up quitting!"

"Geez, someone should give him a hug or something."

Somehow, all five of the people outside who weren't Elfilin, even the Lor, managed to respond in unison. "He would hate that." They went back into the room.

Daroach strode right up to Magolor. "You've been asleep this entire time. Taranza and I found you in a crater after half of Halcandra exploded, and brought you here as soon as we could. For all that time, you were asleep right here."

"Huh. That makes a lot more sense than whatever I was thinking-wait, how did you guys wake me up?"

Taranza floated out of the study with a chair. "You told us to wait until you unfried your brain, right?" He put the chair next to Magolor's bed and sat down.

Magolor looked around for something that tells the time. "Guys, it's four in the morning. You all should really go to bed. I'll be fine, I promise." Somewhat reluctantly, they all left. All except... "You aren't leaving, Taranza?"

"I forgot to give this back." Taranza pulled the ring off his horn. "Also, I don't know if it's a good idea for you to be alone right now. You were basically in an insane asylum for a year and a half. Even if it's just me, someone should be keeping your mental state in check." He smiled warmly.