I felt my claws bump against the bottle. I tried to angle my body to fit more of my arm into the narrow cabinet, but my next attempt just knocked the bottle over. It fell on its side and rolled further out of my reach, then made a 'clink' sound as it bumped against the back of the cabinet.

I slunk lower to the ground and pressed my head against the wall beside the cabinet.

The world beyond my closed eyes suddenly grew a little brighter. "Joy? Is that you? Is everything okay?"

My best friend's voice sounded groggy, like she had only just woken up. I slowly opened my eyes and arched my neck enough to look behind me. My wings were already dragging on the ground, and past them I could see Steffie standing at the doorway to her room with one hand still on the lightswitch. She was wearing her nightgown, and without her sweater I could clearly see a bandage over her arm. She seemed confused as she looked into the kitchen – she must have gotten out of bed and come to check on the noises I had made earlier.

Did she know...?

I felt my wings start to shake again even as I thought the question.

Of course she knew.

"What are you doing in the kitchen this late?" Steffie's hand fell from the lightswitch as she started walking towards me. "If you're looking for the cake, it's in the fridge. It's really too late for you to be eating, but if you're hungry, you can have a snack just this once. I know you had a rough day."

"S-steffie... d-don't..." I felt myself start shaking again, and I pulled my tail and legs in closer. My voice wouldn't stop trembling, and the difficult sounds felt even clumsier as I tried to force my mouth to make them. "D-don't fome any closer... I don't fant to huwt you..."

"Hurt me? You wouldn't hurt me, Joy... what's wrong? Did you have another nightmare?" My caretaker walked towards me and stretched out her hand – just as she had done dozens of times before, when she wanted to comfort me with a hug or a pat after one of my nightmares.

But all I could see was the red cut hidden beneath the bandage.

Just like the awful scars running down Doctor Jean's arm.

Just like the scars that had been cut into who knew how many others.

I jerked on the floor and tried to get away, flailing my wings and tail as I tried to move on the stone floor... but my arm was still inside the cabinet, and all I ended up doing was scratching the floor a few times before I fell back down in a shivering heap. It had been enough to warn Steffie off though – she had flinched and taken a startled step back from me, leaving me alone in the kitchen. I pulled my wing back in and tried to hide my body beneath it. "Pwease... just stay away."

"Joy, what is it?" The confusion and grogginess on my friend's face was giving way to a look of concern, and she began looking around the room. "Come away from the cabinets. Tell me what's upsettin..."

Her gaze settled on the tablet I had thrown against the wall. It was lying where it had landed and had a huge crack through the middle of the screen, but it was still lit up. I could still see the words on its screen, even if it was too far away to read clearly. I could still see the picture there.

I still knew what the words said.

I turned my head back to press it into the stone wall beside the cabinet. My horns scratched at the rock, but I could still hear Steffie walk across the room to pick up the tablet.

There was silence for several terrible seconds.

"Joy... Joy, w-whatever you're thinking... whatever dream or nightmare you had-"

I flung my tail against the far wall of the kitchen, smashing my spikes into the polished stone. "They aren't dweams, Steffie! They're... they're memories, aren't they? Things I used to be... fings I... I did..."

My head was still pressed against the cabinet, but I heard Steffie walk across the room again. Back towards her room. "No, Joy, that's not..." Steffie trailed off as I opened my eyes and stared at her. She had one hand resting on the strange box above the lightswitch, but her other hand was holding the tablet, and the horrible words that had been written on it. I stared at that hand as I felt more tears trickle over the scales of my face.

Just tell me I'm wrong... say it's not real... say it's a fake story some cruel person wrote, say my mind is just putting together things from tv shows, say it's all a lie, say... say something...

Steffie slowly closed her eyes and nodded. "Yes, Joy. They are your memories."

I turned away and bumped my head against the rock.

"Joy, you have to unders-"

"How many." A scraping sound underscored my words as I pressed my head into the wall and scratched it with my horns.

"How many... what?" Steffie's voice sounded a little closer.

I swished my tail along the floor to make sure she stayed away. "How many people. I can't 'member that part. Y-yet. How many did I hurt?" I bumped my head against the wall again. "How many people did I kill?"

"No, Joy, it wasn't you-"

"YES IT WAS!" I banged my head against the rock one more time, then swung my head around to stare at Steffie's arm. At the bandage on it. The cut beneath it. The cut I could remember causing with the spikes of my tail. Steffie had said I hadn't done it, had said I hadn't hurt her, had said I would never hurt her, right after I had just hurt her. It had all been a lie. A lie to protect me, a lie to comfort me, but still a lie. "It doesn't matter if I can't 'member! I'm still the one who... I saw the page! 'The MD Killings', like the scars. My name is there! T-twice!"

Steffie took a step back, but I continued glaring at the tablet. "I-I'm remembering again... pictures of dead people. The trial. The evidence. What all t-those people said about me. What Dok Tor..." The anger at being lied to faded back into guilt and horror, and my throat tried to close up, but I refused to let it. I pushed the fragmented memories of the dreams out past my sobs. "W-what she said about me... a-about what I did to her sister, a-about what s-she would do to m-me. All the pain, so much pain, w-when... w-when she... s-she had me in a glass cage, a-and everything hurt, it all hurt so much, a-and I remember it, I get to fweel it again at night, b-but..." I shook my head again, remembering the horrible scars on the doctor's arm, and felt more warm tears. "I d-deserved it, didn't I? All of it. All of that w-was... a-and it's still not enough. It can't make it right."

I thought of the distorted picture I could still remember from the dream. All the bruises and cuts on the body of some poor woman I couldn't even remember the name of now.

I leaned back into the cabinet and tried to reach for the bottle again. I felt my claws click against the glass, and I rolled it towards me.

"Joy... Joy, what are you doing?" Steffie's voice was suddenly much closer. Something else broke inside me at the sadness in it. "What are you looking for in the cabinet?"

I pulled the bottle free of the cabinet and clutched it against my chest as I half-turned to let Steffie see it. My vision was blurry from the tears, but I looked up to see Steffie standing a few steps away. She had gone pale, and she had tears of her own on her cheeks as she watched me. I carefully tilted my hand to show her the glass bottle. "Medifine."

A new fear suddenly came into my caretaker's eyes as she took another step towards me. "Joy, give me the bottle."

I shook my head as I turned back away from her, staring down at the bottle instead. "I can't... you fere right... there's somefing bad in me. Really, really bad. I haf to get rid of it. This does that... right? If I frink it all... then the bad will be gone... the nightmares will stop... or..." My frills trembled at my neck as I remembered back to what Steffie had said about the medicine. "I-it's still poison..."

"Joy, sweetie, no, no, that wasn't what I was talking about... p-put the bottle down; you don't know what you are doing." She stepped towards me again, but I shook my head and took a wobbling step away from her. "Joy... that won't fix anything..."

The trembling in my wings grew worse, and I shook my head again in frustration. "Then what will? H-how can I fix... I can't even 'member it all yet, but it... it's so awful... and they... t-they... dey won't stop, dey just get worse and worse and worse..." I clutched the bottle closer, as if that could make it magically help, but the dreams didn't fade. I could still see the horrible moments and feel the horrible pain. "How do I make them go away? How do I stop seeing those fings? W-what am I going to hab to see next? How do I keep from seeing fings that are w-worse, o-or wake up without... without hurting you... I... I..."

I trailed off and tried to stop my sudden sobbing. The nightmares I could already remember were awful. But I knew these nightmares would be nothing compared to when I started remembering all the monstrous things I had done to deserve them. My legs were shaking, and it was suddenly too hard to stay standing. I let myself slump to the ground. The bottle of yucky purple liquid rolled out of my grip and across the floor as I pressed my head back into the ground.

Steffie was suddenly at my side. I felt one arm wrap around my neck in a hug while her other hand began rubbing behind my horns. "Shh... it's okay, sweetie."

"No it fisn't..." I tried to shift my wing to get it out from between me and my friend, but the trembling was too hard to control. "I remember so much..." I thought about the dreams, and they came back to me. No pounding in my head to distract me. No fuzziness to make it less real. Nothing but the clear memory of what had woken me up screaming the past nights.

"I tink about it, and I can hear what Jean said... fut she called me... m-murderer... rapist... h-how can that be okay? E-everyfing itches, I can feel it. Feel fings tearing, feel so hot, it hurt, I... I d-don't know which parf of the memories are worse, t-the pain, or the..." I closed my eyes and tried to shake my head... but the picture of the dead woman wouldn't go away.

Steffie's hands tugged on my neck and moved my head to rest in her lap. Her hand slowly brushed along the side of my neck as I broke down into sobs, while her other hand rested against the back of my head. Just between my horns, where the headaches always came from. "I'm sorry... I'm so sorry, Joy. It's okay. It's okay..."

For the longest time my friend held me while I cried and shook beside her.

"Joy..." Steffie's voice was barely a whisper, and she swallowed to clear her throat. "Joy, I... there is something. It will make the memories and the bad dreams stop. Just... just wait here a moment and I'll go get it, o-okay sweetie?"

Her arm started to relax from around my neck, and I felt the trembling in my wings grow stronger. "N-no... don't go..."

She squeezed me tighter and leaned down to press her forehead against mine, just in front of my horns. "It's okay... I'm just going to my room. It'll just be a minute, but then I'll be right back. And I'll have s-something that... it will make the nightmares stop."

"B-but..." Another sob choked off my words. I trembled for another long moment, then I nodded faintly. "C-come right back...?"

"I promise, sweetie." My friend stroked her hand over my nose, then slowly lifted my head out of her lap. She rose to her feet and gave my side one last comforting touch... then she moved to her room, walking quickly.

My body trembled on the floor as I sat alone in the kitchen. Steffie had dropped the tablet back on the floor at some point, and I stared at it, seeing the letters of 'MD Killings' stretching out past the crack in the screen.

Steffie finally came back out of her room, and she quickly crossed through the living room and kitchen to sit beside me. She set a syringe filled with a blue liquid down on the floor, then pulled my head back into her lap. "It's okay, Joy. I'm back. I won't leave you again."

I nodded, taking my eyes off the tablet as she began to stroke over my nose again. "F-fank you..." The trembling in my wings grew softer, but the shaking didn't stop.

"There's something... there's something in your head that stopped you from remembering. It had to be put in you as part of... it... all the dragons have it; they have to, or they don't survive. We knew your body would get used to it over time, and that it would stop being able to work on new memories, but we didn't think the memories it had erased would come back. But... it can..."

Steffie's hand shook a little as she stroked my nose. "There's a way to make it work harder for a little bit. It floods your brain all at once, instead of just being a trickle, and that... we decided not to do that to you, and it... It might not work as well now, after so long, but it... you... It will make you more like the others. Like Brutus, if you can remember him. You won't have any more nightmares. No more memories or bad dreams. You'll sleep through the night again, just like they do. You won't ever remember the pain again."

I stared at the blue liquid inside the syringe.

The booster shot from one of my nightmares. The one Doctor Jean had wanted to give me. The shot that she had said would make me forget everything.

All your memories, all your knowledge, all your habits. All wiped away.

A buzzing sound filled the room as the door leading outside was flung open. Doctor Jean burst into the living room and looked wildly around the room. She was holding something – the dangerous metallic device that I hadn't understood before, the same one used by the guards that had been in my nightmares. In my memories.

A gun.

"Stephanie, are you okay?! Your alarm is going o..." Doctor Jean paused as her eyes settled on me. Something flickered in her eyes, the way it always did when she looked at me, though now I finally knew what it had to be – hatred. Hate for what Mitchell – what I – had done to her sister. For whatever my accomplice must have done to her.

I looked away from her and stared at the syringe instead.

I didn't ever want to remember the horrible things I must have done to Doctor Jean's sister.

Doctor Jean followed my gaze. I saw her looking at the syringe from the corner of my eye... and I saw her raise the gun and point it towards us. "Stephanie, what are you doing with that?"

Steffie leaned towards the syringe and picked it back up. "It only does one thing."

"You can't do that." Doctor Jean shook her head and began slowly walking further into the living room. "You don't have to; I know her nightmares have been upsetting you, but we can figure something else out. You don't have to use that; we can make her nightmares go away again."

Steffie just looked down at the syringe. "Can you? Right now Joy is having one of the worst meltdowns I've ever seen. Her body must be flooded with adrenaline right now. But her head doesn't feel warm. She isn't holding it the way she does when her headaches get worse. Her memory isn't fading." My friend shook her head above me, then shifted to stare at Doctor Jean. "I was right, wasn't I? The gland won't work for much longer. If it's even still working at all."

Doctor Jean hesitated. "It... I'm still looking over the results..."

Steffie's voice was suddenly cold. "Do not lie to me, Jean."

There was a long moment of quiet before Doctor Jean finally nodded. "...yes. It shouldn't be happening this soon, but it is. The toxin levels were only barely elevated in the sample of blood I took during her panic attack back at the lab. Not giving her the booster must have meant the gland was working harder than it could handle. We didn't realize it would make this much of a difference, but... you were right. The Neffal gland is starting to break down. We'll need to remove it soon for her own safety."

Steffie looked back down at the syringe.

Doctor Jean took a step to one side, getting closer to Steffie. "Stephanie, put that down. Even if the gland has to be taken out, that doesn't mean things will get worse. And even if it does, we already said that wasn't an option, not now that we've seen what they can be without it. She doesn't deserve-"

"She?! You can't even say her name." I felt Steffie's arm tighten around my neck. "Don't you dare tell me what she doesn't deserve. 'It's not fair!' She is remembering, Jean! Not all of it, not yet, but enough – more than she should, more than anybody should ever have to remember! All the things you said to her. All the things you did to her. All the pain. Does Joy deserve that, Jean? Does she deserve to wake up in terror each night because of the nightmares you gave her?"

"She isn't the only one with nightmares!" Doctor Jean glared back at us, then used her free hand to roll her sleeve up past her elbow. My eyes were too blurred by tears to read the scars, but I knew what they spelled out – the initials of Mitchell Donnelly. "I've tried to help her-"

"You haven't done anything! You hide in your lab, and you come by for a check up so you can pretend you're doing something, but you're just hiding. You haven't been here when she wakes up at night screaming. You haven't been with her through a panic attack. You haven't held her when she's like this!" Steffie leaned back and motioned towards my head. "You haven't held her and dried tears in the dark. You haven't answered her questions. You haven't lied to her when she asks about all the horrible things she's started remembering."

She tilted her head up enough to glare at Doctor Jean. "You haven't told her everything would be okay when you knew it wouldn't be. Not while you watched her get worse and worse, and not while you knew there were even worse things still waiting for her. You haven't done squat."

My caretaker pointed the syringe up at Doctor Jean, though her hand shook as she held it out. "So don't tell me what I can and can't do! You haven't done anything, and you still can't do anything. But I can give her the booster now, before the gland fails, and then it's done. No more crying, no more headaches, no more waking up in the night screaming, no more-"

"No more Joy."

The arm holding the syringe faltered at Doctor Jean's cold words, and it dropped back to the ground as Steffie lowered her head to look down at me. I tried to meet her eyes, but the trembling in my body wouldn't stop. I could tell she was crying, but my own tears and shaking were too much to focus through.

"I am not like you, Jean." Steffie's voice was much quieter, and I could feel the sadness in it. "I am not like the other doctors. I was supposed to be an archaeologist. The creatures I work with should all be hundreds of years beyond pain, not waking up each night in terror at what was done to them. I can't... I can't just watch and do nothing while somebody is suffering. I couldn't do that when it was a convicted serial killer and rapist locked in a cell. And I certainly can't do that for Joy. Not for my friend. Not for somebody as sweet and innocent as her. Only a monster could sit back and do nothing while she has to go through all that." My friend's arm tightened around my neck again, and I felt her straighten up.

"You can't do this, Stephanie!" Doctor Jean's hand came up, pointing the gun above me. Everything was blurry from my tears, but I thought I saw tears on her face, too.

There was a horrible moment where nobody else moved. I shook on the floor, wings trembling, and tried not to make any sounds while the angry woman and my best friend glared at each other.

A sob escaped my throat and broke the silence.

My friend tensed and began moving her arm.

A sound somewhere between a bang and a whoosh came from the gun in Doctor Jean's hand.

Something fluffy and pink was suddenly stuck in Steffie's arm, and even through my blurry eyes I saw her eyes go wide. She started to move her arm again, bringing the syringe closer to me... then her arm slowed and started to fall to her side. "You... y-you monster..." Steffie's hand twitched as she started to move again, leaning towards me... then she slumped to the side, falling over onto the ground.

My wings froze as the trembling suddenly stopped. A strange feeling came over me, the same as what told me when to angle my wings for a dive or how to hold my tail in flight. A feeling that someone had just tried to hurt my friend, and in my cave. A feeling that said I could not allow that. The feeling pushed all my other worries aside, and I started to growl as I rose up to my shaky legs and moved towards Doctor Jean. She was doing something with the gun as she took a step away from me. I followed after her, putting myself between her and my friend, and spread out my wings to block her view of Steffie. "You hurt Steffie!"

Doctor Jean took another step back and put both hands back on the gun, pointing it at me as that hateful look filled her eyes. I stepped to the side, moving between Doctor Jean and Steffie to try and shield her better... and I yelped as I felt something sharp pierce through the scales on my back foot.

Another half-bang, half-whoosh sound filled the room.

A second piercing feeling came from my left shoulder, even as I started to feel a headache forming in the back of my head. I ignored the pain – the pain in my foot, the pain in my shoulder, the pain in my head – and rushed towards Doctor Jean, snarling in anger...

I made it three steps before my left arm gave out. I slipped on the floor and tumbled, landing on my side and sliding over my wing as my momentum continued carrying me. I slid to a stop in the middle of the kitchen, still several paces away from Doctor Jean. There was nothing left between her and Steffie.

I tried to stretch out my right wing to put it between the two humans, in case that might help... but my body wasn't responding the way it should have, and it was getting harder and harder to move.

And I was starting to feel sleepy, for some reason.

And the back of my head was starting to really hurt again, as the pounding that had been absent since I woke up began to return.

My eyelids slowly drooped shut... and a few seconds later, the headache vanished as I slipped into sleep.