We woke up the next morning, still hurting, but a bit less now.
"We effed up bad." I said, not wanting to look up.
"Ron," said Donovan, "don't beat yourself up for this- it wasn't your fault!"
"There was more we could have done!" I exclaimed, "We let the remainder of our team down!"
"No," responded Donovan, "we did just about all we could."
"How can you say that!?" I exclaimed.
"That man is relentless, and a truly evil one too." answered Donovan.
"I… why… how could this have happened!?" I reacted.
"I already told you that there wasn't much you could do."
"It's just… *sniff*… we may have lost everyone for good this time."
"I believe I heard something about the deceased returning to our world in your previous adventures though."
"With all the worlds coming together… *sniff*… we don't know what's going to happen."
"They're already dead. Nothing we can do will change that."
"Yeah, you're right."
"Your behavior right now is contradicting something you once told me."
"It… *sob*… it is?"
"You once told me you wouldn't get so worked up when people died, because death is a natural part of life."
"I… I… said that?"
"Yes."
"It's just all the others I've known in my life who died, I didn't know as well as the rest of our team."
"It's alright. You'll get over this in time."
"I sure hope so, but what are we going to do about our quest? Jeff is far ahead of us."
"Luckily, I managed to snag Jon's whistle, so we can try to teleport to him."
"But we don't know where he is! …Or how to stop him! We don't have enough!"
"No, Ron, there is hope."
"What do you mean?"
"A small amount of hope, but it's still there!"
"Please tell me what you're getting at."
"Something was off about Jean and Jeff."
"Something seemed weird to you about them?"
"Surely you noticed too."
"Hmmm?"
"Their fight!"
"Ah!"
"I wasn't convinced. I'm entirely sure that they weren't actually trying to kill each other."
"So you're suggesting-?"
"Something happened in the past to cause them to do their fake fight, meaning Jean's death might have also been fake."
"I'm not sure what would cause something like that…"
"From this, we know those two are connected somehow."
"Like, maybe he was her math teacher at one point?"
"That's a possibility."
"Well, finding her won't be an easy thing to do. We have to figure something out!"