saw Darkouls sitting down drinking some drink, so I headed to see if he wanted to talk. I went over there, tapped on his shoulder, and he pulled another chair over for me to sit in so I could hear what he had to say, "Kid, if they only knew what you've been through, they'd just leave you alone, but I know why you won't fight back." I asked him in hushed tones, "Hey, was that what you were doing with that goat? And do you think the others are still alive and looking for me?" Yeah, that was my doing because of all of those years you couldn't fight back; I thought that type of person deserved it," he said boldly, "because of all of those years you couldn't fight back." I started shaking my head in agreement with what Darkouls said, and I looked over at him, asking him one more question before I woke up. "Hey, Darkouls, are you putting these dreams inside my head, or is it my brain playing tricks on me?" As he grabs another bottle over the counter and pulls the top off, he begins pouring while explaining what they are. "Five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, eighteen, eighteen your mind is doing this because of all the drama you've been through, and there is nothing I can do to stop it. Can you promise me one thing, Kid? When your life is in danger, you don't have to use me, but please fight back, not for yourself but for them. OK, please." I yelled at Darkouls, "What if I'm not strong enough to fight back? I don't want to fail the others if I don't win." He put both hands on my shoulders. I met his gaze. Still, his eyes were different this time. "Trust me, kid, when the time comes, you're not going to fail because when times get tough for you, you still protect the ones that you love." He left me to go. I asked him one more question before the time ran out: "Dark Souls, are you the one giving me these nightmares, or is that something that is haunting me from my past?" He looked away right as I was being brought back. I can hear him say, "I see them as well, kid," so I pulled my head up from my desk. I look in front of me and see a woman worried about me. I feel something wet on the desk. I checked my mouth to see if it was drooling. I took a quick look around the room; I could tell they were hiding something from me, but they didn't want me to know what it was. The teacher interrupted the lesson with a concerned voice, "Marcus, who is fifty-seven?" The woman in front of me answered the teacher, "That was the answer for the last question on the math test." I can tell by the way she answered the question quickly that she was concerned about me. The teacher continued, but I could tell by the way he slowly turned back to the blackboard that he was confused. I whispered to the woman in front of me, "Thanks for that." She handed me a note. As I grabbed the note, the bell rang out, and the teacher shouted over the bell, "Don't forget the homework—a 45k-word essay on world history." As we started walking out of the classroom, the woman in front of me grabbed me by the arm and started pulling me outside for some reason. I could tell by the pace of her steps that it was something urgent. As we head south of the building, I hear whispers like "there must be love problems." We get outside, where nobody is around, and she looks at me with a fire in her eyes. "I know who you are, but it took me some time to realize it, Five!" I was stunned, trying to find the right words to say in this situation. I took a deep breath and asked the female, "How do you know my real name?" She started to chuckle out loud, almost causing her to choke on it, and she started to take off her top, revealing how she was. As the top slowly lowered, I started to cry when I saw what she was keeping a secret: on her right shoulder blade was the mark of fifty-eight. She turned back around, looked me dead in the face, and asked, "How did you make it? And why was it you?" I was stunned at the fact that she had been gone for so long. She began punching me while tears streamed down her face, and her faint, cold voice echoed back, "Why was it you? do you know what it was like knowing that you tried playing the hero, but nobody asked you to? "Those words hit me in the gut like a piece of barbed wire. She threw me to the ground and stood over me; I could tell she didn't want me to be alive. I asked her one thing while getting back to my feet. But before I could say anything to her, she stopped me, saying, "I was in a flood fighting for my life, but I couldn't escape because I was drowning, but fifty-seven appeared in front of me, and she promised me a better life." She grabbed her book bag and threw it at me with great force as she started walking away from me. I shouted before she left, "You don't think I don't know what you've been through. I would trade my life with everyone, but I couldn't. Before I got to this world, the numbers helped me, but they fought with everything they had to help me. "She didn't come to a halt; instead, she struggled with her shoulder and continued walking in the same direction. I just stood there in fear of what had happened to fifty-eight and grabbed the book bag that had fallen off me during the fight between me and fifty-eight.