That evening, Emily and her two best friends sat in Maya's room, chatting about anything and everything. School, classmates, Maya's uncle Felix, Emily's boyfriend Tom – a subject she quickly changed. Emily struggled to focus on the conversation her friends were having. She couldn't stop thinking about all the things that made this world so incomprehensible for her: the boy in the drawing, the Others beyond the forest, people with... magical powers?

At one point she couldn't contain herself any longer and she said, "Hey guys, Eddy was telling me about the Others and how he hates them all... What's that all about?"

Maya and Dennis stared at her in surprise. Their conversation had been about something completely different. Emily knew this, although she couldn't remember what the topic had been before she so rudely interrupted them. Her friends glanced at one another, before Maya slowly said, "Well, of course he hates them. Everyone in town hates them."

A picture formed in Emily's mind of two groups of people, on the opposite sides of a massive field, shouting and screaming at one another. "But why?" she asked. "How can you hate an entire group of people? Surely they can't all be bad?"

Maya shrugged. "We've heard plenty of stories to assume they're all the same."

"What kind of stories?" Emily noticed that Dennis had purposely taken himself out of the conversation, pretending to check out one of Maya's magazines, his arms wrapped around his legs.

"Oh, you know, threats, things set on fire, people ending up in the hospital with the strangest of injuries..."

"But how do you know they're not all caused by the same person?"

"Because the others all have different powers," Maya explained. "One can set things on fire, while another has inhuman strength. I've even once heard of someone who got to the hospital with his hands frozen to death – literally – while there was nothing wrong with the rest of his body. The point is: people are being attacked by different types of powers and every Other has only one power. So it has to be many different Others that attack our town."

Emily stared at her hands, thinking this over. Maya did seem to have a point. Yet it still seemed wrong to blame these incidents on an entire group of people. "Do these kinds of attacks happen a lot?" she asked quietly.

"Pretty regularly," Maya nodded. "Everyone hates the Others, because everyone here in town knows someone, a friend or relative, who has been attacked by them."

"Even you guys?"

"Of course, even us!" Dennis suddenly said. "They chased away one of our best friends!"

Emily turned to face him with her eyebrows raised. "Do you remember Maya's mum saying there used to be four of us? Joshua was the fourth. When we were about seven years old, his dad got a death threat from the Others. They moved to the other side of the country, so that he was safe. We never saw Joshua again." Emily had not heard this bitter tone in his voice before. She had not seen him look so sad before. Apparently he still missed his friend a lot, even after all those years.

Maya chuckled softly and said, "You've still got us, you know."

"Yes, but now Emily has lost her memories, too. It's like we're being ripped apart, one by one!"

Maya stared at her friend, surprised at his sudden outburst. "It's like this town is cursed," Dennis continued. "I'm telling you, as soon as I'm allowed to live on my own, I'm out of here."

With a silent sigh, Emily shot another glance at the clock. Quarter past eleven. Could Tom have forgotten that he promised to come over? She did her best not to be irritated, but that got harder by the minute.

Next to her, Eddy was watching television. Emily didn't want to show her annoyance to him. She'd been staring at the screen with unseeing eyes for over an hour now, unable to concentrate. Her thoughts kept wandering to Tom and what could possibly take him so long.

Emily had been looking forward to seeing Tom again today. She felt like she hadn't given him a proper chance last time. She'd only seen him for ten minutes, and in that short time she'd gotten a way too negative view of him. That wasn't fair. He was her boyfriend, after all. There must've been a reason for that, right? Today he would stay longer and she'd be able to see what he was really like.

That is, if he actually showed up.

Another glance at the clock told her it was nearing half eleven. But this time she hadn't been discrete enough.

"Don't worry," said Eddy. "He's always late. He'll be here."

Emily smiled at him and focused on the television again.

To have something, anything, on her mind, she allowed her thoughts to wander to the boy on the drawing in her mattress. When she first saw it, she reckoned he must've been someone she didn't actually know. Maybe a celebrity, or a character from television. But now, it turned out he did know her personally.

Maybe he was one of those people Eddy had talked about. The Others? She still didn't really know anything about them. Eddy said they had some kind of magical powers.

The boy in the forest sure didn't seem to have any powers. He was just a normal boy. The only thing strange about him was the sadness in his eyes. Well, that and the fact that he went deeper into the forest when he left, instead of going back to where she came from. Where had he been going? Why didn't he go back to town, like her?

The more Emily thought about it, the more questions came up. She had to know who that boy was. She had to find out more. But she couldn't just ask. That drawing had obviously been hidden for a reason. She couldn't just take it out and show it to people. So how was she supposed to find out?

And then there was the matter of the Others. As convincing as Maya's reasoning was, it just felt wrong to put all the blame of those attacks on an entire community of people. Surely it couldn't be all of them. Could it? Emily wondered how she'd felt about this before her accident. Had she hated them, just like everyone else? Had she –

Her head snapped up when a loud shrill noise shrieked through the house.

"Told you he'd be here," Eddy grinned. He got up from the sofa and walked over to the front door. Emily stood up, too. She turned the television off while she waited for the men. She heard Tom talk to Eddy politely in the hallway, before they entered the living room. Eddy was laughing merrily about something Tom had said.

"Hi, Emily!" said Tom as he came inside. "I was just telling your dad about that match I have next Saturday. He's fine with driving you there. It's all arranged for you." He grinned satisfied.

"Oh, uh... Great," said Emily with a reserved smile. Great. I don't have a choice in the matter, she couldn't help but think. She shook the thought away and sat back down on the sofa. Tom came to sit next to her.

"Right then, I'll leave you two alone," said Eddy, grabbing his keys from the drawer.

"You're leaving?" said Emily.

"I've got to go get some groceries anyway," Eddy explained. "Might as well do that now. I'll take my time, give you two the house to yourselves for a while."

He waved and pulled the door shut behind him. Emily heard the front door open and close, as Tom sank back on the sofa. He clearly made himself at home here.

"So, what do you wanna do?" he said, repressing a yawn.

"Well," said Emily uneasily, "I was actually hoping you could tell me some things from before my accident. You know, things about us."

Tom's eyes narrowed slightly. "Hmm. Yeah, we could do that." He let his eyes glide through the room, until they stopped on the remote and brightened. "Or we could watch a film!"

Emily's jaw dropped. "What? No, Tom, I'm serious! You might be able to help me get my memory back. If you just... you know, try."

Tom hesitated, his hand floating above the remote. In the end, he sighed elaborately. "Fine," he said, with an almost audible roll of his eyes. "We'll play your little game for a while. What do you want to know?"

Emily could've screamed in frustration. Why was he being such an asshole? Why wasn't he the slightest bit interested in helping her? Did he not want her to get her memory back?

With the biggest effort, Emily pasted a smile on her face. "Well, I'd love to know more about our relationship. You know, things like, how did we get together? What kind of things did we do together? Just simple things."

Tom grimaced. "Those are very girly things, aren't they? Well alright then. Uh... We met in school, really. Been in the same class since primary school. I didn't really notice you until..." He chuckled. "Until you made a fool out of yourself by falling in the dirt right in front of me."

Tom laughed heartily, while Emily felt heat rising up her neck.

"It was very cute," he continued, patting her cheek. She had to resist the urge to slap his hand away. "You'd had a crush on me for a while at that point. Obviously I couldn't resist you anymore after that."

Emily turned away from her boyfriend and stared at the black television screen. "Obviously..."

"And as for things we do together, well I've already told you about you coming to my football matches. We normally watch a film when we're together. And, you know," he wriggled his eyebrows. "Other things."

Emily's stomach flipped and she vowed to herself, right then and there, that if he touched her she would punch him so hard he wouldn't wake up until Eddy was long back. When he went on to grab the remote and turn the television on, she couldn't believe he hadn't spotted the disgusted look on her face.

As the television flicked on, Emily suddenly had an idea. "Hey, Tom," she said. "I've got one more question."

Tom hummed disinterested.

"Do you know anything about the Others?"

His head snapped towards her so fast she thought it might break. "Why are you asking about them?"

Crap, not again. How was it that everyone she met instantly became grumpy at the mention of them?

She pulled the most innocent face and shrugged. "I'm just trying to understand this world, you know? There seems to be so much I don't know yet, and you know everything, right?"

Hell, when did I become manipulative? Emily told herself it was only because she didn't like him, but the sentence left a bitter aftertaste in her mouth.

Tom seemed to buy it, though. His brow furrowed and he said, "Well, yeah, but... You better not get involved with any of that, Emily. Those are awful people. And you hate them!"

Emily's eyebrows shot up. She hated them? That was new information. Everyone in town seemed to hate them, but nobody had told her yet that she herself hated them, as if she had something personal against them. "I do? Why is that?"

Tom hesitated for a few long moments. Then he spat, "Because I hate them, and you're my girlfriend!" With that, he turned the volume of the television up and slammed the remote on the coffee table.

Emily grimaced. I guess we're done talking.