"Your friend?"
After they entered, the older man in the corner asked a question.
His gaze settled on Dax, who was sitting there.
He could see the man's peculiar demeanor and catch a whiff of madness about him.
The older man warned John, his good friend whose name he did not know, "He looks like he needs a doctor."
"I think so too." John smiled at the older man and went straight over to sit across from Dax.
Dax was a young man wearing a suit and a white shirt. Stubble covered his face, and his eyes were bloodshot. He looked as though he had not slept properly in some time.
As he watched John sit down, memories of his failures kept surfacing in his mind.
He had been exceptionally gifted since childhood.
He had an outstanding talent for pitching, always able to throw an object precisely where he wanted it to go.
As a boy, he caught a coach's eye and joined a baseball team.
No one could hit his pitches.
But the coach never imagined that the child he regarded as his future savior would be a devil in human form.
Dax had destructive tendencies. He was mentally ill.
The monster that had existed within him since childhood took the form of negative emotions, driving him again and again.
During one game, his coach took him off the field to give other players more opportunities.
That enraged Dax. Using his greatest talent, he killed the coach with a baseball.
Afterward, he received treatment. His Healer never gave up on this terrifying patient.
The therapist rebuilt his capacity for empathy, helping him begin to function normally.
Everything was moving in the right direction.
Until the day his gravely ill Healer opened a bottle of wine for him and told