The following day, Kait decided to leave for supplies. Before she did, though, she saw the door to Hailey’s room was open and looked in.

Inside, Taylor, Abigail, and Linne were busy cleaning the room. She walked in, attracting Taylor’s attention. Kait was surprised to see the guests hadn’t left yet but decided it was pointless to ask why. “Cleaning her room?” she asked.

Taylor paused and turned around. He shrugged, “Yeah, I just don’t feel good sitting around waiting for things to get fixed, so I started cleaning Hailey’s room so we could move her in here. Help just came to me.”

Abigail glanced to Kait dismissively and said, “Same here,” with a matter-of-fact tone.

Linne just continued cleaning.

Kait rolled her right shoulder. “It’s alright if you all want to do that, but ask if you need my help. I’ll get this thing done in zippidy snap flat with my magic.”

“I’d prefer to do it myself, but if you can deal with all the nitty-gritty stuff once we’re finished up, I wouldn’t complain.”

Abigail shivered as she straightened out Hailey’s bedsheets. “Like getting rid of that wasp nest in her window.”

“No problem at all. I’ll be leaving, though. Bye.” Kait walked out of the room but poked her head back in a second later, “Before I help Hailey more, I’m going to fetch some supplies.”

“Come back soon.” Taylor said as Kait said ‘bye’ for real this-

“WHAA!” there was a yelp downstairs.

“What was that?!” Taylor said, recognizing the voice.

“I don’t know, let’s get down and see!” Abigail said with high hopes.

The group began walking down the stairs to see Hailey standing in front of the couch, patting herself down in palpable confusion. “HUH!? I-I think I have a body! I have a body?!”

Kait stared at her with her jaw fallen to the floor in dumbfoundedment as the other three hastily made their way downstairs.

Without even thinking about how cruel Hailey had acted the day before, Linne hugged her. Taylor and Abigail didn’t go so close but still happily assaulted Hailey with questions.

“What happened?”

“Are you Ok!?”

“Are you confused?”

“Do you need any water, any food?”

“Where-”

“Walk away, NOW!” Kait yelled with surprising authority.

Linne unhugged Hailey in confusion, unsure whether to abide the commands of the person who’d caused the issue in the first place.

Abigail, after some hesitation, glared at Kait, “What do you mean? Our friend’s awake, and you think we’d just walk away because you said so?”

Taylor remained silent, not taking sides.

Hailey looked between Abigail and Kait with a meek, conflicted expression, “I th-

Kait subtly shook her head, “That isn’t Hailey.”

Abigail looked between Hailey and Kait skeptically, “How is that not Hailey?” she glanced to Hailey, “Hailey, are you Hailey?”

“I think I’m Hailey? B-”

Abigail looked back to Kait, “Well, there you go.”

“...but I don’t think I’m Hailey.”

Abigail’s serious expression instantly melted as she looked between Hailey and Kait, “Huh?! HUH!? I don’t get it, how-what-who-”

Linne took careful steps backward, keeping both Kait and Hailey in her peripherals.

“What are you?”

“I’m like, probably part of Hailey.”

Kait sighed, placed her hand on her face, and then looked back at Hailey with an unamused expression. “...Sometimes...I wonder if my field of study is pointless.” Kait placed a hand on her forehead and shook her head, “I have no idea what’s going on. She isn’t a spirit since she said so, so we should be safe.”

Hailey spoke as she took note of her surroundings, “If I’m correct, Hailey yelled at me a few minutes ago, and now I’m here. Hailey is still in there...”

“Great!” Kait said. “Then I’m going to leave you all here with this thing while I-”

“I’m probably still Hailey! Please call me Hailey!”

“Thing.”

“Hailey!”

“Thing”

“Hailey!”

“THING.”

“Hailey!”

“Fine, Hailey mk2, is that acceptable?”

“I think so.”

“You could just say yes, you know.”

“Sure.”

“What’s the name of that energy drink thing? Coughy, cofa?”

“Coffee,” Taylor said for Kait.

“Yes, coffee. I’m picking up some coffee. Meanwhile, you all call me up if Hailey mk2 gains magical powers and starts banishing you to the inner-consciousness.”

“Sure.” Hailey mk2 said.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” Kait said as she walked out of the house. A moment later, she poked her head out again, said “Bye.” then walked out.

Suddenly, Kait burst back in, walked up the stairs, then came back down with her backpack, said, “Actually bye!” and left. For realises this time.

“...Hi,” Hailey mk2 said.

“Hi...” the group responded dissonantly.

“It’s interesting being physical, I think...”

“Y-Yeah, so why are you in Hailey’s body?” Taylor asked.

“I don’t know...does anyone have Wishie-Washies I can eat?”

Linne walked to a cabinet in the kitchen and pulled out the bag. Then she threw it to Hailey mk2, saying, “Right here.”

As if she’d known they would have the bag, mk2 smiled at Linne. “Thanks, I guess,” she said before ripping open the bag, unwrapping a Wishie-Washie, and throwing the chocolatey goodness into her mouth. The company stood in silence for a bit, mk2 chewing on her Wishie-Washie with a glossy expression. She broke the silence, “So what do we do now?”

Taylor shrugged, “I-I guess we finish cleaning your room.”

“I think me would like that.”

Hailey stood up and began walking forward once more. Well, that was a waste of-

CRASH! Her sword fell from the sky at terminal velocity, crunching Hailey below it with the force of a tungsten missile and turning the white ground beneath it into a scorched crater.

Since Hailey was hit by the equivalent of a thousand tons of TNT, she naturally scratched her head in annoyance as she rose from the crater. As she did so, countless popped bubbles dropped their contents, spilling words, items, and concepts onto the ground, one of which exploded in the background for some reason.

“Darn sword!” Hailey shouted in frustration before kicking the preposterously designed weapon with the tip of her foot. “OWWWW!” she yelped and held her foot in one of her hands, hopping on the other. Apparently, stubbing her foot on a sword hurt more than 7 tons of dynamite crushing her head.

After groaning in annoyance about this and that wasting her time complaining, Hailey shook her head. “Sure, I guess I’ll run with this. Doesn’t seem like I needed a sword anyway.” Hailey knew she wasn’t put that far back, and although those memories took almost half a day to get through-No, it couldn’t have taken longer than an hour to do...right...? Hailey got a headache trying to comprehend how time worked in the dimension and eventually gave up on the endeavor entirely. Would Kait come back already?

...No, it was her fault she was here. It was her job to get out-

Crashing down from the sky-

was a picture. Hailey snatched the slowly falling paper from the air and looked at it. It was a picture of three hands placed on a door.

“Would you like to revisit that?”

Hailey looked to her right to see a younger version of herself looking up at her. “What do you want?” Hailey said.

“It’d be my job to oversee the wish of the curse placed upon you.”

“And that wish would be?”

“To make you see how much you’re hurting inside.” the spirit said boredly.

Hailey’s eyes widened.

“I see. That phrase has significance to you.” the spirit said with a slight point of interest.

“So...you’re saying this was Taylor’s doing?”

“I don’t know much about him, but from the memories we’ve experienced so far, I figure it wouldn’t be out of his character. It isn’t my job to speculate, though.”

Hailey scowled, “Of course he did. He just can’t give up on someone, can he?”

“Are you implying you should be given up upon?”

“...”

“Hmph, clearly you aren’t too far gone.”

Hailey looked at the spirit with an unconcerned expression. It could tell that was simply an expression of defeat, however.

It didn’t speak, and even as an hour of its time was wasted in silence, the younger Hailey didn’t move from its spot, idly leaning back on magically appearing walls of memory foam as it waited. Suddenly, it spoke, “I love being paid for sitting still, but uhh...d’ya mind doing anything.

“Excuse me, princess...thingcess?, but I’m thinking. That’s the point of this realm, to get me to improve myself or something, right?”

It nodded, “You’re smart enough to figure that out, so surely you can understand that you’re given every tool to do so, so long as you’re here, right?”

“What does that mean...”

“Abide by the rules, and you’re literally a god in this room.”

“How, again, am I a god? What are you, a lunat-”

“Did you not just get hammered by a falling sword, then stand up like it was nothing?”

Hailey looked around, realizing she was in a mile-wide crater. “Yeah, that was pretty weird.”

“So, do you want to quicken your enlightenment, or are you going to stand still to do it? Because when I’m bored, you know you’re wasting a lot of time.”

“You always sound bored.”

“It takes a lot to entertain me, but it also takes a lot to bore me.”

Hailey thought before looking at her hand. A bowling ball appeared between her fingers. “Oh, you’re right. I can make everything.”

“Attagirl. Now do something before I duck out. My friends are having a poker game, and I want to see them get systematically disassembled by Loteria.”

Hailey smiled mischievously, dropped the bowling ball, then pointed at the fake. “Power word kill!” she yelled.

Her fake dropped to the ground, dead to the spell of instant murder.

“Uhh, are...are you still alive?”

The spirit reappeared a few feet away, “Yes. Don’t be so foolish so as to believe I’d die to an inside joke.”

“I guess primordial spirits are immune to those weapons of mass destruction.”

“Quite so. So, do you want to see one of your memories?”

“I don’t know why that’d be useful.”

“How about the one just before you came here?”

“My argument...?” Hailey’s eyes moved about as she pondered in a pacified manner. She nodded, “Sure, show me i-”

And thus, the world reformed.