After shrugging off the possession of Hailey, the group continued cleaning her room.

“It’s so like her to eat all the Wishie-Washies after telling us to shutup and leave.” Abigail dropped the empty bag that once held the candies into a trash bag.

“Is it? I feel like that was a weird thing for me to do,” mk2 said.

“Oh, you’re here.” Abigail said wryly.”

Mk2 tilted her head, “Did you think I wasn’t?”

“Well...It’s just difficult to register that you’re...Hailey.” Abigail leaned against the wall.

“Sure. Why?”

“Because...maybe my memories are just failing me, but you speak...nothing like her.”

“You mean that I’m noncommital, uncertain, and don’t seek attention?” Hailey mk2 said with surprising conciseness.

“That’s...yeah. I don’t think Hailey says ‘I think’ very often, for example.”

“If you want to know why...I just think I’m not Hailey but also Hailey.”

“Mind giving me an explanation of any kind?”

“Well...perhaps imagining me as a spliced portion of her DNA would suffice?”

“Your metaphor needs some elaboration.”

“...”

“So, you want to do that?”

“Elaborate?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I think I meant that I’m just a part of her, spliced from her soul and copied, then imprinted upon a blank soul.”

“How do you know this?”

“Intuition, maybe.”

“I’ll pretend you didn’t say maybe.”

Linne snapped, trying to grab Abigail’s attention.

“Huh? Oh, what is it, Linlin?”

“Don’t call me that, please.” Linne croaked out.

“Well, I thought it sounded cute,” Abigail said decisively.

Linne cleared her throat. “Mind working a little?” she said passive-aggressively.

“Suuure, sure.”

Hailey mk2 watched in awe as Taylor, Hailey, and Abigail worked through the room, commenting on anything they found interesting. Mk2 saw them all working together to help clean Hailey’s room and thought...they’re all such good friends!

To Hailey, that was.

Suddenly, mk2 crashed into Linne’s back, almost toppling the small girl over in a bear hug. “Waaaaaahh! I’m pretty sure she missed you all soooo muuuuuuuuuuuchhh...” she said in a heartfelt, somewhat babyish manner, burying her face in Linne’s slightly shaggy hair.

Abigail stopped what she was doing to pat the girl’s head. “Awww, she’s so cute like this! Can we keep her?” she said as if mk2 were a dog.

“If we did that, we’d be tearing Hailey apart!” Taylor responded playfully.

Linne, who had frozen upon contact, timidly spoke, “W-well she is cute...when she isn’t acting like a robot, that is.”

“Hmm? Acting like a robot?” Abigail said curiously.

Two heads stacked atop each other turned to the girl. “You haven’t noticed?” Linne and mk2 said simultaneously.

“Woah, someone better get to jinxing each other”

The two simultaneously cocked their heads in confusion.

“Synchronicity overload?! Neither of you knows what it means to jinx someone?!”

Taylor’s face scrunched up in suspicion. “You two do seem pretty similar.”

Abigail moved her face close to the embracing girls’ with interest. “Yeaaaah, noncommital, uncertain, and unwilling to attract attention, you said?”

Mk2 nodded, “I think so.”

“Well, that does describe some of Linne. What do you think?”

“Me?” Linne said hoarsely, struggling to carry the girl atop her. “I-I don’t know!”

“Perhaps my personality is modeled in some degree off my third most trusted friend?” mk2 said, looking at Linne’s face from above her head.

Abigail giggled, “Linne’s the third wheel, I see...”

“Well, I think the first wheel, Abbie, is broken,” mk2 said decisively. “So that just makes...Tara, who I think is probably maybe kind of too obsessed with getting revenge on Jackie to care about friends so that actually makes you Hailey’s best friend.” Mk2 patted Linne’s head.

The room was dead silent at mk2’s strangely matter-of-fact statement, featuring various subjects Hailey never would’ve dared broaching.

As she’d thought, she was different from her.

Linne’s concentration on holding mk2 faltered too much to continue, so the two plummeted to the ground in a heap. “Ow!” Linne yelped.

Mk2 didn’t react much, stood up from her friend’s wrangled-down body, then turned to her two stunned friends, “What’s wrong?”

“N-nothing, I guess,” Taylor said.

“I think that’s ok.”

Taylor shrugged, then continued cleaning. The rest of the group followed his example, returning to normality. The following five minutes, they cleaned, occasionally asking a preoccupied mk2 where various objects should be situated. Kait also happened to walk past the door with a brand new broom on her back.

Taylor opened the bottom drawer of her dresser. “Wow, you didn’t even try to keep the clothes in here tidy. Guess I’ll tidy it up myself.”

Mk2 walked to Taylor and looked at the drawer. “If you do that, the real me might just strangle you once she’s back.”

“Why?” Taylor said, his curiosity and persistence once more playing him the fool.

“Out of respect for your and sanity, I suggest you close the drawer and walk away.”

“Uhh, but why...?” Taylor grasped a handful of socks, clothes, and underwear, ready to pull the stuff out for folding.

“CLOSE. THE. DRAWER. NOW. Please.”

Taylor looked up at mk2 to see a scowl of utter disdain and intolerance on her face. “Ok.” He squeaked out.

“Eeek, didn’t even know she could get angry!” Abigail said while fixing the misshapen blinds on the window.

Kait casually walked in a moment later, “I got my supplies.”

Mk2 asked Kait, “So you can help her?”

“Yep. I’ll need you to be on the bed to do it. ”

Taylor walked to the bed. “Well, let’s get the bed cleaned real quick.”

Mk2 snuggled beneath her blanket while the cleaners straightened it out for the two sleepers.

“Is it comfortable?” Taylor asked once the four had finished and surrounded Hailey’s bed.

Mk2 nodded, “I think.”

“Well, that’s good to hear,” Linne said upbeatly.

Kait laid seven miniature dream catchers on Hailey’s bed, as well as an armband identical to the one that allowed her to speak. After a moment of meditation, she took off her armband and replaced it with the new one.

“What’s the armband about?” Abigail whispered to Taylor.

Before Taylor could respond, Kait looked back at the group. “Don’t distribre ka, anvalshon?”

“What’d she just say?” Abigail whispered again.

“Don’t ask me.”

“What’d you just say?”

Kait rolled her eyes, then looked to mk2. She closed her eyes, touched Hailey’s forehead, then instantly fell asleep, her hand slipping off and to the ground.”

Mk2 watched Kait lose consciousness with intrigue. “Was that supposed to happen?”

Linne shrugged, “Probably?”

Hailey was in her room. It was the messy, disorganized mess she usually expected of it, but beside the door, another version of herself leaned against the wall, a scowl on her face.

They listened as Kait explained a pointless unlocking spell from behind the door.

“A spell?!” Abigail said in surprise.

“Yeah, we can talk about it later, ok?” Taylor replied, “Right now...”

“L-let’s keep to our mission,” Linne said.

Taylor knocked, “Hailey, are you there?”

“...” The fake Hailey listened despite her reservations

“Well, your friends and I have been talking for a while, and we wanted to talk to you,” Taylor said softly.

“Yeah,” Abigail said.

Linne agreed with a grunt.

The fake Hailey rolled her eyes.

Hailey didn’t really deny she was a stuck-up brat, but seeing herself during an emotional point in her life like this made that fact beyond apparent.

There was a slight shake of the doorknob. “I hadn’t ever been too close to Abbie, but...I felt a bit of a connection with her.” She chuckled, “Because we had similar names. Stupid reason to be hung-up about it, right?”

The fake Hailey clenched her hands hard.

“Uhh, hey...I-I know it impacted you more than it did me, and we weren’t ever good friends...but...I know I’m not the one who should be here...Tara should...but...”

“Sure, but when in the world were we ever friends?” Hailey said skeptically, crossing her arms. She only knew Abigail because she knew Abbie, and even besides that, they’d only ever talked outside of school once or twice. Even then, she’d never liked the girl’s frequently fake personality.

Fake Hailey tried to hold her tears back by gritting her teeth.

Wow, she really was pathetic.

“I figure, if I died, and Linne were you, shut in her room, I wouldn’t have any reservations about who helped her.”

Her fake shook her head, finding the sentiment to be pointless.

Hailey wasn’t sure how to feel about Abigail’s little speech. It was so profoundly dumb that she wanted to laugh. Her past self seemed a little less entertained, however.

Linne spoke next, “I still can’t shake the feeling that it’s my fault, but...I know for a fact now...it isn’t. It isn’t yours either. I-I don’t know if you feel that same way...but whether you do or don’t, I’m here for you. You’re my friend...”

The fake Hailey unclenched her hand to place it on the door.

“I want to help you. I want to know why you’re so...hurt. I...I’m here for you, Hailey!”

Linne shouted through the door.

...

Taylor spoke this time, “I-I hope you’re actually in there. That’d be embarrassing if you weren’t,” he said with a giggle, “And I don’t think there’s more I can say, aside from what they said...Hailey, I don’t know if you can even hear us, but...I want to talk with you...I want...to see you h-”

Hailey paused the scene, a remote suddenly in her left hand.

A younger version of her suddenly appeared next to her, making three of herself in the room. As it happened, the spirit had come only to be snarky, “What, scared to press forth?”

Hailey scowled at her double...triple. The spirit had helped give her information, but it was quite the aggravating creature. The worst part was she could buy that her younger self acted that way. She rolled her eyes, “No.”

“Then why is your hand quivering? Last I checked, that wasn’t normal human behavior.”

“Oh shutup! I’m trying to think.”

“You love telling your friends to shutup.” The spirit smiled mischievously, then spoke in a ridiculous mushy tone, “Does that mean...maybe, just maybe, that we’re-”

“Erm-I must respectfully and quietly ask that you elicit no more sounds fromith your mouthith. Is that better?!”

“At least I can laugh at it.” It proceeded to do just that.

Hailey shook her head and spoke softly as she looked at the ground, “I don’t need to see this...”

“Pfft. This is why I don’t hang around humans. You can’t stand to watch a memory, then you lie and act like you’re all high and mighty, able to overcome any obstacle. Get over yourselves. I’mma head out and play with my groupies.” It shook its head. “Freaking humans...” it then vanished.

Without entirely meaning to, Hailey pressed the play button again.

“ou h-”

The fake Hailey’s rage finally boiled up, hearing her brother speaking, and she tore the door open in a bold fit of anger. “You all sure have been talking up a storm, so how about I ask you a ques-”

Behind the door, as expected, were Linne, Abigail, and Taylor. For some reason, however, their hands were hanging in midair as if they’d been pressing on the door.

Linne suddenly perked up, her hand falling, “Haile-!”

“Shutup, Linne!” Fake Hailey quickly redirected her attention to Taylor, “How about I ask you a question. Taylor, do you think I’m deaf?”

Harsh.

Taylor let his hand fall as well, “Of course not!”

“Then why don’t you think I can hear you? My door’s locked, so did you think I’d snuck out of my window?”

“Well, n-”

“Oh well. Once an idiot, always an idiot.”

Wow, she really went off on them there.

Taylor didn’t look particularly hurt, though. If anything, he was stern.

Abigail quickly came to the defense of the other two, “Why are you treating him that way?! He just wants to help you!”

“Just wants to help me? Bathing in his own self-importance by pushing his ‘help’ on me is just about all Taylor’s good for.”

That got under his skin, though. “Really?! That’s your issue with me?”

The fake Hailey ignored him. “Anyway, Abigail. I don’t give a crap about you. We were never friends, and I don’t have any intention to ‘bond’ and ‘talk’ with you. You did have one good point, though; that you’ve got a thatch thin reason for caring what I do. As far as you’re concerned, I’m a selfish black flower who loves to throw insults and couldn’t care less in return.”

Hailey cringed in regret. She knew Abigail was simply too nice for her own good. Though, the last time she’d seen her, Abigail hadn’t appeared that way. Had she just changed that much without her knowing?

Abigail froze, her expression quickly turning indistinguishable.

Hailey realized she didn’t remember much of what happened next. She shrugged; it must have been because she was transported away.

Hailey looked to Linne, “Congratulations, you learned it’s not your fault she’s dead. Wow, I can’t believe it. You really learned basic cause and effect,” she deadpanned. “Look, friend, I don’t know what you think keeps me from school, but I think you should focus on yourself before you start trying to help me. If you really feel guilty for not being killed, maybe the person dangerous to themselves is you. I know you almost tried to off yourself two years ago, just because you jumped to conclusions, thinking you were rejected because you were ‘useless’ or whatever. And I know Abbie’s the reason you’re still here. So don’t think we are at all in the same boat.”

Hailey’s eyes widened, and she pressed the button.

Shit. She’d said that. She’d really railed on her friend, yelling about how she’d tried to off herself in middle school.

...

Why...why was she such a brat?

She’d excused her behavior under the pretense that her friend’s death changed her. But even so, she was over that. Sure, it was part of why she hadn’t walked out of her room, but it shouldn’t have made her act with disdain towards everyone around her. No, there was something else.

Was it because she’d been stuffed in her house for two months, with no social interaction? Well, no, probably not, but it contributed.

If she had to guess...she was always that way. She’d always been a brat. Everything that happened, her friend’s death and everything that came with that, being in her house, not talking to friends...it wasn’t those things that made her act that way, whether she liked it or not, she chose how to react to them.

She’d acted so pathetic. They probably hated her...never wanted to see her again.

Taylor just tried to help.

Abigail just tried to help.

Linne just tried to help.

And she’d thrown their feelings around like ragdolls. Was she actually mad at them...or was the unfiltered criticism she’d shoved down their throats simply deflected?

The person she was most critical of...

She unpaused time.

Linne burst into tears but kept silent, trying not to quiver.

“And then, there’s you, Taylor. Stop prodding into my life, and let me grieve in peace.” Yeah, as if she was ‘grieving’ anymore. “I heard you and Kait out there. Really, you’re so keen on just brute force your way through situations. Why don’t you just stop!”

Taylor growled, “Maybe because you’re my sister, and I want you to be hap-”

“Blah, blah, blah, if you tried to think for once, maybe you’d realize you don’t need some magic hairpin to unlock my door! You can literally open it with an ordinary fingernail. But that’s beside the point. You just want to feel like you’ve ‘helped’ me, and right now, you’re sure as a paper’s point not ‘helping’, you’re trying to throw me in the deep end and walk away while I drown!”

Kait ran out of her room in a panic, but she suddenly paused, observing the situation thoroughly.

What was that all about?

Taylor’s eyes almost teared up, his face filled with several indiscernible emotions. “Why...? Why do you resist our help so much? Your friends only came here because they wanted to see you...and this is how you treat them...?”

He was, without a doubt, in the right.

The fake Hailey simmered down as Taylor mellowed out. “Because I didn’t ask for any of your help.”

“SO?! Why are you acting like this!? Why did you open the door if you just wanted to make us feel bad?!”

“BECAUSE!...” The fake Hailey suddenly stopped, calming as a tear dripped from her face.

At this point, she’d seen enough.

But Kait began to rush forward.

Why did Kait look so scared...? She must have known this would happen in some capacity. That much was obvious.

“Because you don’t want to admit it, Hailey.” Taylor calmly said.

Kait paused a few feet from the two, seemingly confused by the sudden de-escalation of their argument.

What? She paused?

The fake Hailey’s face relaxed just a bit, “Admit...what?”

A tear had met its natural end on Taylor’s face and fell onto his shirt. He took one heaving, sadness-filled breath, then exhaled silently. He stared at the fake Hailey with a soft, empathetic, melancholy expression, “You don’t want to admit that inside, you’ve never stopped hurting.”

...

The fake Hailey looked to her brother with a defeated expression, then looked down as she began to close her door. As she did so, she muttered, “I’m sorr..y...”

At least she made sure to say it...But in the corner of Hailey’s eye, she saw Kait.

She looked floored. Something about what Taylor had said seemed to impact her so much that she couldn’t move. Then, for a split second-

Something glowed beneath Kait’s shirt, and thousands of phantasmal people appeared behind her, crowding the hallway with their eyes closed.

Hailey watched, stunned, as the scene slowly faded to black-

“Wait, what?! What in gentle flames was that?!” Hailey paused the scenario, then rewound to the point she’d seen the anomaly. Sure enough, behind Kait were countless people standing behind her, some inside the walls, some floating in midair. Aside from that, Hailey’s room shined an incredible whiteish-blue for whatever reason.

Hailey heard a voice behind her, “Hai Werain’t meant ta skai thait.”

She turned to see the real Kait, glaring at her seriously from a short distance. “K-Kait? You’re back?”

“Eaavy, but Ja will nean ta vapourats ye memorie.” Kait said apologetically. Hailey didn’t know why, but she felt the urge to run.

“I-I don’t know what you’re saying.” Hailey took a step back, bumping into the frozen Taylor.

Kait rolled her eyes, then tapped her armband, causing it to shimmer. “Sit still, and I’ll make this quick.”

Hailey made a run for it. She’d never fully trusted Kait. She’d seen many things in Kait’s memories as she’d slept, and although she didn’t remember much of it, Hailey remembered something seemed strange about them, as if many scenes were missing. Something had always kept her on edge. Something told her Kait was hiding something. Between how she’d acted towards Kait the last time they had talked, the memories they’d shared, Kait’s peculiar choice of words, and the knowledge Kait had cursed her, Hailey felt quite threatened.

She dashed out of her room, shoved aside the acting Spirits, and leaped down the stairs.

She heard Kait yell out a word, “Kaivio!”

Then, she paused midair.

“Or I can make you sit still. No doubt that works too.” Kait walked out of her room at a leisurely pace and floated Hailey down to the first floor. With Hailey still stuck in place.

She was powerless. Kait apparently had some sort of spell to hold her in place, though escaping the witch seemed unlikely anyway. Kait was, after all, no pushover. But how did Kait stop her from changing the world with her imagination?

“I’m not sure who led you to this specific moment, but if I had to guess, this is a part of The Consciousness’s plot. Thankfully, you seem to be in the company of only lesser spirits. Speaking of which...” Kait glared back to the actors in the memory, “SCRAM! Or else I’ll send you back to the core as a spark!”

There were mixed reactions between the spirits, some instantly ducking out while others had more fight in them, staring at Kait with disdain before realizing their comrades had fled and lost their morale. In the end, only two remained; the ones who took the visages of Taylor and Kait.

“Oh, well, aren’t I an idiot. Two standard spirits. I’ve gotten rusty the past two months, huh?”

Fake Taylor spoke first, “You’ve been a real nuisance the past few hundred years.”

And Kait’s double-spoke second, “It’s about time we rend your soul once and for all.”

“You aren’t even remotely strong enough,” Kait said matter of factly.

Taylor shrugged, “I can wait another century to regrow, but I cannot undo my sloth.”

Fake Kait took a place at the top of the stairs with Taylor, “And I’m just pissed from the last time you sparked me.”

“Who are you again?”

“The spirit of solimancy.” The fake Kait answered.

“Oh great, you again. Vergo!”

Something below Kait’s shirt flashed, and a phantasmal being flickered behind her. Suddenly, the world shifted into an endless sky. Kait began falling but unclipped a broom from her back, “Mannella!” she yelled. Slowly, she lost momentum, then once she was still, she hopped onto the Broom and leisurely levitated back up.

Fake Kait, who was able to float in midair alongside the other spirit, sighed with discouragement, “How do I even fight you like this?”

“Well, since there aren’t any solids for you to manipulate...you could hit me with solid air or ice from the clouds.”

“I don’t need to.”

“What’s that supposed to me...an...”

Two spheres the size of boulders appeared above the spirits. They looked like...miniature planets, one appearing like mars and another like earth. Suddenly, they exploded into shrapnel, hovered in midair, then shot straight at Kait.

Kait shrugged, said “Tereriais.” then vanished into a blue mist, the shrapnel flying past her gaseous body. Kait reformed back on her broom just in time to catch one in her hand, cutting herself.

The spirits seemed shocked for a second but were quick to roll their eyes as if they were thinking ‘should have expected that.’

“Theiraisa!” Kait yelled, raising the shrapnel up. At first, nothing seemed to happen, but as Hailey’s eyes followed the panicked spirits’, she saw that Kait had manipulated the shrapnel to loop back and attack the spirits. They quickly split up and flew away from the volleys at extreme speeds, though the shrapnel continued to chase them. Kait, apparently, was way faster on her broom. She instantly launched off with her broom, an elated expression on her face, chasing after the fake Taylor.

Hailey watched, frozen, as the spirit summoned a miniature Jupiter and pluto in Kait’s way, but Kait sidestepped them on her broom as if they were nothing. The planetoid mage then summoned a dense, scattered-out asteroid field in front of Kait in hopes to halt her advance. Kait stopped before hitting the field, then grasped an asteroid and gritted her teeth, activating a spell to turn her skin to rock. She then flew through the miniature rocks, her skin deflecting them as if they were nothing. She close approached the spirit, but just before she reached them, a wave of despondency accompanied the creation of a tiny black hole right in front of Her. Hailey wasn’t sure what happened, but in what seemed like an instant, Kait’s scuffle with a black hole arbitrarily ended with it disappearing and Kait appearing in front of her foe. Kait punched the spirit with an angry expression, but instead of hitting it, Taylor’s lookalike vanished into a shower of sparks.

Kait turned her head like a hailstorm of shrapnel, which had been redirected by the solimancer’s ability to manipulate solids, buffeted on her skin. After Kait shook her head, the spell ended. “Just run away. You won’t beat me.”

Her doppelganger looked down, appraising its situation.

“No doubt you’re aware how pointless this fight is, anyway.”

“Fine, do what you want.” The spirit said before vanishing.

“Aaaaand, fall,” Kait said. Kait and Hailey went into freefall, with Hailey still frozen. Kait grabbed her and set her on the broom, “If you weren’t about to forget all of this, you could be in some serious trouble...But, either way, woohoo!” Kait yelled with glee as they crashed through clouds, revealing the town, surrounded by mountains, beneath them. Hailey heard a sonicboom as they approached her house, but their momentum halted before they hit the ground, Kait gingerly dropping her off on the sidewalk in front of the house.

After dusting off her clothes, Kait pressed her hand against Hailey’s forehead, then shrugged. “Sorry if this is inconvenient for you.”

Hailey felt faint...

Kait continued, “Bye.”

Hailey collapsed, unfrozen...

“Not like we’re exactly leaving each other, though.”