My life hasn't been that great up to now. I knew I didn't have it as bad as others, but I also grew up with little social luxury either. It gave me the green light to daydream and fantasize about whatever I wanted to. Sometimes I would find myself wishing that those moments of altered reality would become my own, that I could somehow shift between planes.

But this is not what I meant! This is not what I asked for! "This can't be happening," I panicked with my heavy breathing, launching myself towards a panic attack. But no matter how much I wish I were imagining everything right now, I knew what I heard in my mind was merged with everything else. It's finally happened, I admitted to myself. I've finally gone insane!

"Relax Reed! I can assure you that you are not crazy!"

After stumbling over to the light switch of my room, I banished the darkness even though the fresh light blinded my morning eyes. "Just leave me alone!" I tried everything I could. Wishing her away didn't do anything, and willing my own imagination into a different scenario did nothing either. I felt like I was really stuck with this one. "How can I not be crazy? I'm hallucinating out of my mind here." I felt so sick just saying that aloud. This weird imaginative voice in my mind showed up so abruptly, and whatever control I was supposed to have of it was absent here.

"Reed? Are you up?"

Oh crap! The muffled voice behind my bedroom door wasn't the same as the woman in my head. It was my mother, coming in to check on me or wake me in time for school preparation. But I wasn't expecting her to just barge in here so soon. Covering my mouth to silence myself in a brief moment, I tried to snap my focus back to the situation before me. My own words must have awakened everyone after all.

Just after opening her son's door to find me standing beside my bed with the lights already on, Marrie checked if everything else was okay. "Who were you just talking to?" Her tone lacked some intensity, as if she already expected a particular logical answer.

So she did hear! I did my best to hide what I felt reflecting onto my face, but just knowing somebody overheard me saying anything was so embarrassing that it swiped away my breath before I could speak. After inhaling with a fraction of my own courage, I replied with as mundane of an answer as I could muster. "Nothing mom. I'm just half-asleep is all." Please just ignore that so I can put this behind me!

"If you say so. It's already six, so it's time to start getting ready." Thinking nothing else of it, she turned around, leaving the room while closing the door gently.

It wasn't unusual for my mother to wake me up for me, especially when my alarms fail to go off on their own. The fact that it was six already meant that I had no further time to deal with this charade. And after nearly being caught, I had no choice but to rid myself of this pest. "Listen here you blob of fiction!" I spoke through my teeth as quietly as I could the moment I could hear my mom go back to her own room through the thin walls of our house. "I don't have the time for this. Be gone already!"

"For the record, you don't have to talk to me out loud. You can speak to me simply by thinking out loud. It can help when you don't want others to hear us."

To which I whispered, "Just shut up and go away!" This monstrosity my mind created is too persistent. She won't leave me alone, and my words are not reaching her either. Instead of getting the idea that she needs to leave and never return, she isn't registering a hint of what I really want.

I glanced all around my room nervously, wondering how I was supposed to deal with this. At any moment, my brother, my mom, or anyone else could hear me talking to myself, catching me in the act. I would never want that... But then, her last statement registered with me a bit more, even though she was oddly quiet now. Speak by thinking out loud huh? "You mean like this?" I tested such a theory, doing nothing different apart from projecting my own internal thoughts loud enough for my brain to register it as noise, though I kept my mouth shut in the process.

"See? You already figured that much out."

"It changes nothing," I emphasized without speaking. "You have to leave me alone. You are nothing but a figment of my imagination, a product of my dreams. You – are not real."

"Untrue," Lumina argued with a calming confidence, ready to explain everything. "I am real, Reed. I'm right here in the flesh. I'm just too far out of reach to see you in person is all."

Oh, is that all? Give it a rest already. The real Lumina... Excuse me. The Lumina from that dream even understood that she was a product of my own subconscious desires. Yet the one right here that I cannot even see refuses to accept the same definition. What other explanation would make sense to say that this version of her is real? "Listen to me. We met in a lucid dream. That was all! Nothing else came of that moment, and nothing ever will. Now leave!"

"Lucid dream?"

Her repetition of my explanation seemed unexpected, broken, detached from her earlier tone, as if there was genuine confusion because of my last response.

"W—wait a sec! I didn't know you were having lucid dreams. I swear I know nothing about that!"

What? No, that doesn't make sense. The Lumina I met in those dreams and the Lumina I'm imagining right now are supposed to be one and the same. So then, their memories would match up too. This one here was expecting me to remember her, so there can be no other possibility. Something strange is going on here...

I realized only now how much of an understatement that really was. Nothing is as it should be right now. But as bad as things are, even a hallucination like this ought to be more consistent. "Now you're the one who lost me. Weren't you going on about all these crazy things hours ago? Why pretend you don't remember it now?"

"Whatever you saw in a dream is something I would not remember. The me that you met in that dream isn't the real me speaking to you now. I'm real. I know that I'm real. Nothing about me or my presence is a product of your imagination. I promise."

Though her voice always seemed to echo in my mind, I got used to ignoring the strangeness of her tone. I needed every part of myself to be totally awake to process what was happening here. Still, based on her own testimony, my initial guess was correct. She really is different from the dream version of Lumina, and stranger to the effect, doesn't actually believe that she is fictional. Of course, I wasn't buying it. "Right," I stumbled. "And the fact that you are both named Lumina, and you somehow know my name without me telling you is supposed to just fall into place?"

Sighing in her silent breath, Lumina tried being as direct with me as possible. "Okay. I get that you are freaked out by all of this. But I can explain everything no matter how absurd it might seem. I can tell you who I really am and where I come from."

"Oh, this outta be good." Folding my arms in shame that I could ruin my own definition of reality, I waited for the impossible collection of voices to reply to myself, to explain to me how this is all supposed to prove I am not crazy, though I wasn't happy to hear from her at all.

"I should start from the beginning. My name is Lumina. I'm an Altiri from a distant star we call the Genosis galaxy. As for my role, I'm a warrior from a frozen planet we call Karnak."

Though the phrase Altiri was very familiar, the planet of Karnak and the Genosis galaxy were terms most foreign to me. But I was still capable of reading between the lines. On its own, I didn't fully understood what it meant to be an Altiri. But based on her other context clues, being from a different star cluster entirely would mean that the Altiri are really just space aliens from some other world. The frozen planet part sounded just as absurd, even if it did remind me of that artic zone in my last dream. "Alright, just stop already." I shut my eyes for a couple of seconds, trying to avoid a total headache from the mess unfolding inside my own head. "This has to be the most absurd thing I've heard in all my life! I'm through trying to keep up with all of this, and I also happen to have school today, so—"

"Oh! I want to see your school! I forgot that you would still be enrolled. Seventh grade right now, right?"

She went from a half-stressed attitude to expressing an exciting tone of anticipation, throwing me off balance as she totally cut me off and ignored what I was trying to say. I held both sides of my temples in raw frustration, thinking of no other way to exorcise this ghost. "That's not what I— Just leave me alone Lumina!" I can't go to school like this! I can't pay attention to anything else in class with this hallucination distracting me. The only way to remove it is to unwish the disaster I had spawned into my life.

For what felt like several seconds of silence, I waited in anticipation, wondering if my unwavering denial of fantasy finally won in the end. But soon enough, I realized it was only the silence from Lumina processing my request. "No!" she answered with the strength of a pout, using her mouth to speak aloud in her own environment to prevent the echo in my mind. "I don't want to!"

You don't want to? How dare she defy my own will! Who does she think she is to just bop in here and not go away? I thought people who are imagined are supposed to follow the orders of those who conjure them. But this case is too different. She actually won't leave me alone, a fact I had to realize in order to fight back. "Why the hell not?"

"Because," she explained in a desperate tone. "The experimental purge cycle finally completed. All of my effort finally came to this moment. I can't just forget about it and leave now!"

What in blazes is she going on about? It's suspect enough that this supposed alien speaks perfect English, but does she really have to insist on using terms I don't understand? But that's beside the point. It doesn't matter what she wants. She's not even real! "Great," I sighed holding my left eye in the defeat now sinking in. "Not only am I a real loser, I'm hearing voices in my head that I can't shut down."

"You are not a loser! Don't you ever call yourself that again. And I am as real a person as you, whether you accept it or not! Don't you understand that we're using telepathy right now? It isn't just a way to communicate. We can share each other's direct senses if we wanted to. But it's not all flowing as it should yet. The connection is still too young."

As proud as I was to hear my other fractured personality bash me for considering myself below everyone else, she wasn't winning any points with me by trying to build up the wonders of telepathy. I could tell she was desperately trying her absolute hardest right now to convince me beyond a shadow of a doubt that she is anything but imaginary. What I couldn't figure out was why. I could see myself hallucinating like this; really I could. But even so, why would a fictional person try so hard to pretend to be real? Was I really that desperate this entire time for somebody to talk to? Did I want to have one friend so badly, that I designed an entire false person just for the purpose of speaking to them? Maybe I did. Maybe I was too innocent, leaving my heart wide open to a barrage of assault coming from all directions of the social environment of middle school – which seemed more hostile to me recently. But if she really thinks this will convince me, I pity that half of my brain.

"You don't believe me? Fine," she prepared, sucking in as much air as she could while tightening her right fist. "Perhaps a demonstration is in order." Before her hint could leave me any time to figure out what she was up to, Lumina brought her fist down from above, punching her own stomach with the brute force she collected in waiting. The impact to her gut rippled outward in blunt force, nearly sending her to the ground in the agony that followed.

But before I could react, the sensation of that strong punch rippled throughout my stomach as well, sending me to the ground with excruciating pain. It felt a lot like that other day when I was accidently hit in the stomach with a flying soccer ball. It wasn't bad enough to make me scream or cry, but it was that kind of impact that somehow deflated every last volumetric ounce of air stored in my lungs, locking them down and preventing me from taking another breath. Now choking on a lack of oxygen, I pounded my fist into the carpet of my room, still certain nobody would hear me or walk in on me again, but I was pissed! I knew what just happened thereafter, a conclusion I was able to come to, partially from logic, but also from a pattern of thoughts I was able to sense from within Lumina's chain of projected decisions. Still, I couldn't argue right away, not with my stomach hurting like this.

Even from the ground, I could somehow feel more than I used to. Lumina's very presence and body position kneeling up from the ground was something I could somehow map out around me. She seemed to get over that pain a lot faster than I was able to, but by the time my breath returned to me, I let her know that all bets were off. "Lumina! That hurt me you idiot! What did you do that for?!" I already knew why she did it, and I refused to let her explain herself to my rhetorical question. "It's all just imaginary in the end. So what if you can hurt me? This still changes nothing. I still can't even see you."

"Well, the connection should be strong enough now, considering what I just proved. You say that you don't believe me because you can't see through my eyes while I can see through yours huh? But that is something I can change. Just hold still for a sec."

Now what is she planning? I decided to hold still like she asked, not because I was afraid of her hurting me again, but because I was too curious to deny her the chance to prove her existence to me. I knew she would be unable to prove her own existence. But does she have some way of allowing me to see her? It only occurred to me just now that the entire time this hallucination has been active, I've seen absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. I can only hear her voice or her thoughts, but I could see nothing on her side. So if I do hold still, what will she be able to show me?

Before I knew it, my eyes adjusted to the new environment on their own. I couldn't believe the sights I was now seeing all around me, so surreal and impossible. A whole other world separate from my own, from the perspective of some kind of metallic and electronic room phased into my view no matter which direction or angle I averted my gaze to. The other world I was seeing was not entirely opaque, but visible enough to make out the fine details of everything in that room. It was twice as strange to see through such a world, viewing my room behind the transparent layer of this separate reality. It was like seeing two different rooms at the same time, overlapping on each other in a way most confusing to me. I could very easily tell that I wasn't actually there, but this other place seemed so vivid and real if based on sight alone. And though my gaze could not shift the angle or perspective of this room, the movement of Lumina's eyes accomplished this for me.

"What the hell? Am I..." I wanted to ask if I was really there, despite knowing that I was not. This other world I was in wasn't the frozen and snowy world Lumina spoke of. It was one room of many inside of some kind of structure. But based on the electronic panels on the walls and the door frames without any doors, I began to suspect that the inside of this room was somewhere inside of a space station rather than a grounded structure. But I couldn't get over the way I was viewing these two worlds simultaneously; nothing as weird as this ever crossed my thoughts before, not even in those dreams I was having.

Explaining her world away to me, Lumina kept up the momentum she now had with my attention. "I know it looks like the inside of a space station control center, but it's really not that advanced. I'm in a room adjacent to the master cockpit. The space you are seeing is inside our space ship. And that's not all. All of my sisters are here too. You can meet Junko right now."

As she was speaking, her phased world vanished all around me, leaving me standing back in my room – and only my room. But right as she mentioned her sisters, that phased reality surrounded my entire environment again. If I turned around or glared up at the light bulb, it did nothing to change the viewing angle or perspective of the other world overlapped onto my own. And when Lumina mentioned meeting someone named Junko, I suddenly saw her shifting view, glaring at another Altiri.

Junko's appearance brought back a flash moment of memory from the last dream that I had. Her entire body, wearing a white metallic suit with blue lines and small stripes in various places, and her bright cyan eyes easily visible from their glow reminded me that she too was an Altiri. I had seen them before, not just Lumina, but all ten of her other sisters including Junko. Even though I had already forgotten just enough of that dream to forget the faces of the people I met, the memory degradation wasn't so weak that I couldn't recognize her on a second glance.

It's as Lumina said; I really can see Junko right now. If I were to say something out loud, would Junko hear it? If Junko said anything to me or to Lumina, would I hear her? However, the alarming conclusion about this very moment fell on top of me with more weight than before. Whatever Lumina was doing to allow me seeing through her own eyes, she was performing that trick consciously. And when she no longer needed to, she could shut that off just as quick, returning my world view back to the way it was before she altered it.

I couldn't lie to myself about what I was seeing. It was the coolest thing I have ever witnessed before in my life. Even my own dreams were not capable of imagining something so wild and amazing. But at the same time, I had to bury those feelings of inspiration and amazement. The reason was obvious enough, a simple fact that I was now more certain of than before, yet defeating to admit at the same time. "I've finally lost my mind." There is no escaping from this; that's the truth I just realized. I've never had to deal with a hallucination before, never one so persistent that it refused to leave me alone. So I didn't know how to deal with this scenario either. All I could do was speak the truth to myself aloud.

"No Reed," Lumina corrected with a smiling disposition. "You finally found it. And I finally found you." Lumina didn't try to hide her own enjoyment in stating as much.

Pausing only to consider how odd it was to hear her say that, I made my decision as final as I could, and began packing my things while ignoring her for the rest of time. "I am so not doing this. Goodbye Lumina." From my parting words, I picked up my backpack, pretending to add more into the bag that I really needed. Even though my attention to Lumina was final, I remained wary of her presence, certain that she was quietly watching me from a distance. Though I was glad that she finally got my message and decided to shut up.

Born from what I believed to be good fortune, things remained as quiet during my preparations for school, eventually passing thirty minutes after rushing to eat breakfast and dress up appropriately. Before long, I was off to the bus stop while the dawn was still too young for sunlight. I got to leave by myself on my walk in the neighborhood street to the bus stop, a privilege I was allowed somewhat recently after having convince my mom that I was finally old enough to get there on my own. Since I preferred being by myself, I fought like hell to keep that privilege, and was most glad today of all days to exercise the right.

Once I was only halfway there in the lingering night of the cold morning, I considered everything that had just happened, finding it strange how her voice no longer reached me... Did she finally take the hint and leave me alone? Or is she still really here in silence?

"Would it bother you if you knew I still was here?"

Stopping in my automatic footsteps, my whole body cringed from hearing her projected voice yet again. Not only that, but she just answered a question that I had not intended to ask out loud! It really is like she said; we can hear each other's thoughts due to the effect of telepathy, though I never asked her to butt into my private headspace. "So you are still here!" I replied making sure to sound as blatantly annoyed as possible. "Honestly. Why won't you just stop what you are doing?"

"We are linked in the sixth sense of telepathy. If I were to shut it down now... Well..." Lumina hesitated to finish the thought, incapable of agreeing to such a plan.

But I caught on quick enough to her exact choice of words. She used the terms shut it down, which implies she is the one controlling all of this and pulling the strings. At least now I know where I should begin. I remained stationary on the sidewalk, speaking aloud as nobody else was around me, while ignoring the freezing chill of the air around me. "Then what? This all stops for good? I said that is what I want, and yet you refuse to leave. Can you at least tell me what it is you are trying to do?"

"I wanted us to meet each other just like we are now. I want us to be friends, not enemies, with someone as rare as you."

"This is a bit much, even for me." I folded my arms and turned around, speaking directly into the open air to address the invisible false person, to point out every flaw in her words. "Of course I knew all along this was because of something like friendship. But what makes me so rare anyway? Aren't you supposed to be the alien?"

Undeterred, Lumina tried answering every question while holding her interest with mine. "You and I are the only ones who can telepathically communicate with each other. And before now, you didn't possess that ability, not until I purged you."

"Purged me? What does that even mean?" I thought back a little, hearing that term before. I knew it was familiar because our English classes force us to learn new terms for assignments. I could just barely remember the definition from a dictionary entry, and I wasn't sure if I was correct. "Doesn't purge mean to—"

"No, it's not the same term you were thinking of. Purging is a totally different and complex process for us Altiri. It's a learned ability that allows us to transpart some of our powers onto other humans from any distance."

Transpart? As in— "Hold up a second," I interrupted anxiously. "You transparted your powers onto me?" No way is she for real. But if she is telling the truth, maybe one of those special abilities would allow me to prove everything once and for all. "If that's what you mean, I could probably fly around and shoot laser beams from my eyes?"

"How cute. You actually think I'm some green ugly thing from those horror films? You think I could turn into a bat and fly around like a super hero?"

What ugly green thing? "Uh, I've already seen you twice now, dumbass. And you can't mock me for not knowing anything about the Altiri in the first place. I know nothing about your supposed alien world."

"But..." Now totally concerned about such testimony, Lumina leaned her back to the wall, trying to understand how that could be possible. "You should know much more than the basics! Something must have gone wrong with the purge after all."

"What is this purge business you keep going on about?" I can't make sense of anything! If all of this is supposed to be for real, I would have some super power, right? And say I didn't, why does Lumina assume I should know everything about her world? She didn't explain one bit of it!

Exercising patience, Lumina sighed after taking a sip from a bottled water and began explaining this from the bottom up. "The purge signal we sent to you is specifically designed to open up your psionic abilities. But it also has a secondary purpose of teaching you everything we already know about the Altiri, all through subconscious conversion protocols."

Right... I nodded my head, allowing some silence to pass before finally ripping into the air, "You lost me. I have no idea what you are saying right now." Would it kill her to speak perfect English? Between subconscious subversion protocols and psionic abilities, I have zero clue as to what she could be trying to explain.

Slumping down from minor defeat, Lumina tensed with worry that her experiment had less than the desirable results. "Come on Reed! You're telling me that in none of your dreams, nothing strange ever happened to you that you couldn't fully comprehend? You didn't have any of our shared memories about the Altiri? Or what about our history lessons, or the scenery of that world you must have seen and felt? What about my very own name?"

I could feel the desperation in her voice, though I wasn't so sure why she was so destined to get me to remember something I never went through. "What are you..." But then I realized it before I could speak any further. The things that she was saying, about moments I couldn't comprehend, or strange things happening to me, the dreams that I felt and the knowledge that I already had about the Altiri... Everything suddenly hurt all at once; the train of total confusion slammed into me at Mach speed while vivid flashes of every weird moment of memory I've ever had came barreling through.

"You may have felt off about many things from the very moment that you were purged."

I don't know why, but there was one more faint memory, one currently out of my grasp, but I felt its detail stinging me from all sides, just as I began to realize something. I may not understand what a purge is to Lumina, but now I wonder, how long has this been going on for? "Lumina. When was this? When was this moment that you purged me exactly?"

"We all pitched in and purged you on August 11, 2009."

"That was a little over a year ago..." I could feel the edge of reality right over this out-of-reach memory. What is so important about it?

"I can't be certain of this, but I think it would have been the day before you began middle school, or some time near that."

I let out an audible gasp while my body trembled. Losing all control of the perception for my surroundings, my mind blew flips and cartwheels through my memory, beginning with a single moment that sparked it all in a chain reaction of vivid imagery, the life I had forgotten.

The moment that I woke up that one morning, I remembered how it felt so strongly. I had nearly forgotten, cast aside whatever that moment was having believed that it bore no significance. But I remember how I was shocked awake. I felt something and it woke me from a dead sleep, leaving me with this life threatening feeling as if something horrifying had happened. I felt so awake and alert in seconds that I couldn't force myself to forget it, not completely.

But that was only the beginning, wasn't it? Ever since that day, ever since that moment, I've had these crazy obsessions with the sky, with the area beyond the stars, as if I could somehow sense that something else was out there, something such as the Altiri. All of those symbols I forced myself to draw, all of those obsessions that I had about space and the cold, the strange attack I had not too long ago, all of those vivid dreams about the Altiri, about their history, their people, their appearance, their social structure, I remembered all of it! Not every memory was as clear as crystal, but this single revelation somehow forced me to recall every moment that might have ever felt off or strange.

And now that it was being brought up, I realized more to the effect that some of what I felt during those moments were not emotions born from myself, but of something else. I remembered feeling things that were not part of myself, as if I had outsourced part of my mind to somebody else. She's saying that all of that, everything I felt, everything I experienced since then, it was all this purge signal?

No, that can't be! She's just trying to confuse me, right?

Bombarded with too many thoughts at once, I finally started to lose it. I couldn't stop my breathing from going intense and fast, my legs wobbling from the stress. I couldn't think of anything clearly. My mind wasn't blank, but there were too many rouge thoughts at once that it might as well be. I had gotten used to the frigid air outside, but my body inside and out felt as though it became encased in ice. Freezing chills branched out randomly under my skin, bringing every goose bump I had to the top of my skin. My pulse had also entered into a new race I never wanted to be part of, leaving me with the horrifying separation from my consciousness to every other nerve in my body. If only I could see myself and the pale face I was making now, frozen and unable to move, but my mind went elsewhere, lost in a thought chain of rampancy.

"Reed? Reed!"

Though I was on the verge of a total breakdown having stumbled into the beginning of a panic attack, hearing her call out my name so loudly inside my mind somehow brought me back to the current moment, but barely. This knife's edge feeling sharpened my mind to a new level of frightening alertness, allowing me to feel every particle in the air around me, including my own rattled voice inside my lungs. "All of that..." I barely muttered what I was trying to say, still so shocked by the revelation. I understood well enough that this was her doing, this purge business. Everything this did to me was something I can't take back. I don't even know who I really am if all of this is true. Renewed in my quest for the truth, I tried once more. "All of that was your doing?"

"Eh—" she stuttered, sensing the threatening malice birthed from my confusion. "Yes. Yes it was." There can be no mistaking it. The purge definitely did its job after all.

"Tell me Lumina..." I couldn't stop my arms from shaking or my heart from rattling through my ribcage. I've never been so messed up before. But at last, is there a source for it all? My fingers balled into fists, as all of my confusion began to mix into a toxic conversion of unprecedented anger. "Lumina!" I could hear her yeep and feel her jump from my menacing chant. "What did you do to me? Which thoughts are supposed to be mine, huh? Which part of myself am I supposed to believe in after you messed with my head?!"

"Reed, please! What's done is already done." Shaken by an aggression she was not expecting, Lumina tried to calm me down, but my loud voice shook her confidence too much.

Enough of this! "Do you have any idea how socially awkward I've become, thanks to, thanks to your meddling? The reason I have no friends isn't because I messed up, it's because of you! You asshole!" I had forgotten where I was, forgotten all about the quiet night of my surroundings. I let out all that I had been holding back up until now, laying deep into the source of all my problems. And even though it made no sense, even though I cared not for the emotions of some construct, I could still feel a gut-wrenching sensation jerk through after I cursed Lumina for her involvement with me.

And then, as if to quiet me down, "Who the hell are you yelling at?"

I wanted to quickly cover my own mouth after realizing what I was actually out here doing, but I refrained from doing so, as it would only make me look twice as suspicious. I glanced to my side, to the female bystander passing me by with a giggling laugh following her question. She could already tell that I was talking to nobody at all, a fact that was too late for me to hide from her. Though it was only a neighbor I didn't know too well, I shied my eyes to the pavement, too embarrassed to look her in the eyes now. "I wasn't talking to anyone!" I must look so pathetic!

The woman just nodded her head, fulfilled with a bit of comedy gold I unwillingly provided. The whole experience snapped me out of my own anger and confusion. It felt like my mind was about to meltdown for a moment, like I had lost control of everything. But reality, that which was currently around me sank in again. Here I was standing, yelling a second ago in the middle of the street sidewalk. How long did I get distracted this time? The bus couldn't be here yet, not if that other student had yet to make it to the bus stop herself.

Though I complained to myself that it was much colder without a better jacket, I decided to just suck it up and march onward. The quiet walk to the bus stop gave me some time and headspace to think about everything all over again with a comfortable pace. I wasn't really able to learn anything new that way, but the silence let me quiet myself down and calm my nerves.

Some of this wasn't matching up. If I were not myself for any reason, I would know about it, no doubt. Plus, the way I just reacted, I might as well throw away what I believed earlier. Who cares what she says? If all of this Altiri nonsense is just fake, part of my own imagination, then even something like a psychological purge should not exist either. So there is nothing to get worked up about. Still, if strange things were happening to me before, wouldn't that mean that I've slowly been going crazy from the start? What if I have a split personality disorder or something? I don't want to end up in a nuthouse!

Speaking of which, it's been too quiet suddenly. Why isn't she saying anything? Did I manage to get rid of her?

"Still here."

"Naaaguhl!" Though I made the noise under my breath, I kept to myself by the road, trying to hide my presence from the other ten students waiting over by the sign.

Letting out a deep and quiet sigh that she was sure I would not feel, Lumina sat herself down on the hard steel floor with her legs crossed as if she were about to meditate. But her excitement from before had vanished completely. After what I just said to her, this depressing aftertaste was a given.

How annoying that she could hear every last one of my thoughts! "Hey. Psst!" I did my best impression of a whisper directed to the side of me, making sure nobody was within several meters to hear me at all. My flip phone was tucked away in my pocket, but it would not help me right now. "Lumina? Hey! Lumina!"

"I told you already," she snapped, "if you want to communicate with me without looking like a maniac, use your thoughts to do it!" Honestly, does this guy not take a hint? "Whether I project or not, the people around you cannot hear me."

Even though the concept was totally new to me, I understood by now what she meant by the term project. Apparently, if I project my thoughts to the point where I can hear myself thinking, she can pick them up to. I wonder if that works if I don't project them but still think about something... "If that's how it is, then just purge everybody. Ruin their lives too why don't you?"

"Quit being such a baby! Besides, I can only purge one human being. Once I've done so, I can never purge anybody else ever again." Still feeling cold from my earlier dialogue, Lumina put her mind into a different state entirely, realizing that this wasn't going her way anymore.

"Bummer!" I returned sarcastically. "At least now I know why you won't leave me alone. Not that I care."

"Well it's not like I was trying to mess up any part of your life. But what should I care anymore? If you're so distraught to even talk to me, then I guess you haven't been doing too badly."

"What did you just say?" Forget being nice! Who does she think she is to comment on how my life is going?

"You heard me well enough," Lumina shot back. "You really think I didn't know? You've had trouble making friends from the very first grade. And after what I've seen in fifth, I knew my purge wouldn't have created any issues. But hey? You know yourself best, right?"

"Riddle me this Einstein! How do you know anything about my past? If you are who you say you are, explain that!"

"With clairvoyance. We've been watching over you since you were a small child, you and a few others. I watched you grow up every winter, and seen some of the things you had to endure. They're tiny to most people, but they affect you deeply, that much I was able to tell just by watching."

"That's just plain creepy no matter how you put it." She was watching me for that long? No, that's too convenient. A hallucination is said to be part of the subconscious, right? If she is me, then it makes sense why she would have access to my own memories.

"And here I thought you would have been happy with this; free from a world so crappy and boring."

"Don't even go there, illusion! Even if you could explain away everything I went through during the purge, it was you who caused it all in the first place! My life might not be anywhere close to perfect, but at least I don't go around creating fabrications and imaginary friends to ease my pain, until now I guess. I can't handle this..."

"Reed..." Just saying my name wasn't enough, but Lumina didn't know what else she could say anymore.

"Oh, and I can hear the roaring engine of the bus now." I started my unbalanced walk to the bus stop's sign where everyone else was. Once I get into school, this can all blow over. "Looks like I'll see you again, never!" I let myself pause before finishing just for emphasis, letting my imagination know in every way that this must stop now!

"Reed, please just—"

"That's enough!" I blared out turning myself aside as I was able to faintly see her whole world overlapping again with my own. I don't know what caused my senses to visualize her space again without her conscious effort, but I didn't care anymore either. "I'm sick of it already! I've got school to catch and this is going nowhere! At least there, I'm not totally crazy!"

"You sure about bruh?" One of the guys couldn't believe this kid was yelling at the air like that, and his following comment got his buddies laughing in unison.

As pissed off as I was that I couldn't do anything about it now, I did my best to ignore all of them, while they were laughing at my uncontrollable situation. I didn't ask for any of this! I'm not crazy! I just have to stop talking to this psycho, and I can go back to normal again. I peered aside from the stop into the main road with cars already going by in heavy traffic, noticing the topside blinking light on the yellow school bus. It was far away, stuck at a turning light from an adjacent neighborhood entrance, and it didn't look like traffic was going to speed up the driver's arrival soon enough.

"Okay, look. I know what I said earlier, about not wanting to drop the connection. And I can tell that you want to, but you don't yet know how to."

Trying my best to keep my face straight and my mouth shut ignoring the kids giving me funny looks, I kept my breathing steady, waiting impatiently for the sweet release of school to start. But that bus is so far away! "This the part where you give me the key on shutting it off?"

"Please just hear me out." Lumina hated herself for saying this so soon, but she knew already that it needed to be said. Protocol dictated as much in this situation. "By the end of the night, when you go to bed and try to sleep, the connection will automatically shut off. It will do so anytime you get tired enough to fall asleep, even if you were to fight it a bit. People can't project psionic energy in their sleep, so that would include telepathic connections too."

I still didn't understand some of her language, but I got just enough of it to know she was talking about her ability to communicate with me. She keeps referring to herself as an entity separate from myself. When will she just admit she is fake already? "Sounds like a problem that solves itself... A full day huh? At least now I have a set deadline." But if that is true, school isn't going to fix this at all.

"The thing is, the completion of the purge process has a final phase, this phase. It automatically initiates—" cutting herself off in correction, Lumina continued with revision. "It forces the first connection to stabilize between us. But that automatic process is the only one time that will ever happen."

Why bother explaining this at all? "So?" She really thinks I'll just understand what she means without effort?

"After tonight, next morning rather, you won't hear my voice again, that is unless you put in the effort to reestablish the link. I can't just force my way into your head like that, not after the first day is over. You will have to call me and allow the connection to happen. It's a two way process that will become something only you can do. And that means, after today, you have the total choice of deciding whether or not you want to see me again."

Now I understand what she is saying. Basically, this connection she and I have now is forced on us. It will remain that way until the connection is killed, and the only way to do that is to wait out the whole day. Then, if I don't want to see her again, which is already a given, I won't have to. It sounds pretty elaborate and also stupid for my mind to come up with such insanity... But on the other hand, it opens an interesting door for me. "Okay," I agreed calmly, renewed by a small epiphany I came to on my own. "Let's do that then. Once today is over, I won't have to deal with this anymore."

"Please Reed!" Lumina pleaded that this isn't really how I felt deep down. Her tone insisted that what she told me was absolute truth. But if I let the connection fall and don't try to contact her again, this really will be the end. "At least take this one day to listen to all I have to say. I'll do everything in my power to prove to you that I do exist! And if you still don't like this, it really will be over forever."

It amazed me somewhat, how much desperation and sadness I could hear in her tone. She sure didn't try to hide the idea that - not spending the day with me would bum her out as much as possible. It was a silly request however. I've already determined a way to settle this without agreeing to anything. If what Lumina just said was her truth, then regardless of what I do, today is our last day. I already decided that I don't want to be insane, so that is that. If Lumina shows up tomorrow despite my wishes, it proves one of two things:

Either she is just part of my imagination, caught in a broken cycle of fettered logic without any understanding of what it would actually mean to be wrong about her own attendance, or she was lying about this in the first place. If she was to lie to me, it would mean she isn't truth-worthy anyway, real or fake, which makes no difference to me at this point. Of course, if she really doesn't show up again, it doesn't prove that her existence is real either. All it does in the end is reduce the probability that she is fake by about 1%. Still, she has forgotten something. Assuming she has a lot for me to listen to, I can't attend school and hear someone else's thoughts in my head constantly at the same time. People will notice. "I don't know..." I made sure to sound as deterred from wanting to hear her out as possible.

"Please Reed! What do you have to lose? I really just want you to consider this!"

"... Why though?" I took long enough in asking her this. It was my million dollar question after all. What does she get out of all of this? Why does she want to hang around me at all? She can't possibly expect the two of us to become friends. It wouldn't be possible.

"Because..." Lumina tried deeper breathing while wiping a small amount of tears from her eyes. She avoided sniffling to ensure I would not pick up on her mood. "Because I really do want to be friends with you. Me and my sisters are all on your side."

It really was as I suspected earlier. The reason this is all happening is because of my unrequited desire for friendship. Apparently, I will go so far to have company that I will invent new ways to dream and imagine up fake people as well. It was strange enough not having control over this, but of all things, why does she have to be impossibly special? She isn't some random person after all. Lumina and her sisters are all Altiri, warriors of ice and aliens to our world. "Oh really? A small band of space aliens wants to buddy up with me that badly?"

"You know that I do! You know how I already feel about this. You're one of the only friends I want. I'm that sure of it! I could have chosen any other human to purge, but I only wanted to pick you."

She only wanted to pick me out of every other human on Earth? I'm not that special, so there must be a different reason for it. Is all of this real and I'm just being set up? Are there UFOs flying around me messing with all of our heads? Are there cameras and clowns waiting to jump out somewhere for one of those weird TV shows? I can't figure out the reason. Lumina says she did all of this for friendship, but that isn't a good enough motivation to treat me so special in the first place. But even though her reactions don't register to me as logical, they seem way too realistic to mean anything else. I don't know how, but I can feel part of what she is feeling as if they were my own emotions. She really does want to desperately hang out with me and nobody else. There's more there, but nothing I can understand or recognize.

And then came the loud diesel engine drowning out all of the noise around us, the motor so loud that it made me want to cover my ears a bit. The presence of the bus finally coming here broke me from my chain of thought as I waited for the others to walk to the bus doors before me.

"Don't you want to know why?" Making her offer sound as enticing as she could, Lumina brought herself back to her feet, waiting on the monumental decision that would shape the rest of our future, whether it be together or apart.