As I woke from my morning slumber, my mind and body managed to move with purpose. While it normally takes me about forty minutes for my level of alertness to rise, I already felt fully awake minutes after leaving my bed. As soon as I made it to the bathroom to begin brushing my teeth, excitement dominated my mood, fueling my mental energy so that I may imagine what this Monday will be like.

The reason for my excitement would have surprised me days ago, but I now understood the benefits of that choice I made last Tuesday morning. I wasn't entirely thrilled about going to school, but I did have one trump card to make my whole day a little more bearable, a secret that nobody else knows about me.

A new power has been given to me, the power to invoke telepathy and use it to stay in touch with an Altiri alien from another world. Sure, it sounds ridiculous when I say it like that. But Lumina is something else entirely. She doesn't pull any punches, doesn't filter any of her words, and best of all, she has motivation in making my life more interesting in a number of ways. I don't know if that makes us friends or not, but I am going to call her again, regardless of whether I believe the Altiri to be real or false.

Of course, it's one of the coolest things I could have ever wished for too. How many other middle school kids can say they've met a space alien before? I know I'm no different from everyone else, but having such an opportunity kind of makes me feel special. I have something that nobody else has right now, hiding in plain sight, a secret ally, a new friend.

It's also been nice and cold in Georgia too, the temperature staying put and behaving as it should. I didn't think about it too much, but I remembered what she said about the main constraint to telepathy. If the outside area heats up to about 60oF, then I won't be able to contact her. If it gets warm during our connection, it will just fail automatically. But I didn't have to worry about any of that right now. I could pack my things, go to school, and live the double-life of a boy who has another mind to experience this world with him. I was finally looking forward to it.

The hour passed as I prepared myself and headed outside. I figured out what I was supposed to do, but also realized I was always going to need a little amount of cover prior to doing it. Wearing a T-shirt and shorts to intentionally absorb the sheer cold around me, I traveled about a quarter of the way to the bus stop before sliding behind a thin tree, resting my back against the bark and turning my head in many directions to scope out who might be near.

But the coast was clear, giving me the green light to attempt a telepathic surge. One aspect of trying to call Lumina was that it created the need for immense mental and psionic focus. I knew what I had to do, but I also knew what I would look like from an outside perspective. I had to shut my eyes, release my hands, tilt my head forward ever so slightly, and steady my breathing. If anyone were to get a good look at me in this exact moment, the pose I was making would be a dead giveaway that I was up to something unusual.

I knew nobody could guess what I was up to if I were to get caught in the act, but I still didn't want the headache of explaining myself anyway. Even if I could make up something, I'd rather not appear to be suspicious at all. What I needed now was absolute silence and concentration from within. Trying to describe what I did next is always something I can't put into exact words. Somehow, I can feel my own psionic projections as I'm making them now. When I project outward, I have to change the frequency of what I'm blasting out to match the psionic signature of the person I'm trying to contact. Therefore, most of this was a deep concentration aura mixed with a sudden mental obsession with Lumina. I had to keep her in my thoughts, every last one of them as they were brought to the forefront in order for this technique to work. I also had to stay focused and concentrate, not allowing the signal to deviate from anything such as a distraction, which can be caused by my imagination alone.

I thought it should have been quite difficult. But in fact, each time I invoked this power, it was easier to do the next time. I was amazed by how fast I was getting used to contacting her. As long as I was hydrated and the weather was cold, it only took several seconds and a small amount of energy from me to initiate the first step of the connection.

"Hey Reed! Good morning again!" It was Lumina, and she was in her happy cheery mood given that I called her again. For the longest duration of this week, I couldn't understand her motives, mostly the reason why she seemed so happy just to be connected to me. But I started making guesses last night. I think Lumina really wants the two of us to be best friends. Even at this stage, I know that we can't be called best friends, not yet anyway, as that takes a lot more time and effort bonding. But regular friends could already be used to describe us, if I really allowed it.

She's not a nuisance anymore. Lumina eases my boredom, talks to me all day in school when I'm not cramming, and even gives me so much advice on what to do for most social situations. I'm still learning a bucket-ton of information from her, even though the recent theme has been teenage interactions and friendships. The point is, Lumina wants to become my friend; this much is obvious to me. I think that's the reason why I feel I can trust her now. "Good morning Lumina. So, what's new for me to learn today?" I specifically referenced the idea of something related to the Genosis galaxy in the Altiri world. No matter what I've heard so far, anything more about their alien world is so interesting. Before I waited on a response, I ducked out of the tree I was leaning on, and continued my walk to the bus stop, certain that I looked no different right now than any other kid.

"Well... I'm kind of running out of things to teach you Reed. At least, whatever I can tell you about our world now, most of it will be too difficult for you to understand, until you become much smarter."

"What are you saying, that I'm still a dumb dumb?" I wasn't too serious about her suggested insult. I only remained sarcastic for the moment to kill some time.

"Nobody's saying that." Guess I didn't provoke her that time. "You're smarter than most of the people I've ever had the chance to observe... But we Altiri know a lot more about our world by default. That's just the way it is."

Is it really fair to compare our intelligences like this? "Yeah, but we're going off what I learned in a fourteen year period, not a few millenniums like you."

"Fair. I guess we'll just have to see if your little brain can handle it."

"Don't talk down to me like I'm a kid. You never know, you might learn something from me."

"Like what?"

"I don't know!" Despite how annoyed the both of us sounded, the reverse was the truth. Somehow Lumina and I adopted this strange way of speaking to each other, a kind of background teasing back and forward, or passive aggressiveness if I was really into it. Something like that would annoy most people. But every night after I would have to disconnect from her, the silence that we would leave behind would remind me of our conversations, making me miss the opportunity to keep it going longer. "I haven't even made it to school yet to pick a topic for research. Not that I will be there soon, cause this stupid bus won't hurry up." I could hear the diesel engine of the bus in the distance as I was already at the bus stop, but traffic was once again delaying its arrival. The topic gave me another conundrum to think about; comparing the intelligence of myself as a fellow human to that of an ancient and advanced Altiri alien. I know already that I'm fighting a losing battle there, but I would like to win once and rub it in her face, just to see her reaction to it.

"School really takes a lot of time from your day. If only you could go there in spirit or something."

A funny thought for sure, but one too optimistic to come true. "Yeah, well none of my teachers have telepathy..." I shuttered at the very thought of my new example, imagining my new life if every one of them did have that kind of power. "And it would be horrible if they could. I don't want to know what most of them are thinking in their downtime... Blah!" Only I could unwillingly imagine scenarios too gross to repeat aloud.

Lumina kept our conversation going, even as the bus was arriving right in front of us, opening those small sliding doors to let everyone on in a single file line. "You're a lot smarter than you realize, especially compared to some of these other kids, and even more intelligent now that you've already met me."

"Yeah... I am pretty great." I agreed with her instead of trying to be serious about it, something I thought would make her laugh, but I needed to push a little more. "I'll buy myself a pair of specs and a lab coat, then you can start calling me Dr. Reed."

"Just get on the bus before you upset someone!"

I almost laughed at myself, my brilliance finally wearing some of her patience down... But, that conversation wasn't going anywhere anyway, and there would be plenty more to concentrate on later. After getting on the bus, I took another seat to myself, coming up with another topic to listen to Lumina about with the greatest view through the bus window. The pace of everything stayed this way long after I got to school, right up until we had to go to gym class again...

"Argh!" I complained by shoving the breath of my voice through while walking into the huge gymnasium. "They're forcing us to do these exercises again?" I counted all kinds of specific equipment perfectly placed in corners of the gym, the type of equipment used to measure the maximum physical health of students for the final exam portion, which was in itself a battery of these tests. We have to take two of them, one in the winter, and one at the end of the final semester. But even though ours is not that close by, the teachers keep bringing this equipment out. It meant that instead of the free day I was always wising to have, I would be forced to wait in boredom until completing all of these tedious tasks.

"That's life sometimes. With your noddle arms, you should take the chance to work out a little."

I see Lumina isn't on my side this time. It's more fun to complain about the negatives of this world when she does it with me. "Whatever. Guess I'll go change again." I knew I didn't need to announce it to Lumina, about changing from my normal clothes to P.E. clothes. But ever since the last three instances, I've decided to give her a heads up anyway, expecting a different complaint from her.

"Not again. I really hate it when you take me in there."

I should have guessed. Last Monday and Tuesday, I changed my clothes with me in the bathroom by having them on my person. But they stunk up my bag at the end of the day, so I decided to just store them in the locker room and wash them once a week instead. I would normally be freaked out by the idea of Lumina being brought into the boy's locker room to see everyone including myself change down to our boxers, but then, Lumina wasn't exactly a normal girl herself either. "I thought a girl would get some kind of kick watching men take off their shirts without being discovered doing so."

"Gross! I'm not like that. And I don't want to be anywhere near those filthy heathens." Just for the moment now, Lumina sounded so tense and aggravated.

See what I mean? This is her reaction to such a situation instead. She really does hate 99% of all men on planet Earth, and being stuck with me inside a locker room full of them got underneath her skin in a number of ways. She came close to freaking out about it last Friday, and I had to remind her of the promise she made to me, to control her own anger and hatred while in my presence. Honestly, I don't care if she hates men or not, but don't scream at them in front of me and make it my problem. "Just plug your ears and close your eyes then. It will only take four minutes." Part of me was joking a little, realizing already that Lumina already has her eyes closed most of the time just to see through mine with 100% opacity, and closing her ears would do no good since she's using mine via telepathy and what I hear around me. Still, I'm sure she has some secret way of blocking it out.

"Even that long is torture. And I still haven't figured out how to block specific senses yet." I knew Lumina was referring to something outside the ability of telepathic phasing. Apparently, she also is said to have the power to simply disable up to two of her telepathic sensory sharing nodes without phasing the connection, and therefore saving on our energy. Of course, if she can't figure it out, that's her problem, not mine.

"And here I thought you could do anything," I coaxed while walking through the door leading inside. As soon as I made it inside, my hearing became overloaded with the ruckus of over seventy boys being rowdy in their own way. Most of them were just being stupid or saying stupid things. I learned to block most of it out since it never directly interested me. But for Lumina, she had a different reaction to the chaos.

"Haha! Look at this dude! Look! What are those?!" Two of the mindless students I walked by were looking at something through their phone, then reenacting whatever gag they saw to somebody else around them. I didn't pay attention nor care what it could be about. But there were countless other overwhelming examples of what pissed Lumina off around me, sounding off at once.

"Nigga, you ain't got nothing on this." Three of the others adjacent to me were sizing up, comparing their muscle tone and body mass to each other as if it were some tiny contest. I assumed they only did as much because of their competitive nature, and knowing that they always compete with others in basketball.

It was a long twelve second walk to my locker. I could feel Lumina's rising rage spilling out from her mind and endowing me with its aura. Between the space of the locker room and the time of the walk, there were countless boys doing stupid things. Even though there were a rare few who, like me, didn't associate with anyone specific and just went on with their lives, Lumina's focus was on those that did piss her off, about 98% of everyone in the same room.

The general vibe was the same all the way around. People would be cracking jokes to the left while others recited idiotic videos or shows they saw in their spare time before coming here, generating an atmosphere deprived of all elegance and modesty. Most were just doing what they felt presented their masculine side the most, trying to be cool to the others, while many more spoke to each other about sports, adding more unfamiliar references that neither me or Lumina understood.

Lumina started growling violently through her teeth, her noisy frustration so loud inside my head though silent before everyone else. And while it isn't in the nature of Altiri to barrow our curse words, when driven to this level of madness, it was only a given. "I fucking hate all of them!"

I didn't wince away or freak out at her powerful displeasure, but only because I expected this much from her already. It isn't the first time she went off like this. Sometimes, she would do that outside the locker room just from me passing by a boy who she deemed to be a heathen merely by looking at them, doing that weird Lumina thing she does to read someone's general personality. It's not like she can see auras; I know because I asked, and apparently nobody can see auras according to her. I did my best to calm her down once more while I began changing, long since used to the idea of showing boxers in front of a bunch of other dudes. Since nobody wants to be called gay or faggot, everybody refrained from staring at each other in all the wrong places. "You know, you do this every time you get anywhere near a person through my senses, anyone who isn't female. Talk about a rage problem."

Right as I said that, three more people I faintly remembered from class did their own thing too, going off about some kind of reference I didn't bother to understand for the moment.

"What is it?" "It's a chode!" "It's a chowowowad!" The third guy went out of his way to sound as stupid as possible on purpose, adding to the power of their collective laughter in whatever they were going on about. Of course, this only set her off even more.

"They're worse than a bunch of immature morons! Look at them, being so stupid. Those retards! Those bastards! Those idiots! If only I were there, I could kill every last one of them!" With her voice intensifying through her anger, her projected thoughts echoed louder through our minds.

This would normally be the point where I would try to get her to chill out. But by now, I was so over the situation that I didn't even bother reacting to it anymore. I mean, it just doesn't shock me at this point. I latched onto a different sensation instead, the curiosity for why she made such potent associations between Legasso and these bucktooth cavemen. "Lumina... I need to level with you. I really don't understand where all of this rage is coming from. I mean, I get that you hate men, but this is the worst I've seen it in you yet."

"Reed? Did you forget what the meaning of a heathen is? Do you understand just how evil their nature is?"

"No, I did not forget." I recalled every detail of her entire history lesson. It was too incredible to forget. But this has to end now. I don't have the energy anymore to keep putting up with her constant outbursts. "But I am failing to understand what the issue is right now. I understand that Legasso was responsible for the destruction of planet Zinod, for the deaths of over a million precious Altiri people. He was an evil man; I won't deny that." I gave myself the chance to breath, shortly after changing my clothes in the middle of my mold-breaking point. And as I said this, the flooding waves of anger washing over me dialed down slightly, while a deep gut-wrenching sadness mixed into it all. I could tell these were her feelings, her emotions about the very situation, transferred to me with the subconscious part of telepathy. "But just because other people behave like him in their youth, or because their embrace of masculinity is so similar, does not make the other men in the world evil too."

"How can you say that?!" She yelled right back at me, angered that I would not share her burning hatred of heathens the same way she would. "All men are completely evil! They're all heathens Reed! They have the same personality traits of Legasso, especially when it comes to their desire for power and possession."

I wasn't sure if those observation skills of hers were really in use right now, or if her emotions blanketed this side of her vision. But in either the case, I knew I had to set things right. If she really wants me to hate them too, then this really has gone on for too long. "You're getting carried away Lumina. Are all the Altiri like this? I'm looking at them right now!" My own observations went to work in parallel to hers, seeing these men for what they really are. "Yes, they may all be stupid, but they aren't evil. They aren't hurting anyone."

"But they will! All of them will grow up to be bigger and stronger. Then they'll use everything they can to exploit the women around them, physically or psychologically. They all do it!"

"Even me?" My brief question caused her to gasp loud enough for me to hear her. I didn't like throwing her off balance too much, but it was the only retort that I had in all of this. If all men are supposed to be these evil heathens she speaks up, what does that make me? If I'm not excluded from that list, why then is Lumina here with me now, hanging out with me, trusting me, talking to me?

"You're different Reed."

"The hell I'm not. Don't try and use that card again." I was right after all. Lumina hates all men, but makes a blind and unnecessary exception for me, one that is most unfair to the others. "You think just because I'm shier and quieter than everyone else that I'm a saint compared to the rest?"

"All of the heathens on Earth are evil Reed! You should know this by now!" She stopped herself, exhaling from the stress I put her under. I could tell she was bothered by my stance on this issue, but just as well determined to keep going. "Of course! The purge must have completely worn off on you by now. You were supposed to understand from us that these people are a threat to nature itself!"

"That wouldn't be free will Lumina. It would only be mind control, which is a form of slavery itself..." My words were still not cutting deep enough into her. Whatever built up this hatred was stronger than a stone wall. But it also led a couple of my thoughts astray, about the thought of the purge and how it affected me in that way. I certainly remember it all now, how it felt to hate men when I was under the purge's influence, and how good it felt to give into that anger. I even felt some residual of it six days ago. But right now, I was truly back to myself again. I have no reason to hate men, no influence from a psionic signal. I am me. "But right now, you are the only one freaking out about this. I can't be swayed with your powers to hate them like you do, which I find comforting."

"I don't. Not if you can't hate them like I do."

Wow! I knew she was feeling this way, but didn't think she felt strongly enough to say it to my face. "Why is my misplaced hatred for men such a requirement for you, Lumina? I thought our friendship was something different, something that could never be affected by something so trivial!" Now I was really upset, as I stood there shouting back at her with my thoughts.

"If only you understood like I did—"

I began to ignore and phase out the words she was saying, realizing based on the pattern of her thoughts that this was getting us nowhere. "No! I don't know what this is all about, but it stops! Now!" That sure shut her up in a pinch, but I wasn't through just yet. "You can't be so hateful to them just because of what somebody else did."

But alas, this girl was dead set on making her observations align with mine. "Please Reed! Let me explain it to you. I know I can make you understand the truth!"

I've never heard her sound this desperate before, and it kind of freaked me out a little. But I have to put an end to this, her bickering proof that things have gone too far. "There isn't anything else to understand Lumina. I was okay with this part of you before, that you are sexist to the core. I've put up with it for long enough. But these little outbursts of rage you keep having is a situation I won't put up with anymore. I'm getting you therapy."

"Just look at them Reed. Look at them!"

She isn't listening to me anymore. There's no other choice now but to ignore her ludicrous request in return. "This is stupid. I'm out of here." Sure enough, I got my feet moving with me, making way for the exit of the locker room while everyone else were still doing what they were before. I was glad to not have made any annoying facial expressions that attracted attention to me, less anyone cares to bring it up in the first place. Even as I started going back to the gymnasium, she just wouldn't quit.

"Why won't you believe me?"

"Because you are nonsense!" Does she get it now? Does she understand how stupid this all sounds?

"And you are just totally blind!"

I didn't expect her to keep going at this even after I let her know how put off I was by it. She won't accept any other possibility right now. She won't be happy until I find reason to light a burning flame of hatred in my heart, and set such a candle right next to hers. But it's just not going to happen. I can't believe Lumina is giving me this ultimatum now of all times, to threaten me with a never-ending scream of words. "So this is how it all ends? Our first fight, over something so stupid?" I wasn't mixing random words. I knew that this had the power to end everything between us, not that I would give a damn either way.

"You were the one who told me that you have good observation skills, but you refuse to use them with the context you should have."

"I have no context to use. You hate men, and I don't. It's as simple as that."

"I didn't want to do this to you, but you give me no choice."

I stood there, stunned and panicked as I tried to understand her meaning behind the phrasing. She has no choice? She can't actually force me to think the same as her, right? Because if she can, then that is mind control. But she isn't that crazy, to use such a power against me, right?

"You'll want to keep your balance for this one. If you want the context, I'll give you the context... Memory transfer, an ability difficult for us Altiri to control, but perfectly doable with our connection."

Memory transfer? What is she talking about? Though I wanted to ask, it was already too late to do anything. Before I knew it, everything in view for the world around me was suddenly overridden by intense flashes of moments involving other people, environments that always had a slight blue and purple tint. But they were of real events. I still had control of my thoughts in the process, convincing myself from the thought acceleration that this must be the infamous memory transfer technique I secretly suggested the Altiri had. I didn't think it was actually true, and never expected Lumina to start using it on me.

These were her memories, memories of countless years of the past, of moments between other humans as she watched and observed using her clairvoyance skills, providing me with images and sounds of what happened. It was one hell of a rush, as I was able to somehow understand what was going on despite these moments flashing before me in fractions of seconds. It stopped me dead in my tracks, right after I sat down in my assigned spot waiting for the gym teachers to start everything up.

Lumina observed so much in her life, even with her memories currently focused on the subject matter. In her many observations, she watched time and time again as others were mistreated, bullied, or even hurt and killed by some of these other men, whether they were adults or teenagers. It was all too much at once to make sense of, but at some point, the pace of these flashes slowed down a bit more, allowing me to analyze that which was being placed in my head. Lumina wasn't forcing me to do anything; she was showing me how she saw the world so many times over before I came into the picture. Some of what I was already seeing made me want to vomit from shock.

Between more of the transmissions, I saw clusters of teenagers. I saw some fighting amongst themselves over five dollars, some fighting over a girl neither of them ever spoke to before, some gloating that they decorated some kid's house with toilet paper, some chastising others for not being a real man, some gloating about a fight they pretended to dominate, some throwing objects at other people, some harassing high school girls with wall slams, and some shaming those smaller than them just because. It was so much to take in, but experiencing the sights and sounds of these memories so directly left me frozen in place.

I didn't prioritize it as a big problem before, but I could clearly distinct which behaviors out of this were wanted and unwanted. All of the people in her examples had this common mentality; they were all set in their own individual personality, but subscribed to masculinity on an intoxicating level through their very own souls, caring now how it reflected or changed their behaviors through time. It was worse than that; I could feel some of the emotions projected by the few victims in some of these examples. Even though they were small deals, it hurt some people very deep.

And before I could do or say anything about what I just saw, more memories came flooding in. But these newer memories were darker and more twisted than anything I could have ever expected. Lumina showed me a moment in the modern military, such brutality between two people trying to kill each other. Then the next flash was of an abusive husband who manipulated and controlled his wife and daughter, molesting and raping her, until he one day killed the daughter. The wife murdered him in return, only to go to prison for her own deserved revenge. Before I could feel the sickening weight of that, the memories shifted once again to another scene, one of four young adults kicking and beating a younger male with a baseball bat, all of them snickering and laughing from the thrill they had in torture. The next flash revealed to me a much older man, one in a politically powerful position of another country here on Earth. He spoke in tongue of his own hatred, claiming to eradicate some group of people, squashing them like bugs, which led to another connected memory of an innocent family being gunned down by armed forces controlled by this same warlord.

I couldn't entirely understand all of the context of what I was seeing, such as the details of when and where it was happening. But I understood the horror of each unique situation itself, and why Lumina was showing me these terrible moments she observed through her own eyes. She was drawing connections, connections between the dominant traits of adolescent masculinity and where it led those people as they grew up. She actually compared these monsters to others who grew up in less fortunate circumstances than I ever had, causing people to sell their souls to the devil himself...

But even though I managed to understand why she was showing me these, I couldn't take it anymore. "Stop it." I whispered my voice out to her, trying not to draw attention to myself, but this was becoming harder. I held my head from the associated pain this brought to my heart. There were countless memories floating around in her head of moments like this. So much death, so much brutality, so much carnage, and so much evil... It was more than I could imagine in an entire lifetime. "Stop it!" I rose my voice as my body started shaking, begging for Lumina to cease whatever this memory connection was. I didn't want to see anymore. I couldn't handle listening to such evil countlessly echoed throughout the history of humanity, over and over again. For all the good in the world, there is also so much worse that we ordinary folk do not get to see.

But Lumina did not stop. She only added her echoing commentary to the additional flashes of memory that I was seeing. I was forced to see even more scenarios, of men lying to and abandoning the women they impregnated, or stealing from those who made an honest living. But some of the worst memories of all, the ones that threw me the most were of family members bullying each other with that same familiar phrase. 'Be a man!', or 'what are you, a sissy?' would leave the lips of these horrible abusers, using such torture as an excuse to beat and punish their own. And in some cases, that torture would turn the victims into walking mirrors of those who hurt them. I don't know why there were so many specific similar memories of this. Why was it so important to force somebody else to be as manly as possible, that they would feel the need to beat such logic into them? The men didn't just attack women, but even some of their own. And in other examples, when two were on the same level, greed and jealousy would dominate instead, leading to all possible combinations of horrors coming of it.

"I said stop it!" By the will of my words and the subscription that I have seen enough, the memories flooding into my mind suddenly ceased, as if I had somehow stopped the process by myself. Lumina didn't continue trying to shove those thoughts back into me again, but she held this moment over me in her own righteousness. I was on the brink of hyperventilating, too freaked out to say anymore, and too disturbed to care that my brief outburst turned heads my way. With some luck, the way I was holding my head hunched over, many people ignored me, assuming my reaction to be part of one of my many signature headaches.

"Do you understand how dark the world is now? Do you understand exactly how much evil exists all around you, within the very same people you sit with now? They aren't so hostile in their youth, but every monster starts out as someone's child."

"That can't be real..." I couldn't accept it right away, the idea that so much horror could go on in this world without me knowing about it.

"Everything you just saw was the collective result of what we call heathenish behavior within men, and even though it is rare, it can also exist within some women as well. What I showed you were only my memories of the horrible things I saw. It spans over a long time, but only covers a small portion of that globe. Other aggressor groups who use clairvoyance noticed similar stories unfolding around us as well, so I only showed you a tiny fraction of all the evil that exists."

I tried covering my ears, unwilling to be a part of this anymore. But thanks to telepathy, this action did me no good at all. "Shut up Lumina! I don't want to hear anymore!" Why? Why does the world have to be this way? How many more people will suffer under the oppression of such evil, of such heathenism influence? I didn't know that masculinity was this toxic to the world, it's still too hard to believe.

"These are the heathens of your world. These are the people who become warped, twisted, and corrupted by their own uncontrolled natural desires of greed, of lust, of pride. All men like this just want the power above other people, the dominance to control everything so that they can eject all positive emotion from their vessels. These are the traits of a heathen, the traits of men. Some are just born this way, while others grow up to learn these behaviors. But in every single instance, once a man turns into a heathen, they never-ever turn back again. There have been zero examples of this happening. Heathens never change, they can't change, not with their souls as dark as they already are. So I will never accept anybody telling me that men are not evil by nature, not even if it comes from you."

That's impossible! There's no way the world could be this terrible, this hellish...

"Your world has always been this way for as long as the Altiri could remember. But most humans go through life never noticing it. We have the power of clairvoyance. We can see in the shadows of these people, all when they think they are alone. We know what happens behind the closed doors of heathens. We know just how twisted every one of them are, with our bird's eye view of the world. I'm not making up conclusions based on desperate assumptions Reed. These are events that I saw with my own eyes. Are you going to deny my own perception, to say that everything I've been through was a lie?"

"Man, that bitch ugly!" One of the guys aside from me was cluttered next to two others, as all three of them were laughing at their crude insult to a picture of another school girl on their phone. Of course, the teacher overheard and started grilling them for it, but the tiny moment beside me happening live was even more of an eye opener. The thoughts of before weighed heavily on my mind, but so did the little play off I just witnessed. Three dudes just made fun of some random girl's appearance, someone they don't even know. They've done nothing to contribute anything constructive to the situation, nothing to say anything useful or nice about anybody. They laugh at a set of traits a woman cannot control, find fun in the indirect torture of others, and even after being grilled for it, they don't feel an ounce of apology; this much I could see from my current observation of the three of them...

Are all men really like this? Are the heathens of this world so numerous and influential that being an ass to everyone is just acceptable now? I couldn't make up my mind right away, and since we were already starting some of the exercises in the background, it forced me to take longer thinking about it with some of my body allocated to the other task of fitness.

"They are all like this, every last heathen in the world. It's what I've been trying to show you all along. Legasso may not be human like everyone on Earth, but his genetics of gender are one and the same between these two races. Their behaviors spread in a social wildfire, poisoning society from within until the world becomes a worse place than before. There are even zones where women are slaves to their husbands and honestly believe that nothing is wrong with such a system."

After having enough time to emotionally process everything I felt from those memories, from the victims in each and every example, including some of the examples I could think of before off the top of my head, it all started to click together. There really was a specific personality type that mattered to everything she was saying, most notoriously identified as extreme masculinity - regardless of age. I remembered a few personal run-ins with people like that in my own life, not that I was always the target each time. But more importantly, all of the girls in this entire school are going to have a bad experience once in their life, because of these demons, these soul sucking monsters! "They're such vile and disgusting creatures. They prey on the weak, taking whatever they want, damn the consequences!" A new heavy weight of aggression filled my heart, as I now began to see the truth in a new light.

"They pull off horrible crimes and usually get away with it. Even if one goes to prison for their actions, their brothers or offspring just carry on the task left behind in some other way."

It didn't matter to me that they were all men, that was only a side-trait of the true evil within. It's their behaviors and dominating traits that make them this way. The need to put others down to feel dominant, the desire to control everything, and the method of converting others to behave as rotten as themselves, all of this makes them heathens, evil people, the same kind of people as Legasso, the same kind of people that murder innocents ranging in the millions! They're all one and the same, filth, thieves, crooks and killers! "Every last one of them," I growled, sinking further into an internal rampage, "they all deserve to die!"

"I knew you would see it my way." Lumina suddenly sounded so satisfied, proud that she convinced me that heathens really were as evil as she as she set them out to be.

And if I stood here doing these exercises any longer with this building rage, I was sure to finally snap... But a different thought crossed my mind, an epiphany which Lumina had overlooked. All of these men are evil, all of them are heathens. And I can finally say that I hate every last one of them. But there's just one problem with this situation, one that brought a stronger crushing sense of disgust and regret over me. "But... I'm a man too... And that means I'm also a heathen as well!" I can't believe I didn't see it a second ago. I too am like them by nature's design, a man with hormones built to control and direct my every thought the moment I hit puberty. I am no different from any of them. I too will grow up to be as destructive, as dangerous, and as evil as my brothers.

"What? No, Reed, that's not what I—"

"I am thought!" I suddenly felt the regret of Lumina encased around my mind, but it did no good to shake away this guilt building inside. She said it herself, that all men are the enemy, that all men will invoke calamity in the world. I am no exception to that rule. The mere thought of hurting anybody else was too unbearable, as it forced me to drop everything I was doing. "I have the same kind of pair between my legs. I'm the same as them biologically, just like you said. I'm a heathen like everyone else! Damn it all!" I was too upset to admit it to myself, though it was the truth I came to notice. What kind of monster am I? How many people will I kill with these blood-soaked hands of mine?

"Listen to me! You are not one of them!"

But I didn't believe her, and so I totally ignored her, more disturbed by the realization of what I have become in all the years of being me. I wasn't sure if I was about to lose my lunch or pass out first, but I could tell my time standing was limited. I was about to collapse at this rate, my heart and quick breathing now out of my control. I didn't know what else to do, so I just ran away. I rushed my legs through the gym, heading for the side exit door while hoping to escape the leering eyes all there to judge me. And once I made it out to the dirt and grass beside the door outside, I let myself sink to the ground, certain I was about to go into a panic attack.

"Are you hearing me? You are not a heathen!"

"Don't lie about it now Lumina. I am a monster! I'm the same as them, a man just like everybody else!" All these thoughts I've had before, about being stronger than women, about being so clear-minded while driven by logic, about being strong with the absence of emotion that I willing walled off back then, all of this aligns to the same behavior. All of this proves I too have the same traits, the same uncontrollable desires. I'm a heathen like everybody else!

"You are not the same as them! I wouldn't have purged you if you were."

"I am the same as them!" I ranted so loudly through my thoughts, unable to put aside this unbearable hatred agianst myself. "Just because you get along better with me doesn't change the fact that I'm one of them! It doesn't change that I'm a monster inside!"

"You are not a monster!"

"I'm far worse than that. I'm a heathen! I have similar genetics and hidden personalities as Legasso! How can you even stand to look at me? How can you bear to be anywhere near me Lumina?" I'm the worst kind of person, born sharing a similar pattern of behaviors that a mass murder does. The same genes I have inside killed them, killed over a million Altiri women, and many more on Earth. I can't live with myself anymore! "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry that me and my people have hurt your kind so much!"

Lumina was of course beside herself in anger, pissed off that I was roping myself in with the rest, and I knew that was her reason for the current aggression swimming in her mind. But I didn't change my mind simply because of her liking to me. "You will not apologize on their behalf!" I've never heard her scream so loudly through telepathy before, but her words were no remedy for my ailment. "You don't get to compare yourself to them! It's because of me that you're still safe. It was the reason why I purged you in the first place, to prevent you from becoming a heathen by the peer pressure around you. And I'm sure I got here in time to stop the change from happening."

I didn't think anything she said to me now would warrant a fraction of my attention, but there was just too much in her statement that shocked me despite how I currently felt about everything. "What did you just say?" Her reason for purging me? This was the purpose of her purge all along, just to prevent me from turning into one of those monsters? Doesn't she realize that I probably already have? Still, I was too shocked to say anymore, having finally had my ultimate question answered for the first time since we met. Lumina mentioned earlier that she purged me for friendship, but I never bought that excuse.

"I wanted you to know that." After a long awkward pause between us, Lumina spoke to me in a gentle voice while I too was calming down just to consider all of this. "During our time watching over a group of kids in Georgia, I became more attached to you. I saw how different you were from the others even when you were a little kid."

Her words drove flashbacks into my mind, memories surfacing of my own subconscious volition rather than anything forced from her powers. I wasn't sure exactly what Lumina saw in me as a kid, but she wasn't wrong to say that I was different from the others growing up. I knew this much about myself already, even though I hated to admit it. I never got along with the people in grade school, even when I thought I'd come close. While others would watch cartoons and play tag outside, I stayed indoors, playing video games and watching all sorts of game shows. I was obsessed with numbers and mathematics while others were more interested in outdoor sports. And I was always too nice and gentle for my own good. The kids in my first and third grade bullied me because of it; doing things that never became a physical issue, but a psychological one instead. Ultimately, it drove me into a bubble of isolation, one I felt protected in.

But eventually, since the fourth grade, I had thoughts of trying to change all aspects of myself, to try and become more like the other heathens who often directed their negatively to people like myself in the first place. In the end, I didn't go through with it, and by the time sixth grade came along, all of this purge business started, replacing most of my thoughts, emotions, and basic personalities with Lumina's, even though it reverted back by the end of the purge.

"I watched how differently you saw the world around you, how you loved your game shows and the math involved with them. I watched as you struggled each time to try getting along with the kids in your elementary school, failing most of the time just from the shyness and fear of rejection alone. And I even saw what you were trying to do in the fourth grade, trying to turn yourself into one of them, and then a couple more times in the grade afterwards. When I realized why you were trying to change yourself, I knew I had to stop it. I didn't want the one rare exception to the rule of heathens to be spoiled by the negatively in your life. You were never born a heathen Reed, but you were still on the path of turning yourself into one, which is an irreversible process."

She saw all of that? I should have paid more attention to the fact that she had a clairvoyant eye on me growing up. She watched my parents split, and probably saw the horrors of what came of my fifth grade summer shortly after... She knows everything then, everything about me and every secret I carry inside. "So... You knew then? You knew all this time all that I've been through in this horrible life of mine?" Granted, even I knew deep down that others had it much worse than I, but after everything I felt from it all, it was bad enough for me to hate who I was, bad enough for me with wish I were someone else, to wish I was in a totally different world and reality. My question to her was spoken vocally, from the decision I just made to cease using telepathic projection in order to speak to her. If she knows everything about me, then all I can do is be as direct as possible. And based on what happens next, I fell like this is really about to be the end of everything I ever cared about.

"I didn't get to see all of it. Each time the summer hit the zone of Georgia, it was impossible to see what was happening inside, happening to you. But with the return of each winter, I would find you and a few others again, eventually singling you out in my focus. I saw the exception within you, and even your slight resistance to the influence of the heathen culture around you. That's what's so special about you, and it was the reason I sent that purge to you."

"If that's true, why wait?" I had to ask about the timing of it all. After the horrors I faced dealing with Petersons monsters in that summer before the sixth grade, why did she wait and risk what that could have done to me? "Why wait until the start of sixth grade?"

"Remember what happened to you during the summer you went through during the purge, how the effects seemed to dwindle down when it got hotter outside? The purge barely survived within you because of that. We weren't ever going to be certain how long the purge process was going to take. But we did have the intelligence to know that starting the purge right before the summer solstice would have been the worst idea ever, since it would have reduced the chances of its success. We had to wait for Georgia to cool down again after the fifth grade, in order to be confident that it would work out somehow."

That much was easy to understand... But even with everything she just said, I still wasn't sure of it all. I can't understand her motivation to do this to me. Why affect my life? What could possibly be in it for either of us? My disgust was finally dying down, but the anger and confusion from this ultimate mystery had my heart beating three times faster than normal, as I demanded the answers from her. "Why? Why Lumina? Why did you purge me? Why did you put yourself inside my head, breaking across an entire universe just to do this to me? Answer me!"

"Reed, are you talking to someone?"

My eyes lit up with mild horror, as I checked up to my right side, seeing the girl who just waltzed out here, catching me red handed talking to a person she could neither see or hear. I had my knees planted in the ground, my position visible through some of the glass windows of the adjacent hallway. But I was also right next to the door of the gymnasium, which was slightly open the entire time. Because of my suspicious leave of the place, she must have been asked to follow me out, to catch me like this. Both my hands were raised into fists slightly from my earlier anger, but I had nothing in my hands, and nothing between my ears indicating that I was on the phone with anybody. How long had Laura been standing there? How much of that conversation did she hear?

"I don't think the teachers want you out here." As I thought, one of the teachers put her up to this, meaning my walk through the door did not go unnoticed.

But I couldn't deal with this pressure, not right now. The answers I demanded of Lumina were just too important for me to ignore. So I have no choice but to get her to leave, regardless of what it looks like I'm doing out here. With the most serious expression I could put on myself, I pointed back to the door behind Laura. "Go away Laura! Right now!"

I waited, keeping the aggressive and stern look in my eyes and lips, glaring intensely into Laura until my warning finally got through to her. She trembled a little, backing away while deciding to just turn around and pretend like this never happened. With her gone, I could get to the bottom of this once and for all. "Answer me!"

"I did it to protect you! I purged you so that you would stop yourself from changing who you were, and I hoped that the montrum phase of the purge would distract you long enough to prevent that from happening. I didn't want you to turn into a heathen. I didn't want somebody that I wanted to befriend to turn out destroying all that they were."

I still found her reasoning to be faulty, partly because her motivation was friendship. Did she ever stop to think how much this would change my life, or how much it might affect me? Did she ever consider that her plan could end in failure? "Everyone changes as we grow Lumina. Why risk a purge while facing such failure?"

"I always considered that our plan might fail, that we might waste our only one good purge on you. But I took that risk anyway Reed. And you're not entirely right about your last assumption. People mature as they grow older, but we all make the choice for ourselves whether we change who we are or not. Maturing through age and changing are not the same process."

"You couldn't have possibly know what would happen..."

"I examine every possibility and determine each probable outcome before making decisions. But despite what you keep telling yourself, I want to be here for you, to help you. You think I couldn't see how much it hurt you, every time you tried to make friends with others only to be shot down in one way or another? You were too nice and introverted to go all the way to help yourself. The only thing that would have worked in your situation was changing who you were, to become more aggressive and care less about those beautiful emotions hiding in your heart. I knew even after purging you that there was a strong risk that you would never succeed in making any human friends. And so... If you can't make any friends in that dark world of yours, I want to offer my friendship to you instead."

It still sounds too farfetched of a reason, one I still could not totally comprehend. But now I wasn't sure who I was misunderstanding, myself or her. Everything confused me some more, until the tears I hid away for so long finally dripped into the clay and grass beneath me. "You... You didn't do this for friendship."

"I wasn't that selfish about it. I knew... I knew all along that even should the purge complete, you might cast me aside from the failure to accept we exist, given the implausibility and the nature of our world. But I still kept trying to help you anyway. That's all I want to do. I want you to be who you are and love yourself for it, to avoid turning into a heathen and changing who you are."

"So then... I'm not a heathen?" Those are her words, even though I don't believe them given her positive bias towards me.

"No Reed. You are pure. You may be a man, but you don't allow those horrible thoughts to dictate your actions or control your moods. You are not a heathen, in spite of being male. And you will never grow up to do such terrible things, unless you willingly choose that path. If you ever do, there is no going back. There is nothing I can do to stop you from entering that mentality, if you do decide to go heathen on us."

"Let me ask you something..." I had to think about how I would phrase this. It's time to settle this once and for all. "You've observed thousands of other men in this world. You say I'm not like them, not like the others. So tell me. During you clairvoyant tracking, how many people in the world turned out to be like me?"

"There is only one you."

She misunderstood the question. I know full well that I am unique, but how unique am I to everyone else in this madness that is of men? "Let me be clearer. Let's say there are other men, people who aren't like me, but still grow up to resist the temptations of being cool, or resist melting their brains with rotten culture. Of all the others who resist turning into heathens or prevent it entirely, how many are there beside myself? What proportion of the male population are not heathens?"

"You're asking for an actual number? I don't have the exact math..." I didn't interject. I knew she was going to answer me if I give her enough time. "I personally have never seen someone like that before... But I do remember hearing rare rumors from some of my other friends in other aggressor groups. It was about people they observed, men who even after aging to late adults would never change, presenting in few if any heathen qualities at all. They were not girly men, but they apparently prevented themselves from becoming any worse."

"How many?" I stressed it to her again, demanding an exact answer rather than an evasion to the question. There is only one way to be sure if she is lying to herself or not.

"Based on what I can quickly calculate, I would say non-heathen men make up less than one percent of the entire world population. They're an incredible rarity, but such others do exist. You are not the only person capable of resisting such tribal urges."

Less than one percent? If we based that on the world population, that's still a ton of people, granted they be scattered about. All my fears slowly began to melt away. My breathing became gentler with a long though hidden exhaling sigh, making me realize how tense I was a second ago. But now, I could finally relax. "So you are real..." I almost cried again just saying it with my weak voice, a phrase that also stunned and surprised Lumina long enough for me to consider why I was considering that route at all.

Until she just said that, I was under the impression that Lumina considered me to be unique, as in one out of the entire world population itself. Even if I started believing in miracles, I'm never going to be that lucky for any random chance under any circumstance. But even though she admits to seeing nobody else like me through her own eyes, other Altiri have. If there are other non-heathen males in the world, it proves she isn't simply lying to herself out of personal bias towards me.

But there was far more complexity to the situation now. Despite everything we have been through in the last week, I could literally stand up and cut the connection right now, never to see or hear from Lumina again under my own directive... But hallucinations don't give people free reign over their own illusions, nor do they take on such powerful personalities. It took some time to tell, but I know now that Lumina's personality is not something that could be programmed or autonomous in nature. Her reactions to everything I say and think are too responsive; I'm my own person, and she is her own person. Lumina and I are not the same, nor are we born from the same source.

More incredible than that, the motivation she had for purging me, which she only admitted a minute ago is actually the only realistic response I could think of. I knew purging me just for friendship wasn't a good enough reason to go through with it. I knew she was hiding something from me, even though I cared not think about why she would shield me agianst that fact, less I consider it only had merit if I too begin to hate heathens the same way she has...

Those memories she showed me earlier, they were not flips and bits of my own imagination. Some of what I saw was more graphic and gory than anything I've ever seen on TV before, and I've seen the first movie of Final Destination already. I can't pretend to push those thoughts out of my head anymore; I was finally seeing the truth for the first time myself. Lumina didn't brainwash me into thinking this way, nor did she use any mind control. I came to the conclusion all on my own. After seeing such horrible vivid memories of the things done to other people, I could no longer deny the evil within so many people. I don't know if that evil stems from masculinity itself, or if masculinity is a collection of traits that simply makes it easier to do things one should normally never do. But the overall truth rang louder than words.

Lumina purged me for multiple complex reasons. I got the sense there might even be more than what she told me so far. But basically, she became attached to me before I even knew she existed, watching over me as a kid. I was always someone too nice to do anything wrong on purpose. The worst thing I have ever done was speak to someone with attitude, which was during the moment I tried pretending to be more like the douchebags from my fourth grade, if I don't count some of the horrible things I said to Lumina days ago, things I said only because I didn't believe she really existed.

But her other reason was from the same attachment, a desire to help me in life, a desire to give me advice that I could use to be happier. She has already proven she is capable of this. This entire week has been Lumina giving me little bits and pieces of advice on how the world works around me, about how social circles are run, some of which were real eye openers for me. Could I have conjured her up for all of this? Could I have invented Lumina for the sole purpose of life advice I shouldn't theoretically have in the first place?

No! I corrected myself. As impossible as it is for Lumina and the Altiri aliens to be part of this reality, I've actually just thought of another scenario more impossible than this blaring moment. It's the idea that I generated an imaginary friend all for this purpose, for things I didn't even know I wanted in the first place beyond a surface level of consciousness. The probability that my unhinged mind could conjure up the existence of another person this complex, and this special is even lower than the existence of Altiri aliens in itself.

In all this time, I've thought of ways to trip her up, to point out flaws in Lumina's logic or stories, to find some way of debunking the very idea that she really exists, despite having grown more used to her presence in this coming week. But nothing about her is simulated. Nothing about her is fake or imaginative. I'm good at coming up with book story ideas, but I'm not that good. This other person in my head, she's really here with the power of telepathy. Everything we've been saying to each other is real enough for me to accept. Everything I went through with the purge is real enough for me to remember. It's all still affecting my life now, whether I want it to or not.

And in all of this, I'm still a fully functional human being. I have no critical problems talking to people when properly motivated, nor do I see things that I shouldn't. It's still difficult for me to even say it, but I can finally begin to accept something now that I should have accepted days ago. I understand it now Lumina, the reason why you did all of this. You're not here because you chose to be. You're here because the both of us brought both our realities out from phase, the two co-existing rather than one overshadowing the other.

"I'm sorry?" Lumina finally reacted to my whispered statement, even though only four seconds passed in all the time I had to think.

"You heard me," I replied, both to Lumina and to myself. "Right now, all I have to go on is faith itself... But no matter what turns out to be the truth, I've finally made up my mind about all of this. Even if I one day wake up to learn you are imaginary, or that I get diagnosed with some mental disorder, it will never change the fact that everything I have felt, and everything you have felt are both part of reality. However, I've decided to accept your explanations for now Lumina."

"You mean..." She wasn't too ready to jump to the conclusion herself, since I had adamantly refused to believe her earlier.

But fear no more Lumina. From this point on, everything will be different. "I believe you Lumina. I believe that everything you told me about yourself and your world are true, even though I still feel like I'm missing some information. I believe in your reasons for purging me, even though you don't entirely understand some of them yourself." It was something else I could feel from her; confusion about the reason why. It only makes her more realistic in my opinion, that she could be so certain she wants to do something, and be uncertain about the decision at the same time, a feeling I could personally relate to. "And it isn't just that either. The pain flowing through you every single time I walk within range of a heathen... It's not all pure anger, is it now?"

"I..." Now I could feel her crying, confused by my own logic, or perhaps having not expected it so soon.

But I knew that what I was saying was the truth. Lumina and all of the other Altiri don't simply hate men. They're hungry for their bloodshed. Legasso destroyed an entire planet over his selfish desires, killing one million Altiri women in the process, the mothers of all these children in the process. I didn't consider until just now how personal it really is for her. Lumina's mother was on that planet, as well as the other friends of Lumina. 94% of all Altiri have had similar happen to them, which is why all of them collectively hate men together. The pain from losing their loved ones was unimaginable to me, but I could still sense such pain leaking from her heart. What she's been feeling this entire time was not solely anger. It was mixed in with vengeance, fear, sadness, and even a tiny amount of guilt. As much of a rush I knew it was to separate my own emotions from hers in a telepathic link, I was finally getting the hang of how it all works to do it effectively.

The point is, Lumina is in terrible pain from what happened more than 100,000 years ago, proving that the Altiri memory is strong. After all she has helped me with, the least I could do was sympathize with her feelings. "I'm sorry that I didn't understand you earlier. I was only in learning mode in all of this, but you have a strong hatred to all of these heathens, and a strong reason to hate all of them too. Legasso died on the world he sought to destroy, escaping a much more worthy fate of punishment the Altiri would have set out for him. And because he was the one and only Altiri male to be born in your world, none of you have any strong outlets for that lingering anger. So you take it out on the people of Earth. The men here at the very least think or act like Legasso, or do terrible things in their own lives with their own choices. It all prevents this from being so wrong. You can all latch onto that burning vengeance in your hearts while you have nothing else to get you through such pain. You're doing that because everybody knows that nobody can make up for what happened. Nobody can replace what pain was inflicted on your race so long ago."

I wanted to be as precise as possible in my own analysis. I didn't blame Lumina for the way she felt anymore. How could I? After everything I've just seen, I hate those heathens too now with all perfect reason. They're indirectly responsible for the death of millions of Altiri women, a thought that makes me sick just thinking about it. But based on what I was saying, I felt the pressure of her hands below my eyes, her voice trembling while she sobbed into her own skin. I've never heard her cry like this before, the sadness inside amplifying so much from the reminder of it all. It was so difficult for me to continue now that I was forced to share her pain from the telepathy alone.

"Listen," I sighed, feeling guilty about this now. "This sucks. I know you lost your mother... How I wish I could have met her..."

Lumina was only crying harder now. Unable to speak with the tension in her throat, she used her thoughts to communicate back onto me before I could continue. "I— I—" The trembling throughout her body mimicked the stutters in her own thought process towards me. "I don't even remember who she is anymore!"

What? I winced a little in surprise, dragging myself around the corner a little to prevent being interrupted if a teacher comes out here. But I needed to be sure I heard that correctly. She doesn't remember her own mother? "You mean, you don't—"

"I don't! Every time I think back from now, I can't remember her face, or what she was like. I can't even remember her own name! I loved my mom and I don't even know who she is!" Lumina was shaking with the guilt and the anger, cursing herself from deep within, all for committing the ultimate sin.

I didn't understand how that was possible, but all I could focus on now was her breaking heart. "I'm so sorry Lumina... That must make things worse." Tears filled the space in my eyes too. It wasn't just because her emotions were shared with mine. I fully understood how much that would hurt anybody. It was too strange to properly imagine, going through life and forgetting her own mother.

"Iehie!" Making a sound Lumina could only make by lifting her face from her hands too quickly from these tears, the recurring shock of her memory loss made me tinge a little too. "I'm a horrible person! I should remember everything about her!"

If this were happening in front of me with somebody else, I wouldn't know what to do or say. I'd be so lost for words that it wouldn't even seem like I cared even though I would. But I came to some guesses about why it happened in the first place. "You've all lived for a hundred thousand years Lumina. Memory loss is bound to happen on some level. But surely you remember one thing or another. If you remember nothing about her at all, this wouldn't kill you inside as it does now. I know that you loved her Lumina. You loved your mother; that's something you haven't been able to forget. And I'm sure there could be more. You are a good person, so I know you have it in you to remember her more than you do now, even if it takes a long time."

"But... But you..."

I didn't need additional context to understand what she wanted to point out. Of course I understood the absurdity of my own words. What do I possibly know anyway? "Yes, I do still have my own mom. I don't know what the real pain is for losing a family member. I've never had it happen to me before... But I can still see how much this clearly affects you. And I wish that there was something I could say or do to make you feel better, but all I can do is wish it Lumina. I don't want you to be sad like this. All I can do is wish..." I felt too disgusted with myself to continue. How could I possibly sympathize with her when she and I are nothing alike? I still have my own mother alive and in the flesh. She probably hates me for that, despises in jealousy that I have something she never will again. However, after what Lumina said next, I knew I was coming to the wrong conclusion just now.

"That's what I love about you Reed. Sometimes... Sometimes you know exactly what to say." She sounded more mellow and happy, that I had somehow cheered her up?

"Wha—" I don't really know what I said that should have cheered her up. Like I said, I can't relate to her pain at all. She feels so guilty for losing the memoires most precious to her. I could never imagine doing that myself. "You mean..."

Lumina stuck to her physical voice now, even though she struggled to speak normally with some of her body still shuttering inside. "I'm okay... I can never forgive myself for what I've done, but I have a new friend who I can talk to about it... I have you."

I felt a little weird, as the rating of importance I gave onto myself somehow jumped up after realizing that I was helping her somehow... I realized a moment later that disappointing Lumina was the last thing I wanted to do ever again. After all she did helping me, maybe I can help her with some things too. "I'm here for you Lumina. If there is something you ever need to talk to me about, I'll gladly listen to you for as long as it takes."

"Thank you." Her gratitude flared from our words, overshadowing the other emotions bringing the both of us down together seconds ago.

"I get it now." Reminding myself of all I learned today, I knew things would never be the same again. I have to understand her pain before I can understand anything else. "These heathens of the world are everywhere on this planet. Their evil spreads far and wide. Legasso lives within a certain type of personality, the kind that many heathens inhabit and use for themselves."

"I never really see any female heathens, though they do exist. It doesn't take all that much for such influence to corrupt the mind of somebody so wonderful."

"Well, I can't really do much about it." I had to be realistic here. Even if I totally understand why heathens are so evil now, it doesn't mean I can take direct action myself. If the Altiri were to suddenly land here, I'm sure their first mission would be to slaughter every last one... But that isn't going to happen. "I mean, it's not like I can just go and kill them all. I'd go to prison before I could wipe out at least two people. What would either of us get out of it then?"

"I know," she finally admitted. "I overreacted. We'll just stick to heating heathens in silence then?"

I hope she doesn't expect too much from me. But maybe I can watch our backs a little more with this understanding. "We can both hate heathens together Lumina. Maybe I'll feel a little better if I get in their face for a change, maybe threaten them a little?"

"I could live with that."

It felt good having her so calm and docile now, ironic as it was that some of our shared anger could bring us this calm. "Of course, after this, I don't think I can ever hang out with men ever again."

"Oh, never!"

I only recently got over that part of myself, the aspect of wanting to be the grisliest guy possible. I knew it was no requirement to stay who I was now, but it made me feel a little better, knowing that by extension I would be as far away from the influence of heathenism as possible. I felt a little conflicted that I wanted to resurrect those suppressed desires once more, to bring back what the purge sprang before me while making my own choice to do so. "Of course, I've already been hanging out with girls exclusively for a long time, thanks to your purge. I guess it can't hurt if I continue that trend."

With a mild giggle, Lumina reminded me of its consequence. "If you become any more like a girl than you are now, I'm going to laugh."

Looks whose talking... "Don't evade blame if that does happen. If I turn all sass, you'll just have to put up with it."

Before I knew it, another student brushed through the half-shut door, wandering into the wilderness and turning askew to find me, sitting with my back agianst the wall looking somewhat defeated. "Oh, there you are Reed. The coach said we can't be outside."

They sure are relentless. Of course I knew this was going to happen, though uncertain why the coach can't come here himself. I was actually grateful that I had this much time to myself. After everything Lumina and I spoke about, I don't think I have it in me right now to go back into the gym and continue those pointless benchmarks. Still, it was interesting to see that Banarus was the one coming out here to drag me back inside.

"Are you okay?"

Confused as to why she suddenly looked so concerned about me, I stood up, hoping that Lumina can stay quiet just long enough for me to collect myself and respond to Banarus. "Huh? Yeah, I'm fine."

"You sure?" That which she saw written on my face could not escape from her eyes. "It looks like you've been crying. Your eyes are all watery."

What? Oh, Oops! I totally didn't even consider to properly wipe away every last tear she and I cried together. I guess if Banarus thinks I've been crying the entire time, it will only raise her suspicions that I'm up to stranger things about this place. It's already too late to hide my face now. I hope it wasn't too obvious.

"Hm... Banarus really has no idea about us, does she?"

That's her take on the situation? Oh, whatever. I think I'll go with Lumina's instincts on this one. There are additional barriers for people to find out about me and Lumina. It's not like my acting strange will automatically spell out the conclusion for other people that I'm telepathically talking to an alien. No, the first conclusion they will make first is that I've lost my marbles. "Yeah, it must be something in the air. I think something got into my eyes." I wasn't sure if that weak excuse would do it, but it is at least possible. I have such sensitive eyes that looking directly into something bright enough could cause them to cry from the pain of it alone, the same way it happens for people when they choke on something tiny in just the right way.

"Come on." Banarus led me back into the gym, as I no longer fought to be outside. I was only trying to isolate myself from everybody else, to focus exclusively on Lumina given the situation. But once I was far enough in, the coaches nodded their heads in my direction, telling me without words that I was not to do that again. In the meantime, Banarus led me to Ashly. "Well, I found him."

"So, what is happening?" I didn't have the slightest idea why Banarus led me to Ashly of all people. It didn't feel like it was too important.

"I promised her she could braid you hair."

Before I had time to contemplate her joke, Ashly turned on a devilish smile while holding up a pair of hairclips in each hand. I had to back away a few steps in fear for my hair. "Whoa! No touchy!"

"Ah, come on!" She sounded so disappointed at having no opportunity to touch my hair.

It surprised me a little, considering I have not really let that part of me show for a while. But when I did, Banarus and Ashly were some of the ones who knew first. They must still think I'm used to it now. "Not today." I know I just said I would accept becoming more girly again, but that's going to take some time for me to settle first. I have too much to process today anyway.

"Looks like you won't have to work hard chipping away at your reputation."

"So, tomorrow then?"

I sighed, having no patience agianst her relentless desire to give me a makeover. Some girls found an unexpected fun in making me look as girly as possible, even though I would always avoid any makeup. I used to love giving into that sensation, since I got some satisfaction in making others happy or to laugh at the situation. But right now, it's too much.

"Oh yeah." Ashly lifted her hand a little, remembering something important she wanted to tell me. "What did you say to Laura by the way? She said she was pissed off at you or something."

"Oh shit! Where'd she go?" Am I a complete idiot? How could I have forgotten about that? I lashed out at her, and it wasn't her fault.

She glanced around aimlessly, failing to spot her in the crowd. Everybody seemed to be doing their own thing now, apparently done with the benchmarks and having turned the remainder of the day into a free day. "Well, she was here."

"I'll have to explain it to her later then. Screw it all!"

"No use blaming anybody for that. She's the one who interrupted your moment."

And it's because of that moment that she thinks I'm a total weirdo now. I'm okay with it if she does, but I still owe her an apology. Laura might have already told other people what I was up to. If I'm not more careful next time, my entire reputation could be trashed in an instant. I know what I said earlier, but I still want a fair chance at making real friends in this school.

"I can tell her you wanted to apologize when I find her."

The fact that Ashly would so casually help me with that means Laura must not have told her what I was up to outside. Banarus wasn't repeating the fact that I was crying. Maybe my secret is safe? Oh, but I have to find Laura first. "Thank you. I'd want to find her myself, but she must have left the gym. I was in the middle of something important, and she kind of interrupted."

"What was so important?"

Of course, I overlooked the curiosity of these girls too. Banarus was oddly quiet up until now, but hearing Ashly ask me the question lifted her ears and coaxed her to turn around with her arms folded in, waiting on my answer. I didn't need Lumina's help this time to tell me how much of a problem this already was. Even so, I have to fix it on my own. "I can't... Talk about it...." I didn't mean to hesitate, but I really couldn't come up with anything to say. Unfortunately, my own cryptic response made it worse for myself.

"Getting all dark and sneaky huh? I guess we'll just have to ask Laura."

It was now that I remember how much Ashly loved hearing about people's secrets, only then to turn around and add it to her chain of interesting gossip. However, I wasn't too threatened by expression this time. "Yeah, good luck. Laura has no idea what she saw either." I figured out why Laura wouldn't say anything about me, other than my demand for her to leave me alone. Even if she saw me talking to the open air, that outcome isn't something that would make sense to most people. I don't think Laura is in the business of repeating any information if she doesn't understand it herself.

"But they probably already suspect that something is wrong with you. You have not been entirely covert about this."

She just had to remind me huh? Maybe they won't admit to me that they suspect I'm up to something. Still, why would there be a thought that anything were wrong with me? "I've got the coolest friend in the world, someone I can directly call with my own brain... There's nothing wrong with me."

Unable to determine if I was being serious or sarcastic, Lumina fidgeted a little while reminding me of what was more conspicuous. "I meant the part about you talking out loud near others when you're the only one who can see me."

"Right..." She has a point. Even though I've properly learned how to separate my vocal speech from my telepathic speech, I'll still choose to talk to Lumina with direct speech on occasion. It feels better that way. "But I only do that sometimes..." She wasn't too impressed by my logic, I could tell even in her silence. "Look, it helps me focus, okay?" Speaking to her without thought projection feels better than the projected thoughts itself, and I now understood why. "Besides, it feels better to speak out loud talking to you. I want it to feel like I'm talking to you in person."

"Yeah.... Just try telling that to everybody else."

"Yeah, I know." No excuse would ever be good enough for the curious wondering what I've been hiding under the hood for the past week. Even after everything I've heard, I'm actually less confident now that I could potentially convince anybody else that the Altiri really do exist. What proof could I ever offer them?

I believe in Lumina. Even though that belief is driven by faith, I won't ever let that go now. I know that everything I've been through is no fantasy, no dream, no tangent of fiction. Everything I sense is real, even if the body I inhabit is simulated, a collection of data or imagination from somebody else. An entire world, place, and situation can all be faked, but never somebody's heart and soul. She is real. I care not for the semantics of this any longer. I have chosen to follow this path wherever it leads me. I have chosen to believe in Lumina. Nothing; nobody will ever pry me from our new friendship. Go ahead and try to figure it out everyone! You'll never be able to guess the elegance of our new life.