"I know there must be more to it than that. Please Lumina. I know it isn't easy to explain, but do you think maybe you can give me one more chance to understand it?"

"Reed? Even I don't fully understand the functions behind this principle, nor do I grasp how it ties back into the technology."

Despite how we both sounded, neither one of us were totally desperate for answers. In another normal night, I decided to extract more info about Altiri technology and science, simply because it was very interesting to date.

She once told me that psionic energy waves or transmission waves do produce actual psionic frequencies, and that computer equipment cannot interpret or detect these signals, but they can still project them and interfere with them. From what little I understood about the functions of psionic energy transmission, not all of these frequencies are positive coefficient values; some are actually negative.

Let me ask you something, author to reader:

Do you think negative frequencies exist?

I didn't think so at first either, as much as the concept blew my mind. Today was a bit different than the other days though. Besides the fact that I've recently felt something indescribable and incredible, like some other world reaching out and trying to touch me, the month in total has put me in kind of a scientific mood. I've been trying to understand things I couldn't understand from my past, like among many things, Altiri technology. Quantum teleportation is still off the table, but negative frequencies might not be.

It wasn't that I came across any new information. I was simply in the mood to think and reflect on it until my brain hurts. I kept feeling the tug of my background thoughts, enticing me more on the matter despite my total lack of understanding on how negative frequencies could in theory exist. Of many of my subconscious background thoughts, there is one thread dedicated to error checking, among things like this, a sensation that I'm right on the verge of understanding something important, if only I allocate more time to it. Lumina doesn't have this context, so at first, she didn't think I cared too much about it.

"Why are you so hung up on it anyway?"

"You really don't get it, do you? Mainly, my reasons are simple curiosity in that of itself. But hey, there is always the chance I could learn something that could become a breakthrough of Earth science as well. If that happens, I might be able to open this up to other humans and prove your existence to them in a different way."

"Supposing that were possible, are you sure it's wise to open up human scientific minds on something so big?"

She means dangerous. Lumina and I talked about it before, about the what-if scenario in which human scientists start delving into the field of psionics with many successes and breakthroughs. It was a thought that terrified us both, because of the potential for abusing data in such a field. Even so, I doubt human technology would be able to produce a negative frequency field, let alone one of psionic energy. "Probably not. Still, Lumina? I feel like I'm on the verge of getting it."

"I'll try to help you, since I'm curious where you're going with this. What can I do to help?"

Finally! "Well, can you start be helping define what a negative frequency actually is?"

"By frequency, you include a kind of energy. Every energy reaction that exists, every energy wave that is produced is in some way measurable. I don't say that to mean that we know how to measure this, only to say that such frequencies produce very precise numbers of signatures. It's also important to remember that for every reaction, there is an opposite and equal reaction. If the starting point of this reaction produces negative frequencies, then the opposite reaction will produce positive reactions. However, psionic signals are very different because they are sometimes seen as a kind of language. A single instance or session of something could include both positive and negative psionic frequencies, as part of the same reaction, though both positives and negatives would not always be their polar opposites."

"So you're saying, if ever you are sending out psionic signals, the signals contain both unique sets of positive and negative psionic energy waves?"

"Correct."

"I get that, but it still doesn't explain what a negative signal is. Like, how would this look, if for example we examine something more understood, such as sound?"

"Well, first, it depends on how you are defining sound. Also, sound waves have very different properties. While you can have a positive sound, you cannot have a negative sound."

"That's right," I concluded. "Absence of sound does not mean there is a negative sound; it just means zero."

"Exactly. Normally, two polar opposites of two opposing frequencies, one positive and the other - its negative coefficient, would cancel each other out. But when it comes to audio waves, we can only detect the positive ranges, and not even the full spectrum at that. Sound waves are generated by increasing the amplitude or power of its source, and at the very base level, sounds are generated by vibrations with set tones and frequencies. Simply cutting the power to zero on these doesn't produce an opposite reaction; it instead stops the sound."

"That's what boggles my mind. How then can there be a negative sound frequency if we can never hear it?"

"Exactly. Defining what you cannot sense or detect has always been a difficult aspect of psionics. Just because we Alriri are avid telepaths does not mean we can sense or interact with all points of possible communication levels. For instance, there was a short time when you were able to use future-sight clairvoyance, while all of us can only use present-sight clairvoyance. There was some unknown and extra psionic data you were able to tap into, even if you could not make any sense of it. Your brain is a lot like a computer. It doesn't have to fully understand or comprehend what is going on to work; it only needs to run the necessary attached equipment. Extracting exact values of psionic frequencies from using psionic powers doesn't just happen, though those data points are always involved."

"I'm getting the sense that sound is not a good example to use then."

"In theory, negative sound waves should not even exist, but the basis of this principle cannot be selective; it must be universally applicable. Therefore, we have to understand what it actually means for a negative sound wave to exist. Perhaps you're thinking about it incorrectly. You're trying to define this based on what the body is capable of sensing, detecting, or consciously interpreting, where this is not actually a possibility, yet the negative frequency still exists. What then does this mean in principle?"

"Give me a moment to think..." This is all very incredible, but she's right; it is a matter of new perspectives on how this could be defined. Maybe a negative frequency has no intended design to cancel out its polar opposite, that it can be generated in such a way where the reverse coefficient is nonexistent... No, if that were true, it would break the laws of conservation of energy. Everything has an opposite and equal reaction. If we produce a negative frequency to start, at some point in time, this will cancel out, either via a direct wave, or via gradual diffusion of merging signals. Still, the implication is that a positive and a negative sound still has value on equal proportions.

I can't begin to imagine how it might be possible to have an opposite or reversal of vibrations in a medium. However, I can mentally map out where this is all going. When it comes to positive sound waves, we produce this and control it via amplitude of power. When the sounds stop, it means that the power was cut, but doing so in the process did not intentionally create a negative frequency. Without this cancelation, there would be an infinity effect to all energy generated. So, right in the moment of sound generation, we are in the process of experiencing that energy. We can fell it through our ears, making sense of something right then and there. If right before this point we heard no such sounds, it was because there were no positive frequencies to begin with. Sound waves get weaker as they travel through mediums, eventually diffracting or diffusing to nothingness, but that isn't the whole story...

Cutting the power supply off to sound generation is not the act of producing negative frequencies, nor is it an action that causes the sound to disappear on its own. Sound waves eventually die out because of energy transference; the vibrations traveling through the air ripple into physical matter, which in some instances can even produce heat, if given one hell of a vibration. Right as this sound begins to disappear, the brain, using the ears, factor in the difference in altered volume and sliding frequencies if any happen.

Diffraction and travel are too many unnecessary variables though, so let's eliminate that for a moment. Even though it isn't theoretically possible to do so, if a produced positive sound wave was created in a frictionless space, perhaps held there by some kind of advanced gravity bubble, and never allowed to diffuse through normal means, would it still persist? How can it when the initial power to this sound has been cut?

No, I'm not thinking of this correctly. Negative noise does exist, but it must be part of some system we experience without noticing it, like a kind of waiting period of... Waiting period...?

"Huh?"

"Wait, I think I figured it out!"

"Have you?"

Lumina gave me the time and space I needed to go further with this new chain of thought. What if all it boils down to is the concept of sending and receiving? When a positive sound frequency is produced, it's because something is generating this force, creating this sound, and sending or projecting it out into the open. If everything were exclusively a sending unit however, then there would be no way to interpret such information, even though it would still exist, which is the flip side of what Lumina was saying earlier about psionic data in general.

What if, negative sound frequencies are not generations at all, but rather receptacles of input information? What does it look like in a frequency map to receive information? The vibrational ripple effect of sound is measured in such a way where useful data can be made from it by the brain, but before that happens, there has to be a means of energy cancelation and data agreement. What if the entire world around us, the opposite of this world, the quantum antimatter universe has forces such as this? What if negative frequencies of all levels fill this anti-world completely, but remove or reduce the negative frequencies specific to their positive coefficient values in the moment of a spacial area, albeit temporarily?

Maybe the concept behind a negative frequency is one of reception and not of projection. A unit waiting on information input would be prepared to obtain this input, even if it isn't actively expected. A kind of concept, waiting to receive information, and receiving that information in itself is not driven by positive projections, rather the reverse. That must mean...

"So then, a negative frequency isn't something that gets projected and sent, but rather a frequency involved in receiving information, or the waiting process of expecting one."

"Now you lost me." She never fully understood this too much better than I did, but I was about to try and change that.

"Bear with me Lumina. Get this; if every reaction has an opposite and equal reaction, how exactly do you think a positive sound generates a negative one?"

"I don't know."

"That answer is, it doesn't, and it does, all at once."

"What?"

"An expectation to receive an exact positive frequency is in itself a negative frequency, to the polar coefficient. Because projecting a negative signal is not possible, its receptive property means that this does not actually generate the positive coefficient on its own, thus the negative signal simply exists as a negative signal and doesn't dial off, unless the receiver suddenly decides not to receive or expect any more. Consequently, producing a positive sound wave projects and sends this signal out, but just because sound is produced does not actually mean just anyone will hear it or expect to. Thus, while negative sound waves do exist, they are not immediately produced by positive sound waves to satisfy any kind of cancelation."

"I figured that much already. It sounds like a lot of nothing."

"I'm not finished... The problem with sound waves, aside from a limited ability to experience them is a flawed approach of an example to thinking about negative frequencies, because it is a very limited medium of information. On top of this, in theory, based on the definition I've just given, it can still be arguable whether these negative sound waves exist or not, and it would not be of any benefit if they were somehow discovered. But psionic energy waves are different."

"Okay?"

"A single psionic frequency on its own contains a spec of data, but by itself it doesn't mean a whole lot. If several positive psionic frequencies are combined into a kind of language, for example, the physical sensation of frog skin as experienced via clairsentience or telepathy, then these signals carry this sensation altogether as a kind of package or large data packet. However, at the end of the day, positive frequencies are only projected signals; they are only half of the other side... For the other half, negative psionic frequencies, this would imply an interpretation and reception only to the exact polar coefficient values of the projected positive data. It's kind of like a field of infinite negative numbers spanned throughout the entire astral plane, and these negative frequencies only react and interact with a node when their positive coefficients are triggered."

"That's one crazy way to look at it..."

"However, if that is true, then it conflicts with what you told me earlier, about how your transporater or other Altiri in the process of transperation send out both positive and negative frequencies of psionic energy. It cannot be possible to send out any negative frequency with this theory, as I've explained it."

"Hm..." I gave Lumina time to think, not because I wanted to challenge her story, but because I knew she and I both were just as uncertain about the conclusion. "According to Herios, negative psionic frequencies are definitely involved in the process; that much is irrefutable. The program is designed to amplify a set of these frequencies, both positive and negative, but we Altiri do this as well in the same principle. Maybe it's not a matter of sending these negative psionic frequencies simultaneously, but rather experiencing them ourselves in the process."

"Such a thing should be totally distracting to the entire process... That is, unless there is a specific purpose to small segments of negative psionic frequency data."

"I don't follow."

"Lumina? Off the top of your head, can you tell me if the proportion of positive psionic energy waves greatly outweighs the level of negative energy waves during the transperation process?"

"It does... But why?"

"Then it might have something to do with a result-generated positive projection wave. Think of it kind of like a daisy chain. If experiencing a negative psionic frequency, interpreting or receiving specific psionic data can consequently cause the brain to react and generate a specific positive wave without conscious knowledge, then it might explain what role negative psionic frequencies have. What if even though they can only be received, it still has a way to immediately factor and feed a specific result to the projection phase of psionic projection? It would be similar to synesthesia. If the brain interprets even a small signal, even on a subconscious level, it may cause the brain or body to react in a particular manner, without direct awareness of that input or its reaction. In a totally separate example, keeping things more simple, if a soul wandering the astral plane is in the direct process of receiving positive psionic frequencies, then they must in turn produce, not project, but produce negative psionic frequencies of each coefficient opposite in order to properly interpret this information from the astral. Positive projections provide positive frequencies for any energy medium, while negative frequencies act as a receiving mode for those positive coefficients. Of course, if those positives never arrive, then the waiting happens indefinitely, until it is canceled."

"That's one hell of a jump to possible conclusions. Simply waiting to receive something shouldn't produce anything, even if it is a negative energy wave."

"You can't look at this the same way when it comes to the verb and direct action. At first, I assumed that, because positive energy production requires some kind of direct action, some kind of direct force acting in some way on the data around it, that the reverse would be no different. As it turns out, in the world of negatives, the very prospect of causing something to happen is also reversed in a polar manner as well. If you are in the act of doing something, the exact opposite of that would not be to do nothing, but instead to wait for something to happen, to wait for the effect of the cause, exactly the same as the sound wave problem we looked at earlier."

"... Holy shit!"

"Blow your mind yet?" Like I was one to talk. I tried not to show it, but I was silently panting, my body bobbing to my rapid breath and heart rate. That's exactly how much thought I put into this, how obsessed I was over figuring this out, even just a little. It doesn't actually answer too much overall, but it's a step higher than I was before.

"Where is all of this coming from? It still doesn't answer everything, but I have to admit, your explanation isn't a bad one. It might even be testable."

Guess she had to get suspicious eventually. I didn't want to let onto Lumina just yet about what I felt the other day. I'm not even sure if what I felt was real myself. It was only for a micro-second, but for that tiny moment, I felt at one with the entire universe, and that I could become part of everything and everyone, understand all I could ever want to... Or maybe it was just one random dopamine rush; hell, I don't know what I felt, but it wasn't nothing... It started to open my mind a little more, getting me to think about all of the impossible things people could never think about, at least not without great effort, and that includes the afterlife. I'm beginning to think Herios wasn't as crazy as I thought. "When I understand it later, I'll tell you."

Serious as I was, I'm no arrogant fool. I knew damn well it would be impossible for anyone at all to know everything there is to know about everything. To know that much would probably require some kind of horrific madness none could recover from, and I'm perfectly okay with not knowing everything about the afterlife, though I'll get into my personal thoughts on that later.

There's something more to it though. I was once told I have the ability to possibly sense other worlds besides this one, that the boundary between our connection still exists, but isn't strong enough to lock out all awareness of them. It could mean literally anything, but maybe that right there is the point; that anything is possible. The powers of the very imagination are not limited to the debate of reality versus fantasy; there's so much more power locked behind the imaginative abilities of any person, and there's a very specific reason or force which locks out the difference between these multiple overlapping existences. That said, I don't think they can be locked out as easily as a universally applied principle, because if anything is possible in the afterlife, it means there is potential data overlap between many layers of dimensional existence, an evolution of polarity so to speak, a construct of initial existence followed and combined with an evolutionary tier of introspective observation.

For now, I'll just stick to the negative frequency principle; it's still plenty for my hungry mind to sink its fangs of knowledge into. "What gets me is, because psionics often has both of these channel sides open, negative frequencies can be obtained even with people in this physical universe, still alive and all. Do you understand what that entails Lumina? With the correct sets of psionic frequencies, you can literally communicate with souls in the Astral."

"What did you think transperation and resurrection was? Herios was the expert on the field, and I don't want to make you sound like a small fry by comparison, but she knew much more about it than you ever will."

"Yeah, I know that. I'm not trying to compete."

"That said, it was an amazing revelation in hindsight. The process is not perfect enough for any Altiri to directly receive or hear anything from the soul of interest in the process, though as you just mentioned, maybe we do receive signals from them, just that they are too small of data points that the subconscious mind handles this aspect of it instead, changing the psionic tune of alteration as we continue to project over time."

"So, do I count as an Altiri genius now?" I asked this despite still being a human myself. I've recently been so off put by other humans that, at heart, I consider myself an Altiri at least. In terms of my allegiance, I'm Altiri all the way. If I had to pick a side between humans and Altiri, well, I'm choosing The Unity above all else.

"It isn't much, but I will say this could be the beginning of our understanding in quantum psionic projections. All said, it isn't nothing... I'm impressed. Happy now?"

"Ah, you always know how to compliment me only enough to feel like I've barely made a dent."

"I mean, I didn't know this was that important to you."

"You're important to me Lumina. As such, since you are an Altiri, and since I will one day join you in a male Altiri body, I have to think about the second future I will have with you up there. As grand as it sounds to spend my time with you, it isn't always going to just be you and me, is it?"

"Well..."

"As I said before. I'm sure the royal Scryers would love to get their hands on my beautiful brain, probably to ask me to work with them in many scientific fields after I've been educated and trained on the basics, to attempt solving some very critical problems for the Altiri, such as the resource shortage, the distance problem of expeditions, and even the mystery behind the declining population."

"They may want that, but I won't let anyone force you to do anything you don't want to do."

"On the contrary Lumina. I want to help your people, more than you know. I'll gladly give up many years of my services to help The Unity. I'm not saying I'm going to be the next Herios, plus there are eleven other purged humans that may potentially assist in research projects as well after they are transperated alongside myself. My point is, with all the right care and precautions adopted, I'll do all I can to bring The Unity out of the stasis you people have been caught up in. Even if all I can do is provide a little push, I'll give it my all. I love you Lumina, but I care about the people of your world too you know. I'll have future friends and family there after all."

"That's very kind of you. You must really be put off by humanity to think of yourself as an Altiri, mind and spirit."

"I won't say my motivations are born out of disgust for this human world, but... This world is going to hell in a hand basket. I'm not saying all humans are bad, but there seems to be a higher abundance of evil in this world than there is good, and at the same time, no unification to fight this evil."

"It's not always the number of people, but rather the power some hold over others, stretching far beyond what it should... But I suppose I'll trust you on the other stuff... It blows my mind sometimes."

"What? Humans?"

"You... You and very few other humans who are as good as you say. I've looked upon the earth for thousands of years, and though my memory of this is not all crystal clear as it should be, I'm sometimes baffled whenever I come across any human who differs from those in their surroundings by such a wide margin. It's not that you were the first human who caught my attention. I mean, you were the first non-heathen male I've ever seen when I did see you in clairvoyance, but even that isn't what amazed me. What amazed me was a combination of things, like, how perceptive and observant you were even as a kid, how resistant you were to heathen influences, and how quiet you were, yet so significant whenever you did speak."

"I don't ever remember saying anything significant to anyone other than you and myself... Wait."

"Realized it now? Back when you were in home school, you didn't do very much learning that year. Your mother worked a lot, mostly the night shift, and would sometimes take on a second job. You spent a lot of your downtime watching those GSN game shows, and you even had a whiteboard in front of you whenever any complex mathematics were involved in the game's chance system, even though it was never any revealed part of the game itself."

"You saw that huh...?" Ugh, the cringe! I didn't think anything of it back then, but it isn't something I share with most people now that I'm grown up.

"But the game shows and video games were not always enough. You had found ways to satisfy your curious mind against boredom, but you were never able to satisfy your social life like all others around you did."

"Yeah..." She's really making me think so far back. Those memories are still so vividly fresh on my mind. As far back as first grade, I was fairly perceptive, and even during my second grade homeschooling, I had the opportunity at least to roam around the neighborhood (with supervision), and try socializing with other neighbors. There were lots of other kids my age in the neighborhood at the time, and I knew as much... The reason why I chose not to bother with them was mostly because of how I was treated in my first grade year.

I was a weird kid; I won't deny that. I've never been outspoken. Even when I speak for real, I don't normally project my voice loudly enough for most to hear the first time, something that's actually gotten a bit worse thanks to my reliance on telepathy with Lumina. Anyway, in all the aspects where I was equal with everyone else, I was socially more mature than those around me. Others told me the reverse was true, but I refute the argument yet again. As someone who back then wanted to talk about anything interesting, what I was left with instead were kids around my age interested in only the pettiest of things. For grade one students, it was mostly a challenge of not having a reason to be made fun of, combined with not being too much of a teacher's pet, combined with other kids getting involved in stupid fights, and added on with the additional activity of TV followed by nap-time, which I secretly never slept for.

The point is, I could never match my personal social aura with anybody else, and my own oddness and quietness stood out just enough for bullies to target me, though nothing ever advanced to anything physical. To outsiders, I was just another nobody. To myself, I was someone who craved more mind-expanding conversations or attention, if it was obtained by civilized means. I was more behaved than I was nice. I was more curious than I was quiet. With so much to say and so much to think about, I always failed to make a single friend in that grade. It went on so strong that I even attempted to hold casual chatter with the adults and teachers, drawing out my desire to at least meet people more mature than by class surroundings.

When home school finally hit, I was relieved. Even though I would spend time mostly by myself at home, I didn't have to put up with the constant reminder that I never fit in with anybody else around me. It's the reason why I didn't want to bother trying to find other kids to play with in my own neighborhood back then; the interest was already ruined for me so soon.

Even so, I think back to those moments in time, and there was plenty of sadness still there, sadness that I could never really succeed in making any friend. I was a lot closer to my mom those days, so it wasn't as bad as it might sound, even though my mom and I don't see eye to eye anymore.

"That social disconnect you could never quite fix, I know it got to you. I know that it hurt you."

"You saw through me that easily from all the way up there?"

"Well, I had a little help in this situation. Moments where you were sure your mom and dad were away at work or out of sight, you would often talk to yourself about it."

"Oh..." Doesn't she realize she's embarrassing me? Don't judge me! Any kid would probably try talking to themself at least once. I remember doing so as she says, but I abandoned that habit after the third grade. "That's embarrassing."

"It might embarrass you, but it opened my eyes to all that was going on with you. Even when you were alone, you usually didn't ever speak. But after long enough, you started having whole conversations with yourself, if only for the short time of second grade."

"I don't remember what I said anyway, so I doesn't matter."

"But I never once forgot. Once or twice you mentioned wishing for friends, and other times you pondered the mysteries of the world, that which could not so easily be explained, like crazy dreams, other worlds, and most of all, your sense for adventure, which was cute."

"Alright, are you going somewhere with this?"

"I'm just telling you the reason. Being different isn't exactly what set my sights on you. When I realized what it was in life you wanted so badly, and that your very own personality being so different wasn't making it easy, well... The summer for that following year eventually hit, and I lost contact with the whole area for a long time; several months."

Did she just evade her own answer?

"During those long months, it put me in this powerful montrum."

"You, of all people experienced a montrum?"

"Of course I did. I thought this way about the other few I had my eyes on, but especially you, because I totally understood why you were feeling that way back then. It got me thinking about what kinds of alterations and factors would help change that for you, what exactly it would take to make your ease and suffering a little easier... I even considered a purge at that moment, only hypothetically, to try and simulate how that might help you. I never decided or even proposed the idea then."

"Until eventually, you did..." She really wasn't kidding all those years ago, when she told me she had watched me grow up in my circumstances. Sure, I didn't wind up in some backwater hood with gang violence right around the corner or with an abusive parental situation like others have, but there is a different maximum limit to what people at a certain age and maturity can actually handle. I've said this before. Though it would never have happened instantly or soon, the lack of social interaction would have only continued to worsen without Lumina's intervention of a purge; of that I am certain. Subsequently, I'm just as certain the depression born of this failure would have eventually led me to consider or carry out suicide.

So yeah, some people have it better than me, and some people have it worse than I did, or currently do. It doesn't suddenly mean I'm strong enough to handle anything. What's child's play to one person might be hell on earth for another. No one person is ever at the same strength or in the same place in their life. In my life, this was a turning point that most kids would never want to go through; my parents' divorce.

"When your parents decided to go for divorce, even though it was considerably smooth by comparison to most divorces, it caused everything to fly up into the air. I can only imagine what that must have done to you. In the third grade, it gave you a tiny bit of leverage trying to open up to people, since you could use that among your transfer of school as an initial talking point. However..."

"It did me no good in the end. That school was a cut above the rest, but I still failed to make any meaningful connections there. Then, by fourth grade, I was transferred yet again once my mom settled."

"By some terrible miracle, I never did catch any data about Peterson, though it was around that time he moved in. I did initially have trouble finding where you lived through after the move. A meeting with your mother and father gave me the clues I needed to find you again."

"And you were this enveloped in my personal life story to not take your eyes off me?"

"What started out as curiosity became curiosity mixed with my personal sympathy. The divorce was enough of a shock to me that I wanted to study you longer, and then, curiosity with sympathy, became curiosity with sympathy and more personal attachment to your life. Suddenly, I wasn't watching Reed grow up over the year anymore. I was instead cheering for you in silence, wishing that you would at least make one better friend. Instead..."

"Instead, I grew more desperate in my new school, but a bit unhinged as well. Peterson's little monsters only visited us in the fourth grade, but stayed a lot longer in the summer months of and after the fifth grade. I know you didn't get to see any of that, but, imagine the school's worst bully, and amplify it by about seven; that's what I had to endure. My mother at the time still had enough sense in her to send them back away after enough of their crap, but the damage to myself was already done."

"The damage?"

"Meeting a really good friend would have given me high expectations of what to look for, as well as hope to find it. Peterson's kids revealed to me how much worse things can be instead. I wasn't happy though with what I had before, so it drew a line for me, a boundary that I figured I would never be able to cross, because what I want in friendship must not actually exist, for I have never seen it despite what I hear in other people."

"I'm sorry."

"Then, on top of that, this was also around the same time my headache condition started. It wasn't really as bad back then as it is now, but then, I still had some options and ways of dealing with the ones I did have as a kid. Either way, it set the rails of depression in front of me so clearly, an inescapable zone of despair. And you managed to see all of that?"

"I'm not omniscient, so no, I didn't see all of that. Your words to me now only mean you were in far more suffering than I was able to observe, though I think I imagined worse in my head, enough to match how you really felt. I would still see you at school; you weren't really a depressed and sad kid, but you never stuck your foot deep into the water around you, so to say."

"The kids I wanted nothing to do with wouldn't leave me alone so easily. Those I did want something to do with would scare away too easily, even though I made very careful effort not to try anything too quickly. In some moments between, I even tried acting like some of the other people, though it didn't work like I thought it would, and I was too disgusted with myself to become a heathen like the others."

"Which was initially a scare for me as well... I don't know exactly what it was that kept me glued to you around that time, what exactly gave me urgency with the decision to purge you. I think back to it sometimes, wondering if I was already in love with you from that moment, or if those feelings had not progressed just yet. What I do know, is that when I did decide I wanted to purge you, it was because I knew exactly what you wanted, and I wanted to help give it to you. I knew that if I could purge you, I could offer you what every other human around you turned down so easily without a second thought."

"And what's ironic about that statement, is that even ten years after the purge, I'm more or less in that situation still. Yeah, I have you, but everywhere I try and turn, no human will ever give me a real moment of their time, at least not once they learn about your presence and what it means for you to be part of my life in this way."

"Get it now? I didn't want you to grow up hating yourself, or changing who you were, just because anyone else refused to have any part of you. I made the right choice. Forgiving what I let slip the other day, purging you was indeed not a mistake. I never meant to say that."

"I know... We were both frustrated."

"How are your headaches anyway?"

"Unchanged. It not going to just fix itself you know. I know firsthand how it feels to wish you could give everything you are to help someone in need, only to find yourself unable to. In the situation of my headaches, this problem persists regardless of your presence and your purge, and there seems to be no solution. You, choosing not to purge me back then would never have saved me from this grief."

"I know. That's why I said I didn't mean it."

"But even if you had meant the other thing instead, about how depressed and bent out of shape I get every summer, all of that grief I feel, it's still worth it to me. I love you Lumina. Even if I was suddenly unable to see you ever again, nothing would change how I feel about you. Anyone who acts otherwise about their partner isn't really in love, at least, not like how I feel towards you."

"I feel the same way."

"And so, I don't regret anything that we've done, together or apart. So you watched over me when I was a kid, so what? Kind of embarrassing, but every little thing that happened led up to right now. Since I would have it no other way, I can never see any of it as a mistake. And as it pertains to headaches, since the cause and effect is literally nobody's fault, none can be held to feel any kind of responsibility for this situation."

"I bet one day, you're going to look back on your earth life, and cherish every moment you were there."

"Only ever the moments about us. This isn't just one life I'm living after all. I'm living for your sake as well. I have to live out my earth life before I can become an Altiri; that was part of the deal anyway. Even so, I have to keep up in both worlds at the same time, here and there. Yet because of our telepathy, the overlap between Earth and Karnak is here to stay. As long as I'm not wasting time, I'll never regret a single thing I do."

"Poetic as always... What were we initially talking about though? I think I forgot."

"All I can think of after that is food. I should have had dinner before coming out here. If only I could have one parmesan crusted chicken."

"Maybe you could cook up a negative parmesan chicken. Turns out I remembered what this was initially about."

"Negative chicken; the brass on you for even suggesting as much!"

"Well, I'll let you go home and eat, but I wanted to ask you about something afterwards."

"If it's quick, just ask now."

"It isn't quick. You said you would tell me later, and you could put it off... I'm curious though, about something you mentioned to me the other day. I think you called it, biomeditation."