Lanuleta University – Psychology Class
Where It Ends
Pure confusion and fear over what the heck was going on reigned and ricocheted through our thoughts as the darkness swelled in all directions.
*Don't give up! You can stop them and we'll help!*
The voices inside our heads spoke in a chorus. I tightened my grip around Miguel's hand as the dark creatures reached out.
*We have an idea. Say this and you might have a chance.*
We listened, trying to edge away from the crush of monsters.
Together, we yelled what our voices told us.
"YOU AREN'T REAL! YOU'RE NOTHING!"
The bug-like Kellemann shuddered as though that assault of sound had done more to him than the pole through his chest. All the creatures flinched. Behind us, the way cleared and we ran through it.
The meditation hall and rooms looked rotted through, like giant termites had feasted and spewed out blackness behind them.
*Remember what the message said, get to someplace where you feel strong.*
Panting and running out of this horrible place with Miguel, I didn't know what that meant. I'd listened to that message before the messenger turned into Bug-Kellemann. But I didn't know if either of us could trust it.
*Think about how the monsters responded to being called fake.*
But they didn't go away.
It was an unnatural night all over, like creeping claws shadowing everything. The distances felt so much more than usual. Like that dream where you keep running but don't get anywhere.
*Think positive! The world around seems to respond!*
I thought about things being a little brighter. I thought about the light in the space where Miguel's 'voice' was. I thought about a bright void to wipe away the darkness. A bit of fog seemed to cluster but the darkness remained.
As we rounded the Lanu statue, a mournful creak rippled through the ground. The statue staggered off its pedestal and aimed its pointed parts at us. We tried to think it away. It paused but kept coming.
This all felt like a dream, but we couldn't lucidly alter it. That messenger and Kellemann had both said we could alter universes. I really had no idea what that meant.
Were we in a place made of our memories, like one of the 'experiences' in class come to life? But I didn't remember getting to the final exam. I couldn't recall what the syllabus even said about it. And now a sculpture was about to kill us!
*No! Don't think that! Think the opposite! Believe it!*
We ducked behind a bench as the statue swung forward and slashed at us. I didn't get why they were trying to kill us.
Its Mars spear sliced through the metal of the bench and a swipe of the end of its Venus mirror handle tossed the bench aside.
Miguel thought about telling the statue it wasn't real, but our words caught in stammers. So, we ran again down the brick walkway and into the activities hall. It was just as dark in there.
After a turn in the hallway, hisses and glimmering eyes met us. The cat-like chess pieces had swollen into monstrous tigers. They lunged and we picked up a chair to hold them off. From their porcelain claws, dark protrusions raked my skin.
The moment they touched me, I felt like I was falling asleep. My hand slipped from Miguel's grip. All motion stopped and only the roar of a thousand terrors filled my thoughts. They all felt ruthlessly real.
*WAKE UP, NASIRA!*
The voices screamed, echoed, and roared back against the darkness. Somehow, I brought my hand away from the tiger. I looked in its bishop-like eyes and, with the enthusiasm of my voice, told it, "YOU ARE NOT REAL!"
It dashed back, as though wounded. The others circled around it. That gave us a moment to run through and out the glass doors. We mounted the steps on the other side and up the small hill as it began to melt into sand.
A thundering roar pushed us forward and we staggered back onto the road near Longbloom Hall. Behind us, the entire hall was moving. It stretched up its front like a head and tore itself from its foundation. The animated structure wasn't the only one. All the buildings were beginning to rise like giant monsters cloaked in darkness.
On the other side of the street was a car. Miguel pulled open the door. Somehow, the keys were inside. As I sat in the car, it felt so very familiar. The car rocked back and forth from the tremors outside as Miguel struggled to get it to start.
*Remember the dream. This is it! Your nightmare is becoming true. You have to stop it!*
Miguel winced. He remembered too. But it wasn't as though we could do anything else. Finally, the engine turned over.
The car shot off into the darkness. Miguel's dorm stretched out in the distance. It was so hard to see.
Something huge slipped around us. It hit the car and we spun out of control. I screamed and clutched tightly to Miguel. He whispered, "It'll be okay. Hold onto me."
*Fight it!*
No, it was happening just like the dream! In a whirl, I saw Professor Kellemann standing in the middle of the street. Miguel somehow managed to swerve away from him. Just past him, we saw something massive and black. It was blurry, but I knew it was Miguel's dorm. Tendrils were spreading out from it to surround us. I cried and could feel Miguel trying to help. I clutched his hand and he clutched it back.
I knew what was coming. My heart raced. But…then something felt different. I was right next to Miguel, our skin touching. I felt a tingle across myself. It was like pure energy.
We didn't have to crash.
The car wasn't moving.
I knew where we were strongest...Together.
Together, we were no longer in the car. Blackness was everywhere and it tried to leap at us. With a thought, it writhed in agony and burned away. We walked through the chaos and the darkness and wherever we looked, the darkness cowered and screamed for mercy. Color returned. The world mended.
Kellemann raged at us and he evaporated into nothingness.
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Thought after joyful thought brought light into the world. The sun burst through the clouds and the darkness was gone.
Our voices cheered us. I looked to Miguel as that sunny world repaired itself, becoming better than ever before. It felt like we were flying, even though we were still on the ground. I knew what came next.
I said, "See you on the other side." Then, I embraced Miguel with both arms and pure light engulfed everything.
----
"They're waking up!"
I felt woozy. I was lying on the floor. Slowly, I sat up and brushed my long hair back. I looked for Miguel. But I met my own eyes. Nasira's eyes.
It took me a moment to realize that I didn't have long, color-shifting hair. Still, I could feel it there like a phantom limb. I stood with Nasira, and we both staggered.
I could see Kellemann with a concerned look on his face. Several counselors were also present.
*Are you okay, Miguel?*
An echo of the voice in Nasira's head followed.
Neither of us knew how to answer.
But, as Nasira and I approached one another on uneasy feet, we each said the only thing we could think of ---
"Hello."
----
The next few days were hectic.
We soon learned our final exam had indeed gone awry. What was supposed to be a limited-memory recap of the entire class had morphed into something else. The reason, it seemed, was a strange interaction between technological magic and magical abilities neither of us knew we had.
Nasira's dad and my parents got involved. We both found it embarrassing, along with the prodding of scientists, teachers, and doctors.
It was a relief when they found we didn't seem to have the scary ability to significantly affect this reality. What abilities we did have were muddled in our proximity to one another.
Clearly, we could both transmit and receive each other's sensations and thoughts when close or touching. And we both could interact with parallel realities…and write/rewrite them as well. The best of the theories (which our voices didn't argue with) was that the voices inside our heads had been inspired by both of our internal, mental voices but still actually existed in incomplete, but real, realities.
Lastly, we found out that while we couldn't affect reality as a whole, we could affect one another. During a doctor's test, Nasira accidentally gave me color-shifting hair like her own (and just as long) until she got embarrassed and shifted it back. I gave her a boyish appearance in return, and we both got embarrassed.
So far as what exactly went wrong with the final exam, everyone had their own interpretation (with long, scientific names attached). For us, it was disconcerting to find the term already over despite the fact we had full access to our memories from between that first week and the present.
In this reality, our first, real 'hello' to one another was when we woke up after the final exam.
----
Once things settled down, I invited Nasira over to my dorm.
The Berns were already full into the synchronized-swimming season and training/dancing out in the hallway. Sean had gotten his "Padawan" braid thing. And Quinn brought down the house with a one-man act of a dozen voices a few weeks ago (Nasira had actually been sitting just a row behind me at the time).
*Seems like destiny.*
I gave a mental raspberry to my voice and answered the knock at the door.
Nasira clutched her hands tightly in front of her. I felt she looked lovely in jeans and an old shirt. She blushed at the thought and resisted the urge to rail against herself.
We sat on the floor of my bedroom. Despite our outward silence, we could hear each other's mind racing with what to say till I heard Nasira urge herself not to fart. We broke down in giggles.
First of all, Nasira had good news.
"They say we don't have to take the final exam again or do that written option. Our abnormal psychology papers will count for double."
That was a relief. We'd both picked paranoid schizophrenia and both done quite well. Of course, if we hadn't both picked it, then maybe things would've been different.
Nasira shrugged in response to my thought. "Who knows?...All the weird thoughts and fears and memories in our heads made into a real place was scary, but…I had a friend I just hadn't met yet all through it."
*We helped too!*
We chuckled at our voices.
Nasira clapped her hands and remarked, "I've been testing what powers I can do individually. I tried writing realities, and I made sure all the ones we made have good things happening. And that includes the ones our voices exist in."
Of course, our voices had plenty of ideas for the kind of worlds they wanted to see. But I told Nasira we should take the creation of other realities slowly. Still, I could tell she was percolating with ideas from songs she'd listened to, books about snakes from the library, manga she remembered reading, and names of the halls around campus.
And there was another thought there too. I voiced it for her, "Together, we should be able to...extensively change the physical appearance of one another." I gave Nasira a funny look when the "butt-secks" thought popped up quickly. Her embarrassment rippled through me with a frown on her face.
We both knew what change would be made. It just took a little bit of focus and I changed into the form I remembered for Michelle. The air tingled as my atoms shifted.
Nasira's nervousness waned, and she scooted closer. Our thoughts swarmed with the possibilities. Next might be two Nasiras or a straight body swap. But, for the moment, this felt right.
I leaned against Nasira, and she smiled. I told her, "Your smile is so much more beautiful than your frown." That made her smile even more as she whispered and grinned that I was 'a beautiful girl'. And she added, "We'll need to get you a froggy and a bunny from the mall." We smiled together.
In that moment, among our wash of conflicting, chaotic, doubting, flowing, glowing, and giddy sensations and thoughts that seemed to send ripples across universes, there was the quiet certainty of knowing one another.