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<11/01/2010 - 08:16 | Saffrin Middle School, Austell, GA, USA>

Today seems to have a theme applied directly to me: I can't and won't get whatever I want - no matter how important. I was already on my way towards my first period class of Social Studies, something that has always felt routine until today. My pacing in the hallway was sluggish, my legs weak from anxiety. My eyes nervously darted in switching to every single student I walked by, whether they were giving me a glance or not. I did my best not to stare at anyone, hoping my mere presence would attract the least attention. I felt my heart pounding all the way up into my throat, sweating in the building that kept a perfect room temperature of sixty-nine degrees.

Please no one notice! Please no one notice! Please no one notice! It was all I could concentrate on right now. I knew Lumina's presence was right here, watching ever little detail through my eyes, listening to every pin drop around me. And for some reason, I felt that the same could be done to me in return by everyone in my immediate presence. Everyone who put their eyes on me even by mistake as they passed by gave me a small jolt of panic each time. Despite what I knew, it felt like anybody might just be able to take one good look at me and tell.

I couldn't level my breathing because of it. Lumina picked up on my nervousness too, but I ignored any attempt she made to calm me down, since she was the source of this problem. My usual calm had been shattered, and any attempt I made at keeping my cool just wasn't working. It somehow felt worse than walking through the halls in my underwear, not that I have ever done so before, but I still felt exposed in some way. My mind was no longer my own in privacy. The mental fracture I was having in secret could at any time become known to somebody else, any one of these students! I don't know what to do about it, and the presence of so many of them only made this harder.

It would only take me four minutes to walk to my next class, but they became the longest four minutes of my life. I couldn't get over the fact that as I moved about, I was unwillingly relaying all of the sensory information to another person in real time. My vision hijacked by her, my ears tapped by her abilities, even physical sensations of my own body were sent her way. Such an uneasy reminder only made it harder for me to keep a level head on my way into the classroom. For reason I had not yet identified, I felt more awake in the present moment than ever before, as if some new line of direct mental energy were being pumped right into my brain.

But against all odds, I entered the classroom, realizing that any suspicious behavior I might have about me went undetected. It's not as if I were acting suspiciously, but with Lumina right here, I could feel some invisible aura around me. It didn't feel as invisible as I wanted it to be. I worried even now that one good look will reveal that I'm having a crazy psychological breakdown.

Nevertheless, I managed to find my own seat without attracting any attention from anyone in here. Students were still piling in through the doorway, since I wasn't late or early. I also reminded myself that I had the temporary luck of not knowing anyone from this class too well at all. If anyone I did know were to see me in this state, I don't think I will be able to take it. After a nice five second cool down from all of that pressure I felt before, whatever stress I was holding began to melt away with the ambient silence of others talking about their day.

"So... Who was that person you ran into today?"

Realizing now that my newfound peace would instantly be shattered by Lumina's never-ending brigade into my life, I knew I would have to suffer her curiosity through the class, minute by minute. It's like I said earlier; if I so much as focus my eyes on a single point, she will catch onto it. Still, for as much as I can't hide from her, she isn't the omniscient person I made her out to be. Letting out a painfully obvious grunt and sigh that I would have to put up with more, I tried to keep Lumina in her own lane. "It's a long story, one that happened over the summer..."

She didn't quickly add anything to my weak explanation, but the mention of the summer reminded me of something, pulling my own curiosity back into action as I once again asked her about the properties of this purge. "You know what? Now that I think about it, all of that weirdness I was having, with the girly sensation and the montrums, it all kind of faded away during that summer, even though it came back much later."

"I'm not surprised." Of course the purge began to break apart when summer rolled in. "Actually, I am surprised that the purge survived that duration of heat."

"So heat can destroy a purge as well?"

"In a manner of speaking, the purge is an active signal that remains inside the person until the process is complete. But in order for that signal to do its job, the target must have the ability to constantly project psionic waves on at least a basic level. Since heat inhibits our ability to project, it also causes the purge to misbehave, malfunction, or shut down. We've seen that happen before for short durations. A day in the heat would never actually destroy a purge; it would just resume once it got cold again. But if the duration of that shutdown is prolonged enough, it can totally prevent the purge from completing, causing it to fail completely. The plan was to purge you in August or September, so that there would be as much time as possible for the purge to start in the winter. If we did it close to summer, that would have been a bigger issue. But then, we also cannot predict how long it will take to purge a person. The results of that time difference varies greatly."

That makes sense to me this time. I wasn't sure if Lumina was trying her best to ensure I could understand what she was saying, or if I was catching up to a level where I could more easily understand her. Basically, when last summer happened, the entire effects of the purge including all montrums and personality changes from it were shut down from the heat. But the purge didn't die, it only took a long break. My purge happened to complete itself, which begs the question. "What happens if a purge fails?"

"Then nothing happens. I mean, you literally just go back to being your old self, moving on with life as if nothing had ever happened. Yeah, the strange effects brought on by the purge would have still occurred, and the target would probably learn something about the Altiri, but without a completion to explain that those details all mean anything, the target would just dismiss it as random daydreams or something. If your purge had failed, all of the weirdness you had would have just been vague memory, and then I never would have met you. Since our ability loss from sending a purge is permanent, I would have totally wasted that for nothing in return."

Lumina doesn't realize that she already did waste it by bothering me with such a thing. But still, Georgia has very long summers if you count them by the average daily temperature. "The purge really survived all that time? I was free from its clutches during the summer, only for it to return to me in September."

"It's not totally uncommon for a purge to survive a long duration of earthbound heat like that. But still, I'd say you are currently holding the new record for how long yours did manage to survive given how long that summer would have been." There were so many potential points of failure for my purge, yet it still succeeded anyway. "I'm as surprised as you. I received reports about the climate in that region from some of my other friends, and I feared the worse."

Well, whatever. I can't be bothered by the details now. After hearing the digital bell chime throughout the intercom speaker system in the ceiling, the sign that class was starting, I decided to forget about everything and just stay focused. Lumina might not like it, but I did try to warn her. And so, the teacher got on with the next lesson, using the smart board and the powerful projector to show off more slide show notes, which I of course tried to take down.

After fifteen excruciating minutes of this, in most of the time I had to keep telling Lumina to pipe down for my lesson, I realized right away that this unintended strategy of letting her become part of the experience was working to my own benefit. As I continued putting down notes from the slides, letting the teacher's monotone voice fill the space around us, I could tell that Lumina was becoming more anxious in the silence.

This is the effect most teachers have on students, the infliction of pure, unequivocal boredom. She soon enough stopped trying to interrupt to talk to me, but I could feel her arms and legs fidgeting more often as this kept going on. I quietly gloated to myself that even she could get board of school; realizing of all things, it was the one factor we both had in common.

Some classes are just boring to learn about, and my Social Studies course was no exception. By minute twenty, I could feel my own life force fading away. I rested my head on my hand, held vertically up to support myself, trying to suck up whatever drool I had accumulated from this worthless material. I knew it would be on a test, so it was important to take the notes. But I could write it all down so quickly, long before he ever got done explaining each point that I would rather have tuned out.

Of course, this backfired on me just as much as it did her. Of all the things I could experience, boredom was not one of my strong suits. I can't explain why, but every time I allow myself to get bored just long enough, it starts to make me anxious and fidget around too. The super effective tactic I employed against her was now affecting me as well. After five more painful minutes of tapping my fingers through the top of the desk and wagging my feet from the winding up annoyance of this experience, I decided that I finally had enough.

"Okay, fine! You win. I can't take it anymore. If this guy wanted to get me to pay attention to every minute of this lecture, he should have made it more interesting."

"You did that on purpose, didn't you?" It felt good to project her voice again, after standing with her back to the wall again with more than ten minutes of solid silence.

Guilty as charged, but what can she really do about it anyway? "I'll just figure the rest out later. I still have to get through my day somehow or another."

"When will you learn that it's rude to ignore a girl?"

"Maybe when you learn that invading my life was rude on its own premise... But whatever." I really didn't want to argue with her anymore. At the very least, I could just let her run her mouth and listen to whatever wild story comes of it. At that rate, I can more easily tune this guy out and fast forward the time. "You mentioned before that the time it takes a purge to complete varies. But what is the average time a purge is supposed to take in the first place? Mine was about a year and then some. Is that how long it usually takes?"

Excited that I had finally taken a real interest again, Lumina didn't hesitate to deliver all she knew. "It really does depend on the recipient. On average, a purge takes anywhere from one to two months to complete, but there are extremes too. The longest time it took a purge to complete was two years, but the shortest time a purge took to deliver everything was within two weeks."

"Jesus!" I screamed telepathically. "Two weeks?!" I couldn't imagine going through every weird thing that I did in a two-week span. It would have drove me mad!

"From what I heard in rumor, it didn't end very well. I think that person was sent to a mental institution. It was all too much too fast; her entire personality matrix stopped becoming her own. But through it all, the completion of the purge was still a successful process. Whether she got along with her aggressor group though is not something I know anything about."

"Wow..." I wish I could get to know this human in the real world. If anyone went through similar things to such an extreme that it drove them crazy, I would like to find them, to hold them close and promise to them that everything would be okay. I doubt I could have put up with it myself. "Going through all of that in just two weeks is unimaginable. Yet mine took a whole year."

"It was a little painful waiting so long just wondering if what we did would work, but we knew we had to try. Not all purges end in success, even if the problem isn't related to the purge process itself."

Strange as I found it for Lumina to keep saying we to refer not to herself, but all of the Altiri, I ignored it and remained on point. "So you only consider it a success if someone like myself decides to accept all of this as part of my reality."

"I never said that the space around you was fake Reed. Your life is already the reality that you've been living this whole time. Me... Myself, and all of the Altiri are just an extension of that. The world you thought you knew is bigger than before."

"So about those who were purged..."

"You know I can't tell you their names or identities." It was horrible for Lumina knowing how badly I wanted to meet them, and in return not being able to help. "It's not that I don't want to, or that some law is stopping me from telling you. It's a matter of sharing what I do and don't know. The communication ban really makes it impossible to get exact details."

"Then what about those who have already come to pass? Surely their information would not be classified as top secret anymore if they are not still alive to talk about it." She mentioned before that only 11 out of the 24 who were purged are still alive, so what about all those who are already gone?

"Their information eventually does get released to the Altiri public officially, but not until 100 years pass from their time of death."

"It sounds to me like this queen really wants to make sure two people on Earth purged at the same time cannot meet each other in person." Even if I had their information, their parents and grandparents would be long dead before I could try reaching out about it. I can't prove anything the way they have it right now.

"I'm sorry Reed. That's just the way it is."

"Right..." I brought myself out of the trance I entered. Even though the moment was brief, during that entire time I was talking to Lumina, my body remained still, but my eyes wandered all around the room, resting on random things like a shiny object or a person's face. Luckily, they didn't notice me staring at them by accident, and the teacher didn't notice what I was up to either. Everything I worried about right before coming into the school just wasn't happening like I thought it would, my worries stretched out for nothing.

I really was doing what I was so sure I couldn't do before, talking to Lumina in the middle of class where no one else was the wiser. They really can't see or hear her in any capacity; nobody has any presence of our secret communication. The whole experience felt surreal, but I was quickly reminded of my own boredom, and so I resumed where I left off. "So, about these processes..."

"I know that tone. You're wondering if anything ever went wrong with the purge?"

"Bingo." Even if my purge was a resounding success, I couldn't help but wonder if others who suffered a similar fate failed to make anything from it.

"It has technically happened before. There were two subjects through the history of the experiments in which their purge process failed before the final phase could be carried out. No matter how far the purge gets, that final phase is the switch that connects that subject with their Altiri aggressor group leader for the first time. If that doesn't happen, even if the purge managed to unlock some of their psionic potential, they will never know for certain if the Altiri really exist, because nobody would be able to tell them. We can't establish a link with someone if they aren't trying to do it with us at the exact same moment. So, they ended up going through life ignorant of us, but inspired in astronomy nonetheless."

"I see." So is it the same for me? Even though I'm part of this wild ride, I can disconnect from her tomorrow! Those were her words. So what happens if I simply choose not to reconnect with her afterwards? Does she really disappear, becoming nothing more than a faint memory?

"But there were also others that simply refused to accept our presence, whether it had to do with plausibility, or because they didn't want their aggressor group leaders having any part of their life regardless of believability."

A part that defines the way I will end up currently. But it was strange to think it back to myself like that. It proves that whether Lumina is the real deal or just a hallucination, I get to make the final choice at the end of the day whether or not I want to hear from her ever again. Not that I had changed my mind, but the realization that I was still getting the choice became an interesting concept to me.

"There were also a couple of more complicated ways it played out. Some of the girls who were younger decided to accept what was happening to them. They and their Altiri nodes bonded as a result, but soon after, their parents found out about what they were hiding."

"That must have been tough." I couldn't say that with as much meaning as possible, since I didn't blame anyone's parents from reacting in a harsh way to such news. If my mom and dad knew what was happening to me right now, I would be off to that mental institution too. It's not that I don't want to be cured of my own insanity, but those places freak me out too much. I'd rather just wait through the day and figure the rest out on my own.

But the scenario forced me to briefly imagine what it might be like, if my parents found out there was a voice in my head like this. It wasn't easy to generate an accurate simulation in the background of my thoughts, but my mind carried out several simulations anyway.

"For one of them, it was far worse than we could have imagined. Her parents didn't believe anything about the Altiri, even though she and her mutual friends believed in each other. So, she was forced into a mental facility, put on terrible medications, and was isolated from everyone else around her. It was more than a hundred years ago, so the drugs they gave her had harsh consequences both on her body and her spirit."

"What happened to her as she grew up?" Even though nothing about their plausibility had changed for me, just hearing that story twisted knots into my stomach. I didn't want to imagine how horrible that could have been, but my mind ran simulations on what this might have looked like without my own direct command. It sounded like a worse ending than I would have imagined without the exposition.

"From what we gathered, she stayed out of touch for a long time. Then one day, she called her aggressor group out of the blue, apologizing for things that were not her own fault..." It pained her to have to repeat this story aloud, but it was the truth, and a reminder for what all would expect when conducting a purge. Anything can happen as a result of one. "And then, she took her own life. She was only fourteen at the time."

No way! I tried not to react in my mind loudly enough for Lumina to get a read on me, but this horrible rancid feeling bubbled up inside myself, snapping me out of a particular belief that I held since the commotion this morning...

Letting my own silence drag on, I tilted my head resting from my hand somewhat, trying to simulate all over again, all that could play out for me. This whole time, I've been so unfair to the world around me. Even with the possibility that that story is merely a fabrication from my own mind, I knew deep down just how rotten this society is. Among all the happiness and glee, there are also shadows of the worst darkness. People live in this world who cheat others, kill people, or force the unfortunate and powerless to do things against their will. Even if her story was fake, I could totally sympathize with that girl for everything that she had to go through. Her parents never understood her no matter how hard she tried, and in the end, all she wanted though never received was some amount of love or recognition.

The thought brought me back to myself as I was sitting in this very room. I don't know anymore why I was so afraid. I keep telling myself that I have such bad luck, but what about people who have it worse than I do? What about people who never get the chance to experience any wonderful part of life, or who never get to have at least one friend? And yet here I am, worried about my own sanity, or about what reputation I may fall through if others discover the secret I am currently harboring. It made me realize; if I can complain about something so trivial - as if it were the most important thing in the world while knowing how everything else works, I must be a terrible person.

Quickly apologizing for her mistake upon noticing how quietly worked up I was, Lumina backed out of her own reminisce. "I'm sorry. That story was a little too graphic."

"It's fine," I replied. "I just had no idea that others who were purged could have it so rough. And here I was thinking I had the worst luck. But the truth is, I'm not special from everyone else."

Why does he always do that? "To be fair, you are not that special to the Altiri world. However, you are special to us, to the Cy-Stars, and to me." Her voice weakened to a whisper by the end of her words, as if I wouldn't hear them.

So then she admits that my significance in all of this is personal too, tied not to the Altiri, but to her specific aggressor group. But why? "You and the Cy-Stars actually care about me. But what I can't understand is why..." I didn't hear an answer from her to my biggest question, but it still got me thinking. Maybe I can figure out the reason on my own. Getting purged seems to be a thousand times rarer than winning the lottery, so why me? I'm just another ordinary human with nothing special about me at all, a total nobody in every social circumstance. It was never the Altiri that had an interest in me, only a small group of people who just happen to be Altiri. Which means, if I want to get an angle on why, I have to focus directly on Lumina and her sisters.

What is their motive? What do they get out of all this? So far, all I've heard was how risky and dangerous it is to purge a human, dangerous for the aggressor group and the target as well. But I'm still here. I'm still me. I still have control over my own body and my own thoughts. It can't be a mind control trick, since the end of the purge reverts most of my personality back to the way that it was. So why was I chosen for this? And why now of all times? Doesn't she realize how young I am by comparison? "I'm only fourteen years old Lumina! Why does everyone get purged so young? Or am I a special case on that detail too?"

"There is a good reason," she began. "It mainly has to do with psionic potential and how close it is to one's peaking period. In the beginning, we knew far less about the purge and about psionics than we understand now. So the first patch of humans who were purged were fully fledged adults. What we ended up discovering more recently was the fact that purges put on a younger person are far more effective than one put on an older person. A person's psionic potential peaks at their age of adolescence, never before or after. Once that peaking period is over, their potential gradually gets weaker after they turn eighteen or nineteen."

So the reason I was picked for this now was a technical reason? "So right now, because of my age, I'm considered to me at my peak telepathic condition?"

"It's far more complicated than that. The peaking phase of a psionically active person can happen at any age during adolescence, but once someone passes the age of ten, they are physically capable of receiving a purge. So this peaking effect happens early on and gradually rises up to a point only to level off again later in life. I don't think you have hit your peaking period yet. Once you do, you will know it."

"Then explain to me what this weird buzzing feeling is in the back of my head. It's as if I can detect the energy we're using itself, which shouldn't be possible."

"What you are feeling is the difference in psionic load handling between us."

"How much is there to this?" Really! If I were making all of this up, how far can this go? Isn't there anything she doesn't know?

"When two people like us are telepathically connected, we start sharing psionic energy between each other, which similarly shares the load of our mental energy as time goes by. At the present moment, you are actually handling far more psionic energy than you would normally be capable of on your own, but that's only because you are receiving a lot of that energy from myself at the same time through the connection itself. Even so, because humans have a much lower potential for psionic capabilities than Altiri even after a purge, I'm the one handling a much larger proportion of that psionic load. It's faster to just say that I'm the stronger node while you are the weaker node. Even so, we're transferring both energy and information at the same time at speeds far greater than any other energy source in the entire universe. So you might feel a slight buzz or some other weird sensation, but all it really does is prove to you that you and I are connected to each other with this powerful sixth sense."

It was a lot to take in, but for some reason, I had an easier time understanding the basics of what she was explaining. If all of that were true, it was absolutely incredible. But if I'm the weaker node, weaker because my human body has limits, what does that mean for everyone else? "So, I'm guessing when it comes to telepathy between one human and another human..."

"It isn't physically possible. The energy requirements for telepathy are just that high. Since Altiri people far exceed the minimum requirements, it gives us the ability to use telepathy with other Altiri without effort. When it comes to us and another human, we still need an extra push, that being the purge. But even if two humans who were already purged tried to use telepathy between each other, it would never-ever work. All humans just don't have the minimum mental energy and psionic potential to make that happen no matter how much training is given."

I see how this works now. Human to human telepathy can't happen. It's the reason no real recorded case of it has been proven on Earth; it just isn't possible, but it's all a matter of biological capability. An alien with naturally higher capabilities could pull that off between each other, or in the case between one Altiri and one human, accomplish the establishment of limited telepathy after relying on a purge to unlock that human's specific potentials in using the ability, all by means I don't understand. I bet this get confusing for other people, so I decided to imagine a visual representation of what this might look like, with numbers expressing the average psionic load between each scenario.

[https://i.postimg.cc/sXxHhkMV/test27C.png]

I wasn't actually sure about the numbers myself; the data was coming from Lumina's thoughts in the first place, but it got me thinking about the prospect of realism within her explanations, like how no single human has ever proven telepathy before. That wasn't a fact that I knew for certain, as I never did do the research on it. It was only something I assumed all this time, but there really isn't anything from stopping me to search it up later to confirm it again. Lumina keeps giving out additional details to her explanations, details that could be held to scrutiny if I pay close enough attention. Had she instead told me that telepathy was a common occurrence between other humans, I would have found it less believable despite knowing I could gather specifics for that proof. But in this scenario, she's saying that our unlikely usage of abilities is made possible because she isn't human herself, and uses her own capabilities to extend what she can to those who don't have their own super powers.

It's too messy to be something I would have thought of on my own. I know myself pretty well. Thanks to my practice with writing lately, I've gotten a good sense of what my own imagination is like and how it works. As incredible as it is, my simulations are never perfect, but everything I do try to imagine is always so fictional because I imagine it from a perfect design.

In other words, If I were inventing a new reality, I wouldn't throw things in there to mess everything up from a better symmetry, such as a constraint that heat weakens psionic powers, or that other humans who haven't been purged cannot use telepathy at all, or that I would even have a choice in whether to accept this or not. It's more like a red and blue pill situation, and I'm stuck right in the middle of it all. If I wanted to invent a new reality onto myself so badly, why would I throw in such horrible aspects to it along with the good? I would never wish for a scenario in which some other girl kills herself because of the confusion of her own purge, or a world in which one can be driven mad by the transformation itself... Or would I? Am I so twisted in my own illogical zone that I would invent fake variables that make this harder, just to increase the plausibility of this wild story? I don't think I would go that far, but I have to face the fact that something has changed since this morning.

Maybe the Altiri are real! I can't believe I can even allow such a thought to exist. But the truth is, I concluded earlier that the probability of this all being false was 100%... However, after hearing all I have from her so far, I think I can drop that probability down to 99%. It's still impossible, but maybe there is the tiniest chance that I am wrong about this, the tiniest chance that the Altiri and Lumina are as real as this room I'm trapped inside of.

I didn't comment any further on what Lumina said. I already felt far off track from everything else. My thoughts are still moving so far that it was hard to keep up with anything. So, I put away my own notebook, trying to be as discrete as possible and pretend like I was paying attention to the lesson. In its place, I pulled out a different notebook, the same one I brought back with me earlier. When I opened its contents flipping through the pages of blank canvases, I came across several more that were covered in sketches of triangles, until I finally got to the page where I drew it perfectly.

The purge did mess up its job of teaching me everything, but I now understood what this symbol was, though not exactly what it stood for beyond the simple definition.

"Ah. I see that got to you too."

Realizing that she was referring my drawing of the symbol of the Altiri, I decided to play dumb a little, hoping she would reveal some more about it to me by chance. "What, all of these triangles? I remember obsessing over getting the exact measurements right, and eventually I did."

"That's the eye of The Unity; the symbol of the Altiri."

I perched up in surprise, hearing a word I thought I would never remember again. I knew that this was the symbol of the Altiri, but she also called it the eye of The Unity. The word Unity felt very familiar, though I wasn't yet sure how. I also noticed her saying that got to me too. Was the purge really responsible for my obsession of this marking earlier? "I remember being obsessed with this thing for the longest time. Did the purge do that too?"

"Yes. The purge can manifest in different ways depending on who gets purged, but every single person who does becomes obsessed with drawing that symbol."

"Was there ever a time where your experiments didn't work out the way they expected?" My question was only a way to pass the time, but against my expectations, Lumina answered it with the beginning of another short story.

"Well, this doesn't happen often. But there was one incident that we never thought could happen before, one where a single human subject was purged by three different aggressor groups at the same time."

"Three different purges at once?!" While remembering not to use my mouth, my own reaction to hearing that bumped the top of my desk, making noise in my own seat from the shock of that setup.

"It was one of the worst moments of the total duration of purging history. It happened because those involved wanted to carry out an experiment involving music and memory using a purge as a method of transfer to the target. The queen accepted the proposal, but the documentation on which aggressor group would get the privilege was slow. So without realizing it, all three purged the same human marking the hour."

"What happened?"

"At first, all did seem normal. The purge was working extremely well in the beginning. She ended up reproducing some of the music closely from those memories while the purge began to teach her more about the Altiri. But halfway into the purge process, that sentient signal fell apart. It isn't possible for a purge target to connect or be mapped to more than one Altiri host, so the process failed right at that point. She went on to generate the music, but never got proper credit for doing so."

"You know a lot of specifics for mere rumor."

"It's how we get our information around. We aren't allowed to communicate directly with other aggressor groups. But if the person telling the story changes the details of the names and locations of the individual, and passes it around as rumor, no single Altiri can be faulted for spreading the information. Still, the result left not one, but three entire aggressor groups permanently disabled with the loss of those two abilities, and it was marked as the most catastrophic failures of the entire purging history. And we all knew why it happened. It was the one time where the queen's own communication ban led to something so disastrous. If it weren't for that rule, the others could have been warned in time that the target had already been officially assigned with an aggressor group, instead of waiting on digital transmission."

So she is willing to admit that her precious queen is not so perfect? Really, I don't know what to even say anymore. My head was swimming with a sea of thoughts and memories now related to all of this Altiri business, preventing me from thinking about more normal things. At the same time, the end of class bell tolled again, giving us the permission to leave the class and move to the next period. It surprised me just as well, because of how much time passed between first period and now. "I feel like I've just about heard it all. But somehow, I just know I haven't."

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<11/01/2010 - 09:05 | Saffrin Middle School (Math), Austell, GA, USA>

It wasn't much, but given what I've learned in my last period, I felt so much more relaxed and calm about the situation. It's not that I shouldn't be freaking out about this invader from another world, but I do know I was overreacting earlier. I can't solve anything if I can't keep a calm mind, and best of all, nobody around me knows or even suspects that anything about me is out of the ordinary. I held an entire conversation with Lumina in the last period without drawing any attention to myself or having any weird or awkward outbursts.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Math isn't exactly the kind of subject I can ignore like Social Studies. However, I was right today to make the guess that we would yet again get another free day. We were working on an assignment last week and were expected to finish it up today, so there would be no need to take notes or listen to a lesson. Other students took advantage of that opportunity to sit amongst their friends and chatter around like crazy, not that I mind.

Of course, my math class did have one unfortunate side to my life that I wish were better. As soon as I walked in, before the bell even started, I could see the three of them huddled together in their desks from the distance; Maddison, Malica, and Banarus. I didn't make any eye contact. Instead, I went to the center of the room with single isolated desks spread apart slightly, and I sat in one of them. Thus, my personal choice of seating arrangement left me nearby nobody, being isolated and alone.

But after sitting down, my eyes did wander without my permission, leaning to my left until they were in my sights yet again. I didn't want to keep my gaze or my focus stuck on her, so I just shut my eyes instead, trying to block it out.

"So tell me more about this Malica chick."

What is she, psychic? Oh, right. She is actually psychic... I don't think she actually knows who Malica really is or what she looks like, but I couldn't be sure. Still, of all the subjects, "Here I thought we could have a nice and peaceful silent hour of math, but you keep killing the mood."

Even knowing I was just being sarcastic again, it felt to her like a pretty strong reaction for a simple topic. It reminded Lumina that a lot must have happened that she wasn't here to see. So much missing information. "I just want to know what happened. I got the impression that she ticked you off somehow."

What an understatement! "Fine," I allowed, since I couldn't break my own boredom. "I'll start from the beginning."

"Go ahead." Waiting to hear what she assumed to be a rather long story, Lumina went to sit down in the seat of her cockpit making herself more comfortable, while her co-pilot handled the subsystems check again.

"It was last summer. Malica was always a cute one, but one day, she asked me out, and I said yes."

"Awwwwwh! That's so cute!"

Not anymore it isn't. "Shut up. We went out during summer. But for the most part, it was just cell phone communication."

Combining both her hands together across her chest, Lumina kept her tone of tease active. "She asked you out?"

"Why does that surprise you?" Am I really that kind of guy who no one expects to find someone in life? Her reaction to it ticked me off a bit.

"I don't know Reed. You were the one who kept telling yourself how unpopular you are. You even tried to tell me you were a loser. So I guess I am just a little surprised that something came up to negate your pessimism."

Even without Google Translate, I understood where she was coming from. And she has a point; I did put myself right next to such a low bar in my own analysis. Maybe I'm not a total loser. Touché Lumina. Touché. When I thought back to it some more, I realized something I had forgotten earlier. "Well... Maybe the whole girly phase I went through wasn't for the worst. It did make me more interesting to some of the girls I sat with, at least for a while. I'm beginning to think that was the sole reason I popped up on anyone's radar in the first place."

"I don't know if it was really for the best. After all, you two didn't stay together."

"Tsk!" I expressed – annoyed though keeping any kind of sound away from my tongue and straight into my mind. "After we broke up, I just became a walking cliché. I went a little overboard and reacted too much, but I really was upset."

"But what happened? She just decided to give it up?" Lumina's question really reflected her curiosity to why it all happened.

"She cheated on me with another guy." Just stating it over again brought most of that pain back. I didn't bother trying to vividly recall every little detail we spent together, but the emotions of that day were still so vibrant and controlling. My appetite squealed in agony just by looking at her face. In a way, I never was able to get over it. Pretending like she doesn't even exist is the best I could do. "Still think she is cute now?" I asked rhetorically.

I expected at least some response, but for the next few seconds, a deafening silence rippled between me and Lumina. I wasn't sure if she was trying to imagine everything for herself, or if she just didn't understand how I felt. I have no idea how an Altiri would try to process love, though I can't kid myself around for too long either. What I felt wasn't the real thing. It's more certainly what my dad suggested to me earlier. He called it puppy love. I didn't understand that reference entirely, but I did sense the difference between something being small and meaningless compared to something bigger. What Malica and I had - turned out to be a strong crush, one that turned into a passing phase receding into the nebulous scape of a limitless habitat.

"How far did you two take this relationship?"

How far? Does she expect me to say that Malica and I made out like those mad teenagers in those dramas? No matter what I wanted to do at the time, things only went as far as they did. "We didn't even hold hands that often. We just talked with each other a lot. I never kissed her, not because I didn't want to. I'm just not very good with that kind of stuff. Besides, she's younger than I am, so I didn't want to be an ass about it."

"Hoooooh."

"But now, I'm really glad that I didn't go any further. But my mind was starting to go there towards the end." That's how I thought dating worked. Two people make each other laugh as often as possible; they tell each other all kinds of things, and are as nice to each other as they can possibly be, until one day, they get married and live happily ever after. But somewhere in all of my emotions, I knew I was missing something. Now, I was more certain of it than ever before. For someone as observant of others as me, I should have known something was going on. I only found out because of some dumb luck. Maybe this is what they mean when people say love is blind.

"Okay," she confirmed. "So she dumped you for someone else more attractive?"

"Not even!" I disclaimed, offended at the very thought. "He's uglier in my opinion..." As I insulted Kenzaki from the privacy of my own projected thoughts, I could hear my own anger from within my voice. I wasn't just projecting words; the tone of everything I felt spilled into my responses to Lumina without me realizing it, until now, as I decided to take the quick pause to self-reflect. "That was mean. I shouldn't talk like that." Did I really think Kenzaki uglier than I? The real answer is that I didn't care, because that wasn't even the point to begin with. Malica is the one who decided to have a fling behind my back. She's the one who could have stopped it all. I'll leave poor Kenzaki's ugly face out of it for now.

Shutting her eyes and spreading apart her underarms in a waving gesture, Lumina rated my words in her own way. "I mean, the truth is the truth, right?"

I thought it mildly interesting that Lumina was so easy going to take my side in all of this. To anyone else in the school, this would have just been my personal drama. Nobody cares that this happened to me. Two days after we broke up, I had quite a few minor acquaintances tell me how horrible it was what happened, but I could so easily see the lack of energy in their bodies as they spoke. It was the same way someone would say, sorry to hear that, right after hearing that person's misfortune. They care, but not enough to make any change about it. Days after that, I heard nothing from those same people ever again.

"It's only a first though. Breakups like that happen far more often than you think." Lumina knew that Malica was my first girlfriend, based on her total observations of me with clairvoyance, and some of which remained assumption that I would never have found two girlfriends during that phase of the purge.

"Thanks, but that doesn't really put me at ease." I wasn't sure if she was trying to make me feel better, or reassure me that there is no point in even trying. Even though I can read her thoughts, I can't predict what Lumina might say or ask at all.

"So," she led on, changing the subject to avoid stale silence, "who was that other chick that you bumped into today?"

"That would be Banarus." Saying her name aloud doesn't carry the same effect as it does for Malica. Banarus never really gave me a particularly nasty feeling of memory. Even so, her association with Malica prevents me from sitting anywhere near her. Every time she sits further away from Malica at lunch, I will sometimes plant myself right next to her, hoping to sprinkle some seasoning of joy back into my life. "I actually enjoy hanging out with her. She's cute and funny... No, not in that way. I mean, she isn't my type, so I don't think of her like that. You know what I mean."

"Could have fooled me earlier." She hadn't forgotten about the bus incident. Lumina began reminding herself of every word I said to Banarus. "It really sounded like she wanted to get you to sit with her in class today."

"That's because, in the past, I used to hang out with her a lot. But Banarus is Malica's best friend right now. So, I can't associate with either of them."

"Don't you think that's a little unfair to Banarus?"

"No, not really." How could I feel bad about it? Banarus should know by now how I feel about being anywhere near that heartless witch. Still, she asks me all the time, and I think Malica might be the one egging her on to do so. "She has bad taste in friends. That's on her, not me."

"Wait! That is her, isn't it?"

"What?" I didn't understand what had just set Lumina off, until I realized the mistake I was making without even being aware of it. Since we were just talking about them, my eyes decided to wander over to their slug of desks. Now realizing that Lumina must be recognizing Banarus using what was in front of my eye sight, I tried to quickly shut this down before she gets any funny ideas. "Yeah, so what if it is?"

"Reed..." Lumina stated my name in a gradual winding up tone, as if I had done something wrong.

But I wasn't at fault for anything here! And I sure wasn't about to be told otherwise by a self-invented ghost! "What now? I told you already that she made her own bed."

"Forget about that. Is Malica in the same class that we are in right now?"

Curse you, Lumina! I should have known she would find that out eventually. The class that Banarus, Malica, and I always have together is in Honors Math, and this class is Honors Math. I hoped that Banarus would not even come near me, for the sake that Lumina would not flip her pancake. But she never had to; Lumina has the cheat codes of telepathy. Anything I think too strongly or loudly enough is directly transferred to her. I'm not the best liar either, so if I try to pretend like I don't know what she is talking about, Lumina will probably find out anyway. Whatever; guess I have no choice but to fess up, though I kept my eyes away from that direction while doing so. "Yes, she is."

"What is she even like?"

Answering her general curiosity, I didn't want to talk about Malica in any positive manner. So I tried something else. I tested the full potential of this whole eye-sight focus technique she keeps using, until my gaze locked onto her directly. In a couple of seconds, our eyes met, launching a brief but noticeable staring contest between each other, one full of regret and grief.

"That's her?"

Just as I thought. I already knew it by now, but I wanted to be extra certain. Lumina can track more than my visual perception. The central focus of my vision shifts with my eyes, and so she sees whatever I decide to focus on, meaning to or not. Without further delay, I confirmed what she already learned by clues. "The same bitch who broke my heart."

"Haha! She's so tiny!" Lumina amplified her mental voice, pitching into a victorious war cry of observation.

"Egh?!" Speechless, I tried to reset myself just enough to realize what Lumina said and why. Her tone was cheerful rather than harsh, as if she found Malica's height so adorable that she was comparable to a house cat. Like I said, I can't understand her sometimes. Lumina is too unpredictable for me to understand. I can't expect what she might say next, and I certainly didn't try responding to that. I quickly wiped away the surprised and confused expression I could feel on my face, hoping nobody noticed.

"Come on, go over there." Lumina pointed with her arm too, gesturing me to take immediate action to her command.

No way! That's out of the question you... Unable to think of an insult I wanted to return loudly, I quickly turned in my own seat, ensuring I face away from Malica and Banarus while I sort out this bigger problem. "And what, introduce you, my invisible hallucination? No thanks." I calmed down at last, certain that my rhetorical example would be enough reason to convince Lumina why that was such a bad idea. "I'm socially awkward enough as it is. I want nothing to do with her anymore."

Putting both hands on her hips, Lumina agreed to disagree. "I get that, but I want to get a better look at the bitch who hurt your feelings."

"Access denied." I made my projected voice change to sound like some mechanical robot as I told her no, adding insult to injury.

"I have other ways I can find out, one of which involves a little torture."

"You wouldn't and couldn't."

"All I have to do is nag you all day long, as you desperately try to focus on the dreaded school work." Changing her tone to a more dramatic one, Lumina turned my trick against me instantly. "Ringing in your ears for all eternity shall be her name engraved in my whispers..." And then she began to whisper in repetition. "Malica... Malica... Malica..."

"Alright already!" I yelled back using my telepathy. Though I was still hesitant to even consider this, I didn't want to piss off the illusion anymore. Something about Lumina could be so frightening, something I can't quite put my finger on, but to hell with the idea of having her mess with me all day long. I'd rather go even more insane.

So, I pushed myself up on the two legs of mine having already faced the side, but I delayed myself from walking, turning my head towards the target destination while my pulse began to freak out knowing what I was up to. I really hated the idea of doing this, of going anywhere near Malica again. It was already hard enough to keep my mind off of her, but I better start moving, else Lumina will do something stupid again. Putting one foot in front of the other, I accelerated into a slow walk, turning around the front corner of my area until I was towards the back left side of the classroom. The collection of desks always seemed to remain the same; always slapped together in an asymmetrical count of four even though three people usually maxed out this little corner of population. I bet the empty seat was the one Banarus was always laying out for me, waiting for the day I might come and sit down over here again. The feeling of giving into her even for a different reason felt so humiliating.

As soon as I began to slide myself and my backpack into the seat, I was getting such heated stares from both of them, Malica more shocked than annoyed. It's as if suddenly, I was the alien out here. Stop staring at me like I'm from some other planet just because I decided to come over here! "You know what Banarus? Whatever today..." I really don't care about either of them, and they should know that right now. I'm not sitting here because I want to hang out. I'm not over here because I miss either of them. I'm not even here because I want to be. But the boredom is a real killer these days. "Whaaaaaaaaatever." I made sure to sound as annoyed as possible, directing it at Lumina even though these other two might take it personally.

I can't even deal with today anymore. And as much as I hated sitting here again, I managed to fall into this strange category of moods, the first being that I no longer care. I can't care anymore, not with all of the weirdness going on around me. What I said earlier no longer has any meaning, not with what I'm going through.

"You're sitting with us now?" Banarus sounded surprised, but her reaction was mainly based off the way I spoke to her this morning.

I wonder what they would think of this situation, if they really knew what was going on with me right now. The panic! The freak show inside my head! The hallucination of a lifetime! Would any of them even get it? Would either one of them care at all?

"Wait, does this mean—"

"The hell it does not!" I didn't want to be as loud as I just was, but I couldn't help my knee jerk reaction to such a stupid assumption. Malica didn't have to finish saying it; I knew where she was going with that logic. She still thinks I'm interested in her! How ironic that the same woman can't take the hint that I don't go out with cheaters. I know that's what she is thinking, because two weeks ago, she asked me if there was even the smallest chance that she and I might take a second chance at everything. Care to guess my answer to the ludicrous offer? "If it were up to me, I'd be just fine talking to Banarus and pretending that you don't even exist." I could see my words cutting into her, my initial half-shout fledging her back as if my denial was a strong gust of wind, but I cared not for her pain.

"Wow," Lumina added disdainfully. "She actually thinks she has another shot to win you back. But naturally, you are smart enough not to fall for it."

Just for the brief moment, I disengaged my attention with both of them, resting my entire face into my hands to signify the bad day I was having. "What do you take me for Lumina?" Would anyone accept a second chance with a cheater? Anyone would have to be a new level of stupid to do that.

But Banarus tilted her confused face at me, repeating what I said as a question. "If it were up to you?"

Lumina was faster to catch onto the tiny mistake in speech I made, calling me out on it like she was my mother or something. "What did we say about filtering our words carefully?"

I'm letting myself get too careless. Nobody else has a clue that I'm talking to separate version of myself, nor that I can't control it at all. "Yeah, shut up. I got this." Fixing whatever I said would be easy enough. Banarus doesn't pay enough attention to me to determine if I'm lying to her or not. "It's nothing, don't worry about it." I knew there was plenty more that I wanted to say, but I needed another few seconds to buffer my own thoughts again. Now that I was actually over here, sitting beside the two people I have been avoiding all this time, it wasn't as scary as I made it out to be. Either that, or all of the strangeness I'm dealing with is overriding every other feeling I was supposed to have.

"Today is a strange day for me, but it's high time I stopped being a moron..." That's right. She may be at fault, but I'm the one who couldn't handle it. I'm the one who kept avoiding her like the plague, wondering when I would finally get over this. But if I had been a little braver, I would have seen this sooner. That day has already come to pass. "Malica?" I forced myself to meet her eyes once more, my call demanding her attention in return. I have to do this, for my own sake. "I am now completely and totally over you. So please, quit thinking that you have a second chance with me, cause it's not going to happen."

Malica jumped up from her seat in protest, trying to reassure me that I had the wrong idea. "I wasn't thinking that!"

"Liar," Lumina retorted. "I can see the regret on her face. She just wants to grab the people she can't get easily."

For once, Lumina and I agreed on something. I didn't really care either way if Malica accepts the truth or not. It won't change our broken relationship one bit. "She's Kenzaki's problem now, not mine."

Banarus broke the awkward silence between the two of us, trying to move the situation along. "At least now you're moving on, and your sitting with us today! What more fun can you ask for?"

"Is she fun to be around?" Lumina's question was sincere, a challenge to Banarus's self-sustaining confidence that she of all people could hold my attention.

To answer that question, I forced myself to turn around in my own seat, using this power to my advantage while explaining the whole situation to Lumina. I panned my eyes around the room, trading focus between several of the other students, most of which were absorbed in their school work or in each other's personal lives. "You see everyone else in the classroom? This may sound harsh for summary, but they only fall into two categories. They're either all idiots, or boring as hell." I've lost track of how many times I've overheard conversations either about sports, cheerleading, shows I tried to get into but never could, or just straight up clothing talk. I can't stay engaged in anyone's conversation anymore, not in this class. I'm a total weirdo, but Banarus and Malica are just a little strange themselves, so I find something of topic in common with them more than anyone else. "I can't sit anywhere else right now. I'm barely holding together the way things are, with me losing my own mind like this."

"Fair point," Lumina granted. "Still, I can't believe these were the only friends that you chose to hang out with."

"There were two others," I reminded, realizing that I saw Maddison here earlier, but she was nowhere to be seen now. I have not seen Ashly or Laura either. "But I'm barely even associated with them. I really do need to find some new friends." That hasn't changed from before. I'm not satisfied with these two anymore. Things are too tense for one of Banarus's stupid jokes to lighten my mood, and Malica is, well, Malica. "Right now, I need to bide my time until I'm ready." I can't concentrate on making new friends with everything going on today. I've already blown off two school assignments.

"For what it's worth, you do have me to talk to now."

"I meant someone who—" Cutting myself off, annoyed that she could so easily anger me, I decided getting worked up just wasn't worth it. Lumina doesn't realize or admit that she is a phantom, but I can't deny it. The moment I do start to believe her, any chance I have to prove she is real or fake will dwindle away. "Oh, never mind."

"You seem kind of spacy today, but I guess that never changes." Banarus only pointed out what was obvious to her.

But so what if I appeared to be spacing out? You think this telepathic hallucination business is easy? I have to hold two conversations at the same time while hiding them from each other. I've never had to do that before!

"You were right to have the idea of finding new friends..."

I turned my head away from both of them, ignoring their attention entirely as I had other matters to deal with. I don't understand why Lumina felt the need to reiterate that point. I could tell something Banarus said annoyed her, but I didn't bother asking what it was. I was already getting bored just sitting here like this.

Soon enough, my anti-social behavior was enough for Malica and Banarus to move on their moment and begin talking randomly between each other. I didn't mind one bit. I said I would come sit over here, but I never said anything about engaging in silly small talk. Still, with my head skewed to the side, I continued thoughts I was processing earlier, thoughts about the Altiri and their race. Even though I was sure they were fake, I couldn't get over how much attention to detail Lumina put behind her explanations. I bet if I asked her some more, no matter the topic, she would come up with whatever she needed to on the fly. I'm not even capable of being that fast, so it still bewildered me to think that this other telepathic person claiming to be an Altiri alien was really just an extension of myself. "Want to talk more about your alien empire?"

With a more charged and excited voice, Lumina perked up at the chance to explain more about her world to me, still for a reason I could not understand. "It's not really an empire. But sure! What do you want to know?"

What is she, an encyclopedia now? "Well for starters, I know nothing about the structure there. How many people does the Altiri have in their population? And how does your social system operate?"

"Well, Karnak currently has a population of 32 million right now. But compared to Earth, that's like one flee sitting on a giant."

"Right..." 32 million people? I heard that correctly. Even setting aside the fact that Earth has far more people on it, 32 million is not a low number for population. I can't believe there are that many Altiri in the universe.

"And that's beside the ten thousand of us in outer space, not counting the Altiri Temple."

"You have an Altiri Temple?"

"It's the stationary base sitting at anchor in outer space, outside of Karnak, where all top level operations of the government occur. The queen actually lives there."

So they just have this special space station, and the Altiri queen lives there? Aside from those who live on Karnak, there are all of these other people, people like the queen or people like Lumina who live in space doing god knows what? It certainly sounds interesting, considering humanity has come nowhere near that level. "So then I take it you've all mastered space travel completely?" Wait, is this the opportunity she could use to prove her existence? "Should I expect a personal visit soon?"

"No," she gently whined. "It's not as easy as you think. We have in a sense mastered short-range space travel, but the universe is far bigger than you could ever imagine."

If she knows something that I don't, then she should just get on with it. I only got to realize it now, since my montrum of the cosmos has died down some, but I wonder if I could learn some interesting things from her on the subject matter. "Enlighten me."

"The Genosis Galaxy is home to an A-6 Type medium-dwarf star."

Even knowing she wasn't done with her exposition, I had to stop her again on the count of uninterpretable terminology. "Stop. I don't know what A-6 class even means."

"It's just a classification system the Altiri use when determining types of stars. It sounds random to someone who doesn't know much, but all of the classification codes combine factors such as the range of its size, materials the star burns, gravitational effects, burn temperature, and color. Our A-6 Class star amazingly burns with such a bright blue color."

I got the quick feeling that she wasn't lying or making things up on the spot. Lumina spoke in such a way that she knew her own material with unwavering confidence. I bet if I asked her to get me a list on all the different star types, she would actually be able to produce one in minutes.

"Our small solar system is surrounded by this nebula, one in the shape of a thick ring which we call the Phobium Cloud. Because of the particles that exist within our Phobium Cloud, the starlight reflects off it slightly, giving our entire skybox this dark blue hazy tint to it, if only viewed from the inside. When we look out our window or up from the surface of Karnak during night, we don't normally see that pure pitch black sky color you humans are used to seeing. It's a slightly blue coloration instead, though not entirely strong."

"So when you look up at your sky, even in outer space within the Phobium Cloud, it's not black, but dark blue?"

"Yes, but the coloration is only a reflection from particles in the Phobium Cloud, so this haze effect is still highly transparent. It isn't as if the light pollution prevents our traditional scopes from seeing further out from our galaxy."

Amazing! I recited while absorbing her details. I've never heard of anything like a Phobium Cloud before, let alone a nebula surrounding a star in the shape of a ring, and that's just a tiny aspect of what their world is like. Considering all of the elements in our world on the Periodic Table, there might be substances in their world that are entirely foreign to that system. I still didn't want to admit it out loud or oversell my reactions, so I kept my tone neutral, giving her the chance to move on. "Okay. What about fuel? I'm guessing fuel would be a big issue since you are all so much into space."

"Oh, not at all. We use Sunder-Crelessive Plasma-based reactions, which are based on dark matter chain reactions within fusion energy cores. This provides us with stable energy and infinite propulsion fuel mixing with ion engines, which can be incredibly powerful. Since it all siphons off the aspect vacuum of space and nearby solar radiation, the energy we can generate is limitless, at least to whatever threshold our dark matter reactor chambers can support."

I used to think Lumina was used to hitting random big words just to try and throw me off, but just this once, I argued with myself, wondering if I was either a crazy genius or if I was being lied to in the most amazing way. "I of course understood none of that." I wasn't even going to try reading between any potential contexts, since there was too much science here that I did not understand. I think I must have been waiting for a chance to understand one aspect of their astrology, only to intentionally trip her up later on a fact or two that would become inconsistent. But now, I realized that any chance I had to get to the bottom of all of this was never going to come to be in the form of a mere explanation, not like this. I had no idea space travel was this complicated.

"Just think of it like an unlimited fuel system. It can be faster relative to other travel methods, but we've come nowhere near close to traveling at the speed of light. At top acceleration, maybe 27% tops."

"That's all well and good. But if this fuel source is unlimited like you say, and you've managed to age up to be three thousand sixty something, what's stopping you from traveling outside your zone? Why not drop by here and announce yourself in person?"

"Impossible distance." Her reply was simple, but effective in shutting me up. "That, and the limits to what a cargo bay can hold. It might sound like an easy journey. However, the nearest solar system to us is so far out of range, that to make it there on maximum resources, the trip would still wind up being one-way only. The resources we need are mostly just water, but we cannot replenish that without a station to hand them out. And then, to make it to the ACS system, that journey would be completely impossible."

"Are we that far away?"

"Reed? Our two stars are so far apart, that even with NASA's most advanced telescopes, the light from our stars are not yet visible to each other. It's arguable whether our starlight will even reach your sector through all the solar noise."

I kept quiet, but only to address exactly how far that was in the first place. What's more strange to this is was that I was expecting a totally different answer. If Lumina is so far away in distance that she could never dream of making it to Earth with all of the technology at her fingertips, then it means there is no possibility of either us meeting physically in person. This begs the question, why purge anyone? On one hand, that's one less method to prove she does exist, but on the other, this situation feels more realistic than the alternative.

"Not only that, but the water supply is the biggest concern. We would run out of water even after preparing maximum storage long before anything interesting happens. And let's just say for a moment that we didn't have that problem. If we plotted a trip to Earth, by the time we make it there with the quickest speed and top notch technology, we estimate that hundreds of thousands of years would have passed."

"Well, there goes my ticket off this dump." They've only mastered interplanetary travel. I should have expected this much, but I guess even the Altiri have their own troubles. Even if I were to believe her and everything she said, it wouldn't matter anyway! With such a distance, it's inconceivable to think humans and Altiri would ever really acknowledge each other in the first place.

"Were you planning on hitching a ride?"

"I'm just thinking out loud a little." I didn't know what else to say, so I tried going backwards a bit, trying to dissect every little detail about everything I could. "So, you all drink purified water too?"

"Ours is the purist of water compared to what you have on Earth. And it's so tasty because of that purity!" Lumina let her voice pitch up while her mouth hung agape producing drool under her tongue.

"Yummy," I echoed sarcastically, indicating how I wanted her to keep her personal details to herself. "But tell me. Water does have the properties of water, pure or not. So how does it not freeze inside your ship, or on Karnak for that matter?"

"The water is treated with some special isotope that prevents the water from freezing under these temperatures, that is until we drink it. Our bodies break down these isotopes after enough time, and then the water freezes inside of our bodies."

"Wait a sec. It freezes inside your own body? How is that even possible? And aren't radioactive isotopes dangerous?" I couldn't hide it from myself any longer, how interested I was to continue hearing her out. I thought she was going to try and convince me that her existence was certain, but this isn't what I had in mind. Yet, it was the total unpredictability of this situation that kept me from wanting to change the subject back to my boring reality.

"These isotopes are not radioactive, nor are they harmful to us," Lumina replied in allegiance. "When the water freezes inside of us, that is our source of energy. Our blood and other cells are not frozen, so they can move around freely. The ice inside of us is then harvested to keep us hydrated."

"Wow..."

"Our Kasuls hold any excess water when we drink more than needed. As for the rest, we store our bottles of water contained in different layers of ice for storage. We only need about 4 bottles every 24 hour cycle."

There was a lot more in that sentence that I didn't fully understand, and I could only keep up with one at a time, fully engaged in trying to understand it all. "What are Kasuls?"

"Oh right! I never explained that yet. Kasuls for us don't have any real function other than storing unused water. I guess you could say it's like a bladder, but we don't ever urinate, so that's not an exact comparison either."

"You don't pee? What do you even eat then?"

"We don't have to eat anything. Our science in chemistry is not as caught up as we would like it to be, but the experts say that it's something in the air. Whatever we breathe gives us all the nutrients our body needs to function; that's the theory anyway. Our bodies are capable of breaking down raw meat with enzymes, but that capacity is fairly limited, since we don't need meat to survive."

So she stores water in these special organs, and doesn't need to eat any food? The more I kept hearing about her biology, the closer I realized something else. She's like some kind of walking plant, a frozen rose raised in another world. "That's incredibly efficient, almost too much I think." If humans never had to eat anything, Earth would be a much better place by now. No wonder the Altiri have world peace.

"Exactly. No illness, no acne, no hair loss, and no rapid hair growth either."

Someone is out to make me jealous. "I get it. The Altiri are structurally built better than humans. But getting back to the food part, how exactly do you know you can digest meat in the first place? Knowledge of that implies you have already tried once before. And if you have, it means you have or used to have at least a small potential food source."

"Planet Karnak is too cold for any other animals to thrive on. But once upon a time, on planet Zinod, there were lots of other creatures. Zinod was cold too, a place where Altiri could also live with ease. But it wasn't cold enough to banish other variations of life from forming there. On Zinod, we had so much more to study. I once tried to eat something for experimental purposes myself... I didn't like what happened afterwards."

"What, you mean taking a big dump of shit?"

Disgusted by the imagery from a memory she wished she could forget, Lumina's face twisted with horror and disgust, raising her voice to me so sternly. "You didn't have to phrase it like that!"

Though I couldn't see her face myself, her tone and quick reaction helped me paint the ultimate picture in my head. Strange as it was the Altiri could process food like humans, her embarrassment to the testament was actually pretty funny to me. It got twice as funny when I fully realized how much she wanted to forget the memory of making things from a science experiment. Unable to hold back anymore, I burst into loud laughter, holding my stomach and leaning into a tilt. Lumina wasn't happy about it at all, but knowing that only made it harder for me to stop. I tried cupping my mouth, knowing already that it was too late to hide what I had just done, not that it helped me as quickly to calm down.

"Are you okay?" Malica gave me such a confused and frightened look that it made me cringe back a little.

As I thought, my own outburst revealed to Malica, Banarus, and a few other nameless students around me that my laughter wasn't warranted from anything they were talking about. As it appeared to them, my focus was somewhere in the clouds, so I can't blame them for thinking how weird it was that I would laugh at seemingly nothing, embarrassing as it was.

"What's so funny Reed?" Banarus followed up after Malica, smiling ever so slightly with anticipation that she might hear some funny joke I forgot to tell.

Forcing myself to turn around and face my own mistake, I tried to just play it off as normal. "Don't worry about it guys. Just pretend like I'm not even here today."

Lumina was now trying her best not to laugh in return, holding her mouth with both hands and trembling inside to hold it back for as long as she could, and it was obvious why she thought my humiliation was so funny. It was pure karma; I made fun of her, so now she was making fun of me. "That one's definitely on you! They totally think you're weird now!" Letting out her laughter in broken giggles, Lumina made sure the sentiment rubbed in where it needed to.

But as embarrassing as it was, I sunk down in my chair with a slight smile to call my own, knowing that it was all worth it in the end. Besides, "Banarus and Malica already think I'm weird anyway, so that isn't much of a loss." I wanted to keep this going some more, to keep learning as much about the Altiri as possible from her. I had to pay attention not only to Lumina, but also to my physical surroundings too. Banarus and Malica were staring at me now, bouncing their eyes a little to make it less obvious, but I could feel their suspicious gaze on me. As long as I'm careful, I can avoid another outburst like that. "Anyway, which alien meats did you end up testing?"

"We ended up trying raw horse meat."

For the viewers at home, I apologize for this. I can easily imagine the kind of face anyone would make when hearing about somebody eating raw meat, let alone from a horse. Your face is probably twisting and distorting with powerful disgust! And I don't blame you, because the moment I heard that for the first time, I was making the same face too.

I'm sure Lumina sensed the silence between us after she spoke, and I wasn't ready to reply to her yet. All I could do was make the face of horror, my skin turning pale once more while my stomach threatened to jump more backflips. Unfortunately, my expression of shock went noticed, as I was still facing two humans in front of me.

It was Banarus who spoke up first, addressing my unsavory reaction without fear. "You're acting really weird today."

"What's wrong?"

Realizing my luck had been cursed two times over, I waited a little before telling Lumina what the issue was. How was I not supposed to make that face after hearing something like that? Of course Banarus and Malica would see it and find out I wasn't acting normally. The one thing I had feared before walking into school was finally starting to unfold before me, but I still tried my best to put a stop to it. "Think nothing of it." I know neither of them would actually obey what I said just for my sake, but I turned to the side afterwards, hoping to get them to leave me alone.

The other worse aspect to this was that I wasn't actually trying to let Lumina in on how I really felt about the horse meat comment. Gross as it was, I am trying to be polite here. She can't see my facial expressions, and I can't see hers. But if someone like Banarus notices them, it will let Lumina onto the fact that I was reacting to her in the first place, eliminating yet another wall of privacy between us. It was too late to take anything back now. "Oh nothing. I just pictured the wrong mental image at the wrong time." But even though I managed my best neutral mental voice, my inner thoughts while hidden from her were not as quiet to me. Ultimately, my conclusion is that this chick is a total psycho! I can't believe she ate raw horse meat!

"You don't have to pretend like it isn't gross. I know now that many humans despise feasting on specific domesticated animals. For us, horses were not domesticated at that specific point in time, but we did make use of them on Zinod at some point."

Nice excuse. "Wait," I stumbled after realizing the vocabulary. Earth has horses too, so why would it be different with the Altiri on such a cold world? No, Zinod wasn't as cold as Karnak, right? "So this planet Zinod, it was another planet that you had direct access to? And on top of that, it was full of all these other animals included your equivalent to horses? What other earth-like animals exist there?"

"Once upon a time, we did have access. But, Zinod was unfortunately destroyed."

"D—destroyed?!" Am I hearing things? Zinod is a separate planet from Karnak, as in a whole gigantic planet! For something like that to be destroyed... "Wh— We are talking about a whole planet, right?"

"Well technically, Zinod was more of a moon to Karnak. Despite being close to the same size, Zinod was still a smaller planet... I know you're curious about what would take out something so big and important. It's actually part of that long story I wanted to talk to you about."

I began losing myself further in her words. No matter what I believed earlier, listening to what she had to say about these crazy things regarding the Altiri world was more interesting now. I wanted to keep hearing her speak, for Lumina to continue her long story until I knew everything. I don't know if it was because I was now committed to my tiny promise, or if I was truly that bored of today.

But I also became better at detecting some of her emotion, based on how she would talk when telling me these things. Some of the facts she gave me earlier genuinely interested her, while the mere mention of Zinod's destruction flushed every ounce of energy from her, leaving in its wake such deep disappointment to reminisce. Despite how crazy things are, despite my words to her that she is nothing more than illusion, she still keeps trying. She keeps trying to tell me everything without messing around, speaking from her whole heart instead of some social script. Even though I had some doubt that she wasn't wilfully lying to me, I considered the probability of deception to be lower.

I wanted to hear more. Lumina wanted to say more. So I wasn't going to stop her from telling me any story. However, I had to break some of the news to her, just after my eyes rolled onto the wall clock near the ceiling. "Well, math is going to be over soon. All of my next classes including the lunch period is going to me too busy for us to talk more about anything. But I know I will have plenty of free time to pick this up in Gym, and more time after that in my music class. So let's wait until Gym and talk about it there. Besides, I could use a short break after this."

"Okay." Lumina had agreed to my proposal, even though I could feel her holding something back.

I didn't ask her about it though. Putting everything away for the incoming bell tolling the next class, I tried to wind together and sort through all of the info that was given to me, certain there would be more. I already knew that my next few classes were going to force my attention onto the school work without exception. It was a strange feeling what began to develop within me; a sense of impatience to hear more, mixed with relief that Lumina kept her word by being as quiet as possible afterwards; the bittersweet aftertaste of what would follow me around in the final hours of school.