The following day, Kait decided to leave for supplies. Before she did, though, she saw the door to Hailey’s room was open and looked in.

Inside, Taylor, Abigail, and Linne were busy cleaning the room. She walked in, attracting Taylor’s attention. Kait was surprised to see the guests hadn’t left yet but decided it was pointless to ask why. “Cleaning her room?” she asked.

Taylor turned around and shrugged. “Yeah, I just don’t feel good sitting around waiting for things to get fixed, so I started cleaning Hailey’s room so we could move her in here. Help just came to me.”

Abigail glanced at Kait and matter-of-factly said, “Same here.”

Linne just continued cleaning.

Kait rolled her shoulders. “It’s alright if you all want to do that, but just ask if you need my help. I’ll get this thing done”-she snapped-“like that with my magic.”

“I’d prefer to do it myself…but if you can deal with all the nitty-gritty stuff once we’re finished up, I wouldn’t complain.”

Abigail shivered as she straightened out Hailey’s bedsheets. “Like getting rid of that wasp nest in her window.”

“No problem at all. I’m going to fetch some supplies so I can help Hailey. Bye!” Kait left the doorway and stepped down the stairs.

“Come back soon.” Taylor said.

“WHAA!” came a familiar yelp from downstairs.

“What was that?!” Taylor said, recognizing the voice.

“I don’t know, let’s get down and see!” Abigail said with high hopes.

The group rushed down the stairs to see Hailey standing in front of the couch, patting herself down in palpable confusion. “I-I think I have a body! I have a body?!”

Kait stared at her, her jaw having fallen to the floor in astonishment as the other three stumbled over themselves to see Hailey.

Without even thinking about how cruel Hailey had acted the day before, Linne ran over and hugged her. Taylor and Abigail didn’t go so close but still happily assaulted Hailey with questions.

“What happened?”

“Are you okay?!”

“Are you confused?”

“Do you need any water, any food?”

“Where–”

“Everyone walk away, NOW!” Kait yelled with surprising authority.

Linne dropped her arms from Hailey in confusion, unsure whether to abide the commands of the person who’d caused the issue in the first place.

Abigail, after some hesitation, glared at Kait. “What do you mean? Our friend’s awake, and you think we’d just walk away because you said so?”

Taylor remained silent, not taking sides.

Hailey looked between Abigail and Kait with a meek, conflicted expression. “I think–”

Kait subtly shook her head. “That isn’t Hailey.”

Abigail looked between Hailey and Kait skeptically. “How is that not Hailey?” She glanced at Hailey. “Hailey, are you Hailey?”

“I think I’m Hailey…”

Abigail looked back to Kait. “Well, there you go.”

“…but I don’t think I’m Hailey.”

Abigail’s serious expression instantly melted as she looked between Hailey and Kait, “Huh?! I don’t understand. How–what–who–”

Linne took careful steps backward, keeping both Kait and Hailey in her peripherals.

“What are you?” Kait asked.

“I’m, like, probably part of Hailey.”

Kait sighed, placing her hand on her forehead. “Sometimes I wonder if my field of study is pointless.” She shook her head. “I have no idea what’s going on. She couldn’t be a spirit, so we should be safe.”

Hailey spoke as she took note of her surroundings, “If I’m correct, Hailey yelled at me a few minutes ago, and now I’m here. Hailey is still in there.”

“Great!” Kait said. “Then I’m going to leave you all here with this thing while I–”

“I’m probably still Hailey! Please call me Hailey!”

“Thing.”

“Hailey!”

“Thing”

“Hailey!”

“THING.”

“Hailey!”

“Okay, how about we reach a compromise between…calling her a ‘thing’ or Hailey,” Taylor said. “What about Hailey Mark 2?”

“I think that works.”

Kait sighed. “This is ridiculous…What’s the name of that energy drink thing? Coughy? Cofa?”

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Coffee,” Taylor said for Kait.

“Yes, coffee. I’m picking up some coffee from the, um…‘gas station,’ as they call it. Meanwhile, you all can call me up if Hailey Mk2 gains magical powers and starts attacking people.”

“Sure,” Hailey Mk2 said.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” Kait said as she walked out of the house. A moment later, she poked her head in again, said, “Bye,” and then walked out.

Suddenly, Kait burst back in, walked up the stairs, then came back down with her backpack. “Actually, bye!” she said as she left for real this time.

After Kait left, the room fell silent.

“…Hi,” Hailey Mk2 said.

“Hi,” the group responded dissonantly.

“It’s interesting being physical, I think…”

“Y-Yeah, so why are you in Hailey’s body?” Taylor asked.

“I don’t know…does anyone have Wishie-Washies I can eat?”

Linne walked to a cabinet in the kitchen and threw a bag toward Mk2. “Right here.”

As if she’d known they would have the bag, Mk2 smiled at Linne. “Thanks, I guess,” she said before ripping it open and throwing one into her mouth. The group stood in silence for a bit, Mk2 chewing on her Wishie-Washie with a blank expression. She eventually broke the silence, “So what do we do now?”

Taylor shrugged, “I guess we finish cleaning your room.”

“I think me would like that.”

Hailey stood up and began walking forward once more. Well, that was a waste of–

CRASH! Her sword fell from the sky at terminal velocity, crunching Hailey below it with the force of a tungsten missile and turning the white ground beneath it into a scorched crater.

Since Hailey was hit by the equivalent of a ton of TNT, she naturally scratched her head in annoyance as she rose from the crater. As she did, countless bubbles popped, dropping their contents. Words, items, and concepts spilled onto the ground, one of which exploded in the background for some reason.

“Darn sword!” Hailey shouted in frustration before kicking the preposterously designed weapon with the tip of her foot. “OWWWW!” she yelped and held her foot in one of her hands, hopping on the other.

After groaning in annoyance and wasting some time complaining, Hailey shook her head. “Sure, I guess I’ll run with this. Doesn’t seem like I needed a sword anyway.” Hailey knew she wasn’t put that far back, and although those memories took almost half a day to get through—no, it couldn’t have taken longer than an hour to do, right? Hailey got a headache trying to comprehend how time worked in this dimension and eventually gave up on the endeavor entirely. Would Kait come back already?

She sighed. No, it was her fault she was here. It was her job to get out.

Falling from the sky came a picture. Hailey snatched the slowly falling paper from the air and looked at it. It was a picture of three hands placed on a door.

“Would you like to revisit that?” a voice asked.

Hailey looked to her right and saw a younger version of herself looking up at her. “What do you want?”

“It’s my job to oversee the wish of the curse placed upon you.”

“And that wish would be?”

“To make you see how much you’re hurting inside,” the spirit said, bored.

Hailey’s eyes widened.

“I see. That phrase has significance to you,” the spirit said with an edge of interest.

“So…you’re saying this was Taylor’s doing?”

“I don’t know much about him, but from the memories we’ve experienced so far, I figure it wouldn’t be out of character for him. It isn’t my job to speculate, though.”

Hailey scowled, “Of course he did. He just can’t give up on someone, can he?”

“Are you implying you should be given up on?”

Hailey looked away and didn’t respond.

“Hmph, clearly you aren’t too far gone.”

Hailey turned back to the spirit with an unconcerned look. It could tell that she was simply showing an expression of defeat, however.

It didn’t speak, and even as an hour of its time was wasted in silence, the younger Hailey didn’t move from its spot, idly leaning back on magically appearing walls of memory foam as it waited. Suddenly, it spoke, “I love being paid for sitting still, but…d’ya mind doing anything.”

“Excuse me, princess…thing-cess? But I’m thinking. That’s the point of this realm, for me to improve myself or something, right?”

“First off, this isn’t common among spirits, but I prefer to be referred to as a woman. Second off, yes, this realm is made to help you self-actualize. What you fail to realize is that you have been given every tool needed to do so in this realm.”

“What does that mean?”

“Bar a few limitations, you’re literally a god in this room.”

“How am I a god?”

“Did you not just get hammered by a falling sword, then stand up like it was nothing?”

Hailey looked around, realizing she was in a mile-wide crater. “Yeah, that was pretty weird.”

“So, do you want to quicken your enlightenment, or are you going to stand still to do it? Because when I’m bored, you know you’re wasting a lot of time.”

“You always sound bored.”

“It takes a lot to entertain me, but it also takes a lot to bore me.”

Hailey thought before looking at her hand. A bowling ball appeared between her fingers. “Oh, you’re right. I can make everything.”

“Adda girl. Now do something before I duck out. My friends are having a poker game, and I want to see them get systematically disassembled by Logica.”

Hailey smiled mischievously, dropped the bowling ball, then pointed at the fake. “Power word: Kill!” she yelled.

Her fake dropped to the ground, apparently killed by the spell of instant murder.

“Uh, are…are you still alive?” Hailey asked.

The spirit reformed a few feet away. “Yes. Don’t be so foolish so as to believe I’d die to one of your inside jokes.”

“I guess primordial spirits are immune to those weapons of mass destruction.”

“Quite so. So, do you want to see one of your memories?”

“I don’t know why that’d be useful.”

“How about the one just before you came here? The one from that picture.”

“My argument?” Hailey’s eyes moved to the picture she’d dropped as she pondered quietly. She nodded. “Fine, show me.”

And thus, the world reformed.