Kaetha watched with impatience as Kait spoke with the necromancer, watching through the omniscient vision that The Consciousness had granted her access to. From the look of it, there’d be a long negotiation.

How annoying. She was tempted to end the debacle herself by destroying the necromancer’s exposed jar of mercury on her own since Kait was seemingly unaware it was the vessel for the reimagined soul. That would have been overkill, though, because the matter would surely be settled soon, ending the threat to her son’s life.

She glanced at Hailey, who hadn’t moved from her place nearby. It wasn’t likely she would move for at least an hour, Kaetha figured. She tended to sit still and think for long, tedious periods. Clearly, she hadn’t heeded her advice and used the realm creatively. That was fine; more pay for her.

Logica suddenly appeared beside her. “Grandma, I fear there are plots against you.”

Kaetha sighed. “That’s not what I want to hear in the final stretch. And please don’t call me that in front of mortals.”

“Oh, sorry. Lumia and Elemencia are conspiring against you again.”

“Even worse! Did Insecaba tell you this?”

“Yes. Her ants saw the two speaking in the bridge room. Just one moment…” Logica disappeared, then returned a moment later. “She tells me they seem skeptical about this operation. They may cut our funding because it was us who allowed the soul to be released.”

“They found out, huh?”

“Indeed. I suggest we find a way to regain The Consciousness’s favor before they can maliciously hamper you. There is a seventy-six percent chance that immediately cleaning this up will result in most of their concerns being sidestepped.”

“Either way, we were the ones who set it free, I don’t see why being quick would stop them.”

“It is likely that they are only in the conspiring stage. Alleviating their concerns quickly might save us face and make them give up on turning it against us in a major way. Either way, Necro will, unfortunately, still be punished. The question is if this mess is blown out of proportion. Seventy-four percent, now.”

Kaetha scoffed. “You’re timing me now? That’s my Logica, gimmie a hug!”

As Kaetha hugged her, Logica said, “Seventy-two.”

“Fine, fine.” Kaetha let go of Logica. “I’ve only got one way to end this right now.”

“Possession?”

“Yes.” Kaetha walked to Hailey, then flicked her head, disappearing immediately afterward.

“Ow,” Hailey muttered as she looked around with confusion. “What about possession?”

Logica shrugged. “Don’t worry about it.” After a pause, she added, “Friend.” then disappeared.

“Four hundred years stuffed in The Consciousness…let’s see the sun again!” Kaetha woke up in a body quite similar to the one she’d just left.

In front of her was a drowsy Clera, who was very surprised to see Hailey wake. “H-Hailey? You’re awake!”

“No, I’m not Hailey.” Kaetha stood up, checking out her bedtime clothes. Their fluffiness was quaint.

“W-what? Are you another–”

“No. Who I am is none of your concern.” Kaetha opened the window.

“Hey! What are you doing?” Clera said, unsure of her own eyes as she stumbled to her feet.

“Flying.” She jumped out of the window, then soared.

Clera had no time to react as her child’s body fell out of the window, then suddenly flew away. She felt like she was on the butt end of a cruel joke.

Kait leaned against the wall as Jaine and his mother caught up. She was mainly praising her son for his independence at the age of just seventeen, as he’d apparently moved out only a month ago. Kait wasn’t too impressed, though.

She waited until their banter calmed down. She wasn’t sure why, but she suddenly felt a need to take things slowly…Still, she thought it wouldn’t be right to waste everyone’s time chatting. “So what are we going to do about this?”

“Oh, right. I nearly forgot we were bargaining for her life. So why are ya so determined to stop me from reviving her?”

Kait rubbed her forehead. “If I recall, it was because you’re trying to create new life…or just because you took a soul.”

“I don’t think I’m making any sort of ‘new life.’ This girl was already revived when I found her.”

“Maybe, but try telling The Consciousness that. From its perspective, you stole a soul, then tried to revive it against the natural order. Oh, and that soul, it’s…what was her name?”

“Alchemia. You’re saying that she needs to die just because The Consciousness said so?”

“Yes.”

“Well, thatch The Consciousness, is what I say! I’m not letting another friend get killed.”

“Yeah,” Kait agreed.

“But–” He paused, blinking in surprise. “Oh, you agree with me? That makes this easier.”

“Yep. I think we should search for a compromise. What were you doing with her, anyway?”

“When she possessed Hailey, she called me up, asking for me to save her butt from being wiped by The Consciousness.”

“So, as you said, she wants to live.”

“Exactly, this is just a favor for a friend.” He shrugged, then opened the door to his balcony, feeling hot from being cramped in the small room with four other people. It wasn’t too cold outside anymore, anyway. “I requested a body from the necromancy foundation, and if I’m lucky, it should be here in five days.”

“What do necromancers do these days? Last time I checked, they were second-rate witches that zombified people for power.”

“How mean could you be to my dignified kind!” He raised his hand in mock dramatics before shrugging. “We transplant souls to save people from death.”

“That actually sounds reputable. So what do you think we should do to–”

Taylor’s cell phone rang. “Err, sorry about that…it’s mom.” He walked into the corner to take the call. Before the conversation could continue, he turned back. “KAIT! Why is my sister able to fly?! Is she possessed?!”

“What?! Wait, slow down!”

“My mom just said she saw Hailey fall out of the window then…then…”

All eyes suddenly fell on the apartment’s balcony, where Hailey had floated down.

“I guess we don’t need to find her if she comes to us…” Taylor muttered.

Kaetha blinked, admiring the convenience of the open balcony door before walking through. “I must apologize for this.” Kaetha pointed towards the jar of mercury.

Taylor slugged his sister in the face out of pure instinct, throwing her into the door frame like a rag doll. “H-Hailey?” He realized what he’d done afterward, stunned at his own aggression. Seeing his sister crumpled on the floor made his fist hurt all the more.

“Unexpected and annoying,” she sighed, then moved her hand toward the jar.

Kait suddenly yelled, “Vergo!” Her necklace shined yellow, then the two vanished.

Hailey’s eye twitched. Ever since Logica left, some green-haired spirit had been keeping an eye on her. Then, he suddenly began laughing. He was looking into the distance for some reason and, for about a minute straight, had been laughing his butt off.

She turned her head toward him, finally set off by his annoying voice. “Okay, I don’t know who or what you are, but you’re pissing me off.” She added politely, “I’d like it if you could stop.”

“Ha! Sorry, not a compelling argument.” He continued to laugh.

Hailey walked close enough that the spirit could feel her palpable disdain. “I’m in the middle of thinking, and I don’t want a laughing jack of farts to interrupt my thoughts.”

“Make me. You ain’t gonna do–”

“Power Word: Kill.” The spirit fell to the ground, dead, then regained his body a few feet away.

“That wasn’t very n–”

“Power Word: Kill.”

“Come now, that r–”

“Power Word: Kill.”

“Please don’t–”

“HA! Power Word: Kill!”

“It’s funny you think killing me is enough to kill me, but–”

“Power Word: Kill.

“Whoa, you have the smil–”

“Power Word: Kill.”

“–e of a devil.”

“Power Word: Kill!”

“You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you.”

“Heh, I am, but mostly I’m just testing something out.”

“Oh! So you didn’t actually want me to–”

“Power Word: Kill.”

“Ha! How dreadfully spiteful you are!”

“Spiteful, huh?!” Hailey smiled like she’d achieved something. “Tell me, spirit, how does time work here?”

“Gran said it was dependent on your psyche.”

“My psyche?”

“She said it’d take longer the less you wanted to face reality. Or something like that.”

“The less I wanted to face reality…”

“Yes, ma’am!”

Hailey frowned in thought. So that’s what Mk3 meant…‘The more you want to move, the more you will move’ “Then,” Hailey’s frown turned into a mischievous smile. “You’re saying that if I throw myself forward with raw determination, a desire to face ‘reality’ so great I’d look like a madman, that I could brute force my way through here in a flash?”

“Heh, I like that smile. It reminds me of me.”

“Power Word: Kill.”

“How many bodies do you want to pile up?” The spirit motioned to the many green-haired corpses on the ground after dying once more.

“Don’t compare me to a joke like you. This stupid ‘dream realm’ you spirits designed for me…I’ll just crush it.”

He pointed and laughed. “Hahahaha! You think you can get past that traumatic memory of yours right after failing it?!”

She smirked. “I didn’t fail it.”

“Oh?”

“I just got a little too rebellious a little too late.”

“Sounds like an excuse.”

“Call it what you want, joker, but I’ll throw myself at this problem and break it under my grip!” She raised a clenched fist into the air. “Just watch me, you lunatic spirit!”

Hailey dashed across the crater.

She had one thing in mind, one determination. She wouldn’t accept mediocrity, not anymore. Sitting down and watching as her friend was killed in the memory…she could do that, but that wasn’t a memory, it was a play.

And the annoying climb to that memory? It was a joke. She had done most of it twice before, so none of it was even worth a thought. Failing that memory’s ‘trial’ wasn’t an accident. She thought it’d be fun to walk back in there and crash the party. Seeing that damned Jason fly to the ground by her feet would be fun, so she didn’t waste the opportunity to make it happen.

She rushed forward, knowing every factor in play. Single-minded determination was what made her shine. She’d made her cherished friend with it, and she would never reject the past she entrusted to her memory.

Appenne smiled and laughed, happy to see a great joke unfold.

He could try to stop the human from fulfilling her determined goal because she might interfere with his grandmother’s plan, but…this Hailey girl, who he’d underestimated for the past few days, seemed pretty invigorated, with some strange ambitions. He was at least happy to sit back and laugh at them. Why not let the mortal do what mortals do best and annoy his grandmother?

Ha! A lot of reasons, but none he cared about!

Kait and Kaetha appeared almost a mile in the sky.

“You IDIOT! Kait!” Kaetha yelled before flying down along with gravity.

Kait unclipped and climbed onto her broom as she fell, stabilizing herself. Seeing the patron of her powers soar downward, she tried to match the greater spirit’s speed. “Kaetha, I will not allow you to kill an innocent in this way! We can still find a compromise!”

“This is why I’m in ruins, Kait! You were a soldier, but you couldn’t harness the malice it took to kill, let alone protect those you loved!”

Kait yelled the name of her fallen comrade, “Kevain!” It activated a spell to negate her air resistance, giving her the boost of speed needed to slug Hailey’s body, sending Kaetha sprawling through the air from a loss of balance. However, Kait felt a surge of lethargy as she touched the spirit.

Kaetha didn’t pause, accelerating toward the ground as fast as she could. “If I don’t do this, all my children will suffer for it!”

“We can still think of a way to get out of this situation, Kaetha! We don’t need to kill her!” Kait yelled through the wind.

“Alchemia is not a person, Kait. She is the property of The Consciousness and shouldn’t be alive!”

“This is why we can’t see eye to eye, Kaetha!”

“We never have,” she scoffed, then pointed to Kait. “You cannot stop me!”

Kait’s lethargy, caused by a spell Kaetha had cast, made it difficult for her to open her eyes through the cold wind. She pulled a lighter from her pocket and struggled to smile, channeling what excitement she could before the flame launched from the lighter and enveloped herself, increasing her heartbeat.

The spirit was right. Kaetha was the Spirit of Witchcraft, and Kait was nothing more than a witch with her dead friends’ souls behind her. Yet, she would stall as long as she could in hopes that the others could find a way to save the soul.

“But you can’t kill me, Kaetha. If I died, that’s it for both of us!” Kait took a deep breath to channel calm, then used the clear air around her to activate a spell to let her see through the clouds. Just as she did, they burst into one.

She saw Kaetha activate a spell, condensing some of the clouds into a chunk of ice, then hurling it at Kait to slow her down. Kait yelled, “Teretes!” She cast his signature spell, briefly vaporizing herself into a cloud to phase through the attack.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Before she left the cloud, she smiled mischievously, channeling giddiness before tapping Kaetha’s shoe with a spell to lighten the spirit, causing her to hit terminal velocity, falling much slower than before, despite her flight.

Kaetha and Kait pressed forward through the almost deafening wind, but Kait was out of ideas. Both she and the spirit had almost no foci to use for spells, and while she was running out of emotions, the spirit didn’t need any to cast spells, unlike the mortal. Still, Kait’s lightening spell had placed her in a good position.

“No doubt you’re growing annoyed with me,” she said, trying to distract the spirit.

“I am quite cross with you. You’re determined to ruin everything I plan. None of this would matter if you just accepted my offer. You could rule the world, but you’re too indecisive to take the chance!”

Kait smiled confidently, packaging her satisfaction for a later spell. “Give it up, granny. Just give my friends some time to find a loophole through the law, and we can save Alchemia!”

“So what, Kait? Must you always forgo the greater good?”

“Is it not that attitude that killed everyone I know, Kaetha?!” she yelled, angered by the sentiment. “Is The Consciousness that you so dearly despise not a force that acts for the greater good and only the greater good?”

“That’s different, Kait. It killed everyone! Just accept that!”

“I have, Kaetha, heck, I’ve accepted it too much, but you’re so stuck trying to return to the world we both abandoned for our lives that I’m stuck fighting you!”

Kaetha gritted Hailey’s teeth in stifled anger.

“All your disciples are emotional freaks, accept that!”

“D-don’t act as if you understand what it’s like to see everything you worked for crumble in front…” Kait frowned as she saw tears form in Kaetha’s eyes, an understanding being shared between them. “…In front of us.”

They approached the ground.

Hailey ran, ran, and ran. She wasn’t sure—no, she didn’t care how long it took to traverse the white wasteland of forgotten knick-knacks. She just ran. It felt like seconds before Hailey saw the cracked earth of her memories in front of herself. As she approached them, she leaped forward onto a fracture without hesitation.

She appeared in her school’s computer lab, where she was laughing with Abbie. Linne sat down beside her fake self, but she was ignoring Linne, instead looking at Abbie like her other friend didn’t exist.

The real Hailey tapped Linne’s shoulder, causing her to turn around in surprise. “Love you, Linne!” she said with a smile before hugging her. She quickly dashed out of the lab.

The world shattered.

As she appeared once more in the grey realm, Hailey took a step forward.

She sat in her messy bedroom, crying.

“HEY, ME!”

Her fake raised her head.

Hailey smiled as she balled a fist. “GET UP, AND FEEL THE THING!”

“The…thing? What in the world is ‘the thing’?”

“YOUR FACE!” Hailey punched herself in the face, bearing the pain that shuddered through her fist, then leaped out her window with a smile.

The world shattered along with the window.

She took another step.

Her younger self refused to drink water as she toiled in her backyard garden. She was supposed to fall unconscious from exhaustion, but Hailey picked up her younger self, much to the acting spirit’s annoyance, and dropped her at the indoor sink before dashing out.

She dashed through the front door, and the world shattered.

She wasn’t ‘fixing’ the past because she thought it would change anything. She did it because she felt like making things better. It was that simple.

Hailey took a fourth step.

Taylor threw a punch at his crude friend for going way too far with the teasing of his younger sister but was intercepted by a dramatic dropkick as Hailey suddenly fell from the sky, then made off like a bandit. The world shattered.

A fifth step.

A younger Hailey moved the pointer on a computer, not knowing she was about to trash a year’s worth of pictures before the real Hailey hit the power button and dashed off. The world shattered.

The truth was, there wasn’t just one way to cope with regret.

A sixth step!

Taylor swore he could fall from the roof without being injured, much to Fake Hailey’s entertainment, before falling and breaking his–

Hailey caught him midair, then gently set him down. The world shattered.

There was a fact that Hailey had begun to realize, something that she felt relieved to understand…

Seven!

Fake Hailey and Tera each leaned against a trash can, their backs to each other. Each of them looked down sadly, but Tera held a can of soda in her hand, keeping up a facade of being cool and composed. They were in a foggy graveyard where a number of other people somberly milled about, most either leaving, speaking to each other, or mourning.

The moment Hailey saw Tera, she clenched her fist. She rushed toward Tera without a second thought. I’ll hit her like I did everything else here, I’ll…

As the acting spirit saw Hailey throw back her fist, they rolled their eyes. A sad look passed across Fake Hailey’s face as the dimension seemed to flicker for only an instant.

Hailey stumbled to a stop, closing her eyes. No. She shook her head, and after a moment, slumped, her fists falling open.

“She was my best friend…” Fake Hailey muttered.

“She was mine, too,” Tera said.

Silence passed between them.

Fake Hailey sighed, dried tears still visible on her face. “I thought I was,” she said in a dark, almost challenging tone.

Hailey’s eyes widened. She had hated to hear someone claim they understood what Abbie meant to her, and she had made that clear to her grieving friend with one sentence.

The sound of aluminum crinkling and liquid splashing seemed to echo in the silent fog as Tera crushed her can of soda. A silence passed as neither person’s expression shifted.

Then, she spoke. “You don’t get it.”

Tera walked away.

Hailey couldn’t believe it. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t realized. Of course Tera hates me. I couldn’t even realize…that it’s all my fault.

Hailey rushed forward after Tera and tackled her just as a crack appeared in the fabric of reality. She found her arms wrapped around Tera. “I swear, once I make it out of here, I’ll make it up to you. I’ll make it up to everyone. I won’t let this happen again, not ever.”

She heard a chuckle behind her as the familiar voice of that weird spirit came out of her mouth. “Are you sure about that?” they said doubtfully. “You’re a complete ‘brat,’ right?” they said, mimicking her voice. “You might be sincere now, but won’t you conveniently ‘forget’ how much of a brat you can be the moment you can avoid taking accountability?”

She frowned back at her fake. “Don’t make me Power Word: Kill you again.”

Her fake shrugged. “I’m just saying, you can learn as much as you want about yourself, make as many promises as you want, but in the end it’s your actions that matter. Will you say, ‘I didn’t know’ the moment you step foot out of here, or will you keep upholding yourself to that standard?”

“Suddenly, you started talking big words. It really doesn’t suit you.”

“Maybe.”

Hailey shook her head as cracks slowly formed in the world. “I…I don’t want to feel this way again. I don’t want to know…to know I made my friends feel this way, not again. I refuse to-to be a brat,” she said, moving to stare the spirit in the eye. “I don’t want to wallow in my own self-expectations. I-I swear, once I’m out of here, I will be the best friend I can be.”

“Heh. Alright. You can go.” The world was about to shatter. “The last memory is meant to catch you off-guard.” She smirked as Tera looked at her with a ‘seriously?!’ expression, as if she had betrayed them. “Just don’t disappoint, got it?”

“I won’t,” Hailey said challengingly.

The world shattered.

The truth, she realized, was that every person coped differently. Acceptance was at the end of every road, but her form of acceptance wasn’t one where she’d just roll with the punches.

Hailey saw a beautiful scene of her and her family watching the scenery from the top of Tarraka Falls. She leaped off the waterfall, feeling the mist and wind blow past as she did.

She heard a dumb voice from above, “Ha! I’m cheering for you, Hail girl!”

The world shattered.

Her form of acceptance was one where she rejected what was behind her and fought.

She took a step forward.

Inside the library, Jaine walked forward, a jar of mercury in his quaking hands as a bloodstained Hailey and an officer watched him with hope. Suddenly, his hands twitched, and the jar slipped from his hand, falling to the linoleum below.

The world shattered instead of the jar as Hailey lunged forward and caught it before it could fall.

Fought that regret head-on, not just head-up.

Ten.

Fake Hailey stood over Abbie’s body, holding her hand and praying to The Consciousness for her friend to survive.

She heard the voice of someone losing everything at once, incomprehensible. “H-Hailey…I…I don’t…s-s-save…I want…please.”

The past Hailey could barely squeak out a response to her dying friend’s incoherent pleas. “Abbie, please, you can’t die here…I-I…why…”

“Oh, you think this is gonna stop me in my tracks, huh?” Hailey calmly said to the spirits in front of her, trying not to lurch at the blood pooling on the ground beneath her friend’s doppel.

Her fake turned around to meet her eyes. “You’re really damn annoying.”

She gave them a wide, shit-eating grin. “Good, it means I’ve got one up on the world itself. Smell you later, actors.” Hailey walked out of the room.

And eleven.

Hailey dashed through an alchemy lab, burst through a set of double doors, then jumped up a set of easy-to-climb icy platforms. Alchemia had been nice enough to give her a shortcut. She was a nice girl, whether or not she truly was part of Hailey. She leaped into a cloud of mist.

Hailey appeared at the base of a mountain, hail pouring from a dark, swirling cloud above it, but she wasn’t intimidated. If she overcame it once, she’d make mincemeat of it when she did it again!

Faster than Mk3 had been the first time she’d climbed the mountain, she left a trail of dust in her path, making her way up the cliffs and trails with superhuman speed and strength. Her eyes narrowed as she concentrated on all the reasons she needed to be out, needed to face the world again.

Hailey felt the pain exerting her body with each step she took, fighting through the cold wind, yet she felt lighter and lighter, as if each step forward she let go of a weight on her back. But she could also feel the fear, pain, and responsibility of greeting reality again, pushing her to hesitate.

But everyone is waiting for me. Every time I made a mistake, I felt worse, and so I’d make more mistakes. I felt heavier and heavier, as if I couldn’t stand out of my bed. But I have to push myself. I have to…to fix those mistakes, to take those burdens off my shoulders. So I can’t hesitate. As long as I can still move, I can still climb! So this mountain can burn as far as I care, I’ll move past anything in my way! Linne, Abbie, my friends…I’m sure they hate me after everything I said to them, and the way I treated them, but I’ll make it up to them. I want to prove to myself that I can do it, that I can be better!

Far away, laying on a tree branch, Mk3 watched her climb with a proud smile. It was a good sight to see before the end of her life, watching herself fight to be alive under a hailstorm like the one she was named after.

In no time, Hailey sundered the mountain with her psyche. To her eyes, it was nothing more than a blip, a small, insignificant hill. Just as much as her body had ached, just as much as she had felt pain, just as much as she had cried on her way up, she was determined. Those things, those measly obstacles, they wouldn’t stand in her way.

After all, she only had so much time on stage. Why not prove she was a character worth remembering while she still could?

As she ran onto the peak, she leaped off the cliff and into an approaching cloud.

The end to the dream was fast approaching.

Taylor addressed the whole room before anyone else could recover from the shock of the two witches disappearing. “I have no clue what that was, but I think Kait needs us to find a loophole in whatever law says Alchemia needs to be killed. Jaine, explain to me in simple terms, does she need to die?”

“She was meant to go back to The Consciousness, but I took her away. I think that counted as ‘stealing’ her.”

“So either we return her by releasing her from that container of mercury, or we do something to ease The Consciousness’s concern…” Taylor placed his hand to his face in thought.

Mrs. Kukui, who was relatively informed on The Consciousness, proposed a solution. “The Consciousness might accept a different soul instead?”

“How nice of you to offer yourself as a sacrifice,” Jaine joked.

“Don’t jump to conclusions, Jasmine. I’m not a very self-sacrificing person.”

“Then what conclusions should I jump to?”

“You mentioned that Kait had souls with her…is that true?”

“Oh, I like what you’re thinking!” Ja(sm)ine smirked and raised his hand, which his mom tiredly high fived. “But how do we get a soul out?”

His mom answered his question with a formal tone as she gave the instructions. “Souls need to be stored in something physical. In the case of The Consciousness, it’s made of mercury, so it can store as much as it needs to.”

“So she must be storing them in some super-potent relic.”

“Exactly. It should work just as well as any jar of mercury.”

Jaine turned to Taila. “Taila, do you know anything about runes?”

She nodded. “I’m acquainted with them.”

“In that case, I need two runes drawn, right here, right now, from both of you. We don’t have much time before evil Hailey returns, so snap to it! We need to put Alchemia’s soul into the relic and replace her soul with another that’s from the relic. That means one rune to extract a soul, one to transport it, and one to seal it in the other item for both the souls. I’ll handle the extraction rune, you two choose between yourselves. Let’s get cracking!”

Taylor smiled uncertainly. Even if I’m not a mage, I’ll do my best for the people who need me. He steeled himself as he looked at the balcony, waiting for his time to support the others.

Kaetha finally thought of a spell to slow Kait…if she could just touch her. She cast a spell with Hailey’s clothes as a focus, creating a tiny string between her clothes and Kait’s broom before using the line to pull herself just close enough to grasp one of the broom’s needles. She used it as leverage, trying to touch Kait.

“Wha-what are you doing!” Kait reactively swatted her hand away, but that was enough to activate Kaetha’s spell, causing her to fall as slow as a bristle of a broom.

“I’ll protect the future of magic!” Kaetha abused her unrestricted magic to repeatedly blast wind behind herself, outpacing Kait.

Closer, closer, closer! Kaetha arrived on the balcony just seconds before Kait could, terrifying the four inhabitants. She raised her hand. “It’s time to end this!”

Hailey was in the final stretch. She leaped from platform to platform, ready to end her odyssey. When she came to the black mist, the symbol of her pain, regret, suffering, and inadequacies, she didn’t pause, nor did she grimace or grit her teeth. Well, no, she did the latter.

But that was just a smile.

When she arrived in the library, she hit the ground running. She slugged the damned murderer in the face, sweet satisfaction finally resounding through her fist as she did it, then ran out of the room, hearing cries of encouragement from an acting Appenne in the background. Then she dashed out of the school, ending the traumatic memory’s reenactment without a single sentence.

As she did, though, she caught a glimpse of an undisguised Logica staring at her with curiosity, hidden in a corner.

The library behind her shattered into a brilliant rain of shards, countless memories reflected onto them like mirrors, hailing onward into nothingness as she stepped beyond the past…

Not quite yet, though.

Abbie stood in wait, boredly sitting on the ground of a stark white realm.

Suddenly, someone ran in, disrupting her from the practically ceaseless silence.

Her mouth dropped, and her eyes widened in surprise upon seeing her.

“H-Hailey?! Is that you?”

“How do I get out?” she asked with a frown.

“I don’t know.”

“Then I guess I need to tell you that I love you, and you were a great friend and all.”

“Hey, hey, hey! Last I checked, we were the best of buds! If I didn’t bite the dust, I’d have lived to make your other friends feel insignificant in comparison to our friendship!”

“You already did, you know. Anyway, Abbie, if that’s even your real name, I need to get going.”

Her eyes widened. “W-wait, you don’t want to talk?”

“No, and I think my ticket out is slugging you.”

“I don’t see any slug–” Hailey punched her friend in the gut, just like that fateful day when they had first begun to be friends. “I eat those kinds of slugs for breakfast,” her friend wheezed out with misplaced pride.

“How about lunch and dinner?” Hailey asked, smiling. She was happy to talk to her friend, fake or not. Or, in this case, slug her friend for having the nerve to die!

“Maybe not for all three meals. I think that’s unhealthy—OOF.”

Hailey had gut-punched her again.

“That’s lunch!”

“PFFFAAARRG!” Hailey’s friend kneeled on the ground before being punched a third time.

“And dinner. You’re already dead, I’m sure, so you can suck it up!” Hailey ignored the searing pain resounding through her fist as a tender smile grew on her face.

“That doesn’t make it alright to punch your friend, you fracker.”

“I don’t see you coughing up any oil, though.” She looked down then shook her head with nostalgia. “Abbie…” Hailey kneeled in front of her friend, then suddenly pulled her into a hug as tears began to grow in her eyes. “I-I’m scared. I’m scared that this will be the last time I’ll get the chance to see your face. You…you were a perfect friend, while it lasted.”

“More like a perfect punching bag,” she said with a laugh.

“Yeah, nice and soft, how I like it.” She chuckled along with her friend. “But…I just…I don’t know if I’m really equipped for my life. I’m such an brat, such an brat to everyone I know, and I…I don’t know if I can make it up to them. I don’t know if being single-mindedly determined to do it is enough.”

Abbie put a hand on Hailey’s head and softly said, “You’re perfect, girl. Even if you need to change, I know you can do it. You’re more passionate than I could ever be, and I wish I could’ve been you when my time came…” Tears began to form in her eyes. “I wish I could’ve said something of value to you before I died. Maybe that’s why I’m here today.” Hailey blinked as her friend pushed her away, then sent her one last, enthralling smile. “Don’t be too lost without me.”

Suddenly, Hailey felt a fist jam into her gut, sending her reeling over.

She closed her eyes as the hit somehow, despite all the pain, felt…relaxing. She fell to the ground. “It really hurts, you know that?”

“Dessert tastes the sweetest, doesn’t it?” Abbie said as she stood, then placed a foot atop Hailey’s chest.

“I…I’m not done yet. I know this is the end, but I’ll keep running.”

“What does that even mean, sista’?”

“A lot.” Hailey balled a fist, her nostalgic smile unwavering. “I know you’re not real, but it was nice. See the real you in the afterlife.”

Abbie smiled as Hailey shattered into a million memories and faded back into reality.

Then she looked up as tears of fear and happiness alike fell down the dead girl’s face. “See you, too, Hailey.”

“It’s time to–” Kaetha hesitated for just a moment as Taylor lunged to tackle her, evading him with an unsteady leap to the side, then placed a hand on the apartment’s glass, scowling with frustration. “…To end this!” Just as she readied a spell to shatter the jar–

She lurched.

Her eyes widened.

Suddenly, Kaetha was forcefully ejected from Hailey’s body and ripped back to The Consciousness. She placed her hands on her head, trying to fight against the invader.

“IMPOSSIBLE! HOW IS SHE ALREADY…what’s going on?”

Hailey had returned.

For all of about two seconds, before she was knocked down by a falling Kait’s punch.