He didn’t look like himself…well, not entirely. I’d seen all the images of how he portrayed himself when deceiving the last fragment of Finn’s being. My manifestation took on the guise of me in my early twenties, back when I worked for Cerberus Guild as Enchanter Frost.
No, my manifestation no longer reflected my youthful appearance but instead looked more like the me of now. Only he had on this ridiculous My Chemical Romance T-shirt that was two sizes too small, exposing my…his…urh…our pale stomach and hairy happy trail. The magenta lettering popped against the black shirt, matching the edges of his heavier makeup. Mostly black with hints of pink. The rest of his getup was very high school me in the body of a man on the verge of a midlife crisis, from the mesh sleeves to the Tripp pants that were so tight at the hips and wide at the bottom, he looked like a mermaid.
“A gothy mermaid. I like it.” He smiled, big and wide and filling his whole face.
I cringed in response, hating my smile more than anything and finding it an unnatural expression that didn’t fit my face.
“You know I’m not that manifestation,” he said, pressing his thoughts against mine to reveal how entangled we were, how similar. “I’m nothing like him.”
“You’re all the same.” I bared my teeth, forcing my way to my feet.
“We’re really not,” another voice rasped from the shadows. Deeper. Meaner. A hint of all the rage I swallowed most days.
Every ounce of the anger buried oozed from the darkness where this new manifestation festered. It sent a tremble through my body, not my body—no. I lacked a connection to my muscles. That fear etched through my psychic energy, and in turn, I cast my magic into the darkness, snooping and seeking sight of the dangers hidden from me.
“How many of you are there?”
“A few hundred, I think,” the gothic getup manifestation said. “We don’t really keep a census here. Some fizzle out, some evolve, most just linger like myself.”
“Linger?” I asked, wary of trusting the words from his mouth or thoughts revealed with ease.
“Not much else to do in the subconscious.”
“And what about when you leave?”
“We don’t.”
I squinted, delving deeper into his thoughts, what could be considered thoughts. He possessed this hollow form, shallow in depth, and no real place to hide his lies. Yet I knew for a fact how powerful a manifestation could be. I’d had one that tiptoed around me, unraveled itself from me, and carried on around the city, conspiring unconscionable things.
“He did that by taking from you,” the manifestation answered. “Your hubris…hmm, let’s just call him what he was: the Ego. The arrogant.”
“The Ego?” I shook my head. “The ego, the id—they’re a part of a person. He was never part of me, not really. More of a cancer, a shadow. A doppler.”
“Doppler?” My gothic manifestation quirked a pierced eyebrow, reminding me of the one I’d let close years ago. “Hmmm. Interesting, I suppose.”
“Just sounds right.” I couldn’t explain it. The word, the meaning. It jumped out like a stranglehold.
“Whatever, Doppler, Ego, Asshole, the point is the bastard believed his worth more than what it was, thus why he abandoned the subconscious.”
“And he’s alone in that thought? Desire?” I asked, not looking for an answer but listening for one. Listening to the whispered thoughts hidden in shadows, determining the degree of threats surrounding me.
“You act like there’s anything worth leaving the subconscious for.” The manifestation twirled, transforming his clothes into something new. A tiny white shirt with bloody x’ed out eyes and a smiley face, and a pair of equally tight skinny jeans with neon green suspenders dangling around his legs. “We have all we need here.”
“Illusions.” I scoffed. “Unimpressive ones at that.”
“And what does reality really have to offer anyone? If you’re any indication, it’s not that great.” He pursed his lips in a twisted, snarky expression, then let his face fall flat before continuing. “Anyway, Doppler Dorian siphoned off a smidge of your magic, your power, and fled. The audacity. The sheer level of arrogance and spite that required. You don’t have to worry about that from the rest of us.”
“That so?”
“We’re personas. Hollow, fragmented pieces of the whole,” he explained. “Everyone has personas in their head, sides of themselves they never reveal, never explore. You know this.”
Yes. I’d seen hidden shades of people, but rarely. I supposed that had to do with the fact those facets of others didn’t often linger in the conscious mind but rather within the subconscious. And the distinct difference between my personas and others was how sometimes those expressions of identity stepped out of the mind and into the world. Causing havoc. Changing futures.
“I embody pieces of yourself you’d rather keep buried.” The persona posed either for flair or to pull me from my thoughts. Possibly both. “The wardrobe, the makeup, the femineity.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s not like you’re suffering from toxic masculinity. Well, not too much. No one’s perfect.” He winked, playful and almost reminiscent of Milo, minus the charm because there was absolutely no way I could pull off charming. Not ever. “Oh, there it is,” he said, nodding to the thoughts I expressed floating in the dark between us. “You always doubt yourself, your ability, and as such, you box away every piece that doesn’t fit in the world you’re striving so desperately to appease.”
“You don’t know me.”
“You don’t know yourself, sweetheart.” He ran his fingers through his ruffled hair; streaks of purple, red, and blue shimmered against the shadows. “I’m living the life you closed the door on far too long ago.”
He meant how my attire in high school shifted. Sure, I kept the goth getup for far too long, but I tamed myself. I stopped painting my nails black because of the whispers on the surface of many minds. I toned down the eyeshadow and liner for a time. I picked my wardrobe very carefully—especially for someone who wanted the world to think I spent little to no time thinking about his outfit.
“It’s not really living here, though, is it?” I asked, searching the darkness for thoughts from other manifestations, these personas lying dormant in my subconscious.
“We’re not really alive, so what’s it matter?” The gothic persona put his hands on his hips and raised his shoulders with a shrug. “I don’t mean that in some introspective form of self- loathing depression. After all, I don’t embody your depression. Pretty sure no one is running to fill out an application for that persona’s role. You can keep your sad sack ways right there on the surface of your mind.”
He gestured upward like he was pointing to my inner core, like either of us could see anything in the abyss of the subconscious.
“What do you mean then?”
“We have a very limited range in identity, mainly because we’re cutouts of yours. Part of how you controlled your magic as a child and how you dealt with all the encroaching thoughts of others. Children are impressionable. I suppose it was your way of keeping other people’s personalities from becoming yours. So down here in the depths of your psyche, I, along with all the other personas, remain in the subconscious, attached to different emotional and psychological aspects of you.”
“Everyone here is some repressed piece of me?”
“Absolutely not, darling.” He pointed to the shadows where the heavy, angry breaths continued from the aggressive persona. “Some avenues you actively pursue. I mean, you’re a real dickhead.”
“ Fuck off, ” I thought. “ I’m nowhere near that level of aggression. ”
The aggro persona, the manifestation made of anger, was like a wall of rage—a tower, really. Fury grew higher than most buildings, and I was grateful he kept to the darkness.
“Okay, maybe he’s a slightly grumpier version of you.” The gothic copy laughed, carefree like he didn’t have a concern in the world. So completely contrasted to everything about me. It was strange to see a side of me dressed so dark, so angry, yet filled with a smile that would outshine Milo or Finn.
“As fascinating as all of this is, can you tell me how to get out?”
“Your mind is fracturing. You can feel that, correct?”
I nodded, doing my best not to let my thoughts twist into fear and paranoia.
“Your magic isn’t abiding by the limitations of your body, and if this continues, you’ll die.”
“Unless?” I asked, waiting for the offer. It practically danced on his tongue in the whispers of the shadows from other personas. All this led to an offer he really believed me foolish enough to accept.
“You need to summon a manifestation.”
“Not happening. Not on your life.”
“I don’t really have a life—haven’t you been listening?” He rolled his eyes. “All the same, I enjoy the current arrangement surrounding my existence. You dying hinders that.”
I channeled my magic, attempting to reel back my telepathy so I’d have enough psychic power to drag myself out of the subconscious.
“Kind of hard to do when you decided to hurl your magic across the country.”
“I didn’t decide anything.”
He tsked. “Don’t remind me of your utter incompetence. I was trying to give you some credit for your failures.”
Ouch. That felt excessive and unnecessary.
“You need a manifestation to serve as a proxy, an extension to the distance you’ve stretched your magic. Let us help you.”
“I’m not giving you a foothold outside my body,” I said. “You can claim not to be like the other manifestation, but you could be lying like he lied. You could be deceiving me, manipulating me, attempting to—”
“I’m gonna stop you there, sweetheart,” he said with raised hands, gesturing his offense. “No one is trying to take over your life. We’ve all seen it. It’s pretty shitty, and you do your damnedest to keep it that way.”
Goddamn.
“Here’s how a manifestation is supposed to work,” the persona said. “You summon us for an extension of magic, and we provide it. From there, the magic travels and performs whatever service you require. Usually stalking the mind of some random person for some inconsequential thing.”
That was putting it lightly. The last time I harnessed a manifestation, it was to follow my students, which, to be fair, was probably creepier than delving into the mind of some random stranger, but it certainly wasn’t for something inconsequential. I was attempting to stop a murder. That was far from trivial curiosity.
“Wait. Earlier, you said the Doppler took my magic.”
“He took a piece, pieces to add to his own, which was how he untethered himself from you to begin with. We all have our own magic.”
“What?” I couldn’t hide the confusion in my voice or thoughts. “How?”
“You,” he said bluntly. “You poured your branch magic into your subconscious, breaking off countless pieces.”
“Why?” I didn’t remember doing any of that. Ever. I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t even know how.
“Too much power. The mind of a child can sometimes be easily overwhelmed.” His expression shifted to something soft, somber. “Hearing an entire city all at once when you’re still too young to properly spell the word city can be excruciating. So, as a simple toddler, all you wanted was to make it go away. And you did.”
“No. A toddler?” I shook my head. I remembered when my branch was triggered. I was much older when that happened.
“When you stopped talking to your imaginary friend? When you started looking outward to the world instead of inward?”
I stared at him, at his accusatory face, at his irritating surface thoughts that drifted between us and whispered more secrets about more things I’d never known about myself.
“Oh, yes. Dorian Frost definitely has a handle on his memories. It’s not like he spends all his time evading them, dodging them, pushing them away at all costs.”
Fucking hell. This guy. This persona. My manifestations were always shoving memories back at me in the form of my dreams. I supposed it gave them all a good laugh down here.
“You really just have no fucking clue how any of this works, do you?” He moved his hand, whirling his finger in a circular motion. “We can circle back to all this, but for now, let’s return to how manifestations work.” He pointed to himself. “We don’t leave the subconscious. When you summon a manifestation, you’re calling forth the magic you’ve loaned us.”
I focused on his thoughts, completely transparent and synced with what he explained out loud. He twisted his hand, conjuring the illusion of light in the form of a purple flame. It flickered in the darkness but revealed nothing in the shadows. And I knew there were things in the shadows. I could hear their whispers, feel their presence. Other personas kept distant, studying me.
“This is the magic. The magic leaves, returns to you temporarily, and we wait here in the dark for our flicker of light to reawaken us.” He handed me the purple flame, letting it hover close since I refused his offering. Then he pointed to himself again. “In other words, the persona stays.”
It made sense, more or less. I’d summoned countless manifestations, but they were always me. It wasn’t some new identity I’d conjured. They didn’t dress differently or act differently. They were simply tools. Eyes for me to peer through when sending them into the deep recesses of another person’s mind.
The only problem was…
“One of you already proved that manifestations don’t stick to the subconscious.”
“That’s because of his persona, Doppler Dorian and all that. Narcissism, arrogance, cockiness. Obsession. Let’s be honest, just a whole bag of dicks. Who would’ve thought all your bad habits wrapped into one big asshole would ever happen? I mean, the odds, right?”
“Most of us are only interested in your wellbeing,” a young, light voice said.
It startled me. Shook me to the very core. That voice.
“Nico,” I said, having a mountain of memories hit me all at once.
I hadn’t thought about Nicholas Jenkins since I was a little kid. He’d left. He’d never really been there.
“Imaginary friend or helpful persona to a child in need?” the gothic manifestation asked teasingly. “Sorry to burst the bubble of cherished childhood memories.”
“I created you.” I stared at Nico, taking in his appearance.
He was small and lanky with shaggy brown hair and missing one of his front teeth, which didn’t lessen the smile on his face. Unlike me, he never shied away from a smile; he never allowed the world to intimidate him into boxing away his feelings.
“Nico worked as a proxy, the first manifestation you created, but unlike the rest of us, you interacted with him.”
I remembered that. We used to do everything together back when my parents were still married. God, I must’ve been four or five. It was so long ago.
“Nico helped shield you from the immense force of everyone else’s thoughts.”
“He always had a secret to share.” I half-smiled, recalling all the things he used to whisper about people we’d never met. He had a thousand stories, and they were always filled with jokes.
“Until he shared the story about your father,” the persona said. “The one where he’d found love. A new romance. A life fulfilled.”
“A cliché mid-life crisis with his secretary of all people.” I bit back a snarl because that man was not worth my anger, my energy. I’d already dedicated too many youthful years wondering if he’d return, if he missed me, if he ever cared. He didn’t.
“I wish I could’ve helped more.” Nico kicked his feet into the shadowed flooring the same way he used to in the dirt outside when we played.
He was really just a figment. A piece of my magic manifested. I couldn’t believe it.
“So, everything Nico told me, every secret he whispered and shared, was just my way of comprehending the thoughts of everyone around me?” I asked, realizing how simple things were with Nico around. My head never hurt. But when he told me about my father. I ground my teeth, ignoring the flashes of our argument, the surfacing memories I wanted to keep buried. He’d tried to tell me what he had learned about my father, what he’d learned about my parents, why my mom was always crying. I didn’t want to hear it then. I had yelled at Nico, blamed him for everything. “That’s when Nico left.”
“I didn’t leave.” He grimaced. “You sent me away, sent me here.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay.” He smiled, so bright and cheerful it practically illuminated the shadows of the subconscious.
Even being cast into the depths of darkness because of my childish tantrum couldn’t wash away the kind, joyful spirit he had. Did I make him this positive, this happy? Did he learn that outlook on his own?
“I made a lot of friends here,” Nico said, reminding me more and more of Milo and Finn with every passing second.
Old memories continued to surface. Flashes of every conversation, from the silly topics we had in my bedroom to the reassurance he offered when my mom would drag me to the park all the way to every instance when the presence of another person frightened me, overwhelmed me, stressed me out. Long before I mastered the art of a scary scowl to force someone to distance themselves from me, I relied on hiding my face, my feelings, my fears.
Nico kept me calm during those days. In fact, it was his absence that taught me how to push others away through intimidation. Still, I missed my old friend, one I’d literally tucked away into the subconscious of my memories. Nico’s thoughts radiated with bold confidence and friendly encouragement.
Had this imaginary friend sparked my interest in genuinely happy people, or was that something I’d always been drawn to, seeking the friendship and company of the cheerful? People like Milo, like Chanelle. And Finn, who held my heart but not my grief.
Nico continued, sharing anecdotes about the personas he’d met over the years deep in the darkness. Solemn souls who expressed my passion for poetry. Yuck. Athletes who were obsessed with the joy and health benefits of fitness. Exhausting. Every word built my trust in these personas, even if only in the smallest ways. I trusted Nico. He spoke fast, like a whirlwind trying to get every thought out of his head as if there were an expiration date on our conversation.
“ There sort of is since I can’t exactly stay here. ”
Nico’s cheeks twitched, fighting to maintain his smile and pulling me from my thoughts. “And I learned that while I tried to help you handle all the world’s words, you needed to help yourself and learn to control the telepathy on your own.”
“Which you did.” The gothic persona rocked his head from side to side, not even remotely hiding the judgment in his tone. “More or less.”
“You can’t stay here, Dorian. The subconscious is an easy place to get lost,” Nico explained, like I didn’t have a full understanding of how the mind worked.
The subconscious of every person led to the same dark realm of silence, an empty space that seemed infinite. I didn’t know if they were actually endless, but I certainly had no desire to get lost in my own head.
“Even we’re wary not to venture too far. Wandering in the depths can be fatal,” the gothic persona added. “It’s our connection to you, the magic that’s drawn to your mind, that keeps us from drifting lost in the abyss.”
“I can’t,” I said through gritted teeth. “I can’t give you access to—”
“What the persona did,” Nico interjected. “It hurt you. He abandoned you. He hid things from you. He tried to hurt you. He did hurt other people, even when he tried not to.”
Christ. His words cut through me to the core of how anxious this made me. How frightened I was to lack an answer. Hell, I didn’t know the questions I should be asking.
“It soured your experience, twisted your trust.” Nico nodded with this solemn knowledge; it reflected off him in waves, giving me a chance to digest what came next.
Without a manifestation, I would die, lost in my own mind. I could feel it, feel it in my fading thoughts, in my outstretched magic, in my aching bones that became more distant with each passing moment.
“Your branch has always been too powerful,” Nico said. “It created pressure, expectations, but maybe now is the time to sort through everything you’re capable of? All you need is to trust your magic, your manifestations.”
I didn’t trust my magic or manifestations, though. I didn’t trust these personas, not really. I didn’t trust myself, either. But if I didn’t make a decision soon, the choice would be made for me, and I’d find myself locked inside my own mind. If I managed to claw my way out without the aid of the personas, it wouldn’t be enough for me to keep a solid footing.
My telepathy still moved independently of my will, erratically stretching across the country, and would certainly require a manifestation to alleviate the burden it brought down on my mind. There were dampener meds. If I found the right dose, nullified my magic… No. Even the best medications left psychics lost in a fog day in and day out. It was really the only way to dull the casting receptors.
Swallowing hard, I ran through every single option again and again, weighing the hellish outcomes over and over. There really weren’t any other choices.
“Occasionally, a persona will step out with the manifestation you conjure,” the gothic persona said, attempting to ease my anxiety. “But mostly, personas such as myself have no desire to fuse with the summoned magic necessary to step out into the real world. We have no interest in observing the world and performing trivial tasks for your bidding. That Doppler, though. Hmmm. He believed himself more than a persona, so he stepped into the role of manifestation, always flocking to fill the shoes when you drew upon magic in the subconscious. He spent so much time above I believe he deluded himselfinto thinking he was more than what he was. He went from being a persona to believing himself a special manifestation, a real man, and if he’d attained the impossible, I’m certain the fool would’ve grown bored with it and kept chasing new delusions of grandeur.”
“You don’t think you’re real?” I asked.
“No, darling. And that’s not a bad thing.” The persona flipped his hair back, moving it from covering his eyes. “I understand my purpose in the world. I’ve seen behind the curtain and solved the mystery of my existence. It’s more than I can say for you so-called living beings. We personas enjoy playing in the shadows. You’ve no worries about us stealing your life.”
I believed him, too. Full-heartedly or foolheartedly? Either way, I decided to trust these personas, these pieces of my being, these echoes of unexplored experiences.
With certainty and wariness wrapped hand in hand, I stepped toward my persona who radiated with magic. My magic. My frequency. My signature. It would offer me the pulse and push I required to wake up, to regain my footing, to find a way forward.
The magic fused to the gothic persona glowed as it untwined from his being, forming and reshaping into a carbon copy of myself. It was strange, seeing a perfect reflection frozen and without any thought standing next to the persona who now appeared withered and faded, like a wilting flower.
“What happens to you while I use your magic?”
“Firstly, it is not my magic,” he answered. The edge of attitude was lessened from his state of exhaustion. “Secondly, I sleep. I dream. Well, they’re not dreams so much as flashes of what the magic connected to me witnesses. Memories, I suppose, that belong to you. Mostly, I wait until the magic is returned.”
“Thank you,” I said, sending the manifestation made of purple magic to the surface of my mind and following behind, dragging myself to the surface of my own mind.
“No rush,” the persona said, sinking into the shadows. “It’s been some time since I truly slumbered. I quite prefer it.”
He faded beneath the darkness, and only whispers of his thoughts remained, much like the many personas of my magic around us. I floated away, leaving them behind, along with so many questions I had about my magic, my telepathy, my branch. Right now, I needed to breathe. I needed to free my mind from this dark prison. I needed to establish a proper connection to Milo’s mind and figure out how a link that spanned more than a thousand miles of distance would work.
My eyes snapped open, and I sat on the living room couch, staring at a reflection of myself in the form of a conjured manifestation. Our vision synced, casting a mirror-like effect, looking back at each other infinitely.
“Go.”
I sent the manifestation hurling from my home and following the tether that’d latched itself to Milo. It didn’t matter that my branch spanned a thread halfway across the country; each second that passed, with the manifestation moving closer to Milo, eased my trembling body. I inhaled, deep and freeing, as my lungs had a slight reprieve from the stress of the overactive casting my branch had caused. The cramp in my muscles lessened. The fog in my mind faded. The manifestation’s presence had alleviated the pain coursing through me.
Now I could follow Milo over a thousand miles away, working with the Global Guild while focusing on my final semester with my homeroom coven. The same group of kids that sparked the growth in my branch. The children I put my life on the line to protect and, in the process, found a reason to finally live my life again for myself. I was grateful to each and every one of those students. I was grateful for Milo. I wanted to give everyone my all, and with the help of these manifestations, maybe I finally could.