Page 14 of Zero Happily Ever Afters

“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 triedto 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 sortthrough 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 notmymagic,” 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 magicaround 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.

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