The world slowly came back into existence as Kristin groggily woke up. She found herself sprawled across her bed, not having even changed from the night before. Through her head was a splitting headache and her mouth felt as dry as the Sahara desert. She knew she had a couple of drinks last night but didn't think she would be feeling this bad.

She got up and quickly crossed across the hall to have a shower. While washing herself she found some bruises on her hips. She touched them gingerly wondering when she got them. Assuming she must have bumped into a counter or something last night she put it out of her mind.

Finishing up she dried and got dressed more in her usual style, a nice cute blue skirt with a frilled hem and a blue T-shirt with a Japanese anime character emblazoned across it. She felt more like herself than she had yesterday. At that thought the events of yesterday replayed in her mind. First the glass breaking, then her appointment, meeting that girl Darby and finally relaxing with her uncle. Those event she knew happened and were real. However the ones in between, the trip to that mansion in the dream and talking to Jenny while on the couch, seemed to her like they must have been made up by her mind. She had been told before that she had a very active imagination and so this must be it at work.

Today was a pretty relaxed day as she didn't have any classes. She did remember that in the notes that had appeared from the previous day there had been mention of a landscape project that needed to be completed. And so Kristin packed up her drawing equipment and headed downstairs.

Once in the kitchen she noticed that her uncle had put on the coffee already and it appeared had already had breakfast. She looked over at the clock and realised it was actually quite late in the morning. Busying herself with getting breakfast, she spent the next half an hour making, and then savouring the perfect bowl of ramen.

Once she finished and washed up her bowl she headed back to her uncle's writing den. Currently the room had books strewn around, from dictionaries to obscure thesauruses. Sam wrote novel usually based on urban fantasy. This meant among the books on which words to use, there were also books on mythology and fairy tales. He even had a folder that contained print outs of creepypasta as one of his novels had involved a teen horror author summoning his creations.

Kristin took out her earphones and knocked lightly on the door. She entered the room, making her way across picking up the books that had found their way onto the floor.

"You really should take more care of these," she said, often having to remind her uncle.

Her uncle looked up from his laptop. "But I can always count on you to help me," he said, a cheeky smile spreading across his face.

At that moment Kristin saw one of the books she hadn't yet gotten to begin to move, which made her take a quick step back. From under the book came first one dark paw and then another, finally the whole cream coloured cat, oblivious to the fact that it had been buried under a book.

"And now you're burying poor, innocent Freyja under your mess," she said, scooping the kitten up in her arms, "what do you have to say for yourself?"

"In my defence she has slept in much weirder locations," Sam said, turning around and scratching the cat between the ears.

"I can't argue that," she said with a little chuckle "anyway I came in to say I'm going out, I have to do a landscape, so I'm going to find some inspiration."

Sam nodded. "I hope you find the most spectacular of vistas to draw."

With a small kiss to the top of the cats head Kristin deposited her in her uncle's lap, gave her uncle a quick hug, and left the room. She replaced her earbuds, collected her bag, and left through the front door.

She began walking in a random direction, not exactly having any destination in mind. It was a nice day outside, not overly cold yet the sun was not quite biting either. The area she lived in was a reasonable nice suburb, with trees lining the streets that bloomed a multitude of colours in the spring. The streets themselves were narrow and winding, often taking an unsuspecting traveller in different directions. Today those streets seemed to conspire to lead Kristin to that same park as yesterday, with the creek running through the middle of it.

Kristin went and sat down at the same bench as yesterday simply taking in her surroundings. The park was quite picturesque with trees providing plenty of shading while the rays of the sun poked through here and there. The small tiers of the creek gave off the sound of miniature waterfalls. And then there was the play equipment. Styled like a medieval castle it gave the park a feel like you had been sent back in time and really stoked the fires of the imagination.

This would be a perfect setting for her landscape project, Kristin thought.

And with that she took out her drawing implements and got to work sketching out the details of the park. With her music in her ears and work under her fingers time seemed to slip away from her. She also didn't notice the other girl sit down next to her on the bench until she turned to get her water bottle from her bag. The sudden appearance of the other girl, the one from yesterday, Darby, surprised Kristin.

"Wh-what are you doing here?" she asked.

"I have a day off, so I came here. Nice work by the way Alex," Darby replied peering around the corner of the screen.

There she was going again calling her Alex. Did this mean that the dream Kristin had experienced yesterday had really happened? But it was so bizarre how could that really be true. She must simply just be going crazy, or this girl is just trying to mess with her.

"Why do you keep calling me Alex?" Kristin asked, hoping to catch the other girl out.

"Why? Um, that's what you told me your name was," Darby replied, now looking at Kristin quizzically. There also seemed to be a hint of understanding in her eyes.

"I don't know why I would do that, because it's not. It's Kristin," she said, trying to keep her cool.

"Ok Kristin. So tell me, how did we first meet?" asked Darby, who turned to straddle the bench so she could look at Kristin straight on.

Kristin thought and thought, however nothing came to her. It was like her mind was drawing a blank. Surely she must have some memory of meeting this girl and hadn't just come to and already been talking to her. But try as she might no memories came to her. The first memory she had of Darby was seeing her on that big screen in the dream and it seemed by then they had already been talking.

"You can't can you," Darby finally said, giving an smile that was both warm and understanding, "that's because I don't think it was you."

"What do you mean it wasn't me? How can you meet me without it being me?" Kristin responded, feeling worried that the dream was true.

"Well, I mean it was your body, just I don't think it was you driving it. See, I had this friend a couple of years ago, really cool guy. I thought it was just him to start with. But then I found out there was like 15 people including him living inside his head. Sometimes they would change who was in control, and they were all different, but all were cool in their own way. I think it might be the same thing for you."

Kristin just started at the girl like she had just grown a couple of extra heads. A couple of cute, quirky, extra heads. How could someone have two people living inside their head let alone fifteen.

"How do you know he wasn't just making it all up?" she asked, thinking this must have all been some big ruse by Darby's friend, for what she wasn't sure.

"Well for one I met most of the others, and there were just things about them that couldn't be faked," she said with all earnestness, "It also made a difference that his psychologist had also met them and gave it a label."

Kristin could feel both her interest and anxiety rising. Could this story of this random guy provide some insight into what was happening to her? But also would this just confirm that she was indeed crazy, suffering from a mental disorder? Both of these emotions played across her face as she tried to come up with her next question, the only question one could ask after being told that.

"What was it called?"