When she came to, Mena was bound in a fascinatingly strange room. Well, it was fascinatingly strange once she could focus her vision, which was still blurry from the Stunshrooms. It was a fancy study of some kind. There was an elegant desk, polished and carved in oakwood, covered in tons of rare and curious items that all had to do with a singular eye. There were drawings of eye paraphernalia, including diagrams on ancient looking parchment, a compass with an eyeball that seemed to be pointing north and a large globe, which was replaced with a clear white and veiny brown eye rather than a planet.

On the wooden walls, the emblematic logo of the Clearmind Society was displayed on a flag. Mena was really getting sick of that image, and she stuck her tongue out at it. If she wasn’t tied to a chair, she would have set it ablaze too with her magic spells. Instead, she spat on the floor right when two polished shoes stepped in front of her.

“Oh my magicaps,” Mena gasped as she looked up. “I didn’t see you come in at all.”

She whimpered in horror when she saw the person standing before her. It was a man in an ominous dark shroud with a twin pointed hood. It was pulled up over his head, but a singular eyehole was poked in the center. The man uttered in a stuffy, yet probing voice, “Allow me to pose two questions for you, young child. Feel free to answer them as you see fit.”

“Uhhh…” Mena’s eyes shifted back and forth. “Who asked for the questionnaire?”

The man raised a gloved finger, “Question One: What was the purpose of spitting on my shoes? And two, do you believe it might have an impact on our future discourse?”

“Ummm…” Mena said, she could feel his eyes surveying her from beneath his hood. “I did it because I was angry at the fact I was tied up, and probably, but I don’t care. I doubt I could have a good relationship with a bad guy.”

The man in the hood spread his hands. “Now allow me to answer your question with another question. A rhetorical one, mind you. How do you know I’m the villain in this grand scheme of things? Perhaps my intentions are what’s best for this world as we currently understand it.”

“But…” Mena stuttered, feeling more confused than ever. “Who are you? And what ARE your intentions?”

“First,” the hooded man said, “Perhaps you’d care to offer me a formal introduction.”

Mena scowled at the man and rocked back in forth in the ropes that bound her. “Why should I give my name to some stranger in a hood? Don’t you know that’s the easiest way to get hood-winked.”

“Oh?” the man said, gesturing to the over-sized cloth over his face. He reached towards it. “Is this what perturbs you so? Allow me to remove it.”

When he did, Mena screamed, “AIIIIEEEE, What’s wrong with your face, mister?”

The man had one mouth, two ears, one nose, and reddish-grey hair on his head…but he only had one eye at the center of his face. “Do not be fearful of my face,” the man remarked. “For I suffer from Clopstigmatism. It is a medical condition that gives me great deformity, but also great foresight. You should not fear a being’s eyes, young girl, it’s what lies behind them that you should be afraid of.”

Mena was silent, but the man extended his hand as if to shake. “Oh wait,” he chortled. “Seeing as you are bound, that is an implausibility right now. I hope you don’t hold it against me”—the men’s mouth spread apart into a needle toothed grin—"The name is Jonah Clearmind, founder and chairmen of the Clearmind Society. Now would you care to tell me your name.”

“Never on my life, you eyesore…” Mena responded back

“Phenomena Willow.” Nick walked into the room. He leaned against the wall with his arms crossed.

“Of course, you dummy,” Clearmind said, looking back at his son. “I simply wanted to have a formal introduction with the Receiver.”

Mena looked back and forth between Nick and Clearmind. There was a look of hurt on Nick’s face upon hearing those words.

“Why are you calling your adopted son a dummy?” Mena asked.

Clearmind turned to Nick and gestured at him. “Well, that’s what he is. Nick is an animated mannequin…like most teenage celebrities.”

Mena gasped and nearly fell back in her chair. “So, is that true?” Mena asked, her eyes watering a bit. “All that stuff you told me, Nick. About your family dying at the hands of Anguish. It was all a lie?”

Nick nodded coldly, and Clearmind chortled. “For someone who’s wooden, he’s a surprisingly good actor. But now, to business if you will.”

Clearmind pointed to his singular eye. “As someone with Clopstigmatism, I was gifted with vision to see a world beyond this world and the fragile bubble we are all in.”

Clearmind walked over to his desk and pulled out a hand-drawn schematic of the Eyeball void that had menaced Mena and her friends. “Phenomena. You have witnessed a Quantum Quandary. An intrusion from that world into this one.”

Clearmind strolled over and placed an icy finger on Mena’s fleshy red cheek, right below her eye. “It seems to be highly receptive to you. It is for that reason we have dubbed you, ‘The Receiver.’

The middle-aged man gestured to Nick again. “When this dummy saw the void, it nearly disrupted his senses, or rather his lacktheof”—Nick frowned again at his father’s statement—“Fortunately, he was able to convey the details to me and I was able to repair him. He still remains fragile after this revelation.”

Clearmind turned to Mena. “So…young child, Phenomena, a name you are truly worthy of, what do you believe that we should do about this situation? Feel free to answer my question in any way you see fit. Remember…there are no wrong answers.”

Mena tried to speak earnestly. “How about you let me go and we forget this ever happened?”

The cult leader paused for a second. “I see. But I do believe that would be counterproductive to my own efforts.”

He chuckled and reached in the pocket of his shroud. “Once again, I will answer your question with a question of my own”—there was a look of hunger in his big blue eye—“How would you feel about me harvesting your eyes so I can control the Quantum Quandaries, patch up this punctured realm and save the world once and for all?”

Clearmind removed a pair of kitchen tongs from his pocket and pinched them ominously. “Surely you wouldn’t hold that against a gentleman like me.”

“Oh nosie,” Mena squeaked. “Eyes would not like that very much at all. I mean, I would not like that.”

“Alas,” Clearmind said, growing ever closer with the sinister kitchen utensil. “Considering I have the upper hand in both force and ideals, your feelings are inconsequential, Phenomena.”

Nick stood motionlessly, observing the scene. “Nick, please,” Mena pleaded. “You can’t let him do this to me.”

“Do not try to reason with him,” Clearmind said, keeping his back to Nick. “He is only slightly more sentient than a block of wood. How do you think he does all those teen publications?”

Clearmind clamped the tongs even more frantically. “Now one last question, and like always, answer it in any way you see fit.”

“W-w-what?” Mena asked shivering as the man’s shadow stretched over her tiny frame.

“When I pull your eyes out, will you scream, ‘ahh’ or ‘ohh’ or another sound combination previously unheard of from the likes of man?”

Mena did not answer. Some questions did not merit an answer, except an answer in pain.