Kait slowly lifted her head from Hailey’s body. “Well, I understand what’s happening now.”

Taylor looked uplifted, “Really?! Can you help her?”

“No, I can’t. The only person who can is her.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Have you ever needed to cope with a situation, to accept it fully, before?”

“I think so?”

“You have, at some point. I guarantee you that. In the case of Hailey, among other things, she needs to do that.”

“For what, though? Why would that make her wake up?”

“She’s in a Dream Realm.”

Linne spoke, raising her hand, “Dream Realm? Like the place sumnus interact with?”

Everyone looked to Linne for an explanation.

She was a little intimidated by the attention but continued, “Sumnus are dream mages. They go into people’s dreams and do things. They have a Reality show about it where they explore people’s dreams on-camera. It’s freaky.

“That could be it,” Kait said skeptically.

Clera narrowed her eyes, “So all we need to do is call one of them up and have them end her sleep.”

Kait shook her head, “I don’t know how long it will take for you to find one, and that really won’t be necessary. No doubt she wakes up in at most a week.”

“So we just wait?”

“Well, there’s more to it. She’s trapped in a realm representing her mind. There is only one way I know of to get her out.”

“And that would be...?”

Kait shrugged, knowing it was out of her hands. “She walks out on her own.”

“She can just...do that?”

Kait lightly chewed on her cheek, “Unfortunately, it’s never that simple. Essentially, she needs to accept the past to do that. I don’t know what other trials she will face along the way, but...the whole spell was cast for her personal growth. All you all can do is wait, and all I can do is talk to her. Not that I could, because I don’t have a spell to talk in her dream.”

Taylor nodded, “Because you need a second armband for that?”

Kait smiled at him, happy someone could pick something up without her explicit explanation, “Very good! You’re right.”

Abigail blinked a few times. She spoke, rather annoyed, “So, could I get an explanation? Who even are you?”

Kait timidly placed her hand on her mouth in thought, then removed it, “I’m a witch.”

“L-like, the type of magic that was wiped out? That witch?”

Kait nodded, “Yep. I’m...I’m the last.”

Taylor continued what she said, seeing Abigail’s confusion, “She used magic to survive.”

Linne butted in as well, “So, you mean she’s from...” she paused, doing math in her head, “four hundred years ago?!”

Kait shrugged, “Four hundred and twelve.”

“That’s so cool!”

“No doubt it would be a novelty..."

“But it is one! I’ve watched a show about this exact thing!”

“...A show?”

“Yeah, where a witch, the princess to the Terrestrian locale, is time-warped to modern-day and needs to escape an evil organization who wants her secrets!”

Kait laughed, a small smile appearing on her weary face, “I’m going to guess by ‘show’ you mean a movie?”

“Err...a TV show, actually.”

“‘same difference,’” Kait said in a mock-manly voice. After realizing nobody knew who she was imitating, she pretended she said nothing, “That show almost predicted the future...”

“There’s so much I don’t kno-”

Linne was cut off by Kait, “Look, we can talk more later, but I’m tired in every way imaginable. I can help Hailey more after I get some rest, but...again, I can’t magically fix her problems.”

Clera narrowed her eyes as Kait walked up the stairs, “Why can’t you, though?”

Kait turned her head to meet Hailey’s mother in the eye, “The spell I cast was...beyond anything I’m normally capable of. A more specialized mage, like one of those sumnus you mentioned, might be able to reverse what I did, but I can’t. I never meant to cause trouble...I’m sorry.” with that, she headed to her room, closed her door, and fell upon her bed like a rock.

No one was sure what to do with themselves once Kait left, so for a minute, they didn’t do much.

Clera finally looked to Taylor. “Sorry to ask you to do this, but...” she grumbled, “Somebody needs to clean...it up.”

Taylor crossed his arms, “That mess is larger than a trunk. Why can’t we just leave it as is?”

“Excuse me?! You’re suggesting we just leave...that uncleaned?!”

“Hey, it’s Hailey’s room, not mine.”

“...Taylor.”

“Yes?”

“I was talking about Kait’s barf.”

“...” Taylor kept a poker face and walked upstairs without another complaint.

“Now, you two...”

Abigail leaned against the chair Kait had sat on previously, “Yes, Mrs.Joul?”

“Get cozy, the report said it’d be snowing for another three hours.

“I need to-”

“No.”

“But my mom said-”

“I don’t care what your mom said because if you get hypothermia out there, your chilly blood’s on my hands, and I don’t want either your moms ‘saying’ that it’s my fault.”

Abigail shrugged, pretending she couldn’t do a thing, “Fine, I guessssss I have no choice. You better have some good food, though.”

Hailey saw something peculiar in one of the bubbles that drifted past her. It was her ‘dream journal’ from when she was in seventh grade. She’d almost forgotten about it, just like all the other stuff around her. After some deliberation, Hailey stood, then poked the bubble. It popped, and the journal fell into her hands. She searched for a moment, looking for a pen until she found that the journal already had a pen attached to its binding. Had it always had that?

She began writing.

So, I’m trapped in my mind, or something along those lines. Kait decided it’d be really fun to shove me into that bark-crushed nightmare, and now I’m here, in Bubbleland.

I can’t stop crying, and I’m starting to get sick of it. Can I even run out of tears here?

So, can’t tell why, but I get the feeling I need to leave this place. There shouldn’t be a ‘backward’ or ‘forward’ here, but for some reason, I know which way is which.

Whatever, I may as well get moving. I feel like a pile of crap, just sitting here.

Hailey stood, then shoved the journal into her pocket without thinking. The journal was way too large for her pajama’s pocket but seemed to vanish out of existence anyway. Hailey acted like it was perfectly natural, though, and walked forward.

Solemnly, she walked through the bubbles. When she saw something interesting inside one of them, she poked it, then pulled out her journal, producing it out of nothing as if it were entirely natural.

It seems like everything in Bubbleland is a thing I’d almost forgotten about. I saw a ridiculous sword from a TV show I’d watched not too long ago and decided to pick it up. It looks absolutely stupid with more pointy bits than I can count, a blade thicker than Abbie’s ego, and a magical glowy aura...Didn’t I watch that show with her?

She hugged the sword close to her, then sheathed it in a sheath that I swear wasn’t there a second ago. She continued walking, her tears drying as the white all around her tarnished into a deep gray, and the bubbles slowly faded into the distance. She stopped for a moment, subconsciously alerted where she was. The floor was black, but the sky gray. She shrugged, “Can’t be too bad.” then stepped forward.

When I stepped ‘past’, I saw a memory. It was, just like the bubbles, one I’d almost forgotten. It was when I was in elementary school. I had a friend that was a boy...what was his name...Rye? Well, who cares what his name was. He’d showed off that trick people do with their armpits to make farting noises, and I got super annoyed at him for repeatedly doing it. It ended with me yelling at him then running away. Was that when we stopped being friends?

After that, her world returned to where it was, with Hailey’s foot in the same spot it had been. Then, the ground fractured. From her foot, cracks of light spread forward through the infinite darkness, then, each segment of the floor, isolated by the light, flashed and began to glow white. The cracked land rose a step up.

But that aside, afterward, the ground split into pieces, with light trailing through everything! It looked super cool. Anyway, I get the feeling that if I stepped on one of the memories, I’d need to relive one again.

There’s something I don’t get, though. If these are memories, why can I explore around them like I’m actually there? I’ll do a little experiment with the next memory.

Hailey pocketed the journal. She steeled herself, pushed her chest forward, and gritted her teeth before stepping atop another crack in the ground.

She appeared in a large, sprawling garden. Around, tourists viewed the area, looking at unique and well-tended plants. This was the famous Gradefleua garden, her hometown’s most beloved landmark.

A younger Hailey sat on a bench beside a younger Taylor and took a bite out of a stick of cotton candy.

“Do you like it?” Taylor asked with his hand on her shoulder.

“Yeah, I really do,” Fake-Hailey said in her usual, somewhat scathing tone.

Hailey was well aware she really did like the candy. She had just been a little mean to her brother’s kindness...A pang of sorrow hit her.

She stepped forward with a gloomy look, then tried to grab some of the cotton candy. She’d definitely just pass straight through it, but it was worth a...she actually managed to grab it and put some in her mouth.

Sweet.

“Hey, lady.” Her younger self said in an especially annoyed tone, “Why’re you taking candy from me. This is mine.”

“Oh, sorry-”

“You might be hungry, somehow, but it’s rare a spirit like me gets the chance to eat something like this.”

“I-I’m sorry? What did you just say?”

“You have no idea who I am, do you?”

“No-”

“Well, let me do my part in the play, and don’t steal my food! You got it?”

“Uhh, sure...”

“You better be sure.”

“I will make sure never to steal your candy again...”

“Thank you. Ahem...” she looked to fake-Taylor, who had been subtly observing their conversation the whole time.

She then continued as if Hailey had never interrupted, talking to Taylor, “You could have tried to, I don’t know, get it to me an hour sooner, when I asked for it.”

Hailey processed what had happened as the conversation continued.

Taylor shook his head, fed up. “Oh. Well...in that case, eeexcuse me, I guess your food wasn’t free enough. I’m sooo sorry for being nice! Fine, if you’re going to act like that, I’m just going to go with Kin.”

Hailey made a face at Taylor as he walked away.

Fake Hailey turned her head to Hailey. “See you next step,” she said as the memory collapsed.

This place is so strange! I went into another memory and took a bite out of my younger self’s cotton candy, assuming I’d just phase through it because that’s just the trope, but instead, my younger self got pissy with me and called herself a spirit. Apparently, these memories are like...plays?

Besides that, Taylor seemed a lot more...impatient with me back then than he is now...

Aaand now I’m tearing up again, and I’m not even sure why...that old song and dance is getting old at this point.

When she finished writing in the book, she saw that all the fractures in the ground were raised up another step, while the one she’d just stepped on was one step above the black ground behind her. She shrugged; She had to climb sometime.