Kendo stammered back. Melanie was there, right beside him, just as he’d wished. Except she wasn’t how he had imagined her. She wasn’t whole. She was covered in blood, skin ripped in shreds and fresh scars with her left leg missing and her right twisted backwards. She faded in and out of view like a mirage. Wilfred stared, his head of fur standing prickled on his head. Of all the things Kendo could’ve manifested, he chose this. No wonder no one had eaten him.

Melanie said nothing. Kendo couldn’t take his eyes off her. It wasn’t because of his love for her either, no. It was more like watching a disaster. As much as he didn’t want to see her like this, a sick fascination kept his eyes in check. He realized Melanie wasn’t looking at him as he had first thought; she was looking through him, beyond him, like her eyes wouldn’t focus. For the first time since his breakdown in Creature’s Court, Kendo felt his eyes swelling with tears, his jaw lock into an open gape and the rest of his body shudder in a soul-shivering chill. He felt as weak and uncoordinated as a wet noodle, overcooked, cold and discarded. His knees nearly buckled.

Melanie’s eyes refocused. It was then she was truly brought into being; her flickering ceased and the blood pouring out of her every wound became so real and clear, deep red and blinding whereas before it had been a pastel pink as faded as the rest of her. If Kendo had any doubt she was there in front of him, it fell out of him like a brick. Kendo couldn’t help remembering Fowlina as she tore Melanie apart, couldn’t help remembering the shrill screams as he looked on, terrified and immobile.

Melanie reenacted it. She opened her mouth wide, blood seeping out of one corner where it was torn longer than it should have been, and she screamed and screamed and screamed. Wilfred winced at her shriek; Melanie’s voice cracked in the middle and rebounded louder than ever, shrill as a banshee screech. The wounds on her face re-ripped themselves, healing and breaking and healing again only to be torn all over and bloodier. It was as if Fowlina were there doing it all over again. And Kendo couldn’t stop grinding his teeth and staring.

“Kendo!” Wilfred yelled over Melanie’s shrieks, his normally brown eyes fading to yellow and his fur-for-hair ruffled so pointy and high, now with fangs instead of teeth in his mouth, “Kendo you have to make her stop! You brought her back; don’t make her go through this again! Stop thinking about how she died!”

Kendo clapped his hands over his ears and clenched his eyes tight. He couldn’t get the image out of his head. He spent so much time denying it like it was second nature and now it was all he could think about no matter how hard he tried. “Stop,” he started whimpering, “Please just stop…”

Snapping out of her screams, Melanie rushed at him in an angry shudder. “I will not stop!”

Kendo winced open his eyes. Melanie was still being torn to shreds over and over, but her expression was one of decided placidness. He was splattered with her spraying blood. It dissolved into nothing as soon as it touched him but he still felt it, sticky, wet and cold.

Melanie’s eyes narrowed.

Kendo gulped.

“Why didn’t you stop her? Why didn’t you protect me?” Melanie’s voice was hollow, betrayed, pointedly distant.

Kendo couldn’t respond. The words died in his throat and all that came out of his mouth were scratchy choking noises.

“Answer me!” Melanie bellowed, rage ripe from her diaphragm. She gritted her teeth as an invisible beak shredded her shoulder, which spewed deep red blood at Kendo, who didn’t move and was still looking at her with unshed tears and pure guilt in his eyes.

“I’m sorry.” The words climbed up Kendo’s throat like spiders, came out all dislodged and spindly. His whole being felt parched and starved.

Wilfred watched from his crouched position a few feet away, glanced from Kendo to Melanie’s ghost and back again, trying to decide what to do, if anything. Those two were regarding each other, each one waiting for the other to speak. Wilfred knew that neither of them would and so he got up, wiped his jeans and cautiously made his way over to stand between them. “Enough,” he told Melanie.

“Enough!” Melanie shrilled, “Enough!”

Wilfred lifted Kendo to his feet. Kendo was dead weight, gawking like a corpse. He shivered under Wilfred’s grip.

Melanie inhaled, ready to tell off Wilfred. She was a ghost now. This time she could be the one to spook him.

But she was met with a yellow-eyed glare and barren fangs and she shut the hell up, quick. Wilfred stood to block Kendo’s view of Melanie. Yellow eyes met Kendo’s. It was enough to buck him out of his flabbergasted trance. Once Wilfred was sure Kendo would hear him he said, “You have to stop thinking about her. If you don’t she’ll end up stuck here.”

“What?”

“Look, just count backwards from ten. Get a hold of yourself. You have to remember she isn’t real; this is just your mind’s creation. You’re the only one who can get rid of it.”

“How can she be my imagination!” Kendo ripped his arm out of Wilfred’s grip and pointed at Melanie in disbelief, “She’s right there! Look at her!”

Melanie crossed her arms and rolled her eyes. She was still being plucked and shredded by an invisible memory of Fowlina but at the moment she really didn’t care. She guessed that was just how being a ghost was like. She was more annoyed with Kendo than anything right now. She made a mental note to haunt him till the end of time.

“Kendo!” Wilfred re-grabbed his shoulders, forcing Kendo’s eyes off of Melanie. “She isn’t real. I promise you, no matter how much it seems like her, it isn’t. You’re going to have to trust me on this.”

Kendo tore his gaze from Melanie and tried to erase her from his thoughts. Wilfred was right. She couldn’t be there. She just couldn’t be. It made sense in his head. But his heart was telling him otherwise; trampling and banging against his ribcage, it clawed at him like nothing else ever had: Melanie had to be real. I mean, she was right there in front of him.

Kendo shoved Wilfred off of him.

His fur falling a little flatter on his head, Wilfred’s yellow eyes returned to their usual chestnut brown. He grunted as he wiped himself off. “Fine. You want to keep your fantasy alive, it doesn’t matter to me. I can’t believe I dragged myself all the way to Reality just so I could teach you magic and here you are being an annoying little…”

Kendo was ignoring him, too busy looking Melanie up and down to pay any attention. (This, of course, sent Wilfred into another rant about how disrespectful humans like Kendo would never survive three days in Olden even if they did learn magic.)

Melanie looked down at Kendo. She was only floating a few inches off the ground but that was enough to lift her eye-line above his. She briefly thought the top of his head looked messier than usual. Another drop of blood slithered down her face, staining her right eyelid. Her neck was in shambles. Even so, she could still speak by some miracle of being dead and said, “You really suck at magic. Now go on. Undo me.” If she were standing on solid ground and still had her left leg she would’ve shifted her weight to one side and jutted her hip out at him to make her point.

Hearing that tone of hers sent Kendo into hysterics. The air sucked itself out of his lungs like a vacuum and he started coughing. Then he stopped and started laughing. And he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t believe this. Everything else he could believe. But not this. This couldn’t be happening.

“Hey!” Melanie yelled, “Will you get ahold of yourself? God, Kendo, you’re worse than my mother!”

That only served to make him laugh harder.

He was met with a pouty lip (what was left of it) from Melanie and, “Knock it off already!”

“I’m sorry,” Kendo managed to breathe out between guffaws, “But you’re acting so typical I can’t help it.”

It occurred to Melanie then that Kendo’s laughter was no longer manic, but cheerful. It would have eased her if she were still alive, but right now she could only think, not feel. In spite of that, she decided to pout even more, even stick her tongue out at Kendo. “Well that’s what you get. It’s your fault I’m back so I can haunt you all I want!”

Kendo actually smiled at her; it was a real smile, a relieved smile. Even though she was dripping in blood, shredded to pieces and missing one leg, Melanie was there in front of him and she was just as obnoxious as when she had been alive. That had been one of the things he loved most about her. A thought slithered into the back of his mind. If he could bring her back from the dead with this weird magic stuff, maybe he could heal her too, fix her. For the moment he smiled up at her like all his problems were solved.

“Okay, Okay,” Wilfred said in a grand sigh, “You brought her back, good for you. But that spell won’t last outside of this confined area in Olden. One step outside of the sand and she’ll disappear.”

Kendo’s smile fell off his face. He kicked the sand under his boot and it shifted over itself in waves. He hadn’t noticed before but there were tiny crystalline shards intermixed with the sand, glistening under the hot sun. Even he, a human, could feel the magic radiating off them now that he was paying attention. It felt like a thousand heartbeats pounding against the soles of his feet and hot fumes like wildfire rushing around him whenever the wind blew. He looked back at Melanie and saw that already she was starting to fade; a moment ago she had seemed clearer, vibrant, but now she was fuzzy like he was looking at her through a static-filled channel on a television screen.

The glittering people on the surrounding tree barks laughed at Kendo, scratchy high pitched laughter that reminded him too much of Frock.

Wilfred continued, sounding very much like a university professor, “This sand is made of Fastitocalon scales, ground over centuries of sorcery and collected from the far reaches of Olden’s waters. It amplifies any type of fantasy a person has, and if you carry it in a bag with you it serves as protection against charms. I brought you here to learn magic because if I had brought you anywhere else you wouldn’t be able to see your progress. This place is only meant to teach you control. Anything you imagine here will appear, yes, but it will only last as long as you remain in contact with the sand.”

Kendo’s concentration was fading and Melanie could feel it now too. She tried to blink away the fuzz in her vision but if anything doing that only made it fuzzier. It came to a point where all she could see was a blurred pink image of hair atop a Kendo-shaped blob. She rubbed her eyes and blinked again. It didn’t help.

“So you’re telling me I can’t leave without making her disappear?”

“That’s exactly what I’m telling you.”

“Great.” Kendo moaned in frustration, “Why’d you even bother bringing me here if nothing I make can even come with me?”

Wilfred answered him with only a shrug. It was one of those shrugs that adults give to children when they’re asking too many questions.

Melanie was left to float, getting blurrier as Kendo fumed.

“I mean what’s the point if I can’t use anything I learn?” Kendo grumbled, fists shaking at his sides.

“Careful. You’re losing your concentration,” said Wilfred, gesturing towards the ever-fading Melanie. Half her body was gone now, only her bust and one arm twitched between visibility and nothingness, her outline fizzling out of view faster and faster. Dull reddish rivulets of blood still dripped off her visible fingers, dissipating before they touched the sand.

Kendo tried to force back his frustration and concentrate. If anything was his weakness it was putting aside his feelings to focus on something that needed to be done. He remembered his mother then, remembered how he couldn’t do anything to save her either. Here he was, armed with magic in some strange land with his girlfriend dead before him and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. The more he tried to keep his concentration the more it eluded him.

Melanie started fading faster. Her eyes widened in fear. She could feel her very being shift as it was tugged between Olden and the utter blackness that is Death. She didn’t want to go back there. She could deal with being ripped apart over and over; she could deal with the pain. In Death there exists only your mind; everything else fades away. Nothingness, that’s what it was. Nothingness with only yourself for company. “Please,” Melanie lipped, “Please don’t make me go back there.”

Kendo didn’t hear her. Her voice was already gone. Seeing that Melanie had mouthed something, he gritted his teeth, took a breath and focused with all his might on the sound of her voice; the way he remembered it: soft but clear, with an undertone of sarcasm that never seemed to go away.

And then he heard her. “Please don’t make me go back,” she said again, “Please don’t make me go back there.” Her tone was scratchy and washed-out, like she had given up on ever being heard.

“I won’t,” said Kendo. He grabbed at her shoulders, transparent but still visible, and told her again, “I won’t make you go back there. I promise.”

Melanie smiled wearily at him. It was the sweetest thing anyone had ever said to her but she didn’t see how he was going to pull it off.

Wilfred watched from afar, leaning on one of the trees that surrounded the clearing of sand, legs crossed at the ankles and one of the tiny glittering people perched on his shoulder. He poured the sand back and forth from one hand to the other as he watched Melanie come into full view once again. Satisfied, he smirked at them. His eyes flashed from brown to yellow and back again.

Kendo beamed at Melanie. She was standing, completely visible now, injuries gone. Both legs were there; the scars on her face and chest had healed. Her skin no longer peeled away from her flesh like paper. Below them the sand glowed against the sky, Fastitocalon scales a perfect reflection of the clouds overhead. Her skin was as soft as he remembered and she smelled the same; like lavender and sweat. Caught by the moment, they embraced, relief thundering off of them like storm winds.

Wilfred switched his crossed feet and went, “Ahem.”

Jutting out his index finger at Wilfred, Kendo lifted Melanie’s face to his and they kissed long and deliberate.

Wilfred rolled his eyes. He flicked the glittering person off his shoulder (who scrunched its nose at him and flittered off to join the others amidst the tree bark,) and then approached the two lovebirds. Humans. They’d only known each other for the grand total of what, a week, maybe two? It was sickening.

Kendo and Melanie had adopted the same goofy grin. The Fastitocalon sand shimmered light off their eyes as they gazed at each other, still in a tight hug.

“Thank you,” Melanie said.

Kendo responded with an even wider smile and Melanie ran her fingers through his hair so affectionately it almost made Wilfred gag.

“If I may,” Wilfred coughed out, “You still don’t know how to control any of this.” He pointed at the sky.

Something vast and dark loomed above them. It careened down in a nosedive and Kendo barely managed to shove Melanie out of the way. Fowlina landed hard, spraying sand out from under her claws. She straightened, wings outstretched, and glared at Kendo. Melanie scrambled to her feet and absentmindedly took a few steps backward.

“Fuck,” escaped Kendo’s lips. But he wasn’t about to let this happen again.

All Wilfred did was sigh and go back to leaning against his tree, not that Kendo or Melanie saw his bored yawn. He watched Fowlina circle around to face Melanie and glower.

Kendo had to do something. Fowlina was closing in on Melanie. She scurried back and fell into a crab-walk to avoid the bird-woman’s claws as they bombarded the sand in front of her, each blow close enough to clip her clothing in the front talons. Melanie was going to run out of sand soon, panicked and sweating and wishing for anything but to die all over again.

Kendo didn’t know why he thought of it. He suddenly remembered his old psychologist and all those inkblot images she used to have him interpret. The Fastitocalon scales glimmered beneath his feet as he flashed back to the weeks after his mother committed suicide. He remembered he’d always told the psychologist the same thing about the inkblots; that they looked like spilled death.

Spilled death; that’s what Kendo imagined. When he opened his eyes, Fowlina was being forced back by a giant blob of inky black that splintered at the edges and curled in and out of itself like a bucket of garter snakes. Melanie rolled to her feet and sprinted to Kendo’s side as the inkblot caught Fowlina’s left talon and erupted in a spasm that shifted the scales and sand undertow. Fowlina let out a shrill screech so loud it popped Kendo’s ears. Melanie winced and shuddered at the noise. It was a pig squeal and a bird yap and iron bars scraping against each other so much they sparked. It smelled like the white ashes from a long-dead, buried campfire. Fowlina hopped back on her free leg, batting at the formless inkblot crawling up her foot to no avail.

Then Kendo figured it out. He pictured in his mind a pencil-shaded skull he had once seen on an album cover, dripping near the edges to blend with the jet black background. Both Melanie and Wilfred watched the inkblot shift and grow as Fowlina pecked and bit at the part latched on her left leg. She flailed and cried, trying to get it off, and stopped only when she looked up and saw the next thing Kendo had created.

The inkblot exploded in gray smoke and the skull manifested in its place, one of the dripping edges still holding Fowlina firmly by the leg. Kendo smirked and the skull mimicked him, cheekbones bending out of place with a dreadfully long creak to form an impossible, deviant smile. Melanie gulped as Wilfred moved in closer, inching his way next to the two of them to observe. The Fastitocalon scales shone in the light like a bed of fireflies as the wind swiveled the trees.

Then Fowlina fell. With her still on the ground, the skull encroached in a swarm of smoky gray shades, forcing Fowlina out of the sand-filled clearing. The very moment she stepped outside the clearing, she dissipated into fog, nothing left of her but the echo of a bird cry.

“I did it,” Kendo said in disbelief as his imaginary skull spun on its chin to give him a nod before using its dripping inky black edges to crawl out of the sand. It vanished with its teeth chattering goodbye in a musky swoosh of gray, magic wind. As soon as it was gone Kendo found himself overwhelmed with exhaustion.

Melanie looked at Kendo like he was her knight in shining armor and leaned in for another kiss, but Wilfred placed himself in between the both of them so she couldn’t follow through with it. She huffed and pouted, scraping the sand with her shoe in annoyance.

“Now then,” Wilfred said and grabbed Kendo’s shoulder the split-second before he would’ve collapsed, “Let’s work on avoiding the stuff that wants to kill you.”

Kendo nodded to Wilfred; his newfound resolve was the only thing keeping him from toppling over. He swallowed, throat dry as a desert.

Melanie clung on Kendo’s arm and he faced her. She stared at him with wide, thankful eyes and that slightly mischievous tilt of her chin that had made him fall for her in the first place.

That’s what made him decide to keep going. If he could use it to protect her then he wanted to learn magic. He wanted to learn everything. Kendo caught his breath and stood up straight, forcing the exhaustion away by sheer determination. He held Melanie close and said, “So what do I learn next?”

And for once, instead of a scoff and an aggravated rant, Wilfred smiled at Kendo with unmistakable approval.