Chapter Thirty-Six

Doppler

A secret part of me hoped my sacrifice would be rewarded by a burial in the deepest depths of Dorian’s subconscious. When I banished the final fragments of the chimera’s demonic energy, I felt the collision of all I knew swept back into Dorian’s mind. All except me, it seemed.

Retribution for my betrayal, perhaps. Or, as I’d always suspected, Dorian was merely too weak to harness the full extent of his branch, and thus, I was lost to the ether of infinite space.

This must’ve been death. Oblivion, most likely. Complete and utter darkness. Alone with only my thoughts. It almost made me long for the days I’d sat in the depths of Dorian’s mind, granted brief reprieves to search the minds of others, given fleeting images of Milo and Finn as they hung in Dorian’s thoughts day in and day out. Now, I had only my own thoughts. Unfortunately, I was a shallow, hollow, broken piece of magic that had few stirring thoughts to keep me company in this eternal solitude.

“Geez, you’re even more emo than Dorian, Dorian.” Finn’s giggle echoed in the chambers of black, creating a kaleidoscope of colors that sparkled and shimmered, revealing the twinkling lights of the cosmos.

No longer did I dwell in overcast shadows, but instead floated in what could only be described as the galaxy. Empty and infinite, beautiful and haunting.

“Did you hear my thoughts?” I turned, searching for Finn in this grand starlit space, finding nothing but more lights.

“I think you’re thinking out loud.” Finn snickered, drawing my eyes yet finding him nowhere. “It’s hard to say. I’ve never experienced something like this before. And I’ve experienced a lot through the memories of my magic. It’s like your words, your thoughts, sparkle in the distance, and I can hear them. Strange since I’m using my eyes. It’s freaky cool.”

This wasn’t some unique branch at play. Otherwise, Finn would’ve identified it. His retrocognition made him a living text of history, the literal past incarnate.

“Whoa—now that’s a major selling point to my branch. Wish you’d have helped me pitch it that way when I was actually alive.” His hands found my shoulders, gently squeezing them as he’d squeezed Dorian’s a thousand times before.

I spun around, finally facing Finn, who’d manifested from the stars themselves, bright and fiery and beautiful, warm and happy. “What’s happening?”

“No clue. Assuming this is the afterlife or some type of afterlife.” Finn shrugged. “There could be infinite numbers. Then again, this could simply be some fleeting sensation of our last drops of magic before the bleak nothingness of death swoops in.”

“That’s very morose.”

“That’s always been your philosophy, right?”

“Yes, no—” I scrunched my face, feeling the tension in my muscles for the first time in my life without pulling the sensation from another’s body wrapped in some illusion. Ironic to finally feel now that I’d died.

Finn always believed in the infinite possibilities of life after death, the continuation of the consciousness, the flow of energy unbound, traveling the universe until the end of time, and then a little longer for one more trip around.

“You make it sound poetic.” Finn smiled, boyish and sweet, somehow having more comprehension of this realm than myself, which seemed standard since he was often lightyears ahead of Dorian in all things. “You’re a little hard on yourself, Dorian.”

“I’m not…” I hesitated. I wasn’t Dorian. I would never be Dorian. But I didn’t know who I was.

“You’re who you wanna be.” Finn grabbed my hand. “So, who do you wanna be?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Funny. I’m not sure either.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m Finn. But I’m not the Finn who died. I’m the piece who lived on inside a demon, a devil. Horrors and Hell and so many other experiences I couldn’t forget if I wanted to.”

“You don’t want to?” I asked, contending with the lump in my throat as I nervously awaited his response.

It was peculiar, taking some solace in the fleeting sensations that struck me while basking in the presence of Finn.

“It’s awful. It’s not an experience I’d wish upon anyone, ever.” Finn interlocked his fingers with mine. “But it made me who I am. Shaped me. As much as I wish it hadn’t, I feel stronger overcoming it.”

“Yeah, you’re Finn, all right. Only Finn would look Hell in the eyes and celebrate that at least we could have smores thanks to the fire.”

“I said that one time.” Finn laughed, his thoughts stirring to memories of high school before we made it into the academy, times when Dorian said the entrance exam would be pure Hell, and Finn proceeded to jest.

It seemed my telepathy was intact.

“When I said my goodbyes to Dorian and Milo after they banished the chimera, the devil, I believed wholeheartedly that if and when I made it here—the other side, oo la la—that I’d want to find my other half. Find the Finn that I was so I could truly remember myself.”

“Then I stopped you. Narcissistically stole you and failed to—”

“It was a bizarre experience, to say the least. We definitely have a lot to talk about, like manipulating a person’s own magic to make them forget the bad memories because you believe you know best.”

I pulled my hand away, but Finn strengthened his grip, refusing to release me.

“It’s a conversation we’ll have a long time to discuss. An eternity, perhaps.” Finn released his hand. “If you’ll have me.”

My face fell, stunned. “Of course. But why? Why would you want to spend any time with me?”

“Because you’re like me. Honestly, after remembering everything and dwelling inside the chimera again, I realized I was grateful for the reflection. The time to consider my options. I wouldn’t want to burden Finn with my haunting memories. I can feel him, you know? That other piece. It’s not quite magnetic, but there’s breadcrumbs I could follow.” Finn shook his head at the idea. “Let him wait peacefully for Dorian and Milo to rejoin him one day.”

“You don’t want to be whole again?”

“I’m still Finn, still me, even if I’m not that Finn.”

“And I’m still Dorian even if I’m not that Dorian.”

“You’re pretty clever. Almost as smart as the actual Dorian.”

“Bah.” I waved a dismissive hand. “My intellect supersedes his in every…” I grimaced when Finn stifled a snicker. “And you were joking, poking fun because my ego is an easy target.”

“Pretty much.” Finn batted his eyes, his long lashes catching the starry light.

The twinkle sparkled and moved, casting a luminescent shadow, and our eyes followed that shooting star that landed far in the depths, tucked between a hundred others.

“Wait,” a high-pitched squeaky voice cried out. “You’re moving too fast.”

Standing in the distance, a small blond boy panted. He kept his hands pressed to his knees, bracing himself even though he only stood in the shadows of space and could simply hover like us. This world truly was unlike anything I’d ever experienced.

“And who are you?” Finn asked.

The boy’s eyes widened, surprised by our presence, wearing the fright on his face and in his surface thoughts. “How’d you get here?”

“We were just trying to figure that out.” Finn slowly floated toward the lost and confused child.

The memories were warped, broken, and missing. Looking in his mind was like looking at this starry galaxy. Only the space in his head was more like an empty abyss, missing most of the lights to memories.

“That’s your memory over there.” Finn pointed to the shooting star the child chased.

“How’d you know that?” the boy asked.

“It’s my magic; it allows me to see the past, and I can see yours is scattered all over the place.”

“You can see me? My memories? I’ve been looking for them everywhere, but I got lost…they got lost…I don’t know what to do.” He frowned. “But I have to find them. I know it’ll get better when I do.”

Despite so much missing, the fear of darkness boomed in his mind, making this galaxy backdrop where we found ourselves the most frightening of places, where only the light held safety for him, yet the light fled, not wishing to return the pieces of his life it held.

“We can help you.” Finn smiled.

“I don’t know. My sister said to never talk to strangers.”

“Your sister sounds very smart.”

“No, she’s really not.” The boy pouted, folding his arms. “But I still don’t know you.”

“I’m Finn, and this is Dorian. We’re a little lost too. Maybe your sister can help us find our way, and we can help you both catch those missing memories.”

“She’s not here.” The boy backed away, nervous, like he was a second from hiding behind the shadows of outer space.

“You’re all alone?” I asked, voice breaking that someone so small would be abandoned in the same afterlife Finn and I had found ourselves thrown into.

“I’m always alone.” His eyes welled up. “That’s all I really remember.”

“You remember more than that,” I said, wanting to help this child.

I wanted to help because Finn thought it was the right thing; I could feel his emotions, and I knew the boy wanted help but was too scared to ask. For once, maybe I could do the right thing without hesitating, without stumbling, without failing those around me.

I searched his mind, reaching for the faintest glimmers of thoughts, pulling them from the depths of his broken inner core. The casting didn’t come with the fatigue it did when alive. There was a peacefulness to guiding these hidden memories, stitching the fractured history, but I couldn’t sort them. There were too many missing.

This kid was right about his memories fleeing. So much was gone. The map of his memories was like the remnants of a cookie dough sheet after all the perfect cutouts had been plucked, and what remained were hollowed-out edges, barely enough to string together one solid cookie. Or, in this case, memory.

“That’s because you’re looking at them in all the wrong ways.” Finn pressed a hand on my shoulder, guiding my telepathy with the reassurance of his retrocognition.

“Are you syncing your magic to mine?” My heart pattered quickly, experiencing something that’d once only been reserved for Dorian when he kissed Milo. A special bond that I craved, a connection unlike any other out there. True love and trust in mind, body, soul, and magic. That was the real reason I hid all the visions that struck Dorian’s mind simultaneously, leaving him only with a single void vision. I envied the connection, the love he had.

“I can see his past, sort what’s there so it all lines up, but you’ll have to light the fuse so they’ll connect to his thoughts.”

Not many dots to connect, not until this child retrieved his missing memories, but I snapped my fingers and sparked the ones he had, the pieces he couldn’t quite recall because they’d fallen apart.

As his blue eyes lit up, so did his mind. “How’d you do that?”

“A little touch of magic.” Finn smiled. “We could probably use our branches to help piece together the other missing pieces as you find them, Jamie.”

“Jamie,” he said his name, clutching a hand to his chest and sitting with the familiarity of his past, revealing who he was, the parts he had at least. “I’m Jamie Novak.”

“Yes, you are.” I knelt in front of him. “If you want help, I’d gladly offer it.”

“Really?” He quirked a brow. “You don’t even know me.”

“I know if I was missing pieces of myself, I’d want help finding them.”

Finn chuckled, amused by the irony and making no effort to hide that fact.

“Okay. But you need to keep up.” Jamie pointed a commanding finger.

“Of course,” Finn said, happily nodding at the young Jamie who held no memory of the horrors he’d endured in his short life, no recollection of the pieces missing, or the fact that maybe he’d be happier if they stayed lost.

This joyful side of Jamie could know real peace wherever we were, and I hoped… I didn’t know what I hoped for, but I worried unraveling the truth might make his eternity here somber.

“Can’t know until we get there.” Finn nudged me, pulling me from my thoughts.

In the seconds I spent lost in my head, Jamie had already made a move to chase the tiny star holding a piece of his past.

“It might be best for him if he doesn’t remember everything,” I said, unable to look Finn in the eyes.

“Best for who?” he asked. “Best for you? Best intentions by you?”

“What I did…” I stood and didn’t respond. His questions summed up the entirety of my argument, my reasoning, my fatal flaw. “I just wanted you to be happy, to be ready, before learning all the horrors you’d experienced.”

“And maybe that’s what this place is for.” Finn gestured to the bounty of stars surrounding us. “Maybe it’s the universe’s way of helping those who need a little extra time, those who need to sort through what’s missing.”

“We’re not missing anything.”

“How would we know if we were?” Finn smiled. “Besides, I don’t think it’s all missing memories. Other things can be missing, lost, need work, time, and a million other factors simple fellas like us just aren’t ready to fully comprehend.”

“You’re assuming this place holds some grand design.”

“That’s the beauty of belief.”

“I promise to do better, to do my best to help.”

“No withholding memories unless he chooses that.” Finn eyed Jamie, who continued wandering ahead. “Let’s help him learn his history, unravel his truth, and if it’s ever too much, we can offer him the choice of what he does and doesn’t wanna fixate on. After all, we’ve got the perfect magics to help the kid out.”

I scoffed. “You probably think this is fate or something.”

“And you probably don’t believe in such things.”

We lingered together, his lips close enough to kiss. A kiss I wasn’t ready or worthy of yet. There was so much love and lust I had for Finn, for this fragment of Finn, but I wanted to earn our first kiss, to be worthy of his touch, his compassion, his love, his forgiveness, his company and perfection and kindness.

Finn grinned. “My head is gonna be really hard to carry around with you inflating it so much.”

“How are you doing that?”

He shrugged. “How’s Jamie know those specks of stars are his memories and know the other ones aren’t? Some of us just get it.”

“And some of us don’t.” I rolled my eyes.

“Now you’re getting it. Thankfully, we can help you as much as you profess wanting to help us.” Finn grabbed my hand, interlocking his fingers, and we turned to follow after Jamie on a search for his history.

Who would’ve thought that I, a manifestation of Dorian, a piece of sentient magic, would spend my days alongside Finn and this joyful version of Jamie.

“A fragment of Finn,” he clarified. “And you’re less of a manifestation at this point and more of a doppler.”

“A doppler?”

“Yeah.” Finn used his free hand to gesture like he was unveiling a grand stage play ahead. “Fragment Finn and Doppler Dorian on their wacky adventures with Joyful Jamie. I like the ring to it.”

“So do I.”

“Will you two hurry up!” Jamie shouted. There was an annoyance in his tone, irritated by our conversation, yet a subtle fear he’d be left to search for his missing memories by himself again.

He wouldn’t have to worry about being left all alone ever again. I’d see to it.

“We’re coming!” I shouted back, hastening my steps.

Finn smirked. “There’s a joke there.”

“Ugh. Between you and Milo—insufferable.”

Finn broke out into laughter, sending joy cascading across the galaxy surrounding us, brightening the edges ever so.

I didn’t know what this place was, an afterlife, a waiting room, a figment from the last specks of our magic floating in the ether of space, but I planned to cherish every second I had. I couldn’t right the wrongs I’d done while desperately searching for a life that was never mine, but I could do everything in my power here to help guide Jamie, to work toward earning back Finn’s trust.

To finally live my own life.

“Minus the living part.” Finn shoulder bumped me.

“That whole knowing what I’m thinking is gonna get tiring real soon.”

“You get used to it.” His smile illuminated the farthest reaches of this infinite galaxy, and I finally began to see what Finn and Jamie saw when they looked out at the stars.

THE END

…until next semester.