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The morning after the figure came was tough, tougher than he thought it should’ve been. He explained to Matrix that sometimes he got so homesick he had visions of his mom—which Beta considered a reasonable explanation for the events that night—and Matrix just accepted it and moved on. But after the conversation, his energy seemed to drain.

He woke up tired, he went to breakfast tired, and the rest of the day his mind was beckoning him back to sleep. But that night is when he figured out why. Once his eyes closed, he wasn’t floating like usual. He wasn’t lost in a darkness that felt sickening in his sleep. He was actually sleeping. He was dreaming. Just for one night…he was back home.

“I don’t get it!”

Beta threw himself onto the ground and let his dirt-stained hands fall with him. The grass was itchy against his legs, and he scratched them as the voices buzzed around in his head. It was just noise, almost like bees swarming inside his ear canals. Yet, he seemed to be the only one who could understand it perfectly.

“I don’t want to try again,” he said aloud, grabbing some attention from the picnic-planners and joggers in the park. “It’s not working.”

“Darling?” Beta looked up at a pale woman, her sun hat and sunglasses doing nothing to block her already reddening skin from the cruel sun’s heat. “Do you need some help?”

“Beta!” another voice hissed, and Beta quickly recognized the sound of his own mother. The lady looked up and watched as Beta’s mother charged toward him. She was a short woman, which made her already-long hair look much longer. She had it up in a high ponytail now, and Beta always found it mesmerizing how it swayed back and forth when she walked. She never wore much make-up—and she didn’t need it—but her outfits were always in perfect taste. She grabbed Beta’s arm and pulled him away from the lady, scolding him in Vietnamese the way she did when she didn’t want anyone else to hear how angry she was.

His mother walked him to their car where his dad was waiting anxiously. He was a tall man, which made him stand out in crowds. His face was always tight, and Beta could never tell if it was from stress or from worry for his estranged son.

He unfolded his arms and opened the door for Beta, and Beta crawled into the back seat.

The car rumbled as it started, and he sat quietly as they drove down the highway in silence. But, Beta could sense something was off. His parents kept giving each other looks, but they never looked back at him.

Beta sighed, twiddling his thumbs. The voices returned, and Beta—for once—tried to ignore them. He didn’t feel up for a lesson at that moment. All he could think about was the way his parents looked at him like he wasn’t really there. Like if they stared too long other people would think they were crazy too.

But the voice kept talking, and they had an idea.

Beta heard them clearly, and he agreed that maybe—just maybe—if his parents could see this power he had that they would understand him better. Maybe then, he could be their son again.

Beta let his small body clench up, stopping the oxygen from running its course and tightening the features on his face. His father was the first to see this action, see the way he was vibrating in his seat, and speak out. “Beta, what are you doing?”

Beta let the tension release, and this was usually the part where nothing happened.

But something did.

He could feel it as if marbles were rolling off of his skin all at once like he was breaking through a barrier. He could feel the wave of energy even after it had left his body. He could feel it moving toward his parents.

But as it reached them, like usual, nothing happened. “What are you doing?” his father asked again.

Beta sighed. “I thought I could use my power.” He gulped. “To make you act on your greatest desires…and maybe then you would believe me.”

Beta’s father looked at him in the rearview mirror and his mother, like usual, stayed silent. Neither of them said anything else until they had reached their destination.

Beta looked up in confusion, immediately aware that this was not their house. It was an ice cream parlor.

“Come on,” his mother said, unstrapping and getting out of the car. She walked around to the other side and opened the door, unstrapped Beta, and took him out of the car.

The three of them walked in, hand in hand, and Beta couldn’t stop feeling tense. It was cool in the parlor, making his cheeks turn pink as he entered.

They walked up to the counter and his mother turned him around to her, smiling in a way he never saw her smile before. “You can have anything you want, okay?”

Beta’s eyes went wide. “Anything?” he repeated, and his parents nodded.

Beta turned back around to the window and peered in. He was in awe at all of the flavor options, salivating at the thought of trying each and every one. All the color was overwhelming, and he had never felt so excited in his life. But one caught his attention more than anything else.

The rainbow sherbet.

Beta hopped up and down on his toes, and turned around swiftly to tell them but—

“…Mum?” Beta called, taking his hands off the glass to look around. “Mummy?”

She was nowhere to be seen. “Dad!” Beta called, his heart racing as he took a few steps away from the counter. “Daddy!”

Beta looked out the store window and saw that their car was gone, and saw just a glimpse of it rolling down the street.

He could see inside the car, and he saw his mother and father. He saw them with a smile they had never used before, a smile so gleeful he didn’t think it was possible for them to be so happy. He saw their joy…as they drove away from him…

And left him with nothing.

“Come back,” Beta whispered as the cashier came from behind the counter, asking where his parents had gone. Beta didn’t answer, unable to hear anything except for the screams of the voices coming from inside his head. Tears fell out of Beta’s eyes as he raced toward the window, banging on it violently. He was terrified.

“Come back!”

Beta woke up with a jolt of energy, unable to sweat and unable to pant, so settling with a horrified expression. He clutched the sheets and shuddered, unable to stop shaking.

Apparently, Beta wasn’t the only one awake. He could feel Matrix looking at him from the other side of the room, but it was just mere fatigue from the sudden awakening. The Perna turned to him, about to say something before Matrix beat him to it.

“Just…don’t,” the Stak said. “It’s too early.” Matrix laid back down in bed, his head hitting the pillow firmly.

Beta didn’t say anything, instead, he calmed his mind and got out of bed. He knew what the dream meant, or at least he thought he knew. Reminding Beta of his real mother just to make the concept of seeing his imitative, loving mother—or at least the image of her—again seem that much sweeter. The voice behind his good mother’s face was very ‘busy’ in his head, conjuring up images to scare him.

Beta thought about how cynical that was as he walked drunkenly toward the door, needing fresh air. He put his hand on the doorknob and turned it, or he tried. It didn’t budge. He twisted it again, but still nothing. The lock was on the inside, he knew this for a fact. He shook the knob more and more, knocking on the wooden frame as his claustrophobia grew.

“Why is this door locked? Matrix, do you kno—?” Matrix popped up out of bed and glared at Beta.

If looks could kill…then Beta would be right where he was. “Beta, if you do not shut the hell up I will rip you open and chew up your insides. Do you understand me?” Matrix hissed, his eyes looked almost black.

Beta slouched, rubbing his eyes. “But the door—”

“Yes! The door! It’s a door! It has four vertices, a front and a back, and even a doorknob! And it appears to be locked, so…Shut up!” Matrix flipped his sheets dramatically to re-cover himself and snuggled back into bed.

Beta sighed and closed his eyes for a brief moment. He opened them to see a light shining past his feet, brightening the hardwood floor below.

Curiosity took over and he ducked down to look under the door. All he could see was light. Small footsteps came from the hall, quiet ones. The footsteps edged closer the longer he waited there, and his eyes squinted from the brightness of it. The back of his head said for him to knock on the door and ask for water, but the front of his head told the back of his head to shut up and use his brain, which Beta found funny because it was a brain. Suddenly, the light went out and the footsteps stopped.

It was suffocatingly silent, and if Beta’s heart could still beat, it’d be pounding.

He shook his head lightly, realizing whoever was out there had left, and whispering pitifully, “Matrix who—?”

Like a moth drawn to a flame, the familiar flash of daytime shined directly into Beta’s eye, only able to make out a distinct—yet unfamiliar—face right before he was blinded. He jumped up, seeing nothing but splotches of shadow in the midst of the already dark, black emptiness known as his bedroom. The Perna stumbled around the room before stumbling clumsily back into bed, pretending he was asleep.

Conform, he told himself. Shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up—

Maybe conforming would be tougher than Beta originally planned.

Eventually, morning came and doors unlocked. Beta had fallen asleep by then, able to reawaken with a whole new perspective. Squinting in the sunlight, Beta could hear Matrix in the bathroom brushing his teeth. He didn’t need to look over and see the empty bed to know who it was.

A disheveled head popped out from around the wall’s corner, foaming at the mouth. “Mornin’,” Matrix greeted.

Instead of responding back with a greeting, Beta went straight to what was on his ever-turning mind. “How come the door was locked last night?”

Head disappearing, a spat was heard before the man reappeared, clearing his throat, and said, “They lock it every night.”

“But why?”

“So people don’t leave the rooms and wander.”

Beta curled his toes, wishing something would move inside him. He had never really appreciated those random eye twitches, muscles spasms, or even heartbeats until they were gone. Frowning, Beta said, “Wander where? There’s nowhere to even go.”

Beta saw Matrix hesitate for a split second before proceeding to head back to the sink, rinse, and return. The Stak threw a rag at Beta’s face. “Get dressed, I’ll be down at breakfast.” He watched Matrix walk out the door—shoeless—without another word. It hadn’t really occurred to Beta until then,

But he knew that something was off.

Once dressed, the Perna went downstairs to the dining hall. In being spotted by Hershey, Moonshine, and Juju at a table near, Hershey stood up and waved frantically. Matrix was at a separate table with a few other Staks. He could see the lone Stak look up at him when Hershey made his presence known. Beta, of course, found it odd that Matrix and Hershey claimed to be close friends…yet failed to show it at times.

Or maybe that was just part of their shtick.

Beta sat down with Hershey and the twins; Moonshine, JuJu, and then Hershey next to Beta or Matrix as always. Same order every day. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Hershey responded. Beta looked over to the Staks again, but noticed that Matrix wasn’t there. He furrowed his eyebrows. “Where’s Matrix?” he asked. When Beta turned to look back at the group, a muffin forced him into silence. He opened his mouth and granted the treat entrance as JuJu backed away. “Shhh, don’t worry about it.”

“Ah wha-ant.” He tried to say he wasn’t worrying, at least, not until then. He took the muffin out of his mouth and plopped it on his empty plate. He wasn’t quite sure why he grabbed it in the first place.

“You don’t eat much, do you?” JuJu commented, noticing his plate’s vacancy.

Beta, already wanting to switch topics, scratched his scalp. “Um, no. Back on Earth, I guess I only really ate because it was necessary. Food was never that…enjoyable for me. So now that it’s pointless…” He shrugged. “It’s just pointless.” Trying to shy away from himself, Beta asked, “What about you? You seem to eat a lot? What’s that about?” JuJu’s face altered then, taking a more defense interpretation of the statement. Beta took a bite of the muffin, hoping the questions would stop there.

They didn’t.

“Speaking of which…except not really,” Hershey thought on that weird overused saying before continuing. “What part of England are you from?” The others tuned in as well.

“Uh…London, actually. But I moved to Manchester once I turned eighteen,” Beta started, but felt the need to explain more. “I had nothing against London, I just liked Manchester better. My grandparents moved to England from Vietnam with my mum when she was only twelve. She grew up over there and met my dad on a trip back to see her family in Vietnam. My mum was twenty-one and my dad was twenty-three when they met and she convinced him to come back to London with her. They fell in love, on and on and on, and then they had me. Never traveled before I was eighteen, except once when I was really young and visited California. All I really remember about the trip was being made fun of for saying ‘garage’ weird.” Hershey smiled at that.

“Trust me, I know the feeling,” the Nat said.

Beta nodded absent-mindedly, his mind having gone somewhere else. “Yeah…being in an unfamiliar place is…terrifying.” He rubbed his nose and pointed the remainder of his muffin at Hershey. “Okay, now I’ve got a question.”

“You want to know where I’m from?”

“No, why’d you dye your hair salmon?”

Hershey pursed his lips, but let a smile fold out of it. “Uh…” Hershey started. “It’s kind of a tragic story involving meeting a girl who was really into K-Pop.” Beta smiled, and it was a genuine smile. He hadn’t had one of those in a long time. He hadn’t connected with another human being for a long time. But, it was nice talking casually for a change.

Unfortunately, things could never stay that way after a bloodcurdling scream ran through the dining hall and beyond. On instinct, Beta shot out of his seat, alert of any possible danger. Not to mention…the voice seemed familiar.

He looked around only to see everyone’s eyes on him, including Matrix’s.

Beta was confused, and he didn’t like being confused. The room was silent after the scream like a crash after a high. In such a scenario, Beta had never been so high and been dropped so low before. He was the center of attention, not the owner of that cry.

He was.

Him.

And no matter how socially awkward, incompetent, or insincere he could be…he knew that that was just weird.

“Beta,” Hershey whispered eyes gesturing from him to the seat. Beta looked at his seat like it was out to get him, and shook his head.

“I need to go,” the young man said, shuffling past Hershey. Trying to avoid the stares, he walked back into the stairwell and took another door, the door that led to the doctor offices.

Walking all the way down the corridor to her office was more than nerve-wracking because he knew what he would see.

When he knocked on the door there was no answer. He knocked again and there was still no answer. He pushed the door open and walked in, his nerves now shot. Just one glance and he knew she wasn’t there. In fact, the whole office was off. It was completely organized. No messy papers or drawings or pencils like her office usually was. It was just…neat, like someone had reset it.

Like Julia never existed.

Beta walked out of the office and there stood Matrix, staring him down. He stopped, looking hopeful, but the look Matrix had said it all: Regret. Feeling sick, Beta walked past his friend and back to the dining hall.

It would’ve been so easy if all he had to do was walk, if that was all. But it wasn’t, because he had this thing inside of him, this terrible curse that caused attention everywhere he went. Every table he passed, people looked away from him and focused on each other, saying and doing things that they would’ve never done without his influence.

He passed the table with Hershey and the twins without a word and cursed when the Nat began to break plates. The whole dining hall had swung into chaos.

And it was somehow his fault.

Because of a power he didn’t know how to control.

One that got him to Plato in the first place.

“I’m sorry,” Beta whispered to himself, turning his head to see Matrix finally making it back to the dining hall and watching the chaos unfold, utter bewilderment shone in his expression. He turned to Beta.

Beta turned back around, going through the door at the other end of the dining hall and sprinting down the hallway toward the exit. He had had enough. Beta pushed the double doors to the mansion open and walked out. The feeling of freedom should’ve hit him at that moment.

But even then he just felt more like a caged bird unable to spread its wings.