Time slowed to a crawl as Amara froze, her hand on the basement door in front of her. She planted her heel and began to spin around, absolutely sure she was losing her mind, but she caught a glimpse of Vee while she turned.

She heard it too.

Shock and disbelief gripped them both, their breath caught in their throats as they looked back.

Please.

Kneeling in the middle of the circle, wearing a familiar deep blue peacoat, staring up from beneath a curtain of light brown hair, Amara saw the very person she’d been unable to shake from her thoughts ever since that fateful night in the quad. She wasn’t glowing, nor was she scattered into thousands of pieces, she simply looked up at Amara and smiled.

“CHLOÉ!!”

Amara broke out into a sprint, tears streaming down her face as she ran towards the circle. Chloé started laughing, overwhelmed with joy as she began crying as well.

Once Amara was close enough, she fell to her knees and slid to a stop just inches away from Chloé. “Is… Is it really you?” Her hands shook as she reached out, nervous to believe this was really happening.

Chloé mimicked the gesture, raising a hand towards Amara’s, as she attempted to say something. Her words, however, devolved into tearful gasps of excitement as their hands touched, their fingers intertwining to prove just how real she was. She nodded, her touch inspiring Amara to lean forward and wrap her arms around Chloé.

This is real.

She’s here!!

They hugged each other tight, Amara taking great care not to hurt Chloé while also desperately wanting to hold on with every ounce of strength she had. When Vee fell to the ground a second later, Amara looked over and saw the same look of shock she’d worn herself just moments earlier. Breaking off the hug, she happily allowed Vee and Chloé the chance to reunite as well, both girls gasping with unabashed joy while they hugged just as tightly.

Amara lost track of how long they sat there, hugging and softly weeping with joy. Every question gave way to laughter, every concern fell in favor of more crying. At some point, she heard frantic footsteps racing down the staircase behind her and turned to look at the door.

“Vee! What’s going—” Tessa froze, gasping in shock just as Amara and Vee had done earlier. Her phone fell to the floor and she ran closer, falling to her knees to join the other girls. She briefly looked at Amara and Vee, silently asking if this was real, both of them simply nodding. Before Tessa had time to process everything, Chloé grabbed her hand and pulled her in for another hug, then did the same with Amara and Vee.

They were finally together again.

The next few minutes were a blurry mess of tears, half-finished questions, and apologies as the girls tried to process everything. Nick joined in too, even shedding his own tears of joy, and it took ages before any of them were ready to have a proper conversation.

Wiping the last of her tears on her jacket sleeve, Amara finally mustered the strength to speak up. “How? How are you still here?” she asked quietly. Next to her, Vee briefly leaned over and squeezed her arm.

“I don’t entirely know,” Chloé admitted. They were all sitting on the floor inside the magic circle, and they all grew quiet as Chloé began to explain everything. “After the portal closed, I just kinda… I don’t know, stopped existing for a while? Like, I didn’t have a body, and I couldn’t differentiate myself from the world around me. I didn’t have any of my senses, I didn’t even know up from down. Eventually I started to piece things together, but I didn’t have any memories; I was just navigating the world based on how things made me feel.”

Chloé looked over to Amara. “I followed you around at times, no idea who you were, but I remembered that you made me feel safe. I did the same with all of you, at times, slowly trying to figure out who I was and why you all seemed so sad.”

“Wait,” Tessa said, “you’ve been here? On campus?”

Chloé nodded. “The whole time, yeah. Like a ghost. But, without my memories, nothing made sense. I didn’t understand emotions, I couldn’t even hear anyone talk for the longest time. I reached a point where I started to experiment, to try and recreate the things I saw other people doing. I pushed a mug off Amara’s counter, I listened in on random conversations, my vision improved and I started to see colors again, that kind of thing.”

“That was you?!” Amara asked in shock.

“That was me!” Chloé said, laughing. “It took every ounce of strength I had, and afterwards I completely lost myself for a bit. When I pulled myself together again, I saw, like, another you? Which was really confusing in the moment, but thinking back on it, was that your mom?”

“It was! That was the night I learned she’s a succubus too!”

“So that’s where you got it from!” Chloé laughed again, eventually sighing and quieting down once more. “But, yeah. I slowly figured out more and more things as time went on. I tried to figure out everyone’s names, the names of the buildings, it took a really long time. The scariest part—well, at the time it wasn’t scary, but now that I’m thinking back it was terrifying—was this weird void that followed me everywhere I went. I think… I think it was the afterlife. Whenever I looked at it, I just knew it was the end of everything.”

Everyone grew quiet, paying rapt attention to Chloé’s story. Talking about the void seemed to change her demeanor, and she stood up before turning to face the dead end behind them. “I don’t know how to describe it. It was everywhere and nowhere, big and small, and no matter where I went it followed me. It was between the corners of the walls, at the edges of buildings, things like that.”

Chloé stood at the edge of the magic circle, leaning forward slightly as she inspected the wall in front of her. While she did, her body slowly lifted off the floor. “It’s not here anymore. I wonder if it gave up on me?”

Vee spoke up next. “How do you feel now?”

Turning back to the group, Chloé continued hovering a few inches above the concrete. “I’m still trying to figure that out. For a while, engaging any of my senses was physically painful and disorienting. It got a little easier over time, and it honestly feels like something clicked just a moment ago, once I got my memory back. Like, now that I’ve put all the pieces together, holding this form feels a bit easier. Amara, Vee… I heard bits and pieces of you saying goodbye, I think that’s what brought me back. I suddenly remembered all the pain of the portal closing on me, but I also finally realized that you were all sad because I wasn’t around anymore. It… it was really eye-opening.”

“Of course we were sad, you idiot,” Tessa said, forcing a smile as a tear ran down her cheek. “You’re our friend, we were all falling apart without you!”

“I mean, yeah, but…” Chloé stammered. “There’s always that fear, right? The little voice in the back of my head that says you don’t actually like me, that you’re just putting up with me. I spent so many years being harassed, the butt of the joke, and those feelings were the loudest when I was trying to put myself back together again. The most familiar thoughts, the ones that came back first, were the little voices that told me I was worthless. Nothing.”

“Chloé, you saved our lives! You saved the entire fucking campus!” Amara said. “Without you around, I-I didn’t know what to do with myself!”

“It’s true,” Vee added, playfully elbowing Amara. “She was an absolute mess.”

“You’ve always been the one trying to keep us in line, pushing us to be better, more responsible people,” Tessa said. “I’ll admit, I don’t think I realized how much I enjoyed having you around until, well…”

Nick grabbed Tessa’s hand. “We were miserable without you, Chloé. I don’t think I can possibly express how happy I am to see you again,” he said quietly.

Chloé floated closer to Nick and Tessa. “Ugh, I know, and I don’t want to make you all repeat the same things you’ve been saying for the last year and a half. I don’t mean to make this all about me, it’s just—”

Tessa jumped to her feet in protest. “Oh, don’t start with that! You just fucking came back from an endless void between dimensions; there will literally never be a better time to make everything about you! There’s so much I want to know! What did you see? When you interacted with the world, what was it like?”

The conversation began veering off on a small tangent, Chloé doing her best to answer Tessa’s endless questions, and Amara mentally stepped back for a moment to collect herself. Vee seemed to catch this, and leaned closer to whisper, “Hey, you doing alright? Obviously this is incredible, but you’ve been a little… y’know, recently.”

“No, I’m good,” Amara whispered back. “It’s just… a lot. This is so much to take in.”

They looked over at Chloé and Tessa; the latter was excitedly shooting off question after question, while the former seemed to be struggling to keep up. Vee sighed. “Poor Chloé. I can’t imagine how terrifying this all must have been for her. She still seems a little shaken, honestly.”

“You think so?” Amara looked over at Chloé. She was happy, no doubt about it, but subtle differences in her posture stood out to Amara. She’d photographed Chloé at her best, and something still seemed off. “Huh, now that you mention it… she always has this spark when she’s in her element, and that’s not quite there right now.”

“Well, it’s not every day you claw back from death itself,” Vee said cautiously. “You always knew her best, do you think there’s anything we could do to cheer her up?”

“Cheer her up?” Amara looked at Chloé again, her eyes glancing briefly to the floor underneath her. “Oh. Yeah, that’s easy.”

“Really?”

Amara raised her voice, calling out to interrupt the other conversation. “Hey, Chloé!” ʀᴇᴀᴅ ʟᴀᴛᴇsᴛ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀᴛ novel{f}ire.net

The other girls stopped talking, and Chloé looked over. “Yeah?”

“I thought you’d be more excited,” Amara said, holding back a smile.

“Excited?” Chloé tilted her head in confusion. “About… almost dying?”

“About having superpowers, silly.”

Chloé stared at Amara for a moment, the gears behind her eyes slowly clicking into place. She looked down at the floor, saw that her feet were no longer touching it, then gasped and looked back at Amara. “OH MY GOD! I CAN FLY!!”