Magic Man

Chapter 3: Part 2: Start Dust

"...Don't you have a family?" Lexy reiterated.

"I was born like any other child, only my luck wasn't so great. My mother tried to abort me. My father insisted. I don't know much about what happened. I know more about other people's minds than my own, unfortunately. I just know that I came to a world where they didn't want me. I was too far along so the abortion was interrupted midway, I was born with nasty scars, and missing limbs, I was in foster care, changed homes a thousand times until one day I made one wish, I wished that I had a family, one who loved me, and everything changed in an instant. I was ugly but they loved me anyways, then I made a wish that I'd have all my body parts, all of my arm, all of my leg, and that my face wouldn't be scarred, but that I would be beautiful like I was meant to be and I saw myself transform before a mirror. I was terrified, but that was when I started to realize that I was not a normal child. After that I began having dreams; dreams about where I came from...memories I can only peace together slowly through these dreams. It was how I learned I came from the empty night, an undeserved gift of the universe, but I fear, maybe my origins were my own punishment. I ask myself this, what was I running from, what crime am I fugitive to in my past life...or lives? Why do I deserve this?"

"You didn't do anything wrong Magic Man...I'm sure of it. I know that I don't know you but I don't believe there's a single sinful bone in your body. You wouldn't hurt even a fly."

Magic Man was silent for a real long minute, he wasn't too sure. "But...what if I did though? What if I'm a monster? I don't remember...I don't remember anything." He cried. "I wish I didn't but I feel such a dreadful feeling in my chest and suddenly I get these real awful flashbacks, something I must have done!! Something!!"

"...Can I see?" Lexy got closer to him real slow and she touched his head gently, "I wish to see inside of your mind the things that you can't, the things that you occult and don't remember...only if you'll let me." She asked real gently for his permission.

Magic Man looked up at her and closed his eyes, choosing to trust her, and she brought her hands up to his head gently and rested them there.

Magic Man fell into a deep sleep and Lexy's hands became electrified as a current of electricity ran through from Magic Man to Lexy and back and she could not let go. Behold, a storm began around her, a huge, electrical, very heavy storm. There was lightning crashing and violet and grey and dark blue smoke, the heavens darkened very scary and it seemed to entrap them.

Suddenly Lexy began shaking really bad, and Magic Man's eyes fell wide open and he sat up and the tempest calmed and Lexy looked at him awfully horrified, her eyes were huge and dreadfully terrified, and her eyes were red and sobbing.

Lexy cried and she cried and she cried.

"What!? What did you see!?" He gasped awfully worried.

Everything was back to normal.

Now he was ten times more horrified.

Lexy let go, "...It was so horrible." And instantly instead of retreating, she chose to stay, and she wrapped her arms tight around him, "But the past doesn't define who we are!" She cried.

"Lexy, what did I do!?" Now he knew it was confirmed for sure that he did something absolutely dreadful, absolutely unforgivable.

"I...I can't tell you. I could never tell you, I just know that...that isn't you, not anymore!" She held him tighter.

Magic Man cried and he hugged her tighter, "How could you love me, even after knowing all the most horrible things that I've done!?" He sobbed.

"Because...!" She cried. "That's exactly what love is!"

Accepting someone with their faults and imperfections, and atrocities in some cases, forgiveness, blood, tears, sacrifice, all of these tie in when it comes to love.

"Love is not only accepting the beautiful side, it's accepting the ugly side too." Said Lexy softly.

"Lexy, please tell me...what did I do?"

Magic Man was not okay, he wasn't going to be okay until he knew. Maybe he deserved to die, but Lexy knew that he just needed some grace.

"Do I deserve the ultimate punishment?" Asked Magic Man.

"All you need is grace."

"From who? And I suppose you're going to give it to me?" Magic Man grew distant.

"Magic Man, don't leave me. I don't want you to go. If you don't have even a single person on your side, then let that person be me. Even if you have one person, one friend, let that be me. Let that be enough. I promise you this, I seen your ugly parts, and I will still stay." Lexy confessed feeling controversial but she knew that he had changed.

"I never wanted to be a monster." Said Magic Man.

"I know." Said Lexy.

"I don't know how you can stay even after knowing what you know." He said.

"I don't know how I could leave." She said softly.

"You never told me that you attempted to commit suicide." Lexy told him.

"...Fuck, you saw that?"

"Is that why you took such a liking to me? You cared about me because...when you looked at me that night, you saw yourself, I was your reflection."

"You're not wrong." Said Magic Man. "It was your sorrow what drew me to you. I felt the desire to make you happy. I didn't want you to go on feeling so empty like I do...all the time, every day. I was just looking for someone to love, someone who would love me too." He finally admitted, opening up to her.

"Your mom and dad, they love you. I saw it." Said Lexy, "You're mom and dad stopped you when you tried to kill yourself."

"They didn't love me. I wished that they would. It wasn't real. I could wish for someone to love me and then they would, but I want someone to love me without having to wish them too, someone who will love me on their own, just because they want to, like you and Cody. You guys didn't have to make a wish on a star, it just happened. That's why I left home, and then I made a wish, that they would forget me...I didn't want them to suffer because I left. I came back one day to talk to them, they didn't want me. I wished they'd remember I was there son. They took one look at my purple mohawk and crazy red sleepy eyes and they still didn't want me. They didn't like the way I looked, and I had all my limbs. I told you, once a star, always a star, nobody wants a freaky magic kid, with purple hair." He confessed. "They called me gay too."

"I for one think your dashing, and sweet. And I like your purple hair, I did right off the bat but I wasn't going to say that because I was grieving. All I could think about was Cody...I'm sorry I was so selfish, I didn't see how much you were aching and falling apart on the inside. Sometimes I feel so selfish, like I only think about me all the time. I'm sorry." Said Lexy.

"...You are the least selfish person I know. All you think about is the man that you loved and your parents, his parents, even me. You belived in me. That to me, means all of the stars in the sky and the heavens, it means the world to me." Said Magic Man. "...I wish you did too."

Lexy smiled. "Thankyou for that." Her eyes grew a bit watery. "Will you excuse me for a minute?"

She got up to leave.

Magic Man had paused the scenery and he put play to the movie inside of her mind and made it a vivid scenery before her.

Suddenly holograms appeared before Lexy, she saw herself and Cody but they looked three dimensional.

He hugged her close under the pouring rain and he rushed her out to his car covering her in a sweater, "My princess, you've gotten all wet!" He exclaimed.

Cody rushed through his mother and father's house with her and up the stairs, dripping water and tracking mud inside under there shoes carelessly.

"Evening Mrs. Rebel!" She cried joyfully.

Mrs. Rebel smiled and shook her head looking at the mud.

Cody and Lexy were finally upstairs in his room. Their clothes soaked.

Cody looked through his clothes, "Here," he handed her a sweater.

Magic Man skipped the scene until they were dry, to after they had changed.

They were both cuddled up in his bed under the thick warm covers, the heater was on, the windows were open. They were both wearing sweaters all freezing cold.

"Cody, how much do you love me?"

"Hmm...I wake up in the morning and you're always my first thought. I go to sleep at my night, you're always my last thought. I dream at night, but I still think of you, and during the day, you're my favorite song, because I can't get you out of my mind, no matter how much time goes by. I want nothing if I don't have you, and I would die if something happened to you so...I love you infinitely, to the ends of the earth and beyond galaxies. If I had to choose between me and you, I would always choose you. Lexy, baby, I would die for you." He said.

The scene changed.

Magic Man was flipping slides like the channels on a television's remote control.

He suddenly landed on this one particular slide where Lexy saw herself from a whole nother angle as she was speaking with her best friend, the one that went to the funeral and left quickly.

Lexy suddenly grew mad to see her, she should've stayed with her.

She grew real quiet, "What is she doing here?"

Suddenly the three dimensional hologram of Lexy said to her best friend, "I don't know sometimes, I don't know what to think. I mean I know that he loves me but...I often, and I feel awful saying this but I wonder if he actually likes me." Lexy said.

Cody came to the doorway behind her, Lexy didn't see him and she just continued to vent. "I mean just, just look at me. I'm not something like wow, I'm ordinary, I'm not beautiful. I'm just me. Simple, me, I don't know, sometimes I think that my legs don't look right or that I look too simple or something, but then sometimes he looks at me with these eyes and they convince me that I'm the most beautiful girl in the whole wide world, but I don't know. I don't know, I mean, sometimes he doesn't say anything, sometimes he doesn't notice when I do something different to my hair just for him, sometimes he's distracted, sometimes I just need a reminder and I just kind of wonder, does he just love me?" She exhaled deeply.

After her friend departed from her, Lexy went to the bathroom to cry over the sink and she suddenly felt two strong arms coming from behind her, wrap around her waist and he hugged her. It was Cody, "I'm so sorry Lexy, I don't ever want you to feel that way, you are enough for me, you will always be, and you have always been enough. I'm sorry if I don't always show it, you know us guys sometimes live distracted thinking about stupid things but, you bring me back to earth. You're like my breath of fresh air, and you're the best thing that's ever happened to me, and in case you still have a reason to wonder, I don't just love you, I need you. And of course I like you. I love your eyes, they're not only dastardly seductive and dangerous, they're also sweet. You're body is not the only one who is provocative, so are your lips, so is that awfully fast exhilarating heart as it beats against your chest. Not only is your nose awfully cute and small, everything about you is, except maybe your boobs." He laughed awfully childish suddenly.

Lexy laughed, "But in every sense of the word, all jokes aside. I love your body, your face, your mind, your soul, and to tell you more, there is not a single thing about you that I don't love. I fell in love with you, with all of you, body and soul. So you know what, I don't just love you, I adore you." He said softly, and every last one of her insecurities dissipated in that same moment.

Suddenly, the Lexy that viewed these to hollagrams as her memories came alive witnessed something terrifying interrupt the moving memory.

Magic Man began waving around his wand and the memory became more like a panel or an extremely large television screen, except it began coming apart in pieces and suddenly the Lexy on the screen's eyes widened and she looked out to the real Lexy and Magic Man and for the first time she saw them, as Magic Man sucked Cody out of the screen, the other Lexy reached to grab him but he sealed her in right back with the screen.

Magic Man began transforming Cody until he had an actual body. The Lexy from the memory kept pounding on the screen frantically.

The real Lexy began panicking.

Magic Man destroyed the television screen with a large and powerful wind, knocking it over and destroying it to bits.

The other Lexy vanished.

Suddenly before her was a version that looked just like Cody, only he was in a deep sleep.

Lexy was marvelled, she touched him, and she could feel him. She poked him and he was in tact, and she looked to Magic Man in deep amazement. "...How is this even possible?" She whispered out so low and marvelled beyond understanding.

"I can't bring Cody back from the dead, but..." Magic Man looked at the model and he sprinkled some star dust over his head, and Cody began talking to her like normal. It felt like him, it felt human, it looked like him, it was almost him. It acted like him.

"I don't understand," she instantly hugged him but something felt off, "This is Cody. What do you mean you can't bring him back?"

"This is not Cody. This is a duplicate. I have cloned Cody, using your memories, I have studied him and his way of being and generated a persona based on your memories of Cody, both in the physical and emotional aspect. He is a real human being. He too has a soul. He is a clone. I sped up the growth of an embryo and cloned him to look like Cody, a process which takes years took seconds with magic. This is Cody. It will act just like him and feel and look just like him in everyway, I gave him all of your memories together, the good and the bad, but he has no memory of a childhood, of a mother or a father, I would need to access their minds to create replicas of their memories. It is the only way that we can make another Cody. It is Cody but, it's not his soul."

"I don't want another Cody, I'm not looking to replace him or to make myself or his family feel better, and I'm certainly not looking to destroy another human beings life, I wish it undone!" Lexy became furious and she screamed at him. "What were you thinking!!? Replace Cody!? I could never replace him, I would never want to!!" She chased Magic Man. "Undo it, erase him!"

"I can't, he's here because of me, I can't undo it now-!" Magic Man stood his ground now and Lexy stopped chasing him.

She was pissed, she felt so awfully betrayed, she hit Magic Man, "...How could you do this to me?" She sobbed. "Now I have to live knowing there's a man out there lost, with all of Cody's genes and memories and he thinks I'm all that's out there for him...You know that I can't be that."

The clone was very innocent and clingy.

"He's going to die out there. I wish him his own memories, I wish him be happy, and I wish he could be independent!" Lexy cried and Magic Man raised a brow.

"Your wish is my command."

He still looked like Cody and now he wrapped his arms around her and Lexy didn't have the heart to push him off because all that she saw was the man that she loved but it was all too scary. It was way too freaky for her to handle and now she pushed off Cody's clone very heavily, under a sudden terror of him, of Magic Land, it was all too crazy, "Get away from me!!" She felt a deep stab of guilt in her chest but she went running and Magic Land seemed to trap her in from every angle.

"Let me out of here, I want to go home, let me out, let me out, let me out!!" Lexy began screaming.

"Lexy, Lexy!!" Magic Man screamed. Yes, he was closing her in, into Magic Land. He wanted to talk to her first.

"Please, calm down!"

"I wish to go back home!" She exclaimed.

"And I wish you to stay and hear me out!" He cried.

Lexy stopped running.

"I thought...you had to do whatever I say 'I wish...'" said Lexy softly, frowning hard at him now and crossing her arms.

"No, I don't. It's cute but I don't have to! There's no secret rule that obligates me to keep my word! I do it because I care about you, dammit!! But you're exhausting!! Nothing ever seems to be enough for you and that is exactly why Magic Men should never love a mortal!" Magic Man grew mad, "Do you ever stop and realize how ungrateful you are and just downright mean!? You know what!? You don't deserve anyone to die for you! In fact, you don't even deserve to leave Magic Land, and for the record, it's very beautiful here, I happen to like it alot because it's my world!" Said Magic Man, "You have me fed up Lexy, I could never love a mortal, I could never love you!" He screamed. "I'm leaving!!"

"What!? Magic Man, please, don't leave me!! Don't leave-" She cried and Magic Man vanished into stardust and he left Magic World and he left ber there, "what the f**k!!?" Lexy began screaming her head off, but suddenly a passage way appeared, one leading to a beautiful green path.

At least he left her with a way out.

Cody, the clone, was still around, following her every step.

Lexy quieted, terrified, as she entered slowly into the place where all of her dreams would come true, the good ones, and the bad ones.