Life will always call to you,
Flipping your world upside-down with one act.
We hate change, we don't want to pick up that phone.
But life has a way of picking up that phone for you.
Before I was a king, I was a nobody.
I had just turned thirteen.
Most of the kids my age always worried about what was going to be next in an item shop for digital skins in games that I only played to try and make friends.
But I was stuck worrying about who the hell I was. I was stuck worrying about being able to feel some emotion that wasn't anger or sadness.
I never thought that would be the strife of an eighth grader.
I was still young, and I didn't have any of the context that those three words would give me for my condition; this was four years before those words would change my life forever. It started as someone talking to me late at night when I went to lay my head down on the pillow in the bed that I rarely got sleep on, a strangely familiar effeminate voice that calmed me down when I felt upset. I knew it wasn't there, but I didn't care; it was the most anyone had talked to me at that point in my life, and it was the only "friend" that I had.
I didn't know what it was. I had heard of young kids having imaginary friends, but I was a teenager, not six; I was too old to be doing these things.
I would beat myself up over the voice's existence, telling myself that I was just losing it, that I needed to make real friends so that my pathetic brain didn't have to resort to making weird voices in my head for me to socialize.
But no matter how hard I tried to push it down, to pretend it didn't exist, it just kept coming back.
And every time it did, it only ever sounded more and more welcoming.
I wanted to embrace it, but I knew that it wasn't right. Kids my age only ever made fun of people who were like me, slamming them into lockers, framing them for things, stealing, punching, kicking, and humiliating.
I had already had all of this happen to me, but I didn't need any more of it than I already had in my life.
It was already hard enough to hide all that was going on from everyone.
For a while at the start, the voice only served as a reminder that I was a loser, that I was powerless against so many people in my life.
That I had nothing.
That I wasn't really living my story, just having it dictated by those who hurt me the most.
This was my life; no day was special.
Before I had her, I had nothing.
I had just turned fourteen.
Most of the kids my age worried about what sports teams were doing good and how their fantasy teams were stacking up against each other.
But I was stuck worrying about how to hide all of the signs of abuse from the bullies who inflicted them on me. Hide them from my parents, who I knew would be destroyed to see the kid they loved getting hurt.
I never thought those would be the worries of a ninth-grader.
Throughout my lonely days in my second year of high school, all I wanted to do was escape that voice. It had comforted me many times throughout the long and boring school months, but I knew that I couldn't rely on it; I didn't want to. I knew that if anyone else figured out that I had an "imaginary" voice in my head keeping me company, I would just become even more of a target than I already was. But no matter how hard I tried to drown out the voice, no matter how much I ignored it and told it to go away, it never did. It only ever grew stronger and stronger, to the point where I could no longer escape it at all; even during my boring class lectures where I was supposed to be paying attention, I was too distracted by this echoing feminine voice in my head. But it didn't matter how much the voice drove me insane, how much I wanted to get away from it; it still always comforted me every time it spoke. I still didn't know how to explain to myself how or why the voice existed, just that it did, and it had just appeared out of nowhere one day, and now it refused to leave, no matter how hard I tried.
I didn't want to keep talking to this random voice in my head; I wanted real friends.
That wish, for once, would be granted.
I barely remember how it happened, but one day, I was invited to a garage hangout with some of the more popular kids from my school. I was initially skeptical; I thought they were just inviting me over to make fun of me or pull some kind of sick joke on me. But to my extreme surprise, that was not at all the case; they had invited me over to play some video games with them, and they ended up having a grand old time with me playing with them throughout what was a warm April day. It was fun, but throughout the whole thing, I noticed that everyone, in a group of mostly men, had all flocked around this one girl who had been there, talking to her, helping her, getting her things, idolizing her, almost worshipping her. It was a feeling she was experiencing that I couldn't even comprehend.
How are they able to win everyone over to such an extent that they will do anything they command?
How are they able to be as popular as they are?
How are they able to be as successful as they are?
"I have the answer." The feminine voice in my head said to me.
I didn't know what to think; I just pretended that the voice never said that. I kept doing my best to ignore it through the rest of the day, but I knew that it would try to come back again as soon as I fell asleep.
It did that and much more.
Before I saw the glow, there was only darkness.
When I had finally drifted off to sleep and entered the strange world of my dreams at the time, I was greeted with an expansive, white, empty void. When I looked around, all I could see was a large crack in the sky, filled with the blackness of whatever abyss it was giving me a gaze into. In this empty expanse, I walked around for a while, seeing if there was anything at all, any reason why I was here, and after what felt like hours of searching, I came up empty-handed.
"I'm over here." I suddenly heard the feminine voice from behind me, making me jump.
"What are you-"I began to speak but was interrupted by stunned silence as I turned around and saw the origin of the voice.
She was the most beautiful girl that I had ever seen in my life. She was tall and slender, with long, flowing blond hair, and had two eyes whose clarity seemed to pierce the air: a stunning blue right eye and a vivid green left eye.
"Who are you?" I finally spoke out of my shock.
"I'm Allyson, silly. I was telling you that all along."
I had faintly remembered then hearing that name being mentioned a few times by the voice, but I was so preoccupied with trying to tune it out that I never registered it.
"Why are you here?" I asked her.
"I don't know." She replied, shrugging her shoulders. "I guess it was meant to be."
"Meant to be? What was meant to be?"
"That I end up here with you."
I didn't understand what she was saying, but the way she said that it was meant to be that she ended up with me, and the inflection in her tone made it almost sound romantic. I had been alone for so long, and I finally had someone all to myself, someone so beautiful who was always willing to talk to me. I was overcome with joy, and I could barely contain my excitement in front of her, but I held on to not look pathetic.
"Why do you think that?" I asked after a long hesitation.
"We were meant to be together as one."
Her tone still sounded flirtatious, but I kept the thought in the back of my mind that this was all in my head.
"I'd like that." I responded.
"Good."
She walked up to me and gave me a big hug. The most love I had felt from someone in a long time. It made all of the hurt and sadness of the outside world melt away into nothing, just for a moment. I wanted to stay in that place with her forever; I didn't want to leave. But all dreams have to end eventually, and after what was all too short of a time, I was pulled away from that blissful white expanse with her, back into the real world as my eyes opened to the morning sunlight. I knew that what had happened was just a dream with a voice in my head, but it felt so real, and my heart wanted to talk about it as if it were the crowning achievement of my life at that point. I wanted to share it with my friends, the ones that I had just recently made. Maybe then they would look at me with more respect, and I could slowly work my way out of the 'nobody kid' status that I always found myself in.
There was no other way for me to explain it to myself other than to say it really happened.
I was scared of discovering the real reason behind that dream and that ever-present voice.
And so, when I went to hang out with that group again a few days later, I told them the news of what had happened, phrasing what I was saying as though it happened in real life, even though it happened in a dream. However, despite knowing that was the case, I chose to believe what I was saying —that it really happened in real life.
They all looked at me with a sense of surprise, awe, and, surprisingly, only the tiniest amount of skepticism. For the most part, they believed me. They kept asking questions about her, asking me what she looked like, where she was from, and what she liked to do. The entire time, I was telling them a story that was being fed to me in real-time by Allyson, who was telling me what to say from inside my head. Within a shockingly short amount of time, they wanted to speak to her themselves. Not knowing how to respond, I told them that I would ask her if she wanted to talk with them as well, over text.
I had to make them believe that Allyson really existed.
I wanted to believe that Allyson really existed.
"I'll see you tonight." I heard her say in the back of my head.
I trusted she knew what she was doing.
I was already too deep in the story to slow down now.
Before I was powerful, I was powerless.
When I went home that night, I was anxious about what I was going to do about Allyson communicating with the rest of my friends, but she kept telling me not to worry, that she had the solution.
I trusted her.
When I went to lie down in my bed at the end of the day, although earlier than usual, I was still confused about what Allyson was talking about when she kept talking about her having the answer. I lay my head on the pillow and started to think of all the ways this could go wrong, how it could destroy the only friend group I had. As the anxiety began to overflow in my brain, I suddenly felt myself being pulled into my own body. The new feeling for me was extremely disorienting, and I felt like I could barely keep my balance, even though I was lying down. I closed my eyes and tried to wait for the feeling to pass. I took a breath, waited a second, and when I went to open my eyes, I was surprised to see my body moving seemingly on its own, absent of my control over it. It felt like I was watching everything through a movie screen. I kept watching what was happening, and I soon recognized that it was now Allyson who was in control; she was using my body to create her messaging account and interact with my friends, who were still awake. She was quick to engage them, and within what was to me a disturbingly short amount of time, all of my friends were completely hooked. They loved her, they cared about her way more than they cared about me, and they had only texted her for a short time.
Then, something happened.
One of my friends reached out to her on a private channel, texting her that they thought she was beautiful from what they had heard. She responded with gratitude, and the friend soon divulged that they were interested in her, wanting to be her partner, and would do anything for her.
I felt shocked.
I felt confused.
I felt powerful.
"I told you I had the solution." Allyson cheekily said to me.
Soon enough, it was more than one friend that was doing this.
Then, I felt terrified about what would happen if the truth were to come out.
I watched as my body lay back down on the bed, and I was launched forward back into reality, out of my head, the phone still in my hands, the flirtatious messages still on the screen.
For once, I was the one with power over someone else.
Power they didn't even know I had.
I didn't want to lose the feeling of utter triumph that I was feeling, but there was a piece of me deep down that knew that this would not last forever.
And that piece of me was right; it wouldn't.
Before the underground, I was hopeless.
Allyson's ruse lasted about half a year and then fell apart in a catastrophic blaze of pity and disappointment all at once one day.
I had just turned fifteen.
All of the kids my age were worried about which rap song was on the top of the charts and who could rap for themselves.
But I was stuck worrying about being labeled as mentally ill because I knew deep down that I was.
I was surprised it had lasted as long as it had, with her being stuck to my pitiful body.
One of my friends had grown suspicious of Allyson over time and eventually shared their concerns with the rest of the group. They must have spoken well because they, too, began to distrust her existence. Eventually, they all came after her, asking questions that she couldn't answer, questions that I couldn't answer either.
When she couldn't answer them, they came straight after me.
Allyson's story was over.
Many vicious names, threats, and promises of violence and payback were screamed at me that day, things that should've made me feel scared or at least a little upset. However, it didn't affect me that way; I just felt angry. Angry that it felt like a piece of myself was being denied a life that it wanted to live.
I had never felt like that before.
So, back to my old lonesome life I went.
One night, a few weeks later, as I was lying in my bed, out of nowhere, one of the friends from the group texted me. I was confused, thinking that maybe the group had chosen to forgive me, let me back in, and apologize for "what I had done."
But when I opened the message and read it, I was overwhelmed with a strange mix of emotions that was entirely new to me.
"Hey. I know that it was you who was playing as your stupid little character to try and mess with us. Well, you got me. I said some things that I shouldn't have said to your screwy facade, and I'm going to tell you this once. If you ever think of sharing what I had said to that account, I will come over there myself and personally demolish you."
I wasn't scared.
It took a second for me to realize, but when I did, it all hit me at once.
I remembered that, for once in my life, I held power over somebody. I could control someone with something I had.
It had always been the other way around.
Just then, I heard a light, slightly menacing laugh. But it wasn't from inside of my head; it seemed to be coming from my bedroom window. I ran over to see why a voice had suddenly taken on a direction coming from outside my head, and when I reached the window and looked outside, there was nobody there.
"Over here." I heard the voice say to me.
I looked over in the direction outside of the window where the voice had come from, and I stared directly at a solitary lamppost across the street from the house, glowing brightly in the night.
"You were meant to be more." The glow said to me. "Much more than a lone soul."
The words "Anima Sola" suddenly appeared in my mind. A lonely soul, just like how the glow had described me. It then felt as though I was talking to some future version of myself; I couldn't make sense of it.
"It was always you." The glow cryptically said to me.
I thought that it was trying to insult me.
"You are the key, all of you."
At this point, I was just confused.
"Look back at yourself, and you will see the key to your escape."
I didn't fully know what it meant, but I felt a sudden urge to look in the mirror that I had propped in the back corner of my room, and when I walked over to it and looked back at myself in the reflection, I froze in shock. I saw Allyson, with her beautiful face and body, staring back at me from the other side. Whenever I moved in front of the mirror, she copied my movements exactly, and then it hit me; what the glow was trying to tell me.
I was Allyson.
She was part of me.
I felt marginally relieved by this revelation but still had more questions than answers. After staring for a while, I walked back over to my bed, sat at the foot of it, and began to, rather stupidly, start looking up the different things I was feeling. I spent hours going into the early morning trying to figure out what was going on with me until, eventually, closer to sunrise, I found three words that encapsulated all of this perfectly.
Three words that would change my life forever.
Dissociative Identity Disorder.
"You were always meant to be more." The glow said before being extinguished in the new daylight.
"I was always meant to be more." I repeated to myself under my breath.
Before, there was nothing. Now, there was a kingdom on the horizon.
I had just turned sixteen.