Title: Just As Real
Author: Yoko-cw
Summary: Mariku Wants To Prove That He's Real Too...
POV: Malik (the hikari)

"I am the real Malik...you are the illusion..."

I shivered when his voice echoed in my head again. 'No...I got rid of you...go away...'

"Silly boy, think you can get rid of me? Get over it. YOU are the fake...and I want my body back..."

I tapped my foot against the hardwood floor, my feet numb from cold hardwood. I sat at my desk, listening to Ishizu talking with Odion about some new artifacts due to arrive at the museum my siblings ran together. They laughed and I bit my lip.

They couldn't know that I had gone crazy. Again. What would they do? They had finally, finally started looking at me like I was a normal teenage boy again but...I wasn't. I wasn't, and the voice in my head was making sure I knew it.

"You are the fake..." he whispered loudly. I gripped my hair, gnawed on my fist to keep the screams that were burning my chest from breaking out.

'Please,' I whispered to him, 'Just go away. They told me everything about you, and I don't need you anymore, so why don't you-'

"Foolish boy!" He screamed and I shot up from my desk, knocking my chair over and sending several books flying to the floor. I looked at my reflection in the small mirror in my room, convinced I would see his face. But I would never see him there...because he was in my head. Only in my head.

"Stupid boy," he purred, "It is OUR body. It's our body, and I want my turn. After all...I am real."

'No, you aren't. The medications-!'

"Aren't working," he was all too happy with my rising panic, "But in order to tell your lovely family, you'll have to admit to them that you are relapsing and...well...you wouldn't want them to run from you again would you? You want to go back to the psych ward?"

I refused to answer him. He was mocking me. Could something mock me if it didn't exist? But if he didn't exist, it would make me crazy, and...I wasn't insane, was I? Was I?!

"I want to be real too, dear Malik...let's trade for a bit. Your time is running out. Tick tock...almost my turn..."

Panting, I collapsed on my bed, curling up on my dark blue comforter and covering my head with my pillow, whimpering and laughing, terrified.

"Look down, Malik..."

I peeked out from under my pillow to see deep cuts form on my arm. I let out a small cry, covering it up with my blanket and watching dark red stains form. Shit...! It's not happening again, it can't be happening again...! 'Ishizu...help me...' I couldn't bring myself to move, to go downstairs and do something as simple as tell her that there was something wrong with me. It would hurt her to know. It would hurt ME to see her look at me like that again.

I looked at my arm again as I checked the time. 5:14pm. Maybe if I told them I was sick, I caught something at school...would they let me stay home for a few days? Would he take over again? So many risks involved no matter which choice I made. Shaking, I texted my sister's phone, telling her not to come upstairs to get me, I was sick, I was contagious. She replied, telling me she would make me some soup, leave it in the oven for me. Feel better, love and kisses.

She was so naieve.

"You know Malik," I swear, I *swear* I felt a finger brushing through my hair, "It wouldn't be so bad, for *you* to be the fake one for a while. Want to sit back and watch? It's really not so bad, just like those movies you like so much...except...you can't turn them off." He cackled and my entire body pulsed with fear and hot blood. "Tick tock..." I saw my body begin to fade. I saw the shadows move from my place under my sheet. It was like being a kid again.

Except, this time, the nightmare is real.

"I am real, Malik," he whispered.

I watched as my body started to go downstairs.

"And you,"

My body went out the door, dagger gleaming in his waistband.

"Are the illusion."

It all went black.

END