“I don't care.” He said in response to the greeting, “Just leave me alone.” He moved past the pink figure and flopped back onto his bed, eyes closed.

“Leave you alone? You look like you need all the help you can get!”

Ambrosius cracked his eyes open. The hallucination that had called itself ‘Nimona’ had her face inches away from his, upside down. She grinned.

“And luckily for you, I happen to be the perfect one for the job!”

Ambrosius narrowed his eyes. “What job?”

“Your new sidekick!”

Ambrosius groaned and rubbed his eyes. Was his brain trying to create an imaginary friend to fill the void Bal had left behind? When Ambrosius opened his eyes again, the teen had disappeared. Good. Then the same voice cut in again from atop a shelving unit.

“Don’t bother to fill me in, I saw everything.”

“What?” Ambrosius sat up, seeing Nimona now lounging on the shelves.

“It was a beautiful scheme!” She said.

Ambrosius blinked, and Nimona was suddenly spinning on the easy chair across the room.

“Assassination of a monarch, the kingdom thrown into complete and utter chaos, it would have been perfect, if only he’d made his daring escape! But don’t worry! This is just half-time - you can still finish what he started!”

“Finish w—” Ambrosius began, but suddenly found a sheaf of papers whirled into his hands. “What’s this?”

“My resume!”

Ambrosius glanced at the papers. There was no text; just crayon drawings of all manner of animals rampaging through piles of royal guards.

“… This is—”

“Awesome, isn’t it? I thought a visual aid would really make it POP!”

Ambrosius looked up from the papers to see Nimona sitting on the dresser.

“Sooo… what’s the plan, boss?”

Ambrosius stared at her for a long moment.

“What are you supposed to be exactly? Some repressed memory?”

The teen huffed and hopped off the dresser. “I told you - I’m Nimona.”

“Okay… Nimona. I’m tired and don’t want to deal with this right now.”

“Oh, oh sure, I get it. Still getting over your buddy’s death. Got it. Just let me know when you’re ready to move on to the next stage of the plan.”

Ambrosius shoved the papers back into her hands.

“There is no plan. Bal is…” He locked his jaw, willing the tears to go away.

“That’s not going to stop you though, right? The man must be avenged!”

Ambrosius was about to respond when he heard a knock at the door. He hoped the noise was real this time.

He opened the door. It was Captain Ironwill; a burly man with black hair.

“Captain.” Ambrosius greeted him.

“Goldenloin.” Ironwill nodded. “I heard about what happened at the execution. They’re giving you tomorrow off.”

Ambrosius lowered his gaze. “Thanks.”

“I tried to get you full bereavement leave, but you weren’t legally related.” Ironwill’s voice dropped slightly. “I’m sorry. I know you were close. At least he didn’t drag you into it.”

Ambrosius nodded.

Ironwill continued, “Nice choice of color.”

Ambrosius looked up. Ironwill was looking past him, into the room. Ambrosius turned around. There was a pink cat sitting on the bed wearing a vest labeled ‘Emotional Support’. Ambrosius stared at it mutely.

Ironwill acknowledged Ambrosius again and left. Ambrosius stood in the doorway, still staring at the cat.

The cat spoke up, “What? Not a cat person?”

Ambrosius sputtered, then turned to the open door behind him. The hallway outside was empty.

“Good Gloreth I’m going crazy…” he muttered, shutting the door.

“Come again?” Ambrosius turned back to see Nimona sitting cross-legged where the cat had been. Definitely a hallucination, and one he was tired of.

“How do I make you go away?”

Nimona shrugged and got up, bouncing on the bed a few times. “Same time tomorrow?”

“No.”

“Morning?”

Ambroisus rubbed his eyes. Anything to make her leave.

“Fine. Just go.”

“Got it, boss!”

When he opened his eyes again, there was a pink bird perched on the windowsill.

“Tomorrow!” the bird said, then took off, leaving him alone in his room. Finally.

“Gloreth please don’t let this happen again.” Ambrosius said to himself, falling back onto his bed. He didn’t want to end up in the psych ward.

~ ~ ~

The front office was surprised to see Ambrosius when he went in early the next morning.

“Didn’t someone tell you to take the day off?” the receptionist said.

Ambrosius remembered the stress hallucination from the day before. Or had it been a vision of the future?

“Oh… Yeah, I forgot.” he stammered.

Ambrosius left the building, wondering what it was that had happened yesterday.

“THERE you are!” a familiar voice broke into his thoughts. It was that Nimona hallucination, except this time she’d taken the form of a large, pink dog, again wearing the emotional support vest.

Ambrosius groaned.

“You again…”

“Me again! I thought the longer legs would make it easier to keep up.” The dog waved a paw. “So what’s the plan for today? Or should we… discuss things somewhere private?”

Ambrosius wondered if ignoring Nimona would make her go away. He didn’t want to be seen talking to an imaginary friend, although there wasn’t really anyone to see - it was early enough that hardly anyone was out on the campus.

“Whatever.” he mumbled and started the walk to a nearby tea shop.

“What better place to hide than in the open. I like that.” Dog-Nimona winked and followed alongside, “I thought up some ideas for revenge - it looks like the director was the one who ordered the execution, so I was thinking we-”

“I’m not taking revenge. For all I know… Bal was guilty.”

“No duh! I saw him fire the… wait, are you saying that wasn’t part of the plan?”

“What? No! Why would I- I wasn’t- I don’t even know if-”

“Oh….” The dog suddenly looked disappointed. It was a look Ambrosius had always dreaded seeing. Was even his subconscious disappointed with him?

The dog spoke up again.

“So you’re not a villain?”

“No!”

“But he was, right?”

“I don’t—”

“Well someone is. So why don’t we find out who?” Nimona hurried in front of Ambrosius, now walking backwards so she could see his face. “We dig - we find out if your buddy was behind the plot, and if he wasn’t, we find out who was. And we take revenge!”

“Revenge?”

“So what leads do you have? Assuming you’ve already been looking into this. Searched his belongings for clues?”

“Everything got confiscated or thrown out.”

“Huh. Anything else of his?”

“I don’t know… they have his sword in the archives.”

“Then off to the archives we go!” Nimona began to trot on ahead.

It didn’t sound like a bad idea, but Ambrosius wondered why his subconscious would be so focused on revenge. He’d been taught the pitfalls of seeking revenge since he was young - the right thing to do was forgive and move on. But… he did want to know if his dead boyfriend had been a murderer or not. He needed to know if what they’d had had been real. What if the Institute had missed something in their assessment of the situation and there was someone else involved? The authorities didn’t know Bal like he did, and stuff wasn’t adding up…

The imaginary dog had charged ahead, but now it was looking back at him with pleading puppy eyes, wagging its tail.

“Aren't you coming?”

Well, since this was basically his own advice, he might as well follow it.