NECROCITY TIMES - Issue #1 - HALLOWEEN SPECIAL

Book Excerpt - Monster Manual

The Agents of the WPRS write a compendium of supernatural creatures.

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Tulpa

One of the most common questions we get asked here at the WPRS is, "Why is there no Agent #1?"

Well...we say the Magistra is Agent #1, being the head boss lady and all, but honestly she exists out of time and space.

Yet the truth is, she really was Agent #1. For a while. But when she and I were just two people researching paranormal things from our basement, before we started the WPRS, she came across something, and...and...

I'll let you read her last letter to me before she became what she is.

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Agent #2-

I miss you so much. Your smile. Your laugh. The way the monitor light reflected off your glasses. How you kind of stuck your tongue out the side of your mouth when you're lost in thought. I even miss that slurping sound you always made with that straw!

I've been on the road now for God knows how long. This motel is cold and cramped and I'm not sure when they last changed the sheets, but I just couldn't sleep in that car anymore. The road started to blend into the scenery and in the night and the rain I couldn't tell what was real or a memory or a fantasy.

For a while, I kept myself busy with music, singing along to the latest 100 on the radio. Then I went through my CDs, just listening. Eventually, I turned it all off and left myself alone in the silence with just my thoughts.

But then...I started talking to you. How can I be away from you for so long, even if it's for a good cause? I don't like my own company and that's all I have on the road.

I was lying back in the driver's seat, windows rolled down to let out the stuffiness of the August heat, sweat pooling down my neck, hoping to get a bit of a rest before my next stretch of driving, when I heard a slurp of a straw.

And, #2, you started talking back.

I was so happy just to see you, I didn't care if you were a 'thought form' or a 'psychic projection' or a 'tulpa', whatever name you want to call it. The textbooks would've defined you as a manifestation of my intent and will and belief. Existing only in my imagination, a willing hallucination to feed a need or purpose. At first.

But if more people could be made to believe in this imaginary friend of mine, would that make you real? Was the Velveteen Rabbit actually a story about a tulpa?

Maybe it was the fever from the hot car, but I reached out for you, and #2, I swear, I swear it was you who took my hand. I thought at first, maybe you were just astrally projecting. That maybe through our connection you realized I needed you. That I was weak and feverish and more than quite a bit delusional and I need you here with me.

But you can't touch astral projections. They don't brush your hair out of your eyes and wipe the sweat from your brow with a smile. They don't kiss your--

Were you born from a wish? Were the Solipsists right, that only our mind and what we believe to be true is all that exists? Are we self-contained universes projecting our expectations onto reality until we're vividly hallucinating the same things because we believe they're real, or is this all a giant delusional hologram of what we want to believe?

I was much better at this as a child. Human children have to learn object permanence, that the things they can't see and perceive at that exact moment will continue to exist. And then they get into magical thinking as they start to walk and talk, and they have imaginary friends.

How many times did I tell my parents it was Tommy that broke those things, not me? It wasn't until everyone sat me down and told me Tommy wasn't real, that he wasn't anymore. But what if he was to begin with? That means we killed--

Sorry. My fever still hasn't broke and it's been raining since. I'm so tired.

Let's say I stopped at a rest stop. If I suggested to the clerk that you were in the car, they'd believe me, because why wouldn't they? And you'd get stronger and gain a bit more form. And so on and so on until why wouldn't you be real if everyone believed you were?

But I wouldn't have you be a puppet of my will if this mental-clone was real, or risk you going rogue and turning on me. I couldn't let you out into the world, a doppleganger of sorts, where others started to see and believe in you, too.

And then if YOU started to believe in you...I mean it... I mean if the tulpa you gained sentience and started quoting Descartes "cogito ergo sum"...

As much as I missed you and your touch, I knew I was dealing with dangerous stuff. Thought forms, given enough belief, CAN become real. And self-aware beings are capable of free will and choice. And with that always comes the risk of defiance from the creator.

Is that what we humans are? Are we just tulpas God has created? Or did our belief in God create them? Maybe that's why several gods have lived, and died, over the eons. So many Gods dead without followers...Or the devil? Is he a literal scapegoat to free us from our own guilt? If we don't accept our own wrongs and blame the devil, do we create him?

And I mean...that got me thinking. Are you thinking of me?
Was I a figment of your imagination brought to life by your will?
Or did I do that to you? Were you ever real to me?
Or are we all just written into existence by the hand of God?

Are all the things we write about, all the ghosts and the vampires and the ...everything we catalog and hunt...are they real because we believe in them?

Do we create monsters by believing in them?
But if we deny they exist, will they really go away?

I can't know for sure if anything is real anymore.
Am I even laying here on this motel bed?
Is it really raining outside?

I'm writing to you because you're still lying in bed beside me, and I can't hardly breathe because how do I tell you that I don't think you're real?

I can't call you because I couldn't hear your voice in two places at the same time. I think what's left of my mind would break.

...Oh God, don't look at me like that. Don't ask me "what's wrong."

You're not real, #2.
I miss you so much, but that's not you beside me.
I'm not even sure I'M real.

Don't think about it
Don't think about it
Don't think ab----

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And that's it, Collective.

We found the letter in an abandoned motel off Highway 66, but the Agent #1 wasn't anywhere to be found. I don't know about you, but that area's not really known for its rain.

I like to think that she willed herself into what she is. She believed she was ascended beyond our mortal coil, so she was. She became the Magistra.

I don't get it though. Does she believe I'm real now? Does she believe any of us are real? Or are we just figments of your imagination? Are you... are you figments of ours?

Is that why you won't let me out of this security room, Magistra? You think I'll leave you because I won't exist anymore?

Oh, Magistra...I believe in us. I'll always...

Ahem. Sorry, Collective. I need a moment. If you hear crying, please don't knock.