Notebook 3 Chapter 13 - I Think The World Of You
Now at the new notebook, of shade green, I sat at my morning coffee pondering how I could best approach Rebecca’s space and talk to her rather than fight. I had this feeling that a duel was inevitable, a struggle between the two of us comparing who could better bend her space to their will. What could she do that I wasn’t prepared for? Did Crimmy, like beast, think up dark imagery of torture and torment for Rebecca? Time drew short before work, and if I was to be stuck in this space, this notebook, I’d have to resolve it quickly. With a sharp breath, I entered Rebecca’s space high above the neighborhood. She expanded the few houses to about thirty, and each had a light on while the sky was still dark. The realistic sun simulation mirrored my reality in darkness.
I was without form, but thanks to the dumb child part of my mind, Rebecca was already aware that I was there. Hopefully, she had no idea where, but when the library house exploded, I knew that she was waiting there for me. It was a good thing I chose to spawn above, but without a form, she had nothing to destroy. I had to be careful how I went about this. With just a mouth and vocal chords formed, I called her out.
“REBECCA!” I yelled from the sky and watched as a red glow took off from the remains of the library. She was on fire, with her hair standing in mimicry of a a released form. Surrounding her was definitely fire, but it burned crimson red like blood. There was no reaching her like that. Her eyes were white hot, making her look like a demon.
“FORM!” She roared out much louder than I expected. The force of sound hit me into a solid form. As I tried to fade out again, Crimmy closed the distance and dug her nails into my neck, cutting off my breathing and speech. I had no need for the former, and this wasn’t the time for the latter. This was not going to be pretty.
Rather than overpower her, I decided to create a black hole within my body and waited until she noticed that my body was bent out of shape to become a singularity. She let go and flew away on blue flames from her fingertips like she once saw Mr. Barcode produce, but this supported her whole body. When my form vanished within, I slipped out of it into a specter with a smile. So far, she wasn’t proving very creative. beast was ingenious at such things.
“FORM!” Crimmy called out again, locking me into another body right before a monstrous punch connected to my face. The form’s head was blown clean off, but in reality I only felt a shiver of having to imagine myself being decapitated. The tar pit where beast slept bubbled. If he got out, this would continue for hours. I had to end this quickly, at least for now. I wanted to help Rebecca seal Crimmy and give her a way to control that beast she made in an attempt to help me.
I formed into a body that wasn’t mine, a fitter representation of male beauty and fitness. With two motions of each arm, a sphere of light appeared in the brightening sky. A stroke of two fingers along my right arm shrank the sphere to a blazing ring. It was a chamber for Crimmy, a universe of nothing to contain her. I only needed to put this golden ring with a blazing sphere on Rebecca’s finger and she’d have control of that space. It was a mind of freedom that I was giving her, and I knew I’d regret doing so later. She was already coming in for another hit, but I opened my muscular arms to a chest with a symbol and activated the tattooed teddy bear. It was a forced bear hug, and Rebecca got caught in my strength if only for a brief moment. It was long enough, as I slipped the ring onto her finger. The flaming aura popped like a balloon back to the woman I knew.
“I’m sorry I hurt you, Rebecca,” I said, still holding her close. “This ring has a chamber you get to control. It’s the least I can do since you made Redbecca for my sake. I have to go, but we need to talk, without Crimmy in the way.” I let go and vanished from her space.
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When I came back the next morning, I headed right into the library and took up my original unhealthy form. I found the room fixed back up to the way it was before. After a few seconds, Shy dropped from the ceiling and landed right in front of me with the grace of a cat. Her skin was as gray as ever, but I knew her outside appearance contained a pleasant mind.
“Rebecca told me to let her know when you arrived,” Shy said. “And bind you.” I put my hands forward, but she shook her head. Right after, Shadowbecca threw a disc of darkness on the floor right under my feet.
“So, did you tell her?” I asked, stepping on the dark spot as black smoke coiled up from the floor to freeze my body in a solid structure. I could bust out of it anytime, but wanted to make Rebecca feel at ease.
“No, not yet,” Shy said. “I have questions.” I fake-struggled against the binds and gave up.
“Well, I’m not going anywhere,” I said. “Good job on this. Do you also have creation abilities like Rebecca or is the Shadowbecca dynamic limited to certain abilities?” Shy sat cross-legged on the desk in front of me. The book was still there. For the first time, I looked Shy over. She wore all dark clothes, but they shifted like shadows and smoke as if alive.
“Certain skills, I suppose,” she replied and focused her eyes on where I was looking with a gasp. Her hands blocked the path. “Where are you looking, Jack? Or is it beast’s fault?” I inspected the tar pit and there was in fact a hand reaching up coated heavily in tar, but he had no chance.
“Is that some sort of living shadow fabric or something?” I asked. Shy touched her forearm and pulled the shifting fabric away as if very delicate webs.
“It’s actually something more like my blood,” she said and let go as the “fabric” tightened back to her skin. “I wear it all over and it can also be used as objects and limbs. Pretty versatile, but I just wish I didn’t always have to be naked all the time.” The hand in the tar pit reached higher at the thought of Shy without the blood cover, but I dumped a bunch of new tar on top.
“That reminds me of two other beings I’ve seen,” I said. “Maybe Rebecca liked them both and modeled you after that.”
“I doubt it, from the way she treats me,” Shy said. “I’m just her shadow soldier, someone to bark orders at.”
“You’re so much more than that, Shy?” I said and realized that she had no idea I gave her that nickname.
“Shy?” she asked.
“It’s a nickname I made up for you,” I explained. “Because you were a quieter, shy representation of Rebecca. I hope I didn’t offend you.” Shy jumped to her feet and stuck out her chest.
“Offend? No,” she said. “But I’m not really shy. You just caught me by surprise last time.” With a motion over her stomach her clothes seemed to melt away until only a shadowy bikini shifted around on her gray skin. I was stunned and the hand in the tar pit appeared once more, stretching the surface up as Shy stepped forward and kissed me. I couldn’t do anything because of the binds. Our lips parted and I saw her cheeks blush again. If her clothes were blood, how could she blush? The door opened with a force and slammed the wall.
“WHAT THE HELL?” Rebecca shouted. Shy’s eyes opened wider in surprise before Rebecca pulled her toward the door and absorbed her back into her body. Once Shy was gone, I expected the bindings to drop, but they didn’t. Rebecca was clearly upset. I had to let her vent, even if she could put my darkest evils out there.
“Traitor,” She said, walking up to me.
“No, she wasn’t,” I argued. “She had questions for me, though it ended up that I asked her more than she did. Then she was all: ‘I’m not shy, here, look.’ And by that time I couldn’t move. That’s when you walked in. I swear. Plus, isn’t the fact that she did that sort of on you? You must have wanted to do something of that nature deep down.” Rebecca tightened her fist as the binds tightened around my body. I noticed she had the ring I gave her an the index finger.
“Did you get Crimmy under control?” I asked, wondering if she just wanted to torture my body a bit instead of talking. I had one last question I needed to ask before my Friday work began. “Did you read that book, my darkest corner?” Our eyes locked while she unraveled her fist to absorb the shadow bindings like smoke they were once.
“No,” Rebecca said and walked over to the desk. “Do I have to? I’m already upset as it is.”
“I would love if you never did,” I said. “But maybe you need to. I’m not perfect, Rebecca. I have demons far beyond beast. I think bad and evil thoughts, but try to keep them from you. If you do read that book, I’m sure you will lose any and all respect for the person who created you. I’m scared of that tome holding the desk level, and I love you, in whichever way you take to understand that.”
“I’m angry, Jack,” she said. “I’m upset even though Redbecca is all sealed up in the ring.”
“You didn’t let me finish before,” I said. “You only heard the negatives of creating you, but I had so many positive things to tell you. I’m running short on time, but meet me here tomorrow. I need to tell you why you’re the most wonderful mistake I ever made.”
“But tomorrow’s Saturday,” she said. “You don’t write on the weekends.”
“I do when it’s important,” I said. “And there is nothing more important than telling you how much you help. Well, besides my job and survival, but that just allows me to be here, losing my mind for a girl I made up by losing my mind.”
“You and your stupid poetry,” Rebecca said, slightly calmer. “Well? Go on.” She shooed me away with a hand. I turned and vanished from her space.
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“Hey,” I said entering the library in form. Rebecca sat on the stairs, but Shy and Bookbecca were also around. I wanted to give Bookbecca a better name, but she always had her face in a book. Shy sat on a bookshelf to my right and avoided looking toward me, while Book was at the desk in front surrounded by a mountain of books. Rebecca stood up from the stairs on my left and sat on Book’s desk. “You divided again. Is this because of me? Are you trying to be like me with this splitting of self? If you are, you should know it’s not healthy. I wish all the time that I could be one again.”
“But I can be one with the snap of my fingers,” Rebecca said, snapping her fingers as Book and Shy vanished. With another snap, they emerged again.
“I lost my place, Stupidbecca,” Book said. I had a thought to name her Pearl for a quick moment, but it passed when her arms opened to throw a book at Rebecca. She was a little immature for that character similarity.
“Behave yourself or you’re going back in,” Rebecca said and turned to me while swatting the book back into place on the desk. “You’re late, Jack. We’ve been here for hours.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “On weekends, I wake up later so I don’t need coffee. I’ve come to you at breakfast.”
“Well?” she asked. “I’m still mad. What do you have to say to me?”
“Do they have to be out?” I asked.
“I’d like to hear it from each of their ears,” she said. “I’m expecting the world from you after what you said before.” I put a finger to my chin.
“Then the world you will have,” I said and closed my eyes while transforming the library into a flying house.
Each corner lifted from the ground on a contraption that came to be in the story of Tiarto. They were pillars of opposing force, much larger than the pink float Tiarto and Sana used. Shy, Book, and Rebecca were shocked as we took off from the neighborhood. Some elements had to change for navigation purposes. I blinked as the floor and walls became integrated glass and the neighborhood came into view.
“I do my best in gestures, Rebecca, Shy, Book,” I said. “Look. You mean the world to me.” I snapped my fingers and everything vanished, all I’ve created down there plopped out to a gray-ish darkness. With a build-up of thought and another snap, a planet appeared beneath the library.
“That’s… a planet,” Book said.
“That’s a world, for you all,” I said. “A place for you to explore, exist in, conquer if you choose to. I want you to be happy within here, but I know Kara will take you away eventually. Even if I were to write you a story and kill you off, nothing could destroy all that you are. Just like Finn. I have created an eternity with you and him, and I’m afraid I’ll do it again, at risk of becoming a secret story in the void.
“The neighborhood is still there, somewhere on the surface. Around it, you will find so much more, and with all of your abilities, nothing can possibly stop you or hunt you. I’m sorry for what I’ve said before, Rebecca. Here’s a book on how to operate the house’s flight.” I tossed the book over to Tome. Her new nickname fit better.
“And with that,” I said, stepping on the trap door section of the new glass floor. “I’m out.” I pulled a rope on top of the stairs with my mind and was thrown from the flying library. The fall was fun, but I vanished before impact.
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I came back to this notebook on Monday unsure whether I wanted to. There was an idea for a short story brewing in my head, and I wished to develop it, but would Rebecca be alright on her own for a few weeks? I’d miss all the fun stuff they would encounter while exploring the planet I created, but it wasn’t mine anymore. Did I have any right to spectate her adventures? If only the shivers of arrival didn’t announce me into her mind, Rebecca’s story would be detached from my mind, and eventually would end up back in the Infinity Void as a story of the most powerful being of her world.
Oh! I’d entirely forgotten about Fyntn, James, and Finn. That’s what I needed to find out about before I could leave Rebecca to her adventures. I went into her space, and realized it wasn’t the library I arrived to. It was a smallish room made of wood with one small round window above. No matter how I tried, I could not float up through it. It was insane, as I was still without a solid form. As if it would help, I created a solid form as someone peered inside through the round hole.
“It worked!” they announced. “He’s here!”
“Alright, we can let him loose now,” a familiar voice said.
“You sure?” another voice asked. “What if he turns on us and destroys the spawn chamber?” Spawn chamber? How did Rebecca make such a thing?
“Just open it,” Rebecca said. “He’s got a few things to catch up on.” With a sound of metal scraping against metal, the small window opened and I could float out into the library ship I left for Rebecca.
“Hey,” she said with a strange look. She was dressed as half-pirate, half army operative. It looked like something a modern pirate would wear. I looked to the other voices around, but they were not who I expected them to be. It wasn’t Shy and Tome. One of them wasn’t even human, but a Trevit.
“What’s going on? How long was I gone?” I asked, and my mind poured questions out faster than I could stop it. “You went to Secear? What else did I miss? Where’s Shy and Tome? Is Crimmy still intact?”
“Whoa, Jack!” Rebecca said, holding her hands up. “You need to calm down. It’s only been two days time, and no, we didn’t go to Secear. Are you serious? I’d be crazy old after two days in there. We found Rum, short for Rutenmass, on the planet you created for me. I wanted to say thanks, but it felt like a selfish gesture on your part.” She waved her hand mockingly and snapped her fingers to imitate me. “You threw me into the deep end of the pool, Jack, with little warning. If that making of the world was how much I mean to you, than it can’t be a lot. I’m not shitting on your effort, I just mean that it took you five seconds and that planet is kinda crazy.”
“How so?” I asked and felt the Fyntn question slip out of focus as if it was being read out of my mind. “No, don’t answer that! Where is Fyntn? What happened to James and Finnelgamin? Has Kara stopped by with Barc and Danielle?” Rebecca waved a hand.
“Fyntn stole a faulty device,” she said. “He went back to steal a working one from the Rahin people. As for Kara, no, she hadn’t been back. Oh, no, you don’t. I can read you. You want to leave here now.”
“Well, I have to,” I said, “But I had an idea. Keep a journal of your adventures exploring this world I made. I think that could be your story. Here.” I poofed a journal into existence with a feeling I tasked her with something similar before. “It’s magic-coded to archive old pages into memory, so even if you fill it up with entries, it will never run out of space.” Rebecca scoffed.
“Why not just leave me a computer?” she asked. Ah. Romance of the hand-written journals was now gone. I shook the journal as it became a laptop.
“I got to split,” I said and didn’t even look around or ask about the spawn chamber before vanishing. Now outside the space, I pulled beast out of the tar pit for good behavior and put him back in his cage, with extra bindings.
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It had been a few weeks since I’ve been to this notebook. Other matters absorbed me. Timothy Carnes had a story to tell, and I was still digitizing Finn’s. All of this happened while I filled my time watching a show of ten seasons, yet episodes of eleven minutes. At the end of such a long story, I felt like just another idea in the Infinity Void, among that show’s millions. The end of a great thing often completed the fan loop. One story ends, and it becomes apparent that your story continues. So I came back to that story I left be, one woman of an idea for betterment of self, turned adventurer of selves in a world beyond the reach of that unknown void. I only returned for one thing, to let Rebecca do her thing without expecting to see me again.
I entered the library to find myself in the familiar enclosure of the spawn chamber. When the hatch opened, the scene changed to a storm, chaos of clashing swords surrounded me, and somehow fires blazed on each point of sword. Without a second wasted, someone passing by deposited a ZaP into my hands. I had a feeling it was Shy, but where did she obtain that weapon? With my knowledge of Barnaby, I clicked a sequence into the single red button that released the soul of a torodemyt to a most lively extent of three lightning eels. They flew out of the opening and into the sky. Two circled back around to wind around my arms, as the last joined them together at the back. I was unsure who I should light up with the lightning until I saw Rebecca.
She entered the scene like a pirate queen, swinging on a rope with a lance in her hand and a glowing red dagger in her teeth. She wore a cloak of shadows with a necklace of many purple gems. Beneath the cloak that was mostly trailing gray shadows, was a jumpsuit of one dull color like that one a mechanic might wear, but had a yellow circle on the back that cast a glow. Rebecca’s swing took her toward someone with a big purple sword. These men were invaders, but I was missing context. I found another guy wielding two purple daggers and let the serpents loose upon him with a loud crackle and snap. As the blue lightning eels flashed into him, they cracked into light that illuminated the space. The roof was missing from the floating library house, but the rain coming down only fell where the books were not. That had to be Tome’s doing.
This battle would not end anytime soon, but my time was limited. I had to play deity, something Rebecca could have done herself. I ditched the lightning eels into the sky and curled up to turn myself into a genie. Once I emerged, time would stop, and I’d be able to restore the library to a calm environment with the snap of my fingers. No rain fell. No swords clashed, and nobody moved. With a snap, it all came to be. The room was sorted between those wielding purple weapons and the ones who fought them back with weapons with blazing points. Only Rebecca’s eyes followed my motions. When she breathed out, I knew she overcame my power.
“Jack, what the hell?” she asked, shaking her body awake. “When did you get here?”
“Just a moment ago,” I said. “Quite a chaos you lead, Rebby.”
“It’s kinda your fault, bud,” she said and flexed her fingers to free five others from my time freeze. The structure was becoming unstable. “Shy, Tome, Arnst, Grinch, Oggy, Jack came to visit. I have a feeling he’s here to say goodbye, for good this time.”
“For good?” Shy asked, teleporting to my side to hold onto my hand. “What do you mean?”
“Yeah, Jack,” Rebecca asked with narrowed eyes. “What DO you mean? I’ve been keeping my computer journal up to date. Are you telling me that I’ve been wasting my precious time doing what you asked me to do? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Erm,” I said, as Shy glided her hand up my arm.
“You’re so plump,” she said. “Plenty to grab.” She pinched my butt and put lips to my earlobe.
“Arnst, take Crimmy from Shy, please,” Rebecca said, as the Rebecca wearing a green hoodie and sweatpants came up to slip that white orb ring from Shy’s finger. Shy in turn gasped and teleported away into the shadows from embarrassment.
“I have to go for now,” I said. “Dammit. It’s always like this. I need to talk, but I’m under a time limit.”
“Your own rules, dummy,” Rebecca said. “Well, go, damnit, before I change my mind. Find time again to tell me how you’re abandoning us.” I felt sorry, but didn’t say it as I vanished from the time-frozen library.
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