A Self-Study Within A Broken Mind

I came back two days later, following a read of a philosophical part of the text before. It was scary when Lila sounded smarter and made more sense than me. It made me believe that this was actually happening. I entered the library to find Kara and Lila already waiting for me. They were likely sitting there just waiting for a good hour, since I was not sure at what time I started. “Hey,” I said, with a wave of a hand. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here yesterday. It’s honestly weird saying ‘yesterday’ since you don’t really keep track of my time. I mean, there is a clock downstairs in the room, but nothing here works on my reality’s time.” I paused, shifting between the two of them. They were not moving, not even to blink. It felt like— “See, I told you it would fool him,” a voice spoke from above. I looked up to find Lila, Kara, and Tarne suspended in rainbow-looking bubbles. There were two more beings in the air, but they were standing on air. “You have poor timing.” “Fyntn?” I asked. “The thi...

I returned next week, having forgotten about whether I talked to Lila or not. The routine of the week absorbed me entirely, and the relaxation of the weekend took the wind out of me. I was back at the start of work on a Monday, before I had things to do. It was not a lot of time, but I still wanted to talk to Lila. I entered the library to a cacophony of voices arguing. It was a strange change of pace to the silence. I was unsure whether this was better, but it sure made me curious as I ascended the spiral staircase out of the old spawn chamber. The people arguing were Kara and a slew of people I had not seen before. They wore all black clothing. Nothing of their ensemble stood out in the light with a brighter hue. Neither Tarne nor Lila were anywhere to be seen, and I was glad of this. “It’s NOT a violation of the rules!” Kara argued. “He didn’t steal her! The Kier put her here, to be a prisoner!” Her hands flailed about to express the anger on her face. “It is a violation in a way th...

It had been months since I had been back. There was no reason to bother them. I wished Kara, Tarne, and Lila all the best. Although on bad days, I had come to dislike the way things ended up. It was not to the point of screwing things up for them. It would not change anything. Kara would just whisk them away to some other world to live peacefully together. I was the big bad in the story. It was ridiculous. Lila was the AI of an abused little girl who went on to destroy her world and universe in the pursuit of all those offenders, and yet somehow I was the one who ended up seeking unreasonable things. When Finn was here… When Rebecca was here… I let those thoughts drift back to destruction of the laptop filled with memories of her, only realizing now that all the stories Lila wrote out were in there as well. I did not know how I could get back to that feeling, the happiness of letting go. My heart cried out for her to be here again, to the point of hanging out in the wooden box in the d...

Weeks later, away from Lila and the untethered space, I felt distant. It started with editing, hopeful of the brutal story of death thanks to a suffering writer, but that idea relied on the deaths of characters. Soon enough into writing, I started thinking just how much I did not want them to die, and while some could enjoy the struggle, many would not enjoy this endless killing of the main characters in various strange circumstances. It was an idea, like many which lived in the void, sourced exactly there for both the portraits and the stories Harry wrote. After that drive to edit and complete that dark story faded, I disappeared into work unrelated to writing. I was not sure how many days had passed since I left the three of them, but I missed their happiness. I wanted to recharge. I entered the untethered space through the little room below the library again, creating a spiral staircase near the windows connecting the two. While I could just float up and through the divide, I decide...

I came back a few days later. I forgot to come back to draw Kara the next day. How did one draw someone who has been a hero all her life past her prime? I did not intend to mean it disparagingly. I have always seen Kara as the badass girl who jumped between worlds to heal them. She even worked with the creatures that fed on the chaos she prevented. In that way, she tamed them, turned them into a different sort of being. When I saw her now, in love with Lila, and happy even, I was speechless in terms of picturing her. There was one scene I wanted to draw of her. It was back when both Lila and Kara were in bed, Tarne between them in a lovely symmetry. I kept it in my head, but that was not the standard Kara moment. The classic for her was stirring up trouble for a good cause. I always saw her amidst a battle, both elated and focused. My drawing could not capture that yet. I entered the library in my form, but found it empty. With a check upstairs and the garden, I proceeded to the attic ...

I came back the next day to check in with them, maybe give drawing Lila another try. I wished for their happiness above all, and my presence could only cause some sort of trouble. It would not be long before Kara took Lila and Tarne away from this place, but I dreaded that moment. Back when Lila was just a prisoner to the denizens of the Infinity Void, her presence was assured for years to come. I actually thought I would watch Tarne grow, or grow up as Lila’s daughter over years she would remain in untethered space. That felt distant now. When I entered the library, Lila sat on the stairs to the second floor alone. She looked like she was waiting for someone. I almost expected to find Lila and Kara in bed, enjoying their relationship, but Kara was nowhere to be seen, and neither was Tarne. “Hey, Lila,” I said, walking up to her. She did not look up to meet my eyes. “I’m glad Kara told you how she felt.” “I’m glad, too,” she said. I wanted to ask her why she looked so sad if that was t...

I had not returned in weeks. Why bother? Kara and Lila were happy with Tarne. I was the third wheel, fourth now. I was back for a specific reason, but had a feeling I would not be able to complete my goal. For the sake of remembering Lila, I wanted to draw her. I had been drawing things, since I did not know anyone who could help me illustrate things in my writing. I would have to be able to put my ideas on paper myself, in more than just description. I still sucked at describing things. My mind sourced my words on things I have seen, which differed person to person. To appeal to mass populace, writers often used long-winded descriptions based on common life objects that anyone with an ounce of imagination could picture. I just could not patchwork it all to make sense, but drawing would help me with that. When I arrived at the space created from the remnant of Rebecca’s domain, I found the library empty. The upstairs and the attic were equally still. I even knocked at the door to the b...

Again, I am weak to connections I have made. I have been seeing something, just in the corner of my eye, the peripherals of vision in my reality. It was something of a blip or something distant, a tear in the reality. It had to be her, or Kara, or Fyntn, or Barc. All I knew was that I could not have it appear to me. So I was at the device again, ready to fight the interference in my reality with what little creationism I could muster. “He’s back,” Kara’s voice near me said. She was holding me in her arms, the child I was. With a wave of my hand, I floated away from her and into the air of the library. “Shit! Hold him down!” “Jack?” Lila’s voice asked, flying up next to me. I blinked to put her into a bubble of air, which she popped due to still having a sort of creationism herself. “We’re trying to help you!” Before I knew it, the metal circlet was on my head again, thoughts revealed. #I can’t be here,# I thought. #Why am I back here again?# “Relax,” Mr. Barcode soothed, while flying h...

Days following the appearance of Barc with Kara, I returned to the writing device, but not into the untethered space. I hesitated here, outside the place of beginnings, the raw material for everything, where those of such heavy inner turmoil went to become something else entirely. I said that my creationism network could help those void leeches incorporate back into the end result of everything, the pools of information that I knew the Infinity Void to be, but now I hesitated. It sounded like the mystery of Mr. Barcode’s task, a great undertaking. Even if I would somehow be able to become my own, dissociated from Tarne, could I commit to something like that? There could not be many of these leeches. They were rare beings of indigestible chaos, the cruxes of unnerved time. I had to wonder if Akier Vil Moredo was one such being, and if Kara ever silenced his meddling. Perhaps I had to ask. Whether she told me the truth was another matter. I was at their mercy, weakened even though within...