Chapter 29 - No Longer Myself
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 his hands to catch me out of the air. I did a flip to avoid them, and melted them with a slight bit of creationism. Kara had something that looked like a weapon pointed at me.
“Hold him steady, damnit,” she called out. “Fyntn said we have one shot at it.”
I yanked the weapon from her hands before she could pull the trigger, and held her in place, but she managed to wriggle out of my weak control. The limits of Tarne were obvious.
#What is this?# I asked, holding the weapon pointed at Kara, then at Barc.
“Calm down, damnit!” Kara said. “We’re not trying to hurt you. It’s just a device Fyntn made to separate you out from Tarne. You will become two separate entities. That’s it.”
“Listen to her, Jack!” Lila called out. “You aren’t the source of my unrest!”
#I am. I know I am.# I said, feeling too exasperated. Something was wrong in my head. I felt something slowly breaking.
“It’s time to bring you back,” Kara said.
#I don’t want to,# I thought into the room. #I want to be Tarne. I want a new start in life, something with Lila.#
“Do it, Barc!” Kara shouted over. I felt his hand close me in the hovering cage of metal fingers I thought I melted, right before a burst of light emanated from his direction. It was blinding, and I felt tired, sleepy. It was early, but I felt the lull. I did not want to be my own mess again. I did not want… I saw nothing.
There was no library, no Kara, Lila, or Barc around. I was not Tarne, but I was not myself. The surroundings were blurry and white-washed. Sleep was taking me, but I saw one last bit before I left it alone, a child of Tarne’s age crawling in the distance of the white background. I felt cold, even though the environment was happy and pleasant. I wanted to be in Lila’s embrace again, comforted by her warmth, held in her arms, gently rocking to sleep. I left, hoping I just dreamt this.
break
A few days later, I knew it was no dream. The tearing in the corners of my vision subsided. I felt disconnected from Tarne, and decided to see if I was still connected to the untethered space at all. I entered the mental space that connected me to it, expecting something different, but the library was just the same. I was no longer waking up as Tarne, instead floating incorporeal and invisible like before. There was nobody in the library, but with a quick scan I knew both Lila and Kara were upstairs, in bed with Tarne.
I floated over, a ghost of my former self. It was only fair to Tarne that she had her own life now, but I worried what it meant for me. They looked so peaceful sleeping around the baby. Lila’s left hand was interlaced with Kara’s right, while the alternates rested underneath each of their heads. The scene was too perfect to interrupt, and I was not up to seeing Lila again as myself, or a form like it.
Instead, I floated up through the ceiling to the attic that was still converted to a dancing hall, and created myself a body that was nothing like mine. It was who I felt like, who I wanted to be… who I would never be in reality. My legs were slender, and arms were petite, akin to my figure. I had no hourglass shape, just a semblance of one, suggesting a feminine frame. My hair was cut short, and my motions were free. I was a butterfly imagined negatif to the bear of reality.
With the motion of my hand, music played in the room. It was just a peppy tune, but my body moved as if on its own. Where each step would stomp in reality, here I glided across the floor as if on ice skates. The freedom of motion in my spine, and my joints, was that of vibrant youth. Reality had me locked down, impaired, but here I was a small woman clad in magenta, dancing across the floor with freedom I could only dream of.
It did not take long until I felt tears at my eyes, not in reality. I was used to disappointment in life, the struggle and pain that never ceased. I knew I had to suffer to live, dream into the future for things I could yet accomplish. I was overcome with ideas I gathered prior, swarming around me among the music while my body kept moving. Without a pause, I brought a glider into being. It was a hawk class model, crafted as the Goldilocks of gliders for speed and ability.
I flew up to the ceiling of the attic, weaving through the spaces between the wooden beams in compacted form. When I cleared my flight into an open space, the wings expanded to glide again and I swapped positions to the top of the glider, standing with wings at my feet controlling tilt and turn. As the glider lost propulsion, I felt the drag take me back down, but tilted to keep catching wind enough to slow myself down enough to avoid a crash.
“It’s not so,” I said, realizing my voice was different. With that admission, the petite body I occupied expanded. I could feel the aches and pains of my real form. The weight of it alone was enough to stop the music. I disrobed in an instant, sending a magenta specter floating weightless into the air. When I finished changing to my reality, all two meters of height and the corresponding mass was captured in a groan of wood underfoot. “I guess so.” I noticed my voice differed, sighing as the lights of the dancing studio faded to darkness again. With that, I decided to leave, feeling sleepy after another session of snow shoveling outside.
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