Chapter 47 - No Longer Tarne
I did not come back over the weekend. Places I could go over the weekend to write were still closed for sitting inside to mooch off air conditioning, but the heat was getting up there as the Fourth of July weekend approached. Time spent at home was suffered through staying still watching old shows, new shows, and movies on my computer. It was almost like that one movie, “A Quiet Place”, but it was about keeping motionless while bombarded with wind from a fan.
I entered the library to find Tarne no longer bound. Instead she was sitting with Lila and Kara on the couch, almost waiting for me. The second I became visible, Lila jumped to her feet and came up angrily. I half-expected her to hit me, but she stopped right in front of my face.
“Hey?” I said. “What’s wrong?” The probably found Tarne bound like I left her. Bookshelves were a bad idea. I should have closed her in the room below.
“Oh, you know what you did,” Lila said. “Or— was it not you?” Lila’s face softened for a moment, exploring the possibility of being wrong. I grimaced and looked down.
“No, it was me,” I said. “I locked Tarne up in the bookshelves.” Bookshelves though, really? I questioned my logic behind it. Did I think they would be distracted by reading not to hear the knocking on wood from inside the hidden cage? Even a simpleton would seek help in that situation.
“Why?” Kara asked, coming up. She was more cautious than angry. I had control over this space.
“I found something out,” I said, realizing I did not want to tell them. Even if I said nothing, I would always be cold to the simpleton Tarne. They would know something was wrong. “Something bad. Like, really bad.” Lila and Kara stood side by side.
“Say it, we’ll face it together,” Lila said. I met her eyes, and grimaced. How could I tell her that her child, the being that I was when she saved me, was an evil guy past his untethering that got a second chance to cause chaos? I could not do that. I had to lie. When I looked up again, Kara had two fingers out pointed in front of my face. She stabbed them though the center of my chest and dug between ribs to find a particular blood vessel connected to my heart.
“So you don’t lie,” she said. “I just had a feeling you would. If you do lie, I’ll feel it.” I sighed.
“Trust me,” I said. “It’s better not to know. I wish I could go back to before I knew, but it would just cause a greater upset at a later time.”
“Just say it, Jack,” Lila said. “Is it about the Rahin? Are they going to kill Tarne? If that’s it, I’m not letting it happen. I’ll fight them in their stupid Infinity Void if I have to. A mother’s love is the greatest power in existence. Nothing you say could change that.” I felt a tightening in my chest, and Kara felt it, too.
“It’s… sadness,” she said. “Why are you sad, Jack?”
“Because—“
“—Because I’m Akier Vilamones Moredo,” Tarne said from the couch. Lila looked back for a moment, then searched for my eyes, but I dodged them before we could make contact. Kara’s fingers withdrew from my chest. Without a second thought, she drew out some sort of weapon and fired in Tarne’s direction. I intervened to teleport Tarne out of the way.
“KARA!” Lila shouted.
“IT’S HIM!” Kara shouted back, motioning her energy gun in the direction of the couch with a disintegrated hole through it. “You want me to hold back against HIM?!”
“We don’t know that it’s him!” Lila fired back, striking the weapon out of Kara’s hand. “This could just be Jack being an absolute asshole.” She looked at me again, this time meeting my eyes. “Please?” I wanted to lie. I wanted to tell her that everything would be fine. I wanted to console her that her daughter was just her daughter, the child she grew inside her that once was me. My look said it all, wordless, frozen on a thought.
“No…” she sighed out, tears streaming out where I never wanted to see tears. This hurt her far more than billions of years confined here alone. This was like giving her hope, right before tearing it all down. I felt angry at myself, disappointed. I sighed, and melted through the wood to exit the untethered space.
break
I came back the next day, hesitant about going into the library. When I mustered the courage to face them, it was just Tarne on the couch. I had a feeling that Lila and Kara would want to keep their distance from her now, even though Akier was suppressed within her thanks to the bramble of purple light beneath her scalp. She was reading a book, and I curiously drifted over out of phase to see what it was without her noticing. I laid myself down in the air, and hovered over. The book in her hand was that of Atroano Zisi, the Wordsmith.
“Hey, Jack,” Tarne said, making me drop out of phase to the floor of the library. “That’s a cheap trick. Do you use it to watch Kara and Lila when they have sex or bathe?”
“No,” I replied. “I use it when I want to observe.”
“Observe and jerk off, you mean,” Tarne said. Her eyes met mine. I could see a glint of malice in them, but it was mostly suppressed. “Wanna have sex?” I was taken aback.
“What?”
“Sex,” she said. “Though I guess one of us would have to wear a penis or strap-on. It’s about the only fun thing this place even allows. There is no pain, no sweat, no injuries. Basically nothing fun. Do you have a thing for violence without consequences? We could go that route. I’m up for anything at this point.” I stood up from the ground.
“I’m not having sex with Akier Vil Moredo,” I said.
“Then just have sex with Tarne,” she said, or he said. I was not sure what I should call her anymore.
“But you’ll always be you,” I argued.
“I took this form because it was empty,” he said. “Who’d have known my mental acuity would be suppressed by the childish brain. It’s a wonder this technique isn’t used more often. It’s also very dangerous for people like me. I nearly forgot I was even Akier Vil Moredo when I got older thanks to that flower. Suddenly, all I cared about was getting off, and seeing as I was a guy before, this was interesting. I’d say that’s why you’re a woman here, too. It’s interesting, isn’t it?”
“I didn’t want to be a woman because it was interesting,” I said. “I wanted to be the person I’ve suppressed in my head because of the way the world is right now.”
“But it’s interesting, isn’t it?” He asked, then glided a hand on his stomach down to the crotch. “So surface, so seeking. It’s literally an opening that wants something inside. Just thinking about it is getting me wet.” I watched as he played with himself. His expression changed between enjoyment and cynicism.
“Stop,” I said.
“So you say,” Tarne said. “But you‘re wet now, too. Isn’t that right?”
I put a hand to my crotch to find moisture, activated by watching Tarne play with herself. I grimaced before exiting. There was a big part of him still left after the mind-numbing. The reduction was supposed to suppress him entirely, but it did not seem to work. I did not know what to do with him now.
break
I came back the next day, hesitant. I had not slept much that night as a heatwave melted the city even overnight. Clinging to my two fans instead of an air conditioner was a sweat and a half that baked the mind. This resulted in going to sleep at two in the morning, leaving little time to stop by the library. I had just twenty minutes until the start of work, even if fueled by a quad shot latte. It left very little time for talking, less for figuring things out.
I entered the library through the room below, then floated through the ceiling rather than remake the broken ladder. I was still in my desired female form, however it could stand to be a bit more petite. While I was female, there was an aspect of brawn to it that I also found quite attractive. It felt like I wanted to be the petite, but wanted a brawny tomboyish significant other. It felt good to be yourself, no matter what. It was a shame I would never be able to be like this in my reality.
With a motion and a focused fist clench, my body shrunk down to a smaller version of myself in female form. This was, after all, the only place I could be who I wanted to be. Even trying to exist as anything other than what I was born as, would be met with hate and disgust. That was the world I lived in, and this was the escape of the mind that was purely for myself, not written down for anyone else. I hoped others in this pride month of June had this kind of world of their own where everything was the way they wanted it to be.
“Hello?” I asked the empty library. There was no distant noise, nothing to indicate there was anyone nearby. Maybe it was best to leave it be. Only ten minutes remained.
“Hey, Jack,” a voice took me by surprise. It was Fyntn, peeking out from inside a portal cut in the air. “Is he gone?”
“Who?”
“Akier,” he replied, then shifted his head around to look.
“You knew, didn’t you?” I asked. Fyntn’s eyes lowered to the floor.
“As long as HE didn’t know, it was fine,” the Goni said. “Now that he knows, it’s dangerous for me to be here. You think the Rahin will hesitate to destroy this place if they know he’s the person we were supposed to reset? The Nth Goni were handed his chaos after the Rahin digested him. He was just a void leech, and he was supposed to find something in the virgin existence to latch onto, but you being here really put a wrench into that. And so, Tarne.”
“I’m sorry about that, by the way,” I said. “I wanted to be this so bad that I endangered everything else, even my own life. I’ll fix this… somehow.”
“For now, I’m hiding,” Fyntn said. “But I’m always here, so call for me when you need something.”
“Ok.” I clenched a fist to wind myself into a minuscule black hole within to exit.
Comments
Post a Comment