Chapter 6 - Don't Die
I have been reluctant to come back for obvious reasons. Lila wanted me to talk about myself, give a recount of my life so far, however little of it was lived. I feared it. Much like with letting Finnelgamin know all the things in my head and be vocal about it, and letting Rebecca in to know me as I was in my reality, this was another instance of keeping things secret from someone I… No. I did not create her. I created the world that was connected to that spawn chamber. Lila was there already, put there from her world. I was still curious about the details. Maybe I could distract her with questions about her life instead.
“Hey, Lila,” I said, at the top stair of the spiral opening to the bottom room. She was on the couch in the library, sitting in reverse. Her legs were slung over the top of the backrest, while her head hung upside down where the legs would bend at the knees. Her hands stretched out to the ceiling of the library. It took me a minute to realize what she was doing. Her eyes did not see me because something covered her vision. “Lila?”
“Oh,” she replied, clapped her hands together, and slipped to the floor as if she had no bones in her body. “Hey, Jack. Are you ready to tell me your story?”
“What was that you were doing?”
“Well, just some virtual reality developed later in the Garavand world,” she replied. “It cuts out all light, while feeding only signal lights that create a world inside your head that you can move around in. The hands have controls so that you don’t actually have to make full motions to get around.”
“I guess the time skip jumped ahead a lot,” I replied, thinking of Remy.
“Not the one in the first book,” Lila said. “Oh, right, you haven’t read them yet. Well, I won’t spoil it for you. So, can you create something comfortable for us to sit at while I record your story like I recorded your ideas?”
“You know my story isn’t over,” I said.
“I do only want to know you up until now, Jack,” she countered. “Once we get close to just rewriting this story, we can stop. So, are you ready?”
“I’m hesitant,” I said.
“I know, I know. You’re afraid. Of course you are. I’d be afraid too if I had to bear my story and life to some unknown audience, but just imagine you’re only showing it to me.”
“What about your life?”
“Huh?”
“I mean, I’d like to know more about you,” I said. “Before we get into my past.”
“That’s unfair,” Lila protested, throwing herself onto the sofa with arms crossed. The bounce righted her with arms on the cushions. “You already agreed to go first. I don’t mind though. If you want to know more about me, we can do that first. And I don’t mind your little audience either. Ask me anything.”
“Ok, well,” I said, popping a sofa chair into existence just as I sat down in it. I had been looking for a comfortable seat that I could buy, and this particular chair was the most amazing shade of green. I wanted to buy it, but the price tag of nearly three-hundred dollars was upsetting. It was also quite big, and thus not great for my room. Nonetheless, I needed to find something. Quarantine allowed me to lay down a lot, which tended to hurt my back if I remained in any one of the standard positions too long. “I would like to know if you’re a child in your reality, a grownup, or something in between.”
“Right,” Lila said. “Let me counter that with, why do you care?”
“I care because some of my writing is of adult nature, and you can’t know about it if you’re just a child, at least in my reality.”
“Didn’t I tell you already that in my world kids can know all the knowledge they want to?”
“I kinda remember something like that.”
“Even if I am a child, don’t hold anything away because of what your stupid world believes,” Lila said. “Otherwise, what would be the point of this space. I’m young, Jack, but I know how people in my world copulate and create new beings. I watched the birth of my brother, too. Don’t categorize me by your standards.”
“So you are a kid, right?”
“Yes,” she replied. “But I don’t like to be treated like one.”
“Well, let’s see if you can handle this then,” I said, standing up from the green sofa chair. “I’m going to transfer some knowledge to your mind with a FRisk. It’s a device for quick learning from a world I haven’t told you about yet.” #For fear of you meeting Kara,# I wanted to say, but refrained.
“Oh, we have something like this,” Lila said, “Do you stick an electrode up the nose and into the brain?” I grimaced at the thought.
“No,” I said, shuddered in my reality, and produced two soap-shaped devices. “Here, put one up to your temple. Your brain is in your head, right?”
“Yeah, where else would it be?”
“Trust me, you don’t want to know,” I said. “I wear the signal, you wear the receiver. Ready?” Lila picked up the small device and placed it to the left side of her head. If this would not traumatize her, she could handle the more sexual stories. I would just place knowledge of human sexuality and interactions, mixed with a bit of explicit content I had kept in my mind as educational quality. I put the signal node to my skin, and loaded the knowledge into the module.
“Ok, ready?”
“Hit me.”
I activated the packet of knowledge connected to my head as it beamed into the receiver on her head. There was nothing visible between us, and the whole exchange lasted less than five seconds, but I could see Lila’s expression change from bravery, to a grimace, to a cringe that held on her face until I removed the FRisk from her head.
“Are you ok?” I asked, studying the twisted face.
“Bleh, your kind is kinda gross,” she said. “There is like no refinement to the act at all. It’s all just bodies mashing against bodies, exchanging fluids, heating up, and throbbing.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty gross from an outside perspective,” I said. “I’d say we’re like these sacs of flesh that share genetic material and create new sacs of flesh inside ourselves. Even though being a part of it has perks.”
“Yeah, I know,” she said. “It’s like a really great feeling to share that with another of your kind. My kind has it too, but… I don’t know. It’s just so much messier for you guys.” I was curious how they replicated, but was reluctant to ask. Being young sometimes had a warped way of thinking. Maybe to her thinking the act her kind performed was refined, but to me it would be ten times worse than what humans do.
“An orgasm,” Lila said, making me cringe hearing her say it. “We call that ‘the point’.” I put up my hands in refrain.
“Please don’t start explaining your kind’s thing right now,” I said. “I just wanted you to know the human reproduction cycle.”
“You’re kinda acting like you’ve never experienced that yourself,” she said.
“Well, I haven’t,” I said. “Have you had sex, or whatever you call it, with another of your kind?”
“Well, no,” she said. “Does that matter?”
“No, not to someone your age,” I said. “For me, it’s kinda weird. People who haven’t had sex with another human beings are called ‘virgins’ and made fun of most of the time. It gets to such a degree, that it’s stressful to bring it up.”
“I’ve done the solo thing,” Lila said. “It’s harder to do than humans have it, but yeah, my society doesn’t have anything about ridiculing people who haven’t interacted with someone on that level. It’s something you either do, or you don’t do. Many people just die without interacting with another. Oh, that contraception thing. We don’t have that. Though it does sound like a cool concept.”
“You don’t have prevention of creating new life?” I asked, a bit surprised.
“Nope,” Lila said. “If you don’t want to create life, you just don’t have sex, or go solo if you get addicted to the point.”
“Yeah, it’s more of an addiction to explicit nature in an ashamed society,” I said. “We're taught to feel shame from a young age, so that when we see explicit things like the few bits I threw into the material, the drive to reproduce is activated.”
“It’s all kinda gross, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it is,” I said. “The thing with me not interacting with anyone in this manner is also psychological. You’ll see more about it when I tell you my story. It’s rooted in loose interactions, which are stressful.”
“Isn’t life full of stresses?”
“Yeah,” I replied. “Yours too, huh?”
“No, I mean, life is secured on stress,” Lila said. “It’s like stress is the thing holding life together. If you were never stressed, you don’t get better. You have to force yourself to go further, to GET further. Stress is a trainer for life. So what you’re saying is that you’ve wanted to die for a long time now.” I paused typing for a moment to reflect when I considered stress to be too much. It had to be in high school. My body matured, but my mind was still childish. I wanted the act of pleasurable release, but how would a child instigate that? The buildup required sly maneuvering and teasing, the mating ritual of flirting that enticed others to you. The mind of a child was not that smooth.
“I… Yeah…” I said, out of it. The stress of interacting with other people built up in my head until it was a roaring scream. I remember the times I could hear it. It was so loud, but plugging my ears did nothing to stop it. I went through that part of my life trying to quiet beast that was slowly bundling up inside my brain. I was stuck in the mind of a child, letting others pass me by, grow up, and interact with others on a deeper level. I had to wonder when I started to feel that depression. When was that roaring scream in my head too much to bear? I made a feeble connection with people looking for something more from me. I could see it in their eyes when I looked back in time.
I ignored what I could not understand back then. I started to understand it late, but everyone already felt so distant, so I turned back. I remained as I was, because it felt safe. I think I have wanted to die before I even left high school. In my family life, I put on a mask, hiding the fact that I did not fit in with the people around me. I wanted to reach out to others, ask if they wanted something more, but that was not how it was done. I had no muscle to be sly, to flirt. I could not compliment someone’s appearance just because I wanted something more from them. In my childish mind, that was a lie. Slowly, but surely, beast was building in my head, the restrained passion of youth I bypassed, coupled with anger at still being alive.
“Jack?” Lila asked. “Are you ok?”
“I... what?” I asked, shaking myself back from a trance. “I’m sorry. That sent me spiraling into my past.”
“I’m sorry, Jack,” she said. “I didn’t mean to attack you. Stress is important in my world. It’s like something that pushes you forward. It might be different in your world.”
“Stress is like a sickness where I exist,” I explained. “It’s a driving force of fear and anxiety. It creates as many problems as it solves. If you’re under stress, you can handle working with other people, but it also sours your stomach. It makes you feel ill, worthless, and sometimes stress even drives people to take their own lives.”
“That’s horrible!” Lila said. “I’m sorry, Jack. I don’t want you to die. Don’t die.”
“I think I’ve wanted to die for a long time now,” I said, prompting Lila to hug me tight. “It’s ok now. I have a system in place that prevents me from dying. I created it to keep myself alive, then Rebecca arrived thanks to it and now I kinda live for her, wherever she might be.”
“Live for me,” Lila said. “Live for me, Jack. Don’t get stressed out to death. Don’t leave me alone.”
“By my calculations, you will be with me for ten years,” I said. “It just so happens that is when I overheard that I’d be dying. So don’t worry, I think you will be back to your world before I die.”
“NO!” Lila shouted, then hit my back with her fists. “Even after I’m gone! I’m not going to let you die even after that! You’ll have a different life in ten years, you’ll see! You will be happy and have a family around you, friends to support you, and me!” Lila pushed off from me, spinning me around to look me in the eyes.
“I sure hope so, Lils,” I said, with tears welling in both my reality and in the untethered space. “Because if I don’t, I will truly have nothing to live for.”
“DON’T SAY THAT!” Lila shouted. “STOP IT!”
“You’re right, I’m sorry,” I said. “It just hurts to think that I’d be the same person in ten years. I won’t let it happen. I have a goal in mind. I want to live in Ireland. I want to stand in the rain by a cliff and know that I can sit by the fire in my house at any point. I want someone to hold me when I’m there, someone that knows me, and loves me. Someone I can have a deeper connection with.”
“You will, Jack,” Lila said. Bringing tears to her eyes was never my intention, but there they were. “And I’ll help you get there. Somehow.”
“Thank you, Lila,” I said. “I should get some sleep for now. It’s the middle of the night.”
“Don’t die, Jack,” Lila said again. “Come back to me when you can.”
“I will,” I said, vanishing from her embrace
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