A Self-Study Within A Broken Mind

I had not been back to the library in close to a month. Even before, I saw happiness and left them to it. I did not want to interrupt Kara’s happiness, nor that of Lila and Tarne. Yet I sat at the little device again, continuously broken by stresses of everyday life, living in a temporary location that I could not call a home, and working in a toxic environment. I needed a change, or a chance for something else. The strings that held my life together in the metal metropolis were tearing apart. I had to escape before I fell apart. I appeared within the library in silence, only looking up toward the golden arched ceiling. I did not look around or move for a while. The golden paintings of godlike figures shifted around to depict a miniature story. There was a woman clothed in a billowy golden dress running through a barren wood. On her heel, two lions pulled a cart with a mustached man holding a whip. She took refuge in a golden hut by a blue lake, in the small patch of forest green, whit...

I came back a few days later, in the middle of the week. I just wanted to check in on Kara and Lila to be a part of something that was without issues seeing as my life was only spiraling. I arrived at the large room to find Tarne sitting on the couch in silence. “Hey,” I said. She looked over, frowned, and turned away. “You ok?” “They’re at it again,” she said. I worried that she meant they were having relationship issues, but a soft moan entered my ears from upstairs. I looked at Tarne, who was red in the face embarrassed. “Can you make them stop?” “It’s a natural thing,” I explained. “But it would be hard to understand at your age. Give it some time, you’ll understand.” “And then it wont bother me anymore?” “Well, then it will bother you more,” I said. “But you’ll understand and look for something similar with someone.” “Who?” “Good question,” I said. “Probably someone you haven’t met yet. Once you leave this place, you will meet countless people, and some will be fun to be around. A...

I returned at lunch, a bit late by my own fault. Fyntn was right beside me this time as I entered the library on the second floor. The room was silent, except for the portal created in the air oscillating gently with the sound of continuous and slow tearing of paper. We walked through it together, the slightly red edge oscillating open to fit us as we passed through. It shrank as soon as we were through. Beyond was another portal that led to Kara’s mind, just like before, but this one’s edge was white-out green, and no sound was coming from it. “Here goes something,” I said. “Nothing,” Fyntn said. “That’s the expression, but I’m going to try something.” “Good.” I stepped through into darkness that lasted a few seconds before a bright light impacted my body, tearing at my plot armor. The green shreds tore into the fading light, as I reached for them. I clung to the last of the green shimmering cloth while floating naked in the darkness. I pushed my creationism to force the cloth back to...

I came back at lunch time, getting lost in the written pages from before, this time centralizing upon the time Lila told me about who she really was. Thirty minutes passed without my notice of just reading back what I noted down before. It was shortly after I tried to erase my connection to the box left behind by Rebecca, becoming a baby that Lila had to care for. It was likely before Kara showed up again, before Fyntn, and before Tarne was exposed as Akier. While being much more annoying back then, it was much simpler than having to convince someone to erase a memory from their mind. I stepped into the room where the three lay sleeping. Rather than ask for Fyntn to stop by again, I picked up the Keir from the floor and called forth the AI James Denizen. He appeared out of a gray shimmer, gaining color by the second until he looked solid. When I passed my hand through him, he phased out to the colors and a ghost-like figure underneath at the entrance point. “Hey, James,” I said. “Kara ...

Past the Thanksgiving weekend, I sat once more at the device with an idea derived from six hours of waiting for someone to open the door to where I lived. It was a three-step plan for dealing with Kara. I hoped the third step would not be necessary. If the first step worked, I would not need the rest. It was more of a one step plan with two contingencies in case of failure. It was a real if-then-if-then-if-then scenario, with the last “then” drawing a blank. In programming, that would error out, but here it was the last line of defense, the third “if” being the exterminating final bullet to the problem Kara presented. I entered the library almost confident. I would be throwing emotions I had to field from Tarne back at Kara. I was interested in seeing how she felt after getting comfortable with the kid. It broke my heart. Maybe it could melt the ice around Kara’s wounded one. All she could see now was anger for what happened to James at the hands of someone very much gone. When I got u...

For fear of my words getting lost to the current status of my habitation, I employed my old way of writing, by means of storage USB with all my past stories, and those who would one day come to be. I had to delve into one of their minds tonight. Tarne could not be set aside any longer. I stepped into the library expecting another giant contraption of orange tracks, only to find Tarne playing by herself with JJ nowhere in sight. She was skipping on the wooden floor of many different hues, trying to only land on the lightest ones. “Hey,” I said, making her land on one foot, and tumble over to the couch. “Sorry. Where’s JJ?” “He didn’t want to play with me anymore,” Tarne said. “He’s very childish.” I smiled. “He is a child, Tea.” “I’m a child, TOO,” she continued. “But he’s a really petty little brat. We played his game for a bit, with a bunch of action elements. When he got tired, I made us some snacks and drinks, and asked if I can choose the next game. At first he was ok with it, but ...

I came back a week or so later. My time was spent writing other things, from Voltra to Anton and Moira . They were stories for a younger generation, each weaving problems of future strife they had to overcome without notice. I stepped into the library in physical form. It was nice to be here where heat was not. My reality was experiencing those last few days of summer heat before the burst into the fall season. Sleep in 100% humidity at 80 degrees Fahrenheit was a struggle, but it was all at an end. Before long, rains would proliferate the sky day and night. The library was empty, as it often was. The space was big, and the people who sometimes occupied it were few. When Rebecca divided herself into ten separate versions of herself, it felt lively in the library. Not to mention that the library was actually a flying vessel back then. I could still put the building into that mode, but I feared creating another world populated with the things I gathered from the ivy. That thinking almos...

All my touting of trust over Moredo, and I had not been back in months. I was afraid of what I would find. If I trusted Fyntn, I would have gone back the next day. Meanwhile, I entertained myself with a story of a girl in a world ruined by the past, dreaming. I came back the morning of a Wednesday, after being woken up at five in the morning by someone calling out my name. It had to be a dream, someone from the library I left behind. I could not foretell what to expect now, but I would most definitely not be in female form. I just hoped Tarne was back to her previous self. I stepped into the untethered space, or my tether of reality core to the library. It looked just like when I left it, except for the darkness beyond the windows again. I partially missed the gray. The library itself was empty, almost heartrendingly so. What if, in my time away, the Rahin actually came for Lila and Tarne? “Hello?” I called out, realizing my voice was male. I created a full body mirror right away and f...