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...

The giant skeleton of a bear drew her attention first. The bone seemed fused to stone, merged with time and gravity. Due to the grayish color of both surfaces, there was little to tell them apart from far away, but the rock in the form of a bear skull was a dead giveaway. She giggled in the cold air. The winter winds have descended already, but she was ready with an item to keep her warm. A glowing orange stone on a gold chain around her neck produced radiating heat around her. The skeleton sat against a cliff facing the sea. There was no indication how it died, but looked peaceful gazing into the distance with empty eye sockets. There had to be a reason who this giant corpse ended up here, but the girl was more excited the finally find it to speculate. There was no easy way to approach the giant structure. The ribcage twisted up with time forming a makeshift staircase up the cliff. Upon closer inspection, the bones and rocks were both chiseled out. Someone would be upset when their h...