A Self-Study Within A Broken Mind

“Just look up, and you’ll see me, free as a cloud,” she used to say. She knew about it back then, having knowledge beyond my understanding of internet systems. She said it in response to my worry when she holed herself up in her room for days with her brightly “Do Not Disturb” sign glowing orange neon on her door. She did tell me what she was doing, but I was never interested. My interests were in the ground, taking samples and studying the compositions of earth from all over. It all started from plants, and learning about the hydrologic cycle and how it cultivated the world at just the right temperature. Water evaporated into the atmosphere, condensated, and fell back down at another location, helping plants drink nutrients from the soil to produce oxygen, pollen, and fruit, all while eating carbon out of the air. It was beautiful to be a part of the cycle, especially with humans both adding to the plant cycle and benefiting from it. Cloudforme was the compound in question. Vivian exp...

 Of the Explorer from another world Tina is a human being, leading a life of little import among her kind. One things she excels at is folding paper into all manner of shapes. After her fourteenth birthday goes uncelebrated, due to both her parents being busy, she seeks to make some friends in the city she lives thanks to her elusive parents. Tina isn’t a brave girl, having to learn all her lessons from the fact that her parents weren’t there for her, and the woman who was taking care of her already passed away. Tina decides to fold a world for herself, somewhere where she would be regarded as someone important, or at least regarded. She starts with a giant modular piece and names it Modul, the planet of living origami models in the imagined Paper Universe. She decides to fold paper people to populate Modul and soon falls asleep beside the giant modular world. When she wakes, Tina can see a model in her hand, a black unicorn, but has no idea when she folded it, or how to fold one ...

“I’m in love with you right now, it’s not even funny,” she said. Her hand touched my shoulder and she leaned close to whisper. “Anything you want, just tell me.” Saliva built in my mouth. It’s been a while since I ate, and she proved to be an especially difficult girl to unlock. The waiting improved the appetite, but wait too long and you die. I needed to survive. Her name was Samantha, a very basic name for very basic person. Human characteristics blended together when I was acting out of love. Samantha had been marinating in pheromones of joy for a week now. I have to be patient as she fully blossomed in love, enriching the threshold of flavors. It was a cruel game, but it was about my survival. She will live on after I fed, yet it would be a lonely existence, if I was to eat her heart. “Come closer,” I said. My mouth watered. No matter how many times I tried to starve myself, I ended up feeding again. My mom told me repeatedly that it wasn’t a burden, but a blessing. How did she man...

Our story opens onto four characters in dire peril. They consist of a wizard farmer, a gemstone princess, a prince of naught, and a cursed unicorn. They are surrounded by two kingdoms, one of smoke, and the other of light. The conflict they are caught up in, is that of countries at war. The prince is of the smoke, while the princess is of the light, but this isn’t a love story. Armed with a broken sword and accompanied by two mischievous fairies, the unlikely bunch seek to escape unscathed. “Can’t you like… magic us somewhere?” Zefor asked scanning the open field between the armies intent on fighting. “You mean teleport, and no,” Rafal replied. “It would take too much power to get the big one ported. Sorry, Faelor.” “I could blind them all with my horn’s glow,” the unicorn suggested. “And how long do you think that’ll last?” Zefor asked. “I don’t know, ask your eyes from the last time I did it,” the unicorn said. “I can make it really bright.” “Relax,” the wizard said, pulling out a g...

“YOU ARE ARTORY!” A voice boomed in the enormous open space of stone. “AND YOU ARE OUR CHOSEN!” I felt the stones shiver all around me. The ground I stood upon was not so. Beneath my feet was the back of a stone turtle. “Oh, sorry,” I said and jumped off to the equally shaking stone ground of the walled off space. “This is starting a bit confusing.” “Just go with it,” said a voice off to my side. “It’s better if you just lean into it.” It was a girl my age, but ever stranger than me. “TAKE UPON A WEAPON!” Boomed the voice in the space. Six columns rose up from the giant floor. “AND YOU SHALL BE OUR CHAMPION!” “Are you kidding?” I asked. “They’re like two miles apart. It’ll take me half a day to check all six of them before making a choice. Can I get a horse or something?” “That’s after you choose a weapon,” the girl said with a sly little smile. “Get to it. Didn’t you say you wanted to go and fight monsters?” I looked to her. She was a few inches shorter than my five-ten, with mid-len...