A Self-Study Within A Broken Mind

Fiona did mention millions of fictional V-scapes that humans visited every day. I still had the plastic coin that allowed me access to all of them, and while a lot required a buy-in, or were pay-to-play, a great amount of them were still free-to-play with in-game purchases. Among the free V-scapes, the ratings guided me to one named: “We Can All Be Stars.” Perhaps it was due to being one now, but I was drawn to try it. To my disappointment, this V-scape was referring to a world where you decided what kind of famous person you wanted to be. The most popular was a rock star, but entrepreneur and tech mogul were also highly rated options from about a thousand different characters. In that world, you took over their life, making decisions and altering life to your whimsy. Each character could go dark with underground dealings, or could swim in a pit of orgy flesh thanks to their capitol. It was a strange ‘scape, not really where you went to interact with others, but rather to escape a hars...

The small black spot in visible white space was motionless until it exploded to encase me. It was a sort of tunnel that reminded me of the Dream Vestibule that Ernie took me into. Whatever happened to that guy? He was fun. He also mentioned JJ. Was that the flawless shroud , or the person who made that invisible cloak ? Did Ernie age out of his human skin? Was he a full Garavand now? Maybe I’d meet him later. The tunnel snapped shut around me until I was standing beside Fiona again in some virtual ‘scape of a tropical island. “What took you so long?” she asked. “Fear, mostly,” I replied. “Where are we?” “A virtual realism ‘scape,” she said. “One of the few Japanese islands that is not underwater yet. They just accepted that their country will eventually sink even with the desalination nation pulling water out, and began waterproofing everything. Now they have buildings half-underwater that sway with every tsunami and can operate like ships. Smart people adapt to unforgiving natu...

“What about Fil ?” I asked. “Oh, well, you’ve been under for a few hundred years,” Fiona said. For some reason, that did not bother me. The generation I lived in was dead. I only wondered what became of the world. “ Filigare lived for about forty years among the humans before he aged out to be a Zaxi . Now we’re a full family of stars, but to the cluster we’d be a scandal, so we’ll probably be outcasts for a bit.” “Why a scandal?” I asked. “Aside from both you and our son being born as lowly humans?” Fiona asked. “I don’t mean I think they’re lowly. The cluster leaders think anyone who feeds from Zaxients is below them. “In Zaxi terms, you’re a baby, Fil is also a baby, and I’m still pretty young. I think Doc will be in the most trouble if they could ever catch him. He’s definitely not authorized to turn humans into my kind, but I’m glad the experiment succeeded. There is an energy I feel from you that is so rare. Only my parental clusters made that energy at the start.” “Maybe tha...

I support the idea, JJ . You have your character, me, tortured in the story, begging for a way out. I want out, too. The story you’re crafting for me has become a strain on the reader, on the character, and on the author. It’s about time to abort this before you burn your mind up. “The writer, or author, often has to torture the written or the character,” he says. “Besides, what would happen to you if I just shredded that weave? The ‘you’ under the covers of my invisible shroud would know of that erasure, the future that never was. If you think that would not bleed over to the different ‘you’ in the story, you’re being dumb.” Then just erase that part and- “I’m not cutting out my work, Finn,” He interrupts. “There is an ending to this story. You might not like it, but I'll decide how it goes.” alter So he returns, reads over the recent events to catch himself up and lets me speak once more, pen at my neck. What have you come here for? Don’t pretend you want to write about me right ...

“How does it feel?” Fiona asked, looking at me. “Strange,” I replied. “When I close my eyes, I see this giant dome of silver. I’m inside it with all my memories. The walls are mirrored and I can create anything inside the confines. That’s my mind!” “Correct,” Doc chimed in. “Now imagine yourself a mess of computers and feed information that’s overloading you into them. It’s unfortunate how little a human brain can contain.” Before I could ask if this would show up every time I closed my eyes, the old man was gone. “Are you ok?” Fiona asked. “You looked worried for a moment there. Weren’t you going to ask Doc about the gender of our baby?” “Oh, yeah,” I said, closing my eyes. There was a fragment of speech I could not place there. I had no idea who spoke it, but it said “Experimental Bastard.” For some reason, I had a feeling that our child was a boy, in human terms at least. “It would be very interesting if it was a boy with energies of a Zaxient female , huh?” Did my saying so just ...