A Self-Study Within A Broken Mind

I came back to the library after the 4th of July holiday time away to find Finn sitting on the stairs. Could he feel it like Rebecca when I arrived? I studied him while out of phase, but he didn’t seem to notice me or be on alert at all. The dull-o-cap still glowed beneath his hair resulting in a cool effect. “Hold on, Jack!” Rebecca called from the bathroom upstairs. “I’ll be out in a few!” Finn lifted his eyes to look around, but found nobody. “Jack?” He asked the room. I sighed and phased into physical form. “Hey, Finnelgamin,” I said and waved. “What's up?” He met my eyes and looked up to the ceiling. “Exorcism,” he said, as if he were pondering the meaning of life itself. “Of that ghost you left for Rebby in granny’s house. We’ve been reading up on how to do it best, but I’d rather be with Eva.” I smiled until he met my eyes again. “What?” “Nothing,” I replied. “So you and Eva an item now? Since when?” “What do you mean?” Finn asked. “Oh, that’s right. Rebecca said that ...

I came back to her after a week or two. Time spent re-reading Finnelgamin was left uncounted, and filled my mind to the brim with old demons. I knew the whole story already, but it affected me harshly nonetheless. It was as if I did that cruelty all over again, and yet reading it over again made me understand how Finn came to exist so free of me. He was sealed away in his temporal bubble of repeated time, but in the story I wrote after, with a supposed copy of him, a damn Garavand reconnected them. When that story ended, what Finn found in the darkness beyond all the stars, was a way out. The only mistake he made was stepping into Rebecca’s space where I had complete control and connections to everything in my imagination. “Jack?” Rebecca asked of the library room. The electric tingle got her here, but she was right out of the bath, only wearing a towel on the hair and one to cover her body. “Are you here?” she started taking off the towel wrap around her, but I expanded the garment i...