A Self-Study Within A Broken Mind

I came back to the untethered space a few weeks later, though Tarne pleaded before that I take care of the issue quickly. I could only hope that distance from the hate for Akier was refuge enough, albeit lonely. When I entered the library, it was not so. The structure was a palace with great stone columns supporting a heavy stone ceiling painted with flowers. The windows out onto the dark beyond were gone, and so were the lights. Instead, a miniature sun was suspended near the ceiling, casting an intense white glow all over the open space. I looked for the staircase down to the wooden box in a panic, and found it much to my relief. It looked the same, but out of place on the now stone floor. The inside was still wood, outfitted with a couch, and four chairs around a table next to the bookshelf. I sighed in relief. Something wild happened here. The stairs to upstairs remained in the same area, and I followed them up to find the second floor with bedrooms just as stoned as the main libra...

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...

I came back, incidentally, not a day later, but two days after. Kara and Lila were still in the cube, but sat back to back in the center instead of being split into the corners of the container. They were not at odds with each other so the orbs did not activate to separate them. Tarne was not around, possibly learning ways to make silence feel even better. I walked into the cube with a smile, but found myself slowing down as I got closer to the two women housed in a room to settle their differences. They were both hitting the ground beside them, hands sore and bruised. I stopped, but it was too late, they stood up and lunged at me. With both of them pushing, they forced me to the wall of the cube and used me as the key to exit as well. It was a well-orchestrated plan, for a bunch of rubes. “Sorry,” I said, then put one hand each on their respective sides to send them flying back into the cube. “I came here to get you guys out, but that wasn’t very nice.” “Let us out,” Lila said, then t...

I came back after a weekend, half-spent working overtime, and the other half spent recuperating from the work week. The library was the same as I always remembered it from Tiarto’s exploits. It was much different than the library it was based on, but the bones were based in reality. The real one had no tall ceilings, no high windows, no staircase to the second floor, only three entrances that served as front door, garden, and kitchen now. The bathroom was upstairs, but the original one had none, being just an open space with books. “Lila!” I called out in the open space, and heard some shuffling about upstairs. I wondered whether I should go up and check, but I could have just interrupted something between her and Kara. Lila stepped out of the room wearing nothing but a white button down shirt. It was something akin to just wearing underwear for her, as the muscle between her legs had no openings. I wanted to know more about her anatomy and how everything worked, but then remembered sh...

Weeks later, away from Lila and the untethered space, I felt distant. It started with editing, hopeful of the brutal story of death thanks to a suffering writer, but that idea relied on the deaths of characters. Soon enough into writing, I started thinking just how much I did not want them to die, and while some could enjoy the struggle, many would not enjoy this endless killing of the main characters in various strange circumstances. It was an idea, like many which lived in the void, sourced exactly there for both the portraits and the stories Harry wrote. After that drive to edit and complete that dark story faded, I disappeared into work unrelated to writing. I was not sure how many days had passed since I left the three of them, but I missed their happiness. I wanted to recharge. I entered the untethered space through the little room below the library again, creating a spiral staircase near the windows connecting the two. While I could just float up and through the divide, I decide...

I had not returned in weeks. Why bother? Kara and Lila were happy with Tarne. I was the third wheel, fourth now. I was back for a specific reason, but had a feeling I would not be able to complete my goal. For the sake of remembering Lila, I wanted to draw her. I had been drawing things, since I did not know anyone who could help me illustrate things in my writing. I would have to be able to put my ideas on paper myself, in more than just description. I still sucked at describing things. My mind sourced my words on things I have seen, which differed person to person. To appeal to mass populace, writers often used long-winded descriptions based on common life objects that anyone with an ounce of imagination could picture. I just could not patchwork it all to make sense, but drawing would help me with that. When I arrived at the space created from the remnant of Rebecca’s domain, I found the library empty. The upstairs and the attic were equally still. I even knocked at the door to the b...

Understandably, I had not been back for a few days. I had a lot of information to mull over, and having read it over just now, I decided to confront her. When I opened my eyes in the library, I was no longer in the library, but the garden Lila recreated from the story I provided. The green of the foliage was pleasant to look at, but I was still stuck in the body of a child born to Lila. There had to be a reason for it. When my view shifted, I fussed again to call attention to myself. There she was, standing over me. Rather than address me, she uncovered her chest and held my head close to her left nipple. I felt my stomach gurgle, and was sucking on her breast before I knew what was happening. “When you aren’t here, the baby is just a baby,” Lila said. I tried to pull away from the part of her inside my mouth, but the body wanted to drink more. “I know you’re back in, but I was just about to feed her, so enjoy feeling like a child again for the moment. Or are you perhaps getting hard t...