A Self-Study Within A Broken Mind

I came back a few days following the dragon expedition. When I ascended the spiral staircase from the old room, Lila was the first thing I saw. She was on the couch, hunched over, elbows on knees, head cradled in the cup made up of her hands. “Hey,” I said. She did not shift at my voice, which felt strange. When I came up, she was motionless. I hesitantly put a hand on her shoulder, and watched as her body crumbled into sand before my eyes. Was this the Rahin’s doing? Did I somehow bring them over with me when I teleported from dragon form? I sat down on the couch in shock. “Jack,” I heard a familiar voice, and turned to find Lila, very much alive. She sat down on the couch, then threw her legs over my lap to recline. “Holy crap, I thought they erased you or something,” I said. “My bad,” she said. “I’ve been leaving these stress remnants everywhere. Let me guess, you guys don’t have stress remnants in your reality.” “No idea what those are,” I said. “Like, when you are feeling stressed...

I came back two days later, three if you count that it was almost two in the morning. I was in a different mindset following a mass layoff due to the virus affecting all businesses. I did not want the night to end because the next few days would not be easy. The essential jobs were likely to be the only form of income, but a lot of people would be unemployed until the virus died down. At the very least, I did not want to worry Lila about the things happening in my reality. I would get by somehow. As I entered the room under the library, I found her sleeping there on the couch. Maybe since I provided my day-night cycle, she aligned to it. I did not want to wake her. Her face looked so calm and I wanted to keep it that way. Rather than leave for the night, I went upstairs to see if the alchemy-magical circle she made in the floor had any success over the days I had been away. It became apparent that it did not capture the person in question, as the drawn strands of wood curved into a lot...

I came back the next day, the evening hours of Sunday in the first week of April. Lila was in the library, setting up some sort of circle on the wooden floor that had something of an alchemy or sorcery feel to it by scratching it into the the floor. I had to wonder where she got the idea for it, as none of the stories I gave her had that sort of theme. At least the parts I gave her had nothing of it. No, it might have been Faelight . The old and forgotten magic that had not been used must have resurfaced later in the story. “Hey,” I said. Lila turned from the line she was carving, and jumped into the air like some fort of ninja or acrobat. “Oh, it’s just you, Jack,” she said, lowering the knife in her hand. “Thought it was him again.” “Again?” I asked. “Did the guy from the untethered space try to come in here or something?” “He WAS in here,” Lila said, standing up while tossing the knife spinning into the air. Her other hand caught the handle from the air gracefully. “The library is k...

I have been told about my birth many times, and though the tales vary person to person, each upholds the basic theme of an unending conflict between two empires. From my first breath of dry, hot air, I was allied to one side, while wrapped in cloth of the other’s banner. I don’t believe that was when my story began, but to my family, and my affiliation, that day was the moment of great victory and pride. My first cry was drowned out by a cheer over the endless armies of red. Though they both carried that crimson banner, it was the emblems upon them that differed two proud empires. Ours was the golden scorpion, and theirs, the black wasp. We were the two factions that have been at war spanning uncounted millennia, always finding new ways to hurt each other instead of reaching a peace. It wasn’t until me that the cracked earth stopped running red with blood, but more on that later. “Amidst the glorious battle,” my dad bellowed to men gathered around us. “I felt the pain of my child arriv...

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...