A Self-Study Within A Broken Mind

I had not been back to the library in close to a month. Even before, I saw happiness and left them to it. I did not want to interrupt Kara’s happiness, nor that of Lila and Tarne. Yet I sat at the little device again, continuously broken by stresses of everyday life, living in a temporary location that I could not call a home, and working in a toxic environment. I needed a change, or a chance for something else. The strings that held my life together in the metal metropolis were tearing apart. I had to escape before I fell apart. I appeared within the library in silence, only looking up toward the golden arched ceiling. I did not look around or move for a while. The golden paintings of godlike figures shifted around to depict a miniature story. There was a woman clothed in a billowy golden dress running through a barren wood. On her heel, two lions pulled a cart with a mustached man holding a whip. She took refuge in a golden hut by a blue lake, in the small patch of forest green, whit...

I came back the next day without an idea how to fix the mess I possibly created by myself. If only there was a way for Akier to forget he ever was his past life. If he could just go back to being Tarne… It would not work. Kara would know. Lila would, too. I wanted a rewrite, to stop myself from bringing these events on. Was it my mind seeking to destroy happiness for entertainment? Yet, it still felt like healing, like understanding myself. I have come a long way from Finnelgamin. Even though Rebecca was the true surgery of my psyche, Lila was the rehabilitation. Is. I entered the library to find Lila holding Tarne in a headlock. I rushed to separate them, and pulled Lila aside. “What was that?” I asked. “He’s not supposed to be here!” Lila exclaimed. “I want my daughter back! You hear that, you monster piece of shit? Get the fuck out of my daughter’s body!” “Lila,” I said, forcing her to meet my eyes. “I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s always been him. When I wasn’t Tarne, the emp...