A Self-Study Within A Broken Mind

I came back two days later, at about 11pm. Lila was down in the room instead of the library, a fact that surprised me at first sight. I made a form outside of her visible range, and waited soundlessly as she traced her finger into the grooves of the wooden compass I created to locate her, while she floated in the room. Would she ask about it? “Hey,” I said, loudly enough to make her drop out of hover for a moment. Her mind caught her in a hover again after she fell two feet. “Whoa! That was a shock,” she said. “You should have a bell on you or something.” “Are my silent arrivals unsettling?” I asked. What could she feel unsettled about unless she kept something from me? “For Rebecca, I rang the doorbell of the library house when I came around. Until it didn’t feel necessary. Part of my mind made this thing for her that notified her when I arrived in that space, whether as a visible-physical form or invisible.” “Invisible?” She asked, as if I was hiding things from her. I was, but she w...

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...