A Self-Study Within A Broken Mind

It had been months since I had been back. There was no reason to bother them. I wished Kara, Tarne, and Lila all the best. Although on bad days, I had come to dislike the way things ended up. It was not to the point of screwing things up for them. It would not change anything. Kara would just whisk them away to some other world to live peacefully together. I was the big bad in the story. It was ridiculous. Lila was the AI of an abused little girl who went on to destroy her world and universe in the pursuit of all those offenders, and yet somehow I was the one who ended up seeking unreasonable things. When Finn was here… When Rebecca was here… I let those thoughts drift back to destruction of the laptop filled with memories of her, only realizing now that all the stories Lila wrote out were in there as well. I did not know how I could get back to that feeling, the happiness of letting go. My heart cried out for her to be here again, to the point of hanging out in the wooden box in the d...

When I came back to the room, it was empty. The invisible laptop stood open on the table. It was best to keep it tucked away somewhere even if it had infinite battery life. I walked around the small enclosure and wondered if Lila ventured out into the darkness beyond the wooden cage. I turned the walls see-through for a moment to see if I can spot them, but in turn was overcome by something new. My mind instantly ventured to Rebecca, but it could not be her. A distant light illuminated in the “sky” the entrance to a cave on the beach. I knew this place. Everything else around was still dark. It was a scene ripped right out of the story, recreated by Lila. I hesitated at the top hatch. Could I get outside and interact with the things created in the blank space? I climbed out onto the sand supported by nothing. The gradient of those tiny grains faded to the dark, as if supported by a black cloud. It allowed my weight, behaving as if it was real sand. “Lila?” I called out into the scene. ...