A Self-Study Within A Broken Mind

I returned at lunch, a bit late by my own fault. Fyntn was right beside me this time as I entered the library on the second floor. The room was silent, except for the portal created in the air oscillating gently with the sound of continuous and slow tearing of paper. We walked through it together, the slightly red edge oscillating open to fit us as we passed through. It shrank as soon as we were through. Beyond was another portal that led to Kara’s mind, just like before, but this one’s edge was white-out green, and no sound was coming from it. “Here goes something,” I said. “Nothing,” Fyntn said. “That’s the expression, but I’m going to try something.” “Good.” I stepped through into darkness that lasted a few seconds before a bright light impacted my body, tearing at my plot armor. The green shreds tore into the fading light, as I reached for them. I clung to the last of the green shimmering cloth while floating naked in the darkness. I pushed my creationism to force the cloth back to...

Weeks passed before I returned to this. I wanted to abandon it, leave the three of them sleeping in bliss. I would go on to write children’s stories where drama did not rule over everything. The characters would be bright-eyed fools, and nothing too bad happened to them. I wanted to protect that innocence JJ championed. For that, I would need to fix what I broke inside Kara, what I fractured by trying to be something I always wished I was in secret. Maybe a part of life is meant to be disappointment, so that we sought completion through reproduction, channeling hopes and dreams into the children when they are but sponges. No. I would never let that happen to someone created by me. I would never… It already happened with Rebecca. She split her mind because she saw mine. In her mind, that was the only thing she could do to connect to me, to try to help me. And for that, I spat in her face and shunned her. Not literally. I shook the thoughts away. This was not about Rebecca anymore. This ...

All my touting of trust over Moredo, and I had not been back in months. I was afraid of what I would find. If I trusted Fyntn, I would have gone back the next day. Meanwhile, I entertained myself with a story of a girl in a world ruined by the past, dreaming. I came back the morning of a Wednesday, after being woken up at five in the morning by someone calling out my name. It had to be a dream, someone from the library I left behind. I could not foretell what to expect now, but I would most definitely not be in female form. I just hoped Tarne was back to her previous self. I stepped into the untethered space, or my tether of reality core to the library. It looked just like when I left it, except for the darkness beyond the windows again. I partially missed the gray. The library itself was empty, almost heartrendingly so. What if, in my time away, the Rahin actually came for Lila and Tarne? “Hello?” I called out, realizing my voice was male. I created a full body mirror right away and f...

I came back the next day, from a downpour of rain outside that cooled my mind down. It felt like I put obstacles in front of myself just to trip over them, but this was at an end. If anything, I wanted Kara to be happy again. Maybe I could even reverse Tarne growing up inside Garr. Kara and Lila could head off into the other worlds with child Tarne, living on the run from the Rahin. I would be a decoy in that scenario, allowing the destruction of this space, which I knew was coming anyways. Waiting to die was a truly depressing way to live. Even after I promised Rebecca I would seek happiness. Part of me never trusted her, or rather the Rebecca on the computer screen who told me she went to talk to Alexander Virtu. It did not matter. Lila’s and Kara’s happiness was paramount. I appeared in the library out of a puff of smoke to find it empty. My antics were wasted. I walked up the stairs to see if Kara and Lila were still at Tarne’s bedside. When I reached the top step, the door to the ...

I came back the next day to check on Lila’s progress, hoping she did not rush through the whole thing. The sequel saw me in a bad light, then a bit of good, then a lot of bad. I was sure it ended on a bad note, but remembered that Rebecca left behind a laptop of recordings, something I asked her to do to keep track of the things I missed by being away from her. The laptop I disintegrated after Lila put her effort to record my expanded ideas into. I blipped into the library and panned over the whole space to see if Lila came back inside. “Hey,” said a voice from above. I turned to find Kara leaning over the second floor railing, as she often did. I wondered if she had back pain like me. “Seen Lila around? It’s her turn teaching Tarne.” “She’s probably reading in the garden,” I replied. “Teaching?” “What did you do now?” She asked. “What is she reading?” “Just a book, a story from the many I’ve written,” I lied. “Uh-huh, like I’d believe that,” Kara said. “If I had to warrant a guess, yo...

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...