A Self-Study Within A Broken Mind

I came back on the last Monday before Christmas. It was going to be a short week at work, but I was sure it would be as difficult as always around this time of the year. Countless people wanted to take time off, leaving the work in less experienced hands. I entered the library at the main large room, with my shimmering green clothing already on. Fyntn appeared from a portal at the top of the stairs as if to urge me to come up. When I did not, he walked through and arrived next to me at another portal. “Hey, Fyntn,” I said. “Think we have a chance today?” “Even if not today, are you going to stop trying?” “No, you’re right,” I said, nodding. “Doesn’t matter how long it takes. Even if I can’t get them back together until next year. I’ll try until I can bring them back.” Fyntn said nothing more, only created a portal into a darkness that opened up to the three beds crowded in the conjoined room upstairs. We stepped through as the back of one claw smoothed the air to patch the portal small...

I came back to the untethered space a few weeks later, though Tarne pleaded before that I take care of the issue quickly. I could only hope that distance from the hate for Akier was refuge enough, albeit lonely. When I entered the library, it was not so. The structure was a palace with great stone columns supporting a heavy stone ceiling painted with flowers. The windows out onto the dark beyond were gone, and so were the lights. Instead, a miniature sun was suspended near the ceiling, casting an intense white glow all over the open space. I looked for the staircase down to the wooden box in a panic, and found it much to my relief. It looked the same, but out of place on the now stone floor. The inside was still wood, outfitted with a couch, and four chairs around a table next to the bookshelf. I sighed in relief. Something wild happened here. The stairs to upstairs remained in the same area, and I followed them up to find the second floor with bedrooms just as stoned as the main libra...

How does one describe the fears of all who reside in the light? Do you not call it darkness? If that is your answer, then I am the entity you call darkness, alive somehow. I know not myself how I survive, but I see, I smell, I feel, I hear, and I taste, just as you do. The cold does not bother me, while you, it kills. That is why you light fires, while I cling to the shadows. You're weak. I'm strong. You tell stories of me, such horrible nightmarish tales, but I cannot say they are untrue. Your fellow humans look to the dark as a thrill, and it is from there where I strike. They scream and cry, but in the end all is silent. This is not about survival. The dark is my domain, my home, I defend it. There is another name that humans call me, a name devised by them of no understandable origin, but I enjoy it. I am a Garavand. I listen to them, to you, humans. The shadows hug me, hide me. So many stories of you are created right before me. I watch the darkness within these humans ...