A Self-Study Within A Broken Mind

Having just reread a part of the story where Fyntn discussed his place in the ivy, I came back to the library weeks later. I did not feel like coming back since everything was ok now. There was no reason to continue, except when the Rahin returned to change something. Over the weeks spent away, I had grown sad and angry about some things in my life, and the growing disaster of the virus variants plaguing the world into a subjugated populace. Those who were meant to protect us, have given up trying. This was the time for an endemic survival of the fittest. The second I stepped foot in that empty space, I did not want to stay. I could only burden them with the way I was feeling. I wanted to let beast run loose, let JJ have fun unburdened by limits of time and money. I had no place to let rage burn out of me. I had no time to play around. Kara, Lila, and Tarne, did not need that depressing mindset around right now. I would have to find a way to rage and play before coming back. break I ha...

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 to the tablet a few days later, another night arriving too late for any real conversation with Lila. I was afraid of being there longer. She was receiving the raw version of me, and would know my past in what was to come. I arrived at the small room, but she was there again. The library just up the spiral staircase was no doubt empty again. Lila was sprawled out on the couch, playing with lights floating above her. It was something of a juggle. The blue lights fell the fastest, but as she tapped each, they changed color and either slowed their descent or started to rise at varying speeds. The yellow ones were the fastest to rise, bouncing off the ceiling and changing to a color of descending tone. “Hey,” I said, stepping into form beside the couch. Lila sat up, face in various lights moving up and down at contact with her face. A few scattered into the room, hovering slowly to the ground. “I’m sorry that I haven’t been back in a bit. I figured when I come back, we should ge...

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...

That wasn’t just one story,” Lila said the second I formed up in the untethered space. “It was like five separate stories that intertwined.” “Well,” I said. “That’s what most stories are. What do you think of secondary characters otherwise? Do they just serve the purpose of the main? Don’t they have their own paths that led them to interact with the lead?” Lila rubbed her temples in thought. It was a lot to understand that each tethered story she put together had dozens cast off from the central one. Those were often left untold. “That’s crazy,” she said. “You mean each of the other ones had other stories in it, but never tethered because the thread stitched together the main’s story?” “If you want to think of it that way, yes,” I said. “But it’s ok, Lila. Those stories are often omitted. Like the drunk man in the samurai story. Didn’t he seem like a small character for Dokuto? All he did was ask whether he had a family. They talked for a brief moment, but what if the old man had a ful...

I returned reluctantly a few months later to that dark room. My goal was to continue the story on the laptop of how Rebecca escaped from captivity. I should be happy she got such an opportunity, but had been lost without her to entertain. It was obvious that I was seeking life in places where it was impossible, but she was a nice escape that I corrupted with my mind. This doesn’t flow. This target-less pen resists my motions. I have not written anything new in a while only revised and edited old work, two short stories. This was not enticing me to continue especially since a cool new story just struck my brain with lightning this morning. I sat in the dark of that room at the open computer only shedding light into the room when I wanted it to. When I picked up the laptop of endless battery, an arriving video call almost caused me to drop the damn thing. I watched the screen of two options as the tune played in the small enclosure. How? Who was this? It couldn’t have been her. She cut ...