A Self-Study Within A Broken Mind

After a few weeks spent playing an old game into hours of morning, I came back to the box growing the ever-expanding creationism network within untethered space. Though I still had connections to the Infinity Void with ideas for stories I wanted to realize, I was less than enthusiastic in trying to bring any of them to life. “Hello,” I said to the empty room. How could Lila entertain herself in the time I spent away? The perception of time had to be skewed for her in some shape or form. If she would be there for ten of my human years, it was difficult to think I could always come around to entertain her. At least the edits of the calendars and passing of day was no longer in effect when the library upstairs was scuttled. “Lila?” A knock on the ceiling shifted my focus. Since the room and the general surroundings were now under my “control”, I floated out into the great darkness to find her sitting on the top of the wooden box. “Hey, you’ve been gone for a while,” she said. “Yeah,” I sa...

I have been reluctant to come back for obvious reasons. Lila wanted me to talk about myself, give a recount of my life so far, however little of it was lived. I feared it. Much like with letting Finnelgamin know all the things in my head and be vocal about it, and letting Rebecca in to know me as I was in my reality, this was another instance of keeping things secret from someone I… No. I did not create her. I created the world that was connected to that spawn chamber. Lila was there already, put there from her world. I was still curious about the details. Maybe I could distract her with questions about her life instead. “Hey, Lila,” I said, at the top stair of the spiral opening to the bottom room. She was on the couch in the library, sitting in reverse. Her legs were slung over the top of the backrest, while her head hung upside down where the legs would bend at the knees. Her hands stretched out to the ceiling of the library. It took me a minute to realize what she was doing. Her ey...

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...

The small black spot in visible white space was motionless until it exploded to encase me. It was a sort of tunnel that reminded me of the Dream Vestibule that Ernie took me into. Whatever happened to that guy? He was fun. He also mentioned JJ. Was that the flawless shroud , or the person who made that invisible cloak ? Did Ernie age out of his human skin? Was he a full Garavand now? Maybe I’d meet him later. The tunnel snapped shut around me until I was standing beside Fiona again in some virtual ‘scape of a tropical island. “What took you so long?” she asked. “Fear, mostly,” I replied. “Where are we?” “A virtual realism ‘scape,” she said. “One of the few Japanese islands that is not underwater yet. They just accepted that their country will eventually sink even with the desalination nation pulling water out, and began waterproofing everything. Now they have buildings half-underwater that sway with every tsunami and can operate like ships. Smart people adapt to unforgiving natu...