Spoiler! :
I am reading a book.
Maybe, somewhere deep inside me, I have a sense that where I am now and what I am doing could be infinitely more glorious, bizarre, wonderful. I have the potential to blink my eyes, snap my fingers, and the entire scene will swirl away and be replaced with something new. Perhaps, I have this one gnawing word plaguing my innermost subconscious:
Possibilities.
Or...
maybe I don’t.
Maybe I am walking and reading, reading and walking, and the world will continue on the way it is, because who am I to question the very essence of reality?
Anyway, this is a really good book.
I know this because it is of my own fabrication; I wrote the entire thing myself. Every character, action, and detail is under my complete control.
I know this, and yet I seem to forget it, because I desperately read on to find what happens next.
I am walking along the edge of a towering canyon; the rock is the grayest of gray, devoid of color, and the sky, which is full of thickening clouds, matches in appearance. A biting wind is blowing, whipping my hair and my jacket behind me.
A boy is walking beside me, and I know, just by looking, that he belongs to me. He is the boy, I am the girl; it is that simple. We are destined for each other. His love for me warms my heart as we walk.
Somewhere in time I realize just how it is that I know him—I created him. This character from my book has manifested itself into my own reality, and he is the partner of a nameless her, the main character.
So, I figure, I am her, she is me. We are one in the same, which means he is mine.
What are we to be doing, I wonder? I consult the book.
They walk along the edge of the desolate canyon. We search for another without a name, and the thought of him conjures images of terror and hatred.
To put it simply, we are in search of the antagonist of the novel.
I cannot decide whether or not it worries me that my fate is tethered to the thousands of words in this single volume. Again, something stirs in my mind—a memory of a forgotten world—and I am scared for a moment. Something tells me wrong, but the book-reading me and the main-character-her me look on in a calming indifference.
I have no time to ponder how it came to be that I am simultaneously doing and watching (Have I two souls, two minds, or perhaps two sets of eyes?), for we have reached the cave that contains the evil one, my single enemy, who remains nameless. I know him, yet I do not know him.
The cavern entrance is menacingly tall, and leads into a horrible blackness.
My love, who continues to walk beside me, grasps my hand, and without a word, we enter.
The man has a relatively forgettable face--almost. His features are quite ordinary, except he has the most sanguine eyes, a scarlet that burns into my vision like fire.
The cave is so dark that the doing-me cannot see what is happening, but the reading-me follows along in silent observance. The words, which I see but do not see, tell me something has gone wrong. We have been captured; the antagonist has taken them by surprise. We are tied in chairs. The ropes are scratching, grating against our skin. What have we gotten into? They are overwhelmed, I can tell.
He is drugging us—our minds have clouded with a poison of mysterious origin. The man does not want his mortal enemies escaping while his back is turned.
What happens next? I wonder, possibly feeling some amount of concern for my creations, but also the myself that is not myself.
The last words jump out at me from the page in a peculiar way, and though the meaning itself is terrifying, it does not seem to bother me. After all, it isn’t happening to me, it is happening to her over there. The sentence is crystal-clear at the bottom of the page:
“He slit their throats.”
A slight glimmer of comprehension begins to affect me somewhat, but before I can react, it is done. A pull of a knife on skin, a flash of crimson, and the world is black.
* * *
I open my eyes slowly—everything is now a startling white compared to the absolute darkness I had previously experienced. How much time has passed? I do not know.
The book is gone, long forgotten, as well as the characters that emerged from it during my past adventure. Not that I pay it any mind—I am transfixed on what is happening in front of me.
I realize where I am with a sudden recognition that is to be expected from one who has walked its halls for years.
I find it almost silly, after such a dramatic death, to reappear at my school.
Yet here I am—in the middle of the day, no less. The hallways are strangely crowded; students must be heading to their next class. I am standing halfway up a staircase, watching fellow students as they hurry by; they don’t so much as glance up at me as they pass.
Am I supposed to be going to class? I wonder, and I just decided to find out when I notice one of my friends walking by in the nearest hallway.
I call out to them. “Them” and not “him” or “her” because I do not see its face. I don’t even recognize them, but I look at them and think friend, so that is what they must be. I do not question this person and what its lack of identity signifies.
The friend turns, eyes wide, though not in surprise—in fear.
“You’re dead,” a distorted voice says, which comes out of a mouth that I may or may not know—it does not remain the same as I stare at the words being formed out of it.
I had forgotten! My memory turns back to the blackness I had been destroyed in, and the scene that had transformed itself before me. I am suddenly overcome with a feeling that I cannot fully understand, except for that this feeling tells me you do not belong here.
They are all looking at me, with the same expressions, and I cannot decide whether with anger or with repulsion they stare into my eyes.
I know in my very being that I have been banished from their minds and hearts; and here I am once again, and I do not belong. They chose to leave me as a haunting memory.
And so this is what I become—a haunting memory. I wander, listless, through this cursed place, where no one knows me and everyone knows me.
I watch the girl that haunts the halls of her school. She doesn’t raise her head to the shouts and laughter of those around her—they do not see each other. They are in separate worlds, but the same location. She continues, floating up the staircase where students are descending, pressing in on her and passing with hardly any notice.
I wish she would lift her eyes and find that her friends miss her, that they want her to return.
I wish she would see.
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