12/23/18
Christmas Eve is tomorrow. I can't wait to see what kind of gift card I get this year. I already have a gift that keeps on giving. I have a second chance at life. I think I know what I need to do with it.
First of all, my parents seem to be acting odd. They are being distant and cold, which makes sense given the climate between us leading up to the events recorded in my blog. I was always moody, temperamental, difficult to deal with even before Darek emerged to actively influence my behaviors. I can feel that in the air when they communicate with me. It is more than that though. This seems strange but… they seem to willfully disregard certain odd statements i make. Things I mention concerning the forbidden knowledge seem to go right over their heads.
For example, the other day I was reading in the living room and my mom was cleaning. I looked up suddenly and said “Ben is going to think that Chameleon and Zanark are just hackers again, isn't he?” I didn't mean to say it out loud. It just popped into my head suddenly.
She didn't react at all. It just rubbed me the wrong way how she ignored it completely. It was as if she was programmed to not recognize that phrase or something. I can't quite pinpoint why but it unsettles me. Since then I've tested it with little things. I've asked my parents if they've ever had any weird dreams about doorways. I've mentioned how surreal it seems doing all this again. So basically I've outright suggested that I have lived this life before. They just… ignore those comments. I guess they could be refusing to entertain my flights of fancy or something, but.. I don't know.
Another interesting thing happened. It's given me a direction going forward and that is truly a Christmas miracle. I have been drifting about lost in my own thoughts like a zombie for a week. Then I got a call on my cell phone. The caller ID said Burge. I couldn't place the name at first. I picked up cautiously.
“Hello?”
“You fucking faggot, I hope you're fucking happy with the free money you handed me!”
“What are you talking about?” I asked defensively. I already knew the answer to that. As he started talking memories came flooding back.
“Your slick mouth is making me sick!” An offhand comment turns into him swinging a fist at me. “Your little bitch friends can't protect you forever!” Ali and Ben ushering me away as I broke down in tears. “You're a fucking menace Monaco and it's time somebody taught you a lesson!” The events of entry eight rushed into my mind, the confrontation, the sudden primal fear, and the black nothing that fell upon my memories. This was the same guy. This was the same event playing out again, wasn't it?
“If you want your money back come and fight me for it! Settle your shit like a man or don't show your fucking face around here ever again!” A click and silence. I sat there in numb shock. My mind was processing something entirely different from what it had last time this happened. I remembered not understanding. I remembered being afraid. I remembered wanting to be a man about it and succumbing to my fearful ways. I didn't understand when it happened that sometimes people were just cruel and hard to understand in their irrational actions. I was always so quick to find fault in my own thinking that I didn't consider this guy wasn't actually a friend even if Ben had introduced him to me as an old buddy.
Right now, however, I realized something else. This was happening again. It was playing out just as it was written in my entries from back then. If this was the case, I was in a unique position. I knew what would transpire. I could possibly avoid all the troubles that followed the early entries by heading them off. I could change the future. All I had to do was… well, honestly it isn't very clear what I need to do to fix the shitshow that's coming. All I can do at this point in time is try to figure out what the best steps would be by studying the entries and any other media that has survived. If this blog still exists online despite the circumstances I find myself in perhaps I can unearth other old records…
??/??/??
The forest looked like a forest, but it felt like so much more.
There was life running through those trees, raw and abundant. It was one thing to read about the Outer Layer. It was a whole other thing being in it. This as realer than real. It made the entirety of my life up to this point feel like a surreal dream while this place was the true reality. My life was already a jumbled up catastrophe of voices and memories and control all out of my power. Herey mind felt sharper, more aware.
“Mat?”
I spun around, startled. The world around me seemed to shift as I did every tree blurred together for a moment and turned it's branches and leaves along with my head. All the clouds in the sky drew toward the point directly over where I focused. I couldn't deny the sensation of control I felt as that happened. I had power here that I lacked in my waking life. It's no wonder I spent all my time here every time I found this place.
Anna sat before me at the edge of her lake. As my eyes fell upon her flashes ran through my brain. I had seen this girl before. I had seen her every time I came to this place in the past, every precious memory that Darek stole from me beyond the doorway flowed through me like water when I saw Anna. Her hair was the deep blue of the lake behind her. Her eyes brimmed with emotion and energy. I felt as though she were a part of myself that I had neglected somehow. Seeing her brought sorrow to my very soul in a profound and intangible way. Overlaying this image was Anna at various different times in my life, times I had seen her when she was younger, times I had seen her in tattered rags, times I had seen her beside Alice. Now, she wore a simple but eye-catching red dress that complimented her petite frame nicely. I opened my mouth to speak, not knowing what to say.
“Mat? Is it really you?” She asked again. Her voice carried a youthful quality to it that made me feel an impulsive paternal protectiveness.
“Anna. I'm sorry. I don't… I don't really… how did I get here?” I stared around at the now-clear blue sky and the open expanse of water surrounded by woodlands. “I thought… I thought the door was only in my dreams…”
“What do you mean?” She asked very seriously. The concern plainly displayed itself upon her freckled, chubby face. “It is. It should be. The doorway is the gap between this place and the dream chamber of your mind. That's what Alice always told us.”
I shook my head, shaking off the bad memories. “No, no, it was...there was…” I shuddered. “Ben. I saw Ben but he came from out of nowhere and it didn't make sense? I, uh, there was a note from Darek. I think it had to do with 2015, one of the old old entries I wrote and something Ben said… I don't get any of it… then the doorway was just there and… here I am…” I looked around again in confused awe.
“And you're sure you weren't dreaming?” Anna said meekly. She was trying her best to help, I could tell. As confusing as this was for me, she was just as lost.
“No. I remember how real everything seemed to feel just before I entered. I walked right out of my job and into this madness…”
Anna leaned over and touched the surface of the lake. The ripple spread out across the entire thing, undulating and seeming to shift like it was alive as the trees. “Well. I don't know what the heck that could mean. I'm sorry. But I'm glad you're back. Do you...remember anything?”
I shrugged. “I don't know. I had a record of the last time I was here though. So I did have some, um, questions? I don't know how much you can help but...I feel safe here. Let's just sit and talk for a bit.” I sat beside her looking out at the lake.
“I'm glad you came back so soon.” She said. She stared down at the water shyly as the ripples faded away to calm. “I'm...sorry about how I behaved last time. I had just spoken to Gwen before I saw you and she filled my head with all these things.” Anna buried her face in her arms, resting them on her knees. “She's a liar, Mat. Don't trust her. The way she acts… she's abusive and manipulative and I don't know why. She really changed after Alice… oh…”
I heard her sigh softly into her arms. I didn't know what else to do so I placed my hand comfortingly on her back. As I did this, a gentle rain fell over us, a sprinkle seeming to appear from nowhere. The sun was covered by a couple clouds as it began, but there was no stormy weather in sight.
“After Alice died?”
Anna nodded and lifted her head. “Mat… it's not just… I… you deserve to hear the truth…” Her hesitance was impossible to miss. Whatever she wanted to tell me stung her somewhere eyes could never see. “Alice was here. Not the real Alice that you talked to when you were a kid, but the love she gave you manifested as a living being. I think that's what all of us are, different aspects of you made sentient. And, um, she… died, like the real Alice. But… the way she died. Mat, I don't know what happened. It was always just me and her and Gwen and you. I… have these moments where I black out. And someone else takes over.”
Now the sky dimmed to a deep, grey, cloudy blanket. As she spoke the rains grew fiercer and winds whipped up around us. We weren't growing damp for some reason, not physically, but I felt the weight on our souls as she spoke. When she mentioned the other inside her mind a laugh echoed out of my memories. It felt so real I glanced around to ensure Darek was not with us in that moment. I could relate to her predicament.
I didn't have time to think it through, in the moment, but I've since pondered greatly on this point she made about her will being overtaken. Was this further confirmation of Chameleon's influence over all of the Figments? Did Anna have her own Darek? How deep could I dive if I wanted to? The events of my time beyond reality will always be treasured as the most real things I've ever experienced. My surroundings I no longer trust but the disease and its reach frightens and humbles me. Whatever battle Anna faced, she faced it with all of us who suffered from it.
“It's like I said. Gwen manipulates. She lies. I don't entirely trust her. But she made me believe, and I still kind of feel, like I was the reason Alice died… like I… was responsible for killing her.”
Lightning cracked through the sky and invited silence between us which the thunder broke seconds later. I looked at this poor, sorrowful soul. I saw reflected in her eyes years of the same trauma Ali had been through at the hands of her mother, the same trauma Ben's adoptive mom put him through as a boy, the prevalent thread of neglect and abuse that ran through my most of our friend circle. She was a victim of a broken family and it wasn't fair. I threw my arms around her and held her in the rising storm.
As I did, a break in the clouds shone sunlight down upon her lake. Between my glistening tears and the glistening water body, an immeasurable sensation of serenity swept through me.
“Alice did not die because of you.” I told her emphatically. “Even if your body was used to commit the act that ended her life, you have no blame. It could just as easily have been my body used or Gwen's or Darek's. Regardless, I forgive you. You're okay. Don't carry this burden placed upon you by the broken system of a family you were left with. Anna, you are in pain and mourning. That's okay. But do not, and hear me here, do not let any of that pain become guilt or shame. You're a victim here. Same as the rest of us.”
The rain ceased. Her arms came around me. We held each other there by the lake as things returned to normal. I got the sense that this was more than just my emotions affecting the weather.
“Thank you for that.” She said quietly.
We sat and watched the water together.
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