#59: Decision

03/25/19 This has to stop. I keep thinking and trying to connect the dots of the various things I am seeing and experiencing. There's so much confusion and subversion mixed in with the actual clues. I feel like I'm lost in a labyrinthian maze of my own design, one which Darek would rather see me stuck in. Every blaring flashing hint in the world of how to escape will be ignored if Darek supplies seven red herrings to divert me. I don't know. Maybe it's not Darek. Maybe he's trying to help me. Maybe it's all a part of his Grand Master Plan to confuse me. I feel like somebody mentioned something like that once, either in this lifetime or a parallel one, that Darek was not out to get me. He simply saw from a wider perspective and acted in ways my mind could not fathom. Sounds like some deific bullshit when I remember it like that though. He's a part of my mind; he's a Figment of my imagination, not my God. Anyway, I am starting to think that this is a big misdirection of some kind, an obscuring fog over my brain… a dark cloud. Perhaps it is THE dark cloud, the one I have witnessed stalking the Outer Layer. Sure, that adds up. It's the best lead I have so I'm going to follow it. Let's say I am inside the dark cloud right now. Let's say the red MegaBlok, the same one that magnified Ben's anger and negativity, is some kind of… the best description would be a signal amplifier. It's making the dark clouds influence stronger in my mind. I know it's kind of a leap in logic but at this point we are dealing in conceptual forces so I don't know what logic even applies anymore. My gut tells me this is right. I can't get rid of the MegaBlok. I have tried and tried but it follows me through supernatural means. I even see it when I am inside the dreamscape. Honestly I think it's a container for the void I keep wandering through. It seems as though if I do not see the MegaBlok, I am inside the void world. Regardless of speculation, I cannot escape by getting rid of the red block. I've tried to destroy it, many different ways over the past weeks, but all that happens is it gains a new dent or a new scuff mark. The more radical attempts to destroy it end with it vanishing. Its protector, whoever keeps using my body to move it around, likely saves it from serious damage in this way. There's another link between this dark cloud and myself. That would be Gwen, a name that once belonged to someone I would have called family, a name that now belongs to a twisted manipulator. I think about the last encounter I had with her; I think about the allusions to her since then. I saw her in the initial dream of the dark place. There was also the reference to the false angel made in entry 57, which very well may have been all in my head. Just as well. This battle is being waged in my mind anyway. I have never been one to cling to reality even when I was under the delusion that my life was totally real and normal, barring some mental instabilities. No reason to start now. Since that time there have been, as I said, many weaving threads of dreamed lunacy intermingling with false awakening and reality-imitation. I've stopped differentiating so much. However, this particular moment felt more like… a memory. Gwen sat at the side of the lake with Anna; she was braiding Anna's hair. I'd seen it done up like this the last time I visited her, but in this dream Anna looked younger. Gwen did as well, though she still seemed just shy of a decade older than Anna. The skies were peaceful. It looked as if tragedy and darkness had never entered this forest. “Gwen?” Gwen responds with a noncommittal noise. “When is Mat coming to visit us again?” Anna asked. “He’s always with us, Anna. It's just like Alice said. The person that visits us is a manifestation of a dreaming soul. The thing that boy actually represents is this entire realm around us.” “Even the lake?” Anna asked. It was clear from her eyes that she was full of curiosity and wonder. She couldn't be older than ten in this state. Gwen responded with a soft chuckle. “Maybe not the lake. But the land the lake is on, sure.” She continued working on Anna’s hair in silence. “Gwen?” “Yes, Anna.” She clearly had been asked many things throughout this ordeal. “When is Alice coming back? When do I actually get to meet her?” “Anna, you've met Alice. Remember?” Gwen said. Those words sent a tingle through my body. She was just as good at lying back then. “She used to tell you bedtime stories when you were younger.” Anna shrugged. “Guess I forgot.” Did you know that if you suggest false memories to someone, studies show that they will be believed even if they're fabricated by our own minds? I am wondering if Alice was ever present with Anna or if Gwen just manipulated her memories the entire time. I wonder if Gwen manifested the dark cloud in my mind with her very nature and her subconscious will. I wonder a lot of things about Gwen, the manipulative liar. There's another individual mentioned in the last entry that needs to be considered in all this. This individual is the same one I saw the last time I saw Gwen. This individual is the one who seemed to scare Gwen away, whom the dark cloud was unwilling to approach. If I am trapped inside the dark cloud, perhaps seeking out Kendra's help could free me from its dark embrace. So yet again, here I am. I have a phone in my hands and I'm nervously starting at the screen for a response. Things are chaotic, wearing on my probably nonexistent mental health, and only Ali can help. The only logical way out I see, based on my esoteric knowledge, requires me to cross a line that I would never even contemplate under normal circumstances. Is that the truth Mathew? Do you know that for a fact? What really happened over those six months? I don't even know the truth anymore. I just know that I can not hope to save myself. Call this a sin-ridden hail mary moment; it doesn't make sense but nothing makes sense and I'm a madman who is writing notes to himself living a second life I never asked for that's just a mirror of the first. My phone vibrates in my hand. I look down at the message on the screen. Can't get away tonight. But I have to get some stuff from my dad's tomorrow. I'll tell Rob I am spending the night with him and come over to see you. I shouldn't have smiled at that. I'm literally asking her to betray her boyfriend. But I knew she would say yes. All I need to do is wait and hope things don't get too crazy.

#58: False Awakening

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Remember those Slenderman references in the first couple entries? Yeah, I can see where they came from. Shadows stretch to excessive heights out of the corner of my eye in mundane moments. Suddenly a sleepy Saturday at home turns into a struggle to suppress sheer panic. I have literally seen beings standing across the room from time to time. Once it was Kendra, the one from the Outer Layer, her head replaced by a cosmic cloud straight out of a drug trip. She was motionless. I stared for maybe ten minutes before my eyes couldn't focus anymore and she shifted out of reality with the blurring of my vision.

Another time it was Mammoth, or rather ADDICT. His skin was blue and rotting in places. The dark rings under his eyes implied that he had not rested in death. He was soaked, and he chased me through the golf course in the neighborhood one dark night. I had been wandering by when I spotted him. Unlike Kendra, he moved. He was wading through the canal.

Mammoths voice echoed behind me as I sprinted from the approaching terror- “YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE TALKED YOU FUCKING KIKE” -and the absurdity of it almost made me laugh. But the way ADDICT ran at me, lopsided and lumbering like a drunk beast, poured adrenaline into my heart and pushed me forward.

After escaping into my house, I saw that there was a puddle of water in front of my doorstep when I poked my head out later that night. Was it also an illusion? Or did I actually get stalked by the ghost of Mammoth? I chose not to dwell on it.

And when I dream, I always find myself in that null place, the chaos of the days thoughts echo back at me in the endless void. It's like the opposite of the lake, where I felt enclosed in an open space. I walk and walk in my dreams, free to flee from my mind in any direction. Yet nothing ever changes. I am trapped in the same place and it's like I haven't moved at all.

Sometimes there are doorways in my dreams. Black doors made of hateful things. They pop up when I'm not looking and they lead me into false escapes. I remember one where I walked through the door and, next thing I remembered, I was waking up in my bed in the morning. The only issue was, when I got dressed and turned to leave the room, I was not staring at my door. The door was black and daunting, this thick wood emanating an odor faintly reminiscent of blood. I staggered back into the corner and stared, shell shocked.

“Am I still dreaming?” I asked the door. It gave no response. I suppose that in and of itself implied something. My mind flashed to that other door standing in the middle of the street. Nobody was around; the world was silent. Frightened by the prospect of opening the door staring down at me across the room, even more frightened by the possibility that this was not a dream, driven by curiosity to know the truth, I reached for the handle.

With a grandiose gust of wind, a stairway endless to the eyes, suspended in a sick purple miasma, entered my gaze. Lining the ascending slope were the same door I had just opened, copied and pasted ad infinitum. Uneasy, I began climbing the staircase.

The purple miasma was no more than a single shifting backdrop, instilling subtle nausea along with intense vertigo. My eyes scanned the doors, the steps, anything else to try and distract from the overwhelming dizziness brought on by the shifting background. It was all in vain; the haunting ethereal swill remained ever-visible in my peripheral vision. I rushed through a doorway just to escape the spinning vision. Looking at it, I felt like I was getting drunk uncomfortably fast.

Beyond the arbitrary entryway I found myself in the Outer Layer, but...not exactly. It appeared as I remembered it, an open wood with a beaten footpath, but the ground was covered in earwax-colored moss that seemed to blanket everything visible to my eyes.

“No, no, no…” I muttered as I traversed the sickly-looking forest. “Please, I just want to wake up.” I felt nauseous two times over now. My entire body was rejecting the reality around it by rebelling against the contents of my stomach. Clutching my gut I gingerly proceeded through the malformed forest path.

A mysterious anomaly arose in the distance. At first I had thought a thick blanket had fallen over the skies a ways away. As I drew nearer to it I came to understand that this was not a cloud or a fog or anything tangible. It was nothing less. The null grew in the sky ahead as if it were encompassing the entire off-brand Outer Layer. The sky was just a shoddy paint job to cover up the void that surrounded reality just out of sight. I could not believe what I was seeing. I moved forward with a third kind of sickness inside me.

I came in time to a familiar clearing that was actually not so familiar. By then the sky and the void seemed to be engaged in a beam struggle which the sky was slowly losing; through the darkness and discolored foliage of the forest I could even make out slivers where neither dark nor light appeared to exist. It was like seeing beyond the veil of life and death in a peripheral sense that left me deeply unsettled.

This clearing was home to Alice's shrine. Rather, it used to be home to Alice's shrine. All that remained was a pedestal covered in rust and that odd moss; the statue atop it lay in pieces streaked with inky black cracks. Some pieces had found rest on the ground and been quickly overtaken by the pestilent moss. I could still make out a chunk that had been from her face. The eye stared at me from a distorted angle that amplified my unease.

“Only the dead walk here… keep walking… dead walking…” The echo of a rambling voice reached me through the trees. The voice felt familiar, as if heard in a dream elsewhere. The person ranting did not look familiar at all. A tall, skinny, disheveled man emerged from the treeline. His eyes were bloodshot and haunted. His face was gaunt and bony. His clothes were rags hanging loosely from pale, scarred flesh. The hair was a wild mat of knots and twigs. I stared as he approached me.

“Who. Are. You. Who are you who are you?” He asked. Suddenly it clicked.

“Jake?”

He shook his head violently as if offended by the prospect. “Jake. Is gone. Luther is gone Jake is gone. Only me now. Only the shell. Only the dead-walker “

“Wait, so what about Madrik?” I asked. And I noticed something else curious. Behind this twisted form of Jake, this hollow dead-walker, his footprints burned black into the earwax-tinted grass.

“Master.” Jake said simply and he continued walking. Not wanting to give up my chance at information, I followed him.

“Master send me, master saved me and gave me my mission. I get to walk, walk, walk forever.” Each footfall left a black imprint. I knelt down and observed the phenomenon. The surface of the footprint was a flat shadow, but it did not seem to be immobile; ash-like particles of the same shadowy consistency drifted upwards in a nonexistent breeze.

“My mission my job my task. Master send me. I walk. I walk I bring the gift.” Jake had started to move out of the clearing. I took a final glance at the off footprints and headed after him. They seemed to be expanding over time, seeping into the ground around them.

“Ja-” I caught myself before I called him Jake again. “Uh, dead-walker. So, what exactly is your mission?”

“Spread. Spread the gift.” I stared into his cold dead eyes for even a hint of recognition.

“The gift from your master? But what is it?”

He stopped. He stood still for thirty seconds or so. He turned and he reached out his hand to me. A flash of an event from the other entries, of a hand firmly around my throat, caused me to recoil. The hollowed version of Jake flinched but did not retract his hand. He curled his fingers inward and pointed behind me. I turned and I couldn't understand.

In retrospect it was obvious what was happening, what the gift was.  And it was never Madriks gift; it was Chameleon's. Alice's clearing was half-erased already. At the border between it and the frightful chasm of null, I watched those same black ashes abscond into disintegration. It was obvious in hindsight; most things are in this place. The gift was destruction. Jake was walking through alternate versions of the Outer Layer and erasing them with his very steps.

As if the universe were unzipping along the serrated border of those footfalls, a tear in the fabric traveled along the ground where Jake walked. It went too fast. It was upon me before I could react, screaming, cowering, fully expecting to become undone by the cosmic anomaly, I braced for the unavoidable freight train of nonexistence to impact me.

My eyes opened in a hazy blanket of fog. The translucent mist coupling with the void beyond sight produced a space defying comprehension. It seemed like I was being smothered by emptiness, as if the thing that denoted emptiness had filled an unfillable space and now closed me in.

“Hello?” I called out. “Please, I just want out of here. I just want to wake up already.”

Had I ever even been awake? I wonder that now as I'm writing this. Was any of it even real? Had this whole experience been false awakening after false awakening, a maddening Cirque de Soleil of stitched together experiences think fastened by my consciousness?

In response to the echo of my plea another doorway appeared, this one the inviting colors of the door to the Outer Layer. It was a chance. I took it.

Just like that i was back home. I was in my kitchen. There was a sandwich made from all my preferred ingredients that I (presumably) had prepared. This wasn't the first time I had stepped out of madness into reality; I just kind of went with the flow. Checking the time I saw it was two in the afternoon. A sandwich sounded nice to my tired belly. My entire being down to the core was exhausted.

From lunch I went about some usual business. I avoided lying down in bed for fear of falling back into another twisted dream. Eventually I sat at the computer and began typing this entry up.

Kendra knows where the red block hides you. To sever the ties to your plane you must clip the wings of the caged bird pestering you.

I stared, unable to comprehend. These words materialized on the screen, typed as if another person were interacting with my personal computer from afar. My mind jumped to the hackers Ben was so convinced were tormenting him back in the last version of reality. But I knew that I couldn't make sense of what was happening. I didn't want to deal with it. I grabbed my phone from beside me, shot out a quick tweet, and made for the door to head outside for some air.

That never really happened. As proof, I checked and my tweet about the odd phrase never appeared in the feed. Could Darek have removed it after I posted it? Maybe. And I didn't see the doorway I went through to leave my house. Perhaps it wasn't really that black nightmare door I had seen in the dream time and again. I will never be able to confirm or deny it definitively. It was like something out of TribeTwelve. I thought I was free from the nightmare realm, then I open my front door and come face to face with an endless expanse of nothingness yet again. I swear I even heard maniacal laughter in the distance.

So I kept wandering. I wandered until I saw another door and I went through it. It led to a passage full of doors and I just walked it wearily. It was getting old. Panic had long since passed over me. Only exhaustion remained. Not a physical type, though I was ready to curl up and just stop moving. I was morally exhausted, spiritually spent, mentally bankrupt. I didn't want to decipher the difference anymore. I just wanted to be free of this madness.

Since that time I haven't really slept. I just pass from door to door and live in whatever room I end up in. Sometimes I fall asleep. Sometimes I wake up thinking I wasn't dreaming. I don't know how long it has been. Days become meaningless. I'm just really starting to lose my grip on what is real and what is just a dream. I am starting to wonder if it's all been one giant dream to begin with.

I see the door now, as I type this. Better get up and love on to the next room.

#57: Haunting Tones of Dissociative Darkness

03/05/19

Everything is so surreal; today felt like living inside a dream.

It started as a dream. I recalled the reflected pools of blue gazing curiously at me from the thick miasma of smoke. The form was obscured but the telltale wingspan extending behind her gave Gwen away. Around me cloyed the unnerving stillness of eternity, neither in existence nor incorporeal, an anomalous vacuum I occupied inexplicably. As I watched in suspended fright, Gwen flapped her wings and billowing blankets of thick darkness fell over me, over and over I was buffeted by these suffocating gusts of smoke. One would assume her wings flapping would cause the air to move the smoke away; instead, it seemed as if each flap of her shadow angel's wings were generating more and more smoke. It surrounded me, consumed me, suffocated me.

To be honest I have always been afraid of drowning. The idea of being unable to breathe, to know that you can't hold out much longer, that you're being pushed to a place where your body will take a breath anyway and water will fill your lungs, it's frightening. It kind of feels like a forced suicide. If you can relate to this fear, amplify it by ten and you have an idea of what suffocating in that smoke felt like. It lasted forever. My body couldn't move; my mind couldn't hold out. I knew I would die if I inhaled it but it started seeping in anyway, through my nose, through my ears, eventually into my throat. Echoes of twisted, distorted laughter from Gwen followed me as I faded into the darkness, my body and soul and consciousness melted into the smoke.

Then I was awake, awakened as if I had been falling in my dream and suddenly jolted out of it. My heart raced. My hand clutched my chest. My eyes darted wildly, seeking the familiarity of my bedroom. Instead I was faced with a doorway. It was not THE doorway, but it stood suspended in that same null from before, a foreboding ebony shade. All around me was a vast expanse of nothing. Even though I did not want to to go through that door, every psychic sense in my soul told me that it was my only option. I moved forward.

I opened the door and passed through into the food court. Having been asleep at a decent hour(decent enough considering I had no money and no drugs to assist me), the wave of exhaustion that fell over me felt unreal. There was an emptiness inside of me akin to the vast null previously surrounding me. I inferred I had not eaten at all in a while. The expression “running on fumes” came to mind. Truly, I felt as if my ability to stand and move was rooted in some second wind. Was this really the food court? Or was i still dreaming? This felt real, but then that wasn't saying much considering reality felt like a dream lately.

In an ocean of delirium, I stumbled forwards. That's right. I remembered. I'm supposed to meet up with Ali today. Too late to back out. I was here, somehow, and there she was walking toward me.

“Hey, you!” She smiled. I tensed up.

“H-how are you?” I mumbled. She ran up and hugged me. It was almost too innocent. I felt Kendra burning behind her eyes.

“I'm okay.” She said. “Honestly it's just good to get out of the house. I've basically been doing nothing but playing games on the computer all week.”

“Have you been applying for jobs?” I asked casually.

“Umm, I have a few possibilities.” She mused. I could tell she was lying. “But nothing for certain .”

“Why don't you try something online?” We started walking through the mall. There was a big, open area ahead where the path split off into three directions. Aimless, I turned right and she followed.

“What do you mean?”

I took a deep breath. It was now or never. If I could just guide her along the path she had followed last time, I could probably get away with such innocuous inconsistencies as the fact that I probably had no idea what her cousin did for a living.

“Well your cousin Jae works for Google or something right?” I racked my brain for any specific details of how the job worked. “Doesn't she do like spreadsheet management or something from home? I was thinking that type of job could be good for you…”

I half-expected a confused reply or some searching gaze but her eyes lit up and danced around the colors of the various storefronts. We approached the child's play area, another open enclosure in front of J.C. Penney.

“That's crazy. I was actually talking to her just the other day! And you're right. That job does sound super interesting, just…” She hesitated. Here came the big turn-around. I should have known! She was going to follow the exact same pattern and isolate herself from me. Our friendship was about to collapse. I felt Darek at the corner of my mind ready to enact his version of the conversation at will. All the colors and shapes blurred together. I really didn't sleep last night. I must still be dreaming.

“I just… I'd have to move all the way up to Melbourne to do the training for that job. If I even got it.” She liked at me with that same leading curiosity as if Kendra were right there orchestrating all of this. A chill ran through me at how perfectly this was progressing.

“Well if you applied and got hired I'm sure she would let you move in with her.” I said.

“Rob doesn't want me to leave West Palm though.” She said, for the first time looking away from me entirely so I could not see her face. “His family's here, he said. So we can't go.”

“Ali.” I began, and Darek descended upon my awareness. The sensation of free falling returned; I heard the voices before I saw the scene. It was me and Ali, but… I didn't recognize the memory.

“Look, you're better off without him.” My voice declared. “He's manipulative towards you and you know it. You play this facade like you and he are so happy but you're with him to forget your past and he's using you for companionship. It's not healthy.”

“I know, but… what will I do?” Ali said. This version of her gave off a totally different vibe. She sat starting at the ground in the food court. Her hair was a mess and you could tell she had been picking at her pimples bad just by glancing at her. This was not the same upbeat and excited girl I had just been talking to.

Darek leaned in closer. His energy swirled with intensity and passion. “I don't know. Something will come up.” He reached out and placed his hand over hers. “We can figure it out together.”

This is from before, isn't it? I realized. This is from those six months I lost.

Slammed back into the moment, still hollow inside and drained of all energy, I saw this time Ali was putting her hand over mine.

“You look exhausted.” She said. “Are you sleeping okay?”

I wanted to say I still might be.

“Maybe it's time you put your happiness first for once.” I said. It wasn't really me talking. Even though I chose the words I know i didn't script them. “You're always thinking about everybody else before yourself, Ali. Perhaps it's time to change that and do what works for you.”

“Besides.” I smiled over at her. Despite the utter mental exhaustion, I still managed to radiate a reassuring warmth with that smile. “Honestly, I think you would be better off without him anyway.”

She smiled back and we continued walking. I didn't need to wait to find out how things would work out. I already knew because I had lived in the aftermath of them. Part of me felt dirty and manipulative, that part that still held fast to the delusion of normalcy I had maintained since first hearing Darek's voice.

Don’t lose hope. Zanark is more patient than Chameleon is wrathful. I can help you deal with the false angel.

“Huh?” I looked over hearing that but Ali didn't even seem to be paying attention to me. She was staring raptly into massage parlor storefront. I brushed the oddity aside and assumed I was hearing things.

We hung out for a bit longer. I kind of fell into autopilot. She prattled on about all sorts of drama between her and Rob and his family. I just tuned it out, mostly. There's no sense recounting irrelevant details on this blog. The entire rest of the day was a giant blur and I can't even remember falling asleep or anything besides vague impressions. The days are starting to blend together actively and I'm not sure if I could even tell you with any confidence how I got to and from the mall.

I just hope with all my heart that this wasn't a mistake.

#56: February Recap

02/22/19

It is so difficult to focus my thoughts.

Sensation rules my perceptions. When I try to focus on the information i gained from those entries i get overshadowed by the emotions that gripped me during my experiences. Fear, confusion, nostalgia, sorrow, and more bend my perceptions and force my rationality to take a back seat. In those moments I just sneak into my dad's liquor cabinet and drown out the trauma. He's not a big drinker so I've gotten away with it so far, but he will notice eventually. There's also the handfuls of change I steal from his room to come up with five dollars to get stoned every weekend. Yeah, they're going to start to notice.

So things are tense at home. Honestly, that's expected. Given the realization that I cannot fight the forces of fate, I am marked for death; I will lose my grace with my parents eventually. Is this perhaps how it happened last time? Did Darek take my body in those six months and do nothing? It's possible. It's probable.

There's something I have only just paid attention to as well. There is a red MegaBlok near me almost all the time. It just keeps popping up. Now that I have noticed it I cannot stop from spotting it all over the place. Sometimes it is in my backpack when I go out to chill with Ali. Sometimes it is on a counter or a shelf just out of the focus of my attention. I know it is the same block every time because it is damaged and melted slightly.

This is reminiscent of the blue MegaBlok Ben had in his videos. It also reminds me of the fact that Mark gave him a red MegaBlok which he had in his last video. It seemed to spike his anger whenever he looked at it. I don't know if this block is supposed to be a representation of something in the Outer Layer but it's continued presence in my life is unsettling. Is it the cause of this foggy mental state or the result of it? It's incredibly unsettling and not normal.

Speaking of Ben, he still refuses to have contact with me. He is going to some extremes, too. He's blocked my number and deletes any message Ali sends concerning my name. He shuts down any conversation about me and just won't give me room to speak my mind. So I have been considering this.

He uploaded a video to Facebook. Mark turned it into a YouTube release complete with footage of our conversation at the mall and throwbacks to the first time he uploaded a video defaming me.  It more or less reflects the conversation we had as depicted in the last entry. I am just a little surprised at how radically it affected him. He's jumped straight from being willing to hear me out to considering me a danger to him. The last time this happened, it took the death of his oldest-friend-slash-love-interest. Something about the conversation we had doesn't feel right. It was as if I could not properly articulate my thoughts; it kind of reflects how I've been feeling a lot since waking up, honestly. It seemed jumbled and messy, but it also is odd because it didn't seem like I misspoke so badly as to incite such hatred from Ben. He's always been a stubborn type, but this just seems extreme.

It seems as though, in my attempt to subvert the flow of events, I have instead accelerated them. That got me thinking: instead of trying to fight my destiny, why don't I just radically embrace it. I know that, after those six months of darkness, I ended up enemies with Ben while Ali had left her boyfriend and let me live with her. If Ben is already my enemy, wouldn't the next obvious step be…?

Yeah, the more I think about it the more confident I become. This is what I am supposed to do. Having recently been in Kendra's presence, I know she cares about me, she is on my side. If I even hint at the idea that we could be together, I bet she would drop Rob in an instant. It's a crazy sounding idea, I know. Every moral bone in my body says to just let it be. But the more and more I look at the evidence and the patterns the more I am convinced this is the right move.

If this was real life and my actions had lasting consequences on the world around me I would not do this. But something insane is going on and if I don't evolve my perceptions and inferences to keep pace I won't get anywhere. From the perspective of someone who has seen backstage, who has lived this out once before, who knows that these people are just actors on a set amusing Chameleon and Darek and Zanark, what do I even care if I'm a little bit of a homewrecker? I've noticed Ali's passive aggressive comments lately. The home I'm wrecking was broken already anyway.

So that's the plan going forward. I acknowledge it is insane but I can't stop things from happening. I already lost my job and my car and my grades and my friends. What's this on top of it? Let's just go all in and place a risky bet. The worst case scenario is that I get reset and I don't remember any of it anymore.

Or maybe I will find the end of this rabbit hole and be free at last.