#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.