#63: Inner Conflict

05/10/19

FTP: I ended this one a little awkwardly on a cliffhanger. I'm in the process of writing the aftermath of the confrontation. It was pretty intense but I'm still an entertainer at heart; I want to keep you guys on the edge. Next week should conclude everything.

Honestly I have just been incredibly distracted. Ben came to visit Ali last week. That's why I was a day late posting the entry- something strange happened. I don't know exactly how to explain it.

It walked in the door of the house and a very strange sensation flowed through me. It was as if a warmth had called over my body and sprung forth from inside all at once. I watched Ben turn on the couch and snarl “You again?” Then leap up and strike at me. But that's not what actually happened. I was staring into an empty living room as I entered the house. No strange feeling, no snarling ex-friend. However, this happened around 4 in the afternoon. When I checked the clock in the kitchen a short time later it said it was seven at night. I don't think three hours passed from the time I got settled in to the time I checked the clock. Did I lose hours? Like I said, I don't know how to explain it. It might even be nothing. But I'm just trying to figure all of this out.

Anyway, Ali has been acting different since then. Before when we talked about my blog she supported my lunatic belief systems. Now she's being standoffish and confrontational when it comes up in casual conversation. The same girl who supported me in my outwardly unhealthy hobby is now telling me I need to let it go like it's just a thing I am doing because I'm fucking bored. Should have seen this coming. It's how she spoke back in 2017.

So I've been very passive aggressively drinking and staying out late at WiFi-equipped establishments. As long as I'm able to communicate with y'all I'm fine. This is just such h insane bullshit on top of all the stress I'm feeling. I have never been very good at coping. Does that surprise you, whoever you are reading this? And since this little load save state occurred I have felt a constant dull hum of delirious pressure on the back of my head. It's as if just… giving it all up would be easier. Does it even matter? To cope with it I just built a wall around my fear and marched on. That fear has festered now into an apathetic beast. Do you all even exist? Is reality really real? Why the fuck should I keep trying to justify my continued existence based on the literal lie I'm encased in??

I don't know. I don't know anything anymore and I guess I'll just keep marching forward.

03/27

“What is going on right now…?” I muttered as Anna approached Gwen with ice in her eyes.

“The two halves of your heart are in conflict.” Kendra said, appearing beside me. I jumped at the sound of her voice so close and my head snapped to face her. She stood as ambivalent as ever observing through her spectacles the allegory unfolding.

“You're seeing the true selves their personas tried to hide.” Anna strode forward, all the moisture in the air coalescing to surround her like an aura, an extension of her soul. “Anna, who always you saw associated with weeping and sorrow, used that perpetual shame to cover up bitter hatred for the world.” The moisture converged viciously all of a sudden; the water crystallized into needles of ice. “Gwen is much more cliche.” Kendra commented idly. “She acts manipulative and controlling but it's actually because she is afraid and cowardly.” Gwen dodged and ducked around the shards of ice. One or two scratched her superficially; she showed no sign of slowing in her approach toward Anna.

“We have to help them!” I cried.

“What are you going to do?” Kendra suddenly snapped at me. The still cold air suddenly felt overbearingly warm and humid. “This isn't some anime where you suddenly unlock your latent reality manipulating powers. You wrote that out of the story. You made yourself the victim of this conflict you created.” The phrasing of that stuck with me. I made sure to accurately reflect it here.

Gwen crashed into Anna, her arched-back wings giving her more momentum. Her hand closed around Anna's throat, and suddenly my vision was besieged by a peculiar sensation.  I felt the breath being choked out of me, but I also felt my hands wrapped around someone's throat. Just as Kendra described to me, a slow-burning wrath and a terrified panic overwhelmed my sensations. I was experiencing both of their emotional states at once,  the two Figments fighting for controlling power of my soul. I experienced the sensations as each of them did, half-conscious of both their struggling wills and wholeheartedly aware that if Anna did not win, I would die. I would die and nothing would bring me back in time or yank me out of the matrix.

My body ran forward without my express permission but not without my sympathy. I dove and crashed into Gwen with a massive thud, knocking her off of Anna. Anna had not been resisting or fighting Gwen's strangulation, but the air around her, her aura, felt rigid and jagged. Scratches and cuts produced tiny droplets of blood along my exposed flesh. I did not pay any mind to it. I only threw my arms around Anna and held her tightly to me. Gwen disappeared from my awareness. Only Anna and I existed.

Her entire history flashed through my brain in one overwhelming surge of raw sensation. I understood in that moment. She didn't kill Alice. Gwen killed Alice. Gwen took the purity in my mind and twisted it into something else entirely. She removed it from me by force and in the aftermath tried to rewrite the atrocity in her favor. Don't ask me how or why I knew that because it just sort of came to me with the epiphany, as if the flood of emotions delivered the information to me imperceptibly.

I clung to Anna as she lay limply across my lap. Gwen rose to her feet with menace in her eyes. Where was her cowardice now? Have faith. Something inside of me echoed. Kendra was right. I was defenseless and helpless. I had no powers; nothing was going to save me. Now I was as at Gwen's mercy as Anna if not more. At least Anna's will seemed to be manifesting around us in the air. I clenched my eyes shut and let the moments like get toward the first strike, the visceral wounding, the violent strangling.