My eyes slide open. I stare at my ceiling, the sight that I wake up to every morning. My eyes roam over the map, spray-painted over easily made plastic.

A map of... home

Haaah. I miss it dearly. And soon I will see it all again.

With a monumental effort, I get up. Today’s the day! Alright, come on, let's get this show on the road! With great effort, I pull off my well-loved soft wool blanket and jump up. As I rise, I look out my window to see the familiar ball of flaming iron nails screaming into sight, signaling that it’s time to start my day.

So, I stumble into my shower on the other side of my room, finding an egg of blackened plastic filled to the brim with pipes. I approach the screen and wonder.

"Hmmm, what shampoo should I use today? Aero so my hair could float at my will?" I ponder.

"Or maybe I should use the Ursula package for some tentacle hair, baby!" I say pumping my fists.

"Eh, the tentacle hair is a pain to wash away." I complained.

"I'll go for Aero since it matches my outfit." I said with a shrug.

I press the button at the top, and silver flames leap wildly from the pipes, enveloping the room with burning light. After only a few seconds, I step out completely clean. Not a speck of dirt, not even a bit of mussed hair, is present on my person. And of course, my hair floats ethereally a silver sheen surrounding it.

"Oh, this is so much better than a regular shower. I’m done so quickly, plus there is no need to sit on the toilet waiting for your hair to get done with the conditioner. I love it! It’s just so cool!" I say with happiness clear in my voice.

I giggle as I head to the armory, my bare feet slapping against the hard floors of my home. I step into the circular room that is all but filled to the brim with artifacts I have made and found. From an eternally spinning rack on the bottom, which held all of my clothes, to a litany of glass cases on the top, holding special artifacts

I sigh.

So many things in this room that would drive people mad, anyone with a mere sliver of my collection here could total a city, and anyone who would dare to buy one of them would have to bankrupt a country to even attempt to.

And I'm walking away from all of it.

I glance at an old binder and tomes of runes. I see ancient weapons and a magnificent collection of crowns, robes, and capes fit for any emperor.

Amidst the chaos, I grab a single, right-handed diamond-encrusted glove capable of guiding me where I need to go. I slip on shifting mercury stiletto heels, each as tall as the length of one of my hands; each heel is covered in menacing runes, granting me the power to moonwalk.

I grab my favorite crown from my extensive collection, an elegant and simple piece made of spirit silver with a band that slowly rises to a dangerously sharp tip that holds the spirits of dozens of ancient kings and queens.

And finally, a robe made by an idiotic and sadistic vizier, composed of strips of the minds of close-minded people, shielding my perspective from spirits. It encloses me completely in tightening and loosening bands, wide and thin, that refuse any perspective but their own. I slip them on and walk to my final breakfast here on this side of reality, my stiletto heels clicking-clacking on the plastic floors of my home away from home.

I grab some cereal and milk from the fridge and toss them into a bowl before sitting down at the table in front of the window. Through the window, I can see the artificial sun that I personally forged from infinite iron nails and the endless expanse of thought blooming with all the colors of the soul.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

"This is really it. This is the last day I, Tara the great Emotionsmith, will ever spend in my beautiful prison." I say with melancholy drifting through my words.

"I’ve earned it. I’ve spent years figuring out the rules of this topsy-turvy world. I’ve journeyed farther and learned more than anyone could have ever expected me to. And yet I am still so afraid of what comes next... It’s been so long, and I’ve done so much." I say smiling wryly.

"And I’m just supposed to... what, just walk back into an ordinary life as if nothing happened?!" I speak angrily into the void.

I sigh, holding my head in my hands. What a lonely creature am I? Talking to myself in the depths of a space station so grand that it would shatter the perspective of a passerby. Am I really complaining about finally achieving their dream after countless years? It might be painful, but change is necessary.

In the end, no one can stand unchanging, not even spirits. So I stand up, gather my strength, and smile at my reflection.

"It's GO time! Better get off this tin can while I can muster the motivation to do so." I said with a smile at my reflection in the glass.

And so I walk straight into the glass and shatter it with my strength, letting go of the weight of my home so that it will fall into the star I forged from my very blood and ingenuity.

I won’t let any grubby scavengers take my arsenal of artifacts. At least not without a proper challenge. Looking back at the impending wreckage, I nod. If someone manages to get something from that, they deserve it.

I sigh, because, well, we must move on. I step on gouts of mercury as I walk on nothing at all. Leaving behind the closest thing I had to home for a while. But before I do, I gaze upon my prison, my home, and my paradise.

I search for spots of blue wonder amongst the putrid greens, dim pinks, and searing reds. These colors form the landscape, each blooming and dying in tandem with the thoughts of the masses.

Ugh, it hurts to see so much and yet know so little of what happens on the other side of the glass that separates this reality.

I see the signs of war, yet I do not know if war with the Estrati erupted as was predicted in my time or if the war is occurring centuries in the future between participants I don’t even know.

For all I know, the scarlet war could be conjured by the fight between ant colonies. The bloody clashes of war might not even be borne of human thought. After all, human thought is not the only thing that makes up this peculiar landscape I live in. An ant’s dreams are just as real as a human's; they are just as colorful and true as any dream you or I might forge.

But the thing about the astral, you know, the thing we go through to get pretty much anywhere in a reasonable amount of time, is that it’s not a simple road or some tunnel we use to quantum leap; no, it is a quiet, peaceful expanse as large as our own universe that is oh so beautiful and oh so empty.

In a moment of whimsy, I turn off my boots and take the time to just float.

"You know, if I didn’t know that the infinite expanse means that I would never be found or rescued, I think I could spend eternity here just watching the entire universe think in tune with me," I remark while miming myself holding a star born of a unified belief.

As I start to spin with uncontrolled momentum, I chuckle. Ignorance truly is bliss. I muse on the fact that this is quite literal in my case. After all, your truths dictate your perspective in the astral. I wonder if I could have been rescued if I had held the common belief. The dull perspective of those who don’t see the possibility in the idea of a plane that collectively holds all thoughts that will ever happen.

"Why could I even get research that would have exploded the heads of scientists centuries ago while ordering groceries?" I exclaim, waving my hands around in frustration, causing me to slowly spin in the void.

You see, a while ago, through the collective research of humanity’s scientists, we figured out that the astral plane is structured through expectation. So if you step through a portal and all prior evidence suggests that you would come out the other side, you WILL come out the other side.

And I guess that's what I expected when I thought of this place in between the stars and the realm of pure thought. I imagined a world of color that blooms with every idea that is ever made. Every single emotion, idea, or concept from the warm gratitude of a mother to the soul-crushing grief of a survivor is painted amongst an infinite expanse.

I sigh, melancholy rippling out from my position in this world.

I suppose I should be grateful that my prison is so beautiful that I can gaze upon families embracing holiday cheer, parades held in honor of peace, doctors defeating death, and battles fought for freedom.

But why allow it all?

I shrug my shoulders, for there is no need to fret; I’ll figure out the truth soon enough.

Wait! I see a bit of blue wonder over there. I arrest my movement with a whisper of certainty and use my diamond-encrusted glove to conjure a tether to the coordinates before continuing my spacewalk. I’ll need to collect a bit of wonder for my next step. Or, well, I guess my last. Regardless, I’m going to have to pass through the scarlet bloom of war to get there, but I should be fine traveling through it.

I push through the blooms of war and hear the clangs of swords, the yells of debates, and the quiet of explosions in a vacuum. The bloom pushing into my mind the very concept of war from the scratch of quills to horrifying violence. But I keep walking through my slightly demented robe of strands protecting me.

My steps are steady; no more swimming for me. I’ve grown and seen so much in here, but it all comes down to this.

I tear up as I think of all I’ve accomplished, the research I have spent years on, the adventures through the infinite expanse, and the conversations with people with such different perspectives from mine. I think I’ll miss the astral plane just a bit, but above all else, I’m glad that my perspective is mine and that I see wonder rather than just a boring, plain road from A to B.

But as I hear the gleeful laughter of children and see eyes glistening with tears from the tops of mountains, I know that I’ve arrived. And so, I pull my carefully constructed portal out of my pocket. It is a long-lost familiar sight: airports and terminals, all ending with a portal of gleaming white plastic and silver metal.

It was something so ordinary that I used it for my daily commute, and yet it will now be the thing that will bring me home, although admittedly, it is inscribed with enough runes to drown a city.

I laugh.

"It’s so silly that I still use these runes. English would work perfectly fine if I had the belief, but I guess I never thought of English as magical enough," I giggle.

Oh, the quirks of magic so much stronger for those willing to laugh at the absurdity of it all.

It makes me think of was a phrase coined a long time ago. It was made far past my time by people I could only meet due to the strange place I found myself in. But they taught me much and that damning phrase still rings. So before I leave, I say it to the mundane world on the other side of the astral.

"You should fear the insane; they know nought of what is impossible"

And with that last thought given to the infinite expanse, I step through the portal.

"Ta-ta and goodbye, Astral Realm."