It was warm…no, it was cold? So warm that it was cold? So cold that it was warm?

And is it dark right now? Or maybe it’s light?

Everything is too loud, but I can’t hear anything.

All my senses are just failing me, aren’t they. Alright then, I guess I just wait if everything is just going to lie to me like this.

Waiting was apparently the right idea.

After some time had passed a voice decided to finally spook me. Or maybe grace me? Maybe it was showing me some mercy after I just floated there in abstraction and confusion for so long. But mercy is a very relative thing, isn’t it, because this form of ‘mercy’ felt absolutely flattening. Every new word felt shoved into my mind like it wanted to topple me. Every sentence was a wave. Every notion was a hammer to nail me into my place.

I flinched. I was dizzy. I almost felt seasick from my own rocking.

Was that a man? Was it a woman? Where were they? Were they anywhere? Maybe a projection?

Of course nothing in this stupid room would give me any indication of anything. How annoying.

I made a face. A very pouty face.

I was…rotated? I was even forced to sit, although I felt like I was sitting in outer space, so like, did it even freaking matter if I was put into place? Was I even facing the right direction? Did any of this even change anything?

My face was obviously still peeved, although maybe more of a confused peeved.

Okay let’s be honest I didn’t even think of doing that in this stupid forsaken place I was in. For all I know with how the rest of this crap was going I’d try to talk and nothing would come out. Or maybe it’d like, somehow, idunno, only talk inside of me or something? Like backwards? I didn’t need to get more frustrated than I already was, ya know? But, yeah, fuck it. We can play the stupid androgenous voice’s game.

“Yeah, ok. Hi. What the fuck?”

How do you even fucking steal someone? Did they mean kidnapping?

“Did you take me off the street or something? Sounds like it with your creepy choice of words. Am I in your dungeon or garage or whatever in some sensory deprivation tank or something dumb like that? What was even so interesting about me?!”

I felt something touch me, jostle me, and yet it was so soft against my skin and so deliciously warm that I could really feel the affection from it.

The caresses just wouldn’t stop, almost lapping against me like waves, even as I was told all this ridiculous bullshit. Even if I tried to flail and push against whatever was touching me, nothing at all was there, and I just couldn’t connect. Another thing to chalk up to this dumb room I guess.

“Yeah, alright, whatever, we’ve entered into your little fantasy kingdom, great. So how am I supposed to have ‘died’ in this little skit we’re acting out?”

I felt something… and then nothing. Was I worried before? Why had I said that? Why did I even ask? I opened my mouth to start asking what just happened, and then I just…closed it. Was I even about to say something? I guess not, huh. Okay then.

You could practically feel the shrug at the end of their sentence. Why did it all feel so evil to hear? Did something actually… Oh well, that’s ok, what was I thinking about before? Oh yeah right.

“So why do you like me so much, like you keep saying?”

Yeah ok, the voice wasn’t, like, wrong or anything. If I was in the same shoes then hell yeah I’d wanna have a meeting with that person, maybe pick their brain a bit about a few things. Is that what was happening? My mind was still a little fuzzy. What was the book’s name? They’re right, I read it so many times, but why can’t I remember how much?

But…yeah, like… I did indeed love that book.

“It was my everything. It was so fun… that in a way it was my world. In my mind I lived in it.”

The waves picked up frequency against me.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

I could feel myself getting angry, and at first I couldn’t understand why. It took a few teeth clenching moments of enraged confusion before I started to feel something almost loosening around me. Then the words just kind of burst out of me like they couldn’t possibly be held back anymore.

“But WHY? What wonderful and amazing fantasy world would just have a god that randomly decided to exclude people like that? What were you possibly thinking writing that poor little child into getting abused and thrown away at only 7? You tortured him for his whole freaking life for WHAT?! Just a stupid plotline?!”

The waves stopped. I could almost feel the voice flinch.

“I don’t care if it made an interesting story, I can’t stand having to have read such an awful life happening to a little kid. If that story was my everything like I told you, then how do you expect me to just be ok with such abuse? He didn’t deserve any of it, just like all the other people your silly deity in the book neglected didn’t.”

I could feel myself starting to cry, and my nose getting stuffy. It felt like a scabbed over wound had been ripped open afresh. Part of me even felt embarrassed and stupid for lashing out like how I was over just a book, but dammit! This was finally my chance to ask those questions that’d been plaguing me for so damn long!

The waves started gently lapping again, although this time slower, and with less heat.

Something about the way the voice was discussing all of this felt both like it didn’t care at all about the subject, and that it thought I’d immediately understand if it explained itself like this. It even sounded a little condescending, like it thought I should have known all of this by now. All things considered, I was still very infuriated with its attitude, although my feelings halted a bit once I realized that all my tears and stuffiness were gone all of a sudden, almost as if the waves that had been hitting me had stolen them away.

The voice could tell I wasn’t fully over the subject. It almost seemed desperate to win back my opinion of it.

What an uncaring person. What a stupid excuse. Didn’t the voice make everything? Couldn’t they have fixed it too?! The look on my face must have been all too obvious to decipher, and the voice rushed to calm me down.

Something seemed to be suddenly pulling me in, closer and closer towards a brighter, hotter, heavier, and even louder spot in this vast expanse.

I blinked for a while and ran the speech that had been thrust at me through my head a few times to make sure I was understanding everything correctly. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t getting more and more excited by the second every time I reconfirmed what I’d just heard. I was practically vibrating by the time I replied.

“You’re… Are you sure? You’re ok with me changing whatever I want? Really?”

If I had the ability to jump for joy in this stupid place I of course would have by now. Instead, all I could manage was a vague flapping of my arms and a tilt of my floating body. At least the silly little noises of elation I was making could show off how crazy happy I was.

The voice was chuckling at my antics, although I could barely even notice the sound under all the hooting and hollering that I’d been doing, but the next thing it said stopped my revelry immediately.

I wasn’t even given a chance to really try and understand what state I must have been in, or even to reply, before I felt a weird crunch. It almost felt like the world was just removed from existence in the exact spot that I’d been floating in. I couldn’t see for a couple of seconds and I panicked pretty hard, but then I could see just fine, maybe even better! The voice that I could barely pinpoint before seemed to now have a definite center, at the very least. The brightness was even cranked up a notch from what it was before, although somehow it didn’t hurt my eyes, and as I brought a hand up to my face to try and shade my eyes for a better view, I stopped midway in astonishment.

That hand. That wasn’t my hand at all. I was in control of it, but my hands were never this sleek, nor had I ever painted my nails this shade of red. With even further amazement I found that my new hand was attached to an arm that was wearing a pure white robe with golden accents. Furthermore, I could tell that all of my body was different than before under that almost angelic looking robe. I couldn’t help patting myself down and feeling myself up through the cloth to check that all of this was even real. Do I feel different? Was it not just my hands? I’m curvier for sure but I feel more…in shape? Maybe even stronger. At least more well put together.

As I mused over my new peaks and valleys, flatness and curves, my slow bending brushed my new hair into my face. I hadn’t noticed earlier because it was considerably shorter than it had been before, but even my hair was different. Instead of the long wavy brown hair I’d had just a moment before, what I could see of my hair was now… red? It seemed to start out straight and maybe a platinum colour at the top before suddenly becoming rough and curly at the ends, stopping at my neck. The ends were an oddly rusty red colour that I’d caught out of the corner of my eye, and to even add to the effect they seemed to be constantly dripping a bloody substance on my robe with every move I made, dying it with the droplets and then seeming to just fade away only moments later.

In my wiggles and efforts to see myself I felt a weird tugging on my back, almost as if some small thing behind me was catching on the sudden wafts of air. In my old body I’d never been that flexible, and this new one didn’t seem to suddenly have that talent either, because despite all attempts made, I couldn’t seem to reach back and grab whatever it was that was making me feel those odd new sensations.

The voice…The light maybe I should call it now? Whatever, the voice had decided that I’d had long enough to get acclimated, and started up talking again.

I of course had a thousand questions at the tip of my tongue trying to bubble out, but the voice seemed to be having none of it at the moment, and kept talking.

There was a sudden sensation of something sucking and tugging at my mind, of folders getting flipped and rifled through at top speeds, of ripping and tearing of paper, of many things evaporating. It seemed the voice was making many removals and I was just forced to let it make whatever arbitrary decisions about what I’d need to remember as it pleased. That time I wet myself at the sleepover? Gone. My school career? Poof. The faces of my friends and family? Might as well have never even existed. Other people’s names? What other people. My own name apparently didn’t even make the cut. Seems I wasn’t that person anymore anyways, so I suppose there was an argument to make there. My basic core was still the same though, especially my feelings and perspective. My memory was especially clear when it came to anything to do with my beloved book; The story seemed almost engraved upon my brain.

The voice was clearly pleased with itself, and let out a triumphant huff. The feeling of it placing its hands on its hips in victory was not lost upon me. Honestly, I was surprised I didn’t even feel mad about strips and strands of myself being cut away.