I felt anxious. Like everything was going to change, again.

But it did not. Not yet.

I leaned against some end-cap display in the store and fought to catch my breath. I was short of breath and curiously sweaty.

“You okay, Marcus?” a fellow associate asked. I did not recongize them, but they seemed nice.

“Yeah, I’m okay. I just am having a weird mental health moment. I am fine.” I rasped back.

“Okay. If you need anything let me know, I will just be stocking the bread.”

Woozily, I turned around. My vision was blurred but I was otherwise fine. Somehow, in my mental space, I kept the graph up, though I nearly lost it several times. Catching my breath, though, I was sure I lost it once. Mostly better, now, I checked the graph: still the same two lines as before— one line for today’s magical output and the gray line for yesterday, the one from today slightly lower than yesterday; which, supposedly, was a good thing since that meant I had been more efficent today with casting magic than I was yesterday. And that was an accomplishment, something only represented by a declining spike on the graph. And yet, the graph was slightly different: now, in some large bolder lettering, it read “Magical Quality” in the background of the graph. That was new. After the ‘Magical Quality’ there was a semi-colon followed by a single word: “Strange.” it read. “Magical Quality: Strange.”

How was ‘strange’ an indicator of quality? I asked myself it over and over. But this shit never ended, did it? No, it did not, I answered myself. I knew that I should resign myself to the fact that my life from now on would just be a series of never-ending changes as I gradually was lost into this new reality, but I couldn’t yet bring myself to admit that my life was only going to get crazier as I grew closer to the under-reality. What I could do, was, was audibly groan at the thought of my life sprialing out of control.

“Are you sure you’re okay, man?” the same associate from the bakery asked. I hadn’t realized just how loudly I had groaned.

“No, fine. Just some dizziness. I gotta go!” I replied and was about to take off when the other associate got in one last word: “Alright,” he had said, “just be careful when you are going home. I just got in and there is a bunch of people searching the streets.”

I was confused. What?

“Oh, yeah, for some lost kid,” the co-worker said.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Great. Now I would have to get my tired, dead-ass home while wobbly, seeing things mostly in two-dimensions, while keeping a graph in my headspace, AND avoiding the guilt trip from militant good Samaritans looking for a lost child. What a freaking day.

I managed to avoid the worst of the good samaritans looking for the kid, but by the time I got home, I was exhausted.

Slumped on my bed, I still had the graph in my mental space. By now, I had managed to get it to slide further into the background of my mind, keeping it there almost like a screensaver juxtaposed against reality. I was hopeful that if I kept at it, there would come a time where I didn’t even notice it.

As I lied down and stared up at the ceiling fan slowly spinning, though, I knew I was burned out. I needed a vacation.

I had the time saved up. Between holiday, sick, and normally accrued vacation, I could probably take a good two weeks off. I smiled at the idea of having two whole weeks of paid vacation— two whole weeks where I could spend all day just lounging around, watching TV, wanking, whatever. Time that was mine and that I got paid for! Drinks at sunset and no guilt for the next day. It sounded incredible.

But also, impossible.

Aside from the fact that the store was approaching its peak season and would soon close off when associates could take paid vacations, I would not be able to vacation regardless due to my initiation into the under-reality; if Kush was telling the complete truth, and so far, everything indicated that he was telling the truth, than if I wanted magical powers, I had to go and work my boring, typical job. Every day. Or at least every day that I wanted to use magic.

So, I was caught in an impossible place: I was in training with the organization known as Full Time which acted as Caretakers to the under-reality. Hence, I was not going to be taking any time off work for a while since I needed to work to cast spells and complete my training. Sucked, but what could I do?

And so I was brought back here, to watching a spinning fan slowly waste away, wondering if it and I were truly so different; just idly rotating around the same old bits of bullshit day upon day.

Jumping atop my chest, Felix purred as he flapped his beautiful butterfly wings. Vibrating, he said, stop feeling sorry for yourself. You could have it a lot worse. You could be that lost kid everyone is looking for.

Felix was very true. Things could be a lot worse. But, Felix, they could also be a lot better.

But I knew that the sentiment was in the right place, because no matter how tedious or dull or repetitive and depressive my life got, I at least had my job, an income, and my apartment. And heck, I had a role in the hidden world that subtended my own reality. I didn’t exactly have a boring life; and yet, I had a safe life.

I thought to myself: you know who is very unsafe, at the moment, in all likelihood? Probably that poor little lost or kidnapped boy who is desperately searching for a way back home.

Poor kid. I would love to help search for him and to bring him back to his parents, but I had my own issues. And those issues involved a cat-creature with butterfly wings which was bonded to me— whatever that meant— and the alienation from working full time for magical power that evaporated faster than steam from a hot spring.

Unconventional problems? Sure. But problems all the same.

I close my eyes and rested. Maybe it would be all better in the morning?