“Why did you leave me?” Lem’s simulated self asked.

He was on the verge of tears.

“We never left. Who do you think has been watching over you and keeping you safe?”

His simulated self was thrown into utter confusion.

“They said I am infected-am I infected by evil?”

“What is evil?” his father asked.

The words echoed in his ears.

“What is evil?”

“What is evil?”

He struggled to find an answer to the question.

Lem watched, pondering.

Evil was what he hated. It had killed his parents, and it was killing him.

He had never questioned the truth of its existence.

For him, it was the cause of sorrow and death!

“The other villagers,” he began, “they said that evil infected us. They said that it killed both of you, and it was going to kill me.”

“But we are still alive,” his mother said softly. “If we are still alive, does the evil really exist?”

“There is no good or evil,” his father said. “There is only your family and strangers. Do you consider those villagers to be your family? After everything they have done? After banishing you from the village?”

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“There is no good or evil…” Lem’s simulated self repeated.

The words echoed.

“There is no good or evil…”

Lem’s simulated self furrowed his eyebrows. “What is the thing they call evil, and why is it called that?”

His mother sighed. “Evil is what is feared, little Lem.”

The faces of his mother and father became indistinct.

They faded away, and the illusion suddenly vanished.

From his detached perspective, Lem was startled when the sensory information from his body changed.

He was lying on top of the eye-shaped rock, his arms tightly hugging it.

Lem’s simulated self jumped away from the rock in horror, and ran backwards desperately.

What is happening?

What manner of being is this rock?

[You see the distinctive eye-shaped rock in front of you, and you realize that you were in an illusion. You try to run away again.]

Lem watched as his simulated self attempted to escape the eye-shaped rock…

Only to find that it had appeared in front of him again.

He ran away.

Straight back to the eye-shaped rock.

[No matter what direction you travel, you return to the distinctive rock. You do not know what to do.]

As Lem’s simulated self was staring at the rock in despair, the world around him appeared to melt.

The forest remained roughly the same, but the trees were in different positions.

The rock had vanished.

In its place was a desiccated husk of a tree. The trunk was covered in vines, and at the very top, crowning it, was a blood-red flower, the whorl of its petals resembling an evil eye that seemed to stare into the depths of his very soul.

Lem’s simulated self was aghast.

He turned around rapidly, searching for something, anything, that could help him.

In his panic, he almost stumbled over his own feet.

The evil flower watched serenely.

[The eye-shaped rock disappears, and you see an eye-like flower perched on a tree, with tangled vines extending from it.]

Lem’s simulated self felt like screaming out in frustration.

His mind had yet to recover, but he was full of anger and hatred.

Was this the being that had killed his parents?

Or was it a different form of evil?

Or was it even an evil at all?