What’s the point of my job, sitting here staring at a screen, every, single, day! No change in the monotony for years and years! Yet have I ever gotten appreciation for all that I do? Forget the appreciation, I need a raise! Everyone else has already left and explored the Pearl Necklace! I mean, I assume they have, I wouldn’t have come back to Start if I knew I’d get stuck sitting here. Among equals my a-

“Justine! I was hoping to find you here!” Meagan interrupted my train of thought coming through the four inch, mentally reinforced, black tourmaline door.

“Meagan you’ve saved me! I’m going insane! Though, you really shouldn't be here.”

“Ah it's fine boss, I had a feeling you’d want some company.”

“Bu-”

“NOT TO MENTION,” Meagan interrupted, “I never finished telling you the latest gossip. Did I leave off on the rumors of the Matriarch?”

“Fine, fine. You haven't got to Olania yet, I believe you were discussing progress on the search for the mimic’s city.”

“Oh! About that! Supposedly there’s a lead! It has something to do with the Matriarch as well!”

“Lani? Hasn’t she been a hermit for the past decade or so? Something about ‘feeling the energies’ or some garbage like that? How could she find the city?”

It has to do with why I’m here, a voice said in Justine’s head.

“AH! Lani you do this every time! You leave me here to watch over your man, then give me a heart attack every time your guilt brings you back!” As I shouted at the unmistakable voice of our Matriarch, she walked through the same door Meagan took earlier. If anyone called her a Reform they’d be wrong, she was as Orthodox as they come. Her dark eyes met mine, oversized pupils peering over a pair of sunglasses as she painstakingly walked in the room.

She let out a defeated sigh, one I’ve heard countless times over the last millenia.

“Sometimes I forget about proper manners, sorry for projecting without asking...” I waved away the apology before she continued, “and believe it or not, guilt is not why I’m back. Yes I was, ‘feeling the energies’ as you said it, but I’m glad I did. When was the last time you checked his brain-waves?” She gestured to the opposite wall from the door. Separated from the rest of the room by a half-opaque glass, lay a man.

Lifted upon a stone pedestal, the shell of a Reform was visible for all to see. He was sickly pale, loose skin framing his once full face. Whatever pigment he once had was bleached due to isolation over countless years. A system of tubes and pipes fed into him, keeping him alive. Once a curious researcher, now he could easily be mistaken for a preserved corpse.

“I was actually about to do the weekly check, why? Is something wrong?”

Lani’s eyes lingered on her greatest regret while she responded, “Yes, I fear he is no longer with us.”

Divider 3 [https://i.imgur.com/x25YomT.png]

Yuclaus had been sitting, reclining in a stone nook, as he admired the heavenly bodies. He had found a nice tower at the edge of the city, one he now occupied. It was bisected, leaving a clean ridge for him to sit on. It had been a bit of work to climb up the interior, but it was actually a lot of fun as well. It reminded him of when he was a carefree kid, climbing boulders on hikes.

He brought a can to his lips, and took a small sip of the sickeningly….acidic….flavor. He had decided to drink his friend’s “zero calorie amino energy drink with 300 mg of caffeine”. It hurt his brain to think about. It was somehow sweet, yet no flavoring was added, only amino acids.

With time to further inspect the surroundings, Yuclaus noticed more proof to support his theory of being trapped in a dream. The whole world was too saturated. The trees, now a lot closer to him, had leaves that were far too green. The ground was like a marbled mixture of light brown, beige, and a dark red. The sky, blue at first sight, had a slightly purple hue to it. This is not including the plant life that was unrecognizable. Everything was foreign, except for that tumbleweed earlier.

Who knows, perhaps it hadn’t even been a tumbleweed, but rather some nefarious nightmare-creature plotting to devour Yuclaus. The ruins of the advanced medieval city, elf-like forest, and psychedelic sky supported Yuclaus’ theory with irrefutable proof. So there he sat, enjoying the view, however unreal it was.

Unbalanced as I seem, mayhaps more fat is essential to even the scale of my diet. Only hope of remembrance will correct unwise partaking habits. Yuclaus seemed slightly disturbed at what he could only assume was his mind. He believed he had been eating healthy, but found himself questioning previous meals. I have no clue if not eating fat actually causes weird dreams, I’m just the messenger.

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Yuclaus continued to sit, and nurse the curious drink until the sun was blocked by the planet sitting on the edge of the sky. As darkness slowly crept upon him, he found that not even a hint of a chill traveled through his body. Yuclaus even felt fully fed. Water was as unnecessary as my constant interjections. His physical senses were all either muted or numbed.

Cause was met with disappointment quite soon as the night sky was not as beautiful as he imagined it would be. Rather, the sky was filled with shadows, only the occasional smattering of stars visible. A majority of the black canvas was just circular outlines of the celestial figures in the sky.

He sighed, before considering his options. He could sit here, just waiting to wake up. He could walk through the forest, and hope to see something splendid. He could also wait until day, to decide if there was anything exciting in the distance. His attention was fully focused on the sky; afterall, maybe he missed an upside-down mountain, or a river flowing on the treetops.

He eventually decided to make a campfire with his BICC lighter. His body temperature would remain neutral, but maybe he'd get some cozy vibes. He stood up carefully on his outlook, and looked below him. The drop was about three to four times his height. He hesitated for a second, then lifted his foot over the edge, and stepped off. Well, he tried to.

His back foot caught on something in the wall, and he went from casually strolling in air, to spinning at mach 4 speed down the side of the tower. Ok maybe he only flipped head over heels a few times, but I think it's funny to imagine.

As he neared the ground, his head whipping with centripetal force, smashed into the stone below. The previous cracks were joined with fresh ones. Yuclaus lay there, face down, completely unharmed. A minute passed. He slowly pushed himself up, then paused when he glanced around.

Demons below! Where hath my soul been snatched too! Cause panicked, looking at the now unfamiliar surroundings. He had no clue how he had gotten where he was, nor did he know where he was in the first place. He had completely forgotten what had transpired for the past two chapters.

It was interesting to see how he reacted to his surroundings the second time around. The darkness draped over the world, obscuring his vision. He was unable to pick out any details, let alone his fallen bag. He stumbled around, tripping, floundering, and even letting loose a few choice expletives. In the end, he came to the conclusion that he was either partially blind, or he was going insane.

He decided to just sit down in place. Logically speaking, if he was truly insane, then he could be walking around the streets, endangering himself. So he sat, and waited in the dark. Waiting while doing nothing is harder than you think. Waiting with most of the five senses rendered useless in the darkness even more so. Have you ever had a dream, where you were aware you were dreaming, but, in this dream, your eyes were closed? You can't open them, for if you do, you will find yourself staring at your bedroom ceiling. I would say this was an apt analogy for what Cause was feeling.

He decided after a decent amount of time had occurred that he couldn't sit and do nothing. So he thought it would be wise to see if he could discern what was around him. Yuclaus dragged his fingers over the unfamiliar surface, searching for some clue as to where he was. He came to the conclusion that he was, in fact, sitting on a stone road. He thought there were cracks, but he wasn't as sure. He kept searching, like a vine slowly crawling up a trellis, his fingers searched the stone. About to lose hope, he found something different. He skimmed an object, but it scurried away before he could secure it.

He searched after it with determination, a drowning man grasping for a life raft. Our lead darted his hand out once again —much too hard— and the object clattered away, floating ever out of his reach. Cause scrambled after the elusive object, ignoring the possibility that it could simply be a pebble.

What ensued was a morbid reenactment of olympic curling. Yuclaus would feel the edge of the object, get excited, push it away in his haste, then pounce after it again. This cycle happened several times before he forcibly calmed himself down. He realized he was being a fool, which he was. The next time he reached slowly for the object.

His pointer finger skimmed it. He faltered, and slowed his movements so as not to trigger the object’s flight again. As if the object was an egg, he carefully placed his fingers around it, and pulled it towards himself. Touching the object, he found it was hard like a diamond, with faceted sides that spoke of careful craftsmanship. It gave him a feeling as if he'd recently held a similar object before.

Inexplicably, his mind made this seemingly hard object feel unexpectedly fragile, as if he was holding a hollow chocolate instead of a rock. Yuclaus felt if he squeezed it, the touch exterior would shatter under enough pressure. You could attribute what happened next to either a sense of curiosity, or lack of forethought: He squeezed it.

A pink light that was invisible to everything but Yuclaus’ mind flashed in his hand. Immediately, it felt as if an invisible wind rushed all around him, but not even the slightest breeze tickled his skin. The illusory wind went straight through his eyes, blinding him, as it went into his head.

Yuclaus’ life flashed before his eyes, but a much smaller part than he expected. As if at fast-forward, Yuclaus saw himself wake up on the cobblestone of a medieval town. He stared a lot, laughed a lot, and stared some more. At the end of the clip, he found himself spinning while falling. As abruptly as it came, the deja vu vanished.

I fear I am literally insane. Yuclaus was so surprised, so terrified, he didn't even think to talk “properly” in his own mind. He remembered what he had forgotten but his memory was restored by what he assumed was a gem. He was never blind, it was just so dark, that his mind made him think he was. He also wasn't deaf, the area had been eerily quiet the whole time. Without feeling warm or cold, hungry or thirsty, his mind had jumped to the conclusion when he lost his memories that he had gone insane. The panic he had earlier faced was gone now that he remembered. Yet, what made him actually think he was insane, was that he physically lost his memories, in his mind.

He had heard of a symptom where people’s minds shattered under traumatic conditions. These minds pieced themselves together into different personalities. While the different personalities didn't affect him, supposedly, there was a “room” in the mind that could be changed. Did he find himself trapped in his own mind, able to separate his memories from himself? As if he was decorating his “room” with his memories rather than furniture.

If true, the implications are quite disturbing. The real dilemma was whether every injury would cause a memory to pop out. Worse was the knowledge that if he lost a memory he wouldn't even remember having lost it in the first place.