I opened up my eyes to see a hated but familiar scene. A room that was pure white except for the few pieces of furniture in the otherwise empty room. This was the place I called home for the first 17 years of my last life, a place that ruined my future and forced me to become a criminal fleeing from the government.
I had returned back to when I was five years old and I had just swapped souls with the artificial one that was controlling my body for the first five years of my life. Because of this I was unable to go back further in time and prevent myself from coming to prison even though that would have been far preferable. For the millionth time I lamented that my simple choice to skip my boring adolescent years had caused me so much grief and pain, but I could still change the future and that thought pushed me forward to complete the task I needed to do.
I hurriedly sat down on the floor and closed my eyes focusing on the connection between my physical brain and my [Metaphysical Organ: Adaptive Mind]. Immediately I could sense the sinister mental hooks that were slowly creeping into my brain trying to exert their subtle control over me. The sensation nearly caused me to start hyperventilating remembering the trauma of when I wasn’t in control of my body. I forced myself to focus and used my [Adaptive Mind] to create a virtual copy of my brain that would act as a decoy to interact with outside influences and shield my physical brain from outside forces.
This technique took me 40 years to perfect and took way too much energy for my current five year old body to handle, but I had planned for this and had sent back in time with me an extremely compact 3 meter cubed [Mana Reactor] artifact that I had stored inside of my five year old [Body Of Artifacts]. The whole thing barely fit inside of the storage space of [Body of Artifacts] but I wouldn’t be able to get my hands on any other artifacts for the foreseeable future so I didn’t mind this fact.
Without this [Mana Reactor] none of my plans would be possible and I would’ve only been able to go back to when I was already sixty years old and had just completed my [Artificial Mind], but by that time my life had already been ruined and I would again have to be on the run for the rest of my life. Thankfully I was able to come up with a solution, my [Mana Reactor] combined with my [Body Of Artifacts] would open back up my restricted world and allow me to break the shackles that held me.
It took me about one hour to create my [Virtual Brain], and after completing it, without wasting a second, I fervently destroyed any traces of mental influence in my brain, combing through it over and over again with an anxiety and fear that reared its head like a ferocious dragon. I had to make sure that there weren’t any sinister influences lurking inside of my mind, even though I already knew that there wouldn’t be any.
After making sure that there were no more mental influences in my brain my whole body started to shake, tears flowed out of my eyes, and I started to grin, “ha… haha…HAHAHA HAHAHA! IT’S DONE, I’M FREE! HAHAHA…haha…ha…ha.”
I started to sob as I hugged my knees to my chest and just sat there crying in relief for what felt like forever. After calming down I wiped my eyes, got up from my seated position and went to lay down on the lonely bed in the corner of the room. After almost a century of constant worry and fear I was free, both from other influences and my own self imposed isolation. I no longer had to worry about constantly being monitored and tracked, and I could finally do the things I wanted to instead of cowering in fear of being captured and enslaved once again.
As I lay on my bed I started to think about what came next. The first and most crucial step in my plans was finished, but everything from this point on also had to be done to perfection if I wanted to have any chance of escaping. By the time I planned to escape this prison I needed to have made my captors believe that they had me in the palm of their hands. That all started with cultivating my image and leading the actions of my captors.
One of the things I learned from my years of experience running and hiding from others was that if they can’t predict what I’m going to do, then I’ll be miles ahead of them by the time they realize they’ve been fooled.
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” - Sun Tzu, The Art of War. I found that the quote from Earth was very accurate. Although I will have to suffer some losses, I’ll make sure to win the battles that will ultimately lead to my victory.
In order to escape from prison and evade subsequent capture I needed to carefully manipulate the image I showed to my audience. I decided that the persona that would give me the best results was that of a naïve child who believed everything he was told. Then after feeling betrayed and manipulated the child would grow to resent the people who held him captive, and he would start to constantly try and do everything he could to plan an escape from prison unaware that all of his plans were already known and subsequently prevented by his captors.
An inexperienced individual might say that letting my audience know that I wanted to escape sounded like a horrible idea, because if they knew I was trying to escape then they would start to monitor me even more and find out my actual plans. However by showing them that I wanted to escape and feeding them false information via my [Virtual Mind] I would lure them into a false sense of security by giving them the illusion of control. After all, if I have been planning my escape for years unaware that all of my thoughts are already known to my captors, how would I possibly be able to escape when all of my plans have been foiled before they can even begin? Thus, by manipulating the attention of my audience I would be able to perform my magic trick right under their noses.
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By my memory my acting performance was set to arrive very soon, and after a brief moment the smooth wall facing the long side of the bed I was on split open revealing a doorway into a similarly bare hallway, with a pair of guards standing at the entrance to the doorway. The guards told me it was time for my appointment with the Mentalist, and just as I remember they robotically activated my blue prisoner collar blacking out my senses before moving me to the Mentalist Radix’s office.
As soon as my collar was turned off and I regained my senses, I sat on a comfy chair in a fancy office. Sitting behind a desk opposite from me was the man who started it all, Chief Mentalist Radix. This was the man who began my mental manipulation that ultimately led to my true captivity. However despite what he had done I had no bad feelings towards the man, although he had indeed mentally manipulated me, and implanted the curse that caused me so much trouble, his mental manipulations were like sugar compared to the hard drugs I would later be exposed to after I came of age.
Chief Mentalist Radix worked with all of the kids in the prison and worked to reform their self-destructive tendencies before they were sent back into society. The mental manipulation that Radix used on kids acted more like a help for therapy and was mostly harmless. However today Radix was set to implant a growing mental curse inside of my head that had been a thorn in my side all of my previous life. This curse would grow inside of the brain to the point that if it were removed it would kill the host. This curse would constantly send my location to receivers which would allow me to be tracked wherever I was. I had never been able to rid myself of this curse in my past life, but now that I had my [Virtual Brain] I would be free from being monitored in this life.
After Radix stared at me for a while from behind his desk without saying a word, I felt something intrude into my [Virtual Brain] and place the insidious curse. Radix continued to stay in my brain and monitor my thoughts as he spoke to me, “Radiant Shadow. I know that you must be feeling somewhat confused about your situation right now, but just know that I’m here to help you and you have nothing to fear. I’m the Chief Mentalist working with all of the children here who are just like you, so if you have any questions feel free to ask me and I’ll try my best to give you an answer.”
I made a sense of trust flow through my [Virtual Brain] and started my act as a naïve kid that trusted everything I was told, “I want to know why I’m here and how I can go back to my house.” I wanted to come across as a slight psychopath who only cared about myself, so I made my [Virtual Brain] reflect this with muted emotions and a sense of irritation that I couldn’t be relaxing at home enjoying the things I liked.
Radix pretended that he was only listening to what I said out loud and answered my questions, “Yes, trying to understand your situation is important, I’ll explain everything to you. You are here because your Future Assessment Examination found that you needed some special help to grow into the best you can be. Don’t worry about going home, once you don’t need our special help anymore you’ll be sent back to your home.”
The things he said sounded nice, like they were going to give me some help because I had something special about me that needed their help to grow, but he wasn’t giving me the whole truth. In reality all of the kids who were sent here had dangerous mindsets like that of a murderer, abuser, psychopathic killer, kleptomaniac, or any other number of destructive tendencies. Along with these destructive tendencies the kids that were sent here had the tools and or drive to make these tendencies grow to become very dangerous.
Most people who were tested and found to have the tendencies of a psychopath wouldn’t be sent to this prison, because this test wasn’t an absolute future prediction and these people would probably never murder anyone, and even if they did it would be on a very small scale and easily resolved.
However, if someone was tested to have the tendencies of a murderer, with the power or mental capabilities to carry out these plans, then they would be sent to this prison in order to have these tendencies fixed before the kids grew to realize these tendencies.
Some said that this was morally wrong and the government had no right to decide these kinds of things, but the reality was that this was actually a very successful program with a very high success rate and after its implementation the government’s expenditure in regards to crime had drastically decreased, and most of those who went through this program went on to live normal lives.
The reason that I was sent to this prison was because I had great potential to become very powerful which wasn’t bad in and of itself; however along with this potential I was found to have great mental instability which could lead to a dangerous combination.
In truth this mental instability was caused by my death on Earth which led to me having some mental instability, but trauma like this was easily treatable and it should’ve taken me no time at all to get the help I needed and get out of this prison. However my potential to grow into someone very powerful was feared and coveted by others so I was kept locked up and controlled under the pretext of still being dangerous.
Keeping my resentment towards the government from showing in my [Artificial Mind] I nodded my head and continued to ask, “So how many more days until I’m able to go back home?”
Radix said, “Don’t worry about it. Although some take longer than others I’m sure you’ll be back with your family before you know it. The more you worry about it the longer it will feel, so focus on learning for now and the time will pass by in a flash.”
Oh how I wish that were true, but it wouldn’t be until 55 years later that I would finally escape, and even then I couldn’t go back to my home. My thoughts weren’t carried to Radix as I continued to ask simple questions that a five year old might be expected to ask and acting like a naïve child who believed every word Radix said.