“Lyssa?

“Lyssa, where are you?

“This isn’t funny…

“Lyssa!”

“Ah. There you are,” Lian said.

“Where is this?” Lyssa asked.

“You. This is you.”

“I don’t see anything.”

“That’s because you’re not paying attention to yourself at the moment. Where do you usually go?”

The sun hung low. Strips of cloud swam slowly through the sky, lit orange and purple by the perpetually setting star hours above the horizon. A weak breeze ruffled tall grasses with tips heavy with seed. There was a single apple tree at the center.

“Let’s get under there,” Lian said quickly.

“Uhm, okay.”

“Now, what is this place to you?”

“I don’t know. I feel… normal here. Not good or bad. Just calm.”

“And those errant thoughts in your head? What are they, do you think?”

“I don’t know. I think they’re me.” Lyssa rubbed her elbow as a chill ran up her arm. “I’m not- I don’t have multiple uhm… what is it-”

“DID. Dissociative Identity Disorder,” Lian finished for her. “Have you ever went to a psychiatrist?”

“I’ve been assessed by a doctor.”

“When?”

“When they dug me out of my apartment on Twenty-Four.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

Lyssa shook her head. “It affected everyone,” she said quietly. “I remember what I do when I get these moments. I just feel different. And it’s tied to my gifts somehow. I don’t understand it.”

Lian looked away, thinking.

“Lyssa,” she began, “You don’t remember everything.”

“Okay sometimes I get these gaps in my memories. But that was mostly when I was young.”

“Describe one for me.”

The clouds roiled and churned. Lian gasped and ducked. But there was no descent of dense darkness. The cloud was forming images, vague snapshots and emotions sharpening slowly into clarity; the inexact reduction of human memory.

In the sky, there was a gap between two brick walls. School. Middle school. There were half a dozen kids. Half a dozen girls. Bearing down on her. They were talking. Mumbles. Their exact words lost to time. Some words stuck out, crisp and loud.

‘Freak’

‘Twitch’

Red lightning arced between the storm cells as the kids closed in. Thunder clapped. And then the image blurred into greyness, back into cloud.

“What happened?” Lian asked.

“I don’t know.”

The image appeared again, this time she was in her bedroom, a small space with a single bed and a box of clothes. A dollar store mirror sat on a side table next to a desk lamp. The wallpaper was teal.

“This happened in order,” Lyssa said. “I was at school. And then I was home. It was lunchtime. I just kind of went back afterward. And when I did, they didn’t bother me as much.”

“I see.” Lian looked away from the sky and nearly jumped.

Lyssa frowned.

“What’s the matter?” She asked.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

Lian pointed behind her. A Lyssa wearing a grey dress stood by the tree.

“It’s dangerous for you to be here,” Izanami said.

“I know but we’re under the tree, right?” Lian said. “She can’t see us here.”

“Wait, you’ve talked?” Lyssa said incredulously.

“Like I said, you don’t remember everything. There is another ‘you’ here. It’s dark and it’s hateful, furious, but most of all resentful.”

The wind was picking up. Lyssa hugged herself, rubbing her arms.

“What do you mean?” She asked.

“I don’t think you have DID. What you have I doubt there is a name for. It’s far more sophisticated.”

“I-I feel fine.”

“You shouldn’t feel cold in your own head, Lyssa,” Lian said. She reached out with both hands. “I’m going to give you something. I can’t help you-” She glanced at Izanami. “-but I can enable you to help yourself.

“Think of a house. As big as you need it to be. Full of rooms you’ve never seen and furniture you’ve never sat in. A place where you don’t feel sad, or angry, or happy. Or anything. A wholly original place.”

“Okay?” Lyssa said as she closed her eyes.

“Forget the meadow.”

“But-”

“Think of the house. The house is you. You are its owner. You are your own majordomo.”

Lyssa opened her eyes in the center of an antechamber. A sun dome blasted noon light down into the circular room, at the center of which an apple tree grew in a wide pot. But there were no grasses, no wind. The floor tiles were in zebra pattern. Sconces of twisted silver protruded from the walls. There were pale marble staircases leading up, down, and sideways, ending in open doors.

“Huh, that was fast,” Lian remarked. “Now, compartmentalize your moments. Those times when you feel like someone different.”

Lyssa tried. One of the doors slammed shut. They looked at each other and ascended the staircase leading to it. Lyssa wrapped her fingers around the door knob. She paused.

Lian placed a hand on her shoulder.

“Whenever you’re ready,” she said.

“Alright,” Lyssa said. She took a deep breath and opened, stepping through. Lian stayed outside. The door led to a field of lava. In the distance, a volcano was in the midst of erupting. One occupant stood several steps away. She was covered in molten scales, her fingertips spewing fire.

“Sethlana,” Lyssa said.

Sethlana turned.

“Is this what we’re doing?” She said with a scowl. “You’re just going to keep me in here?”

“You’ve always been here,” Lyssa said. “I’ve just never thought about it like this. I think you can leave at any time. This is… this is healthier for me, and you.”

Lyssa left that room. As soon as she did, another slammed shut. She walked towards that room and opened it. It was a featureless concrete cubicle with a roof so far up she could not see its end. She had to squint to look, for a beam of light came down from the top, illuminating a single wooden chair. Izanami sat in it. She looked up.

“Do you like it here?” Lyssa asked.

“This is fine.”

The door closed. Lyssa stepped back down to the antechamber.

“I think I can manage myself like this,” she said to Lian.

“This isn’t a cure,” Lian said sternly. “This is barely treatment. It’s only a different perspective on yourself.”

“Isn’t that what psychiatry is? Reinterpretation?”

“I don’t know.” Lian smiled. She looked around the house. “But I can tell you it feels less chaotic in you. Let’s see how well you do in the coming…” Her voice trailed off as her eyes rested on a hallway branching from the antechamber. Gold lamps brightly lit the path to the end, where there was an abrupt dimness. A wide door. Barred by a rusted cage. Beside it, a singular button; a downward pointing arrow.

“A lift?” Lian asked. She looked at Lyssa. “What is that? Where does it lead?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t imagine that. That isn’t-”

Lian began to walk towards it. Lyssa followed.

“Maybe this is enough for now,” Lyssa said.

But Lian kept walking. So Lyssa continued as well. There were paintings between every gold lamp. Strange works of shifting chiaroscuro, absent of any singular form, almost all dark images. Lian shot a disbelieving glance at Lyssa.

“This isn’t me,” Lyssa insisted.

They reached the elevator. Lian pressed the button. A bell tolled with a flat note. The cage pulled aside and the door slid open.

“We’re already here,” Lian said. “We might as well see.”

“Okay.”

“Remember, you are your own master.”

The door slid shut, cutting them off from the hall and from the light shining through the glass dome. The elevator descended, slowly, at first. Then it accelerated. The walls were shaking. The lights shuddered, snapping on and off. Lyssa backed into a corner. Lian grabbed her hand.

“You are your own master!” She said. The lights snapped off. “You are-”

And on again. Lian was gone. Lyssa cried out, wrapped her arms around her head as the descent only got faster. Then it came to a dead stop. The rumbling ceased. The lights stopped flickering. A cheerful ‘ding’ sounded, this time with the note tuned right, and the doors slid open.

Lyssa waited in her corner for a few moments before she gathered enough of herself to stand. When she could, she stepped out into a great cavern. It was bright there, but there were no lights, no sun. The floor was covered by an inch of hot water. A hundred steps away, a Shinto shrine stood, barely visible behind the steam. She walked towards it, passing under multiple torii as she went closer. Eventually she was close enough to see the structure in full detail, in all its red wood pillars and clay shingles. A stone table was set at the front of the structure where someone sat.

It was her self, but with tied-back hair, dressed in a pink yukata. She stopped drinking from her bowl as Lyssa approached. She set the bowl down with an echoing clink on the table and shook her head.

“You’re not ready to be here yet.”

“I-I’m my own master,” Lyssa said.

The self made a single exhalation.

“Ha. Sure thing. Get out.”

“Wait! I-”

Lyssa watched her self raise a hand. The air was imbued with the hue of cherry blossoms, warping, stretching. The shrine shrunk in an instant as the hundred steps Lyssa had just walked were undone. She fell against the wall of the elevator, gasping from the impact. The elevator closed.

“Lyssa? Lyssa!”

Lyssa woke under the shade of the flowering tree in M.A.G.E’s gardens. Lian sat back, breathing in relief.

“Oh thank god,” she said. “I thought you went into a coma. Your mind sunk somewhere I couldn’t reach. This has never happened to me before.”

Lyssa rubbed her eyes.

“What did you see?” Lian asked.

“I don’t know. Thank you, Lian. But I think I need to go lie down.”

“Alright. Same time tomorrow?”

“…Maybe next Monday.”