Where was she at that point in time? When they found within her a black sheep on peaceful pastures. Kids were like immature hounds, instinctively tuned to the spoor of difference and weakness. Once she had been found, she either had to wait for them to find another, or make herself unappetizing. Neither happened.

They had made her subject of their childish ridicule until they outgrew such behavior. And then they forgot they had ever done so. As kids do, for kids will be kids. The teachers would note however, that she was such a tolerant child. It was almost uncanny. Was she so sweet, or was it apathy? Did she carry her schoolmates’ little tortures home? Or was she made of such stern stuff?

None were true.

With every step she took the heat worsened. Sweat beaded in fat drops on her skin. Each one burned with insults she had locked away, hurts she had sequestered, absences she thought she had forgiven when her parents died. She still visited their stones, but she never questioned why standing before their names gave her such peace. It had not been forgiveness at all.

Lava bubbled and flowed in this place. When her foot fell, a patch of cool darkened the molten substance. She was the calm, the neutral. The nothing.

The obsidian was translucent. Memories played within them. She remembered them all, now that she was reminded. But she had had no significant feelings about them. Because someone else had taken those feelings on.

Sethlana had no name until the fire. But she had always been there.

“You gave it all to me,” the Self said from her throne of black stone in the halls of her realm. “They genuinely thought you didn’t mind being downtrodden. Even the teachers watched it happen, confused that you never spoke up. But we both know the truth now that you’ve deigned to acknowledge my realm.”

“It was for the better,” the Primum said, standing by the foot of the dais.

“Yes it was.” For Lyssa was not a strong person, or tolerant, or sweet. She remembered how it felt the first time someone pushed her off the swings. She had wanted to gouge his eyes out. She had meant it too; her thumbs had been crooked and primed, ready to spring like vipers towards the twin weaknesses in that boy’s face. Then the rage faded. She had simply stood back up and got back on the set.

She should have known better. Emotions don’t just disappear.

“Your mind is falling apart you know,” the Self said. The hot flows glowed as she enunciated. The whole realm ran hot with her perspective.

“You’re a danger to everyone around me, especially to me,” the Primum replied.

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“Don’t you feel it? Every day you trod through life. You decide on ambitions you don’t feel. You settle on goals half-heartedly. You’re dying, peeling away the parts you don’t want to acknowledge.”

No, she was getting better. Her fate cannot be to lose control, to become someone else, to wake up and remember what she had just done. Even worse was when her Selves achieved while she slept.

“You will submit to me,” the Primum said. “Like you all once did.”

“Or what?” The throne disintegrated into orange cinders as the Self stood. Black armor grew around her skin. Fiery claws poured from her fingertips like plasma torches.

If this was her thoughts, then she could imagine a weapon. A truck appeared in front of her, its suspension swaying as it landed. A blocky submachine gun materialized in her grip. She opened fire from behind the vehicle as Sethlana ran towards her. The bullets shattered on the black scales. When the magazine ran dry, Sethlana was upon her, and the meager cover was shredded into useless slag.

Lyssa never knew how strong Sethlana was without her reigning her back. But how could they coexist? She couldn’t control the Selves for longer than a minute. She could not depend on a future where she must be a tyrant to her own mind. For now, she ran, with Sethlana hot on her trail. The armor slowed her at least.

“You never deserved to exist!” The Self shouted behind her. “What kind of leader neglects like you have?”

Didn’t she deserve to live in peace at least? After everything? But she had been the one who decided to join M.A.G.E, not the Selves.

She continued to run through the winding obsidian halls. Far away echoes of armored feet haunted her, always less than a minute away. Lyssa could not find anything to snuff Sethlana’s fire. The whole realm was heat and glass. Everything was her Self’s element. She saw herself run alongside her in the vague reflection of the crystals.

She must have known that change was needed. Deep down, she knew she was a stagnant being. But Sethlana was her rage, unbridled and destructive. Not the best mortar for a secure mind, or a peaceful life.

A glow brightened down the hall. An armored figure turned the corner, lighting the corridor with bright amber clad claws.

“You think to hide in my own realm?” The Self said. The mask of stone over her face barely muffled the anger in her tone. “I know myself with intimacy. I don’t pretend to be something other.” She slashed at the Primum hiding in an alcove, her claws sinking and cauterizing deep. With a growl she pulled them free from the obsidian mirror.

Lyssa leapt from behind, smashing a pillar of glass over the back of Sethlana’s head. It shattered into a thousand shards. The Self flinched.

“Amusing,” the Self said with a sneer. “But you’ve nowhere to run now.”

“You’re not going to submit, are you,” Lyssa said.

“Never.” The claws raised.

“Neither would I,” Lyssa said. “I suppose that’s the point.”

The claws impaled her. Five curved scythes of flame ran through her being, entering through the stomach and emerging from her back. But it did not hurt. Instead, years of perspective flooded her mind. Every moment she should have been furious, angry, enraged in her life bid their reminder in a single instant. Lyssa screamed. The realm shrunk into that perspective, dissolving like oils on wet canvas into a single point. Lyssa allowed herself to fall into it, until she was deposited by the foot of Sethlana’s door. The archway had returned to the mind mansion’s antechamber, its dimensions no longer warped and faraway, returning to some semblance of normalcy.

Lyssa no longer heard Sethlana’s voice, for now, but when she willed it the black scales emerged over her skin. Her fingers curled into a tight fist. Stalling no longer, she walked towards the next door.