Chapter 142 - What Happened To Isabelle Part 2_There Will Be Dragons Here

Isabelle opened her eyes, and she was not in Kansas anymore.

Well, Isabelle was never in Kansas. She'd never been to Kansas. But she might as well have been, after what she saw when she opened her eyes.

When Isabelle did happen to open her eyes, the point is, she was not where she thought that she'd be.

That is to say, she didn't appear to be in Beaubinte. She was not in Beaubinte anymore.

Well, Isabelle didn't know for sure if she wasn't in Beaubinte any more, either, but her best guess was that she wasn't in Beaubinte any more. He first clue was that everything was in color. Or was that her first clue that she wasn't in Kansas? After all, if she'd woke up in Kansas, everything would've been a sepia brown.

So Isabelle wasn't in Kansas.

And she was pretty sure she wasn't in Beaubinte any more, either.

Why was that?

Well, Isabelle didn't think she was in Beaubinte any more because she wasn't wearing her sexy, form fitting armor. She wasn't incredibly buff, either. She was just wearing black legging and an oversized hoodie, and she was laying on a long, leather chair. The air smelled like stale ammonia.

Also, she didn't seem to have any weird system notifications popping up across her vision no matter what she did.

"So, Isabelle," said a familiar voice. "Tell me what you did today."

And then, Isabelle started talking. But it wasn't like she had any control over what she said. It was like her response was a vinyl record that someone else had set and started playing from her mouth, with her voice. And it made Isabelle's head spin with deja vu.

She told the voice about how she hadn't eaten much. Hadn't slept much. She'd just sat in her room, on her bed, curtains drawn, lights off. She'd spent some time trying to cry, but it seemed impossible to her for tears to stream from her eyes. It was like, Isabelle said, like she'd cried all she ever could, and now that part of her was dead forever.

"And why do you feel that way?" asked the voice. "I am here to help you. I know you want to be happy and healthy, and we're going to get you there, okay?"

Isabelle was confused as fuck. Why was she telling this person how she felt? Why did it seem so important to her? Why did this whole exchange seem so familiar, anyway?

And yet, despite all this, Isabelle kept talking.

"I sat in my room and I read fanfiction," said Isabelle.

"Really? That's it?" asked the voice.

"Yes. It was very bad," said Isabelle. "It was about a girl who wanted to fuck a dragon-man and she got railed by him in her dreams."

"Well, that is sad," said the voice.

"Yeah, I know!" Isabelle said, almost too excitedly. "The end! It was the fucking end! It was so terrible and stupid and I hated it! I hate all those people who write fanfiction on the internet and think it's great!"

"Well, that seems very valid," said the voice. "When did you start reading fanfiction, if you hate it so much?"

Isabelle took a deep breath. "I started reading fanfiction when I was eight. It was after I got my first computer and I found the internet. I didn't even have a mouse at the time. I couldn't use the mouse. The cursor would jump around the screen, and I'd just hold my hand out like this and click on things with my finger. My dad had to show me how to move the mouse pointer with my finger before he showed me how to scroll through things with my pointer."

"And what did you do?"

"I used it to play games. There were a lot of games on there and some of them sucked but then others were great because they had dragons in them or spaceships and robots."

"Did you enjoy reading about other people's fantasies?"

"No! Reading? Why the fuck would I read? I was playing games, not reading, I didn't want to read!"

"Well, that's curious," said the voice. "So, Isabelle, why did you start reading fanfiction if you liked playing video games? I don't really see the connection."

Isabelle thought about it. Or, at least, she remembered thinking about it. She could tell by now that she was stuck in a flashback, re-experiencing a painful moment from her past life. "Because my dad read fanfiction all the time," she said. "I wanted to be like him."

"I see," said the voice. "And what do you think your father is doing right now?"

Isabelle blinked. "He's probably watching sports on TV," she said. "Or he would be, if he wasn't dead."

"Yes, but what would he be watching?"

"Football?"

"I'm talking about the fanfiction he read, not the sports he may have watched. Do you know what fanfiction he would be reading if he were alive right now?"

"I don't know."

The voice sighed heavily. "It's okay. I know you're doing your best. But you can't bury your life in false worlds of escapism forever, Isabelle, pretending there are worlds other than this one for you to inhabit in your mind. Everyone knows this is the only world, and you only get one life. Pardon my french, but don't fuck it up."

Isabelle felt as if her heart was breaking. The pain in her chest felt too real, almost like the feeling of her dad being shot and dying right before her eyes.

She had never experienced such strong emotion as from the flashback memories, other than anger of course at everyone she'd ever met in Beaubinte for being an absolute piece of shit. And when the emotions stopped, they were replaced by feelings of relief that they were gone, replaced by a strange sense of detachment as though she was watching herself experience the event instead of being the person experiencing it.

She was so tired. So very tired.

And the voice was still there, talking to her.

"So, tell me what your father's fanfics were like, Isabelle," the voice said gently.

Isabelle took a deep breath, and then another. Her heart beat so fast it felt as if it would burst through her ribs. She was so very, very sick of this flashback, but she clearly had no choice but to continue experiencing it.

"They were... well, they were pretty bad, really."

"Oh? Why's that?"

She hesitated. "I think because he wanted to be a writer himself. He told me all about how writing stories was his dream. But he had some kind of problem with the way fanfiction writers used words and punctuation and grammar. They didn't use the same rules that writers did in real books. He was always telling me that I shouldn't read that sort of stuff if I wanted to become a proper author someday, that fanfiction was just people getting off on using someone else's ideas. It made him so angry that people thought they could steal other people's creations and make money out of it. That's not creativity! That's cheating. Even though they mostly did it for free."

"So, you don't think your father was wrong to feel that way?" asked the voice.

"No. Well, no..." Isabelle's face was burning, she knew she must have been bright red in the dream-state. "It's just... I know now that he was right, but back then I felt really guilty that he'd got angry with me when all I wanted to do was be like him. So I started reading fanfiction to be like him. I thought it would be a better use of my time than playing games. I really tried to understand what he liked about it and try to do the same things, but I didn't have the same imagination as he did, and that made me unhappy. And I didn't want to admit to him how bad the stories were because I was scared he wouldn't like me anymore.

"He used to say that the most important thing in writing was 'voice' - which was the way authors put their own ideas into stories, even if it was a story based on someone else's world or characters. But I couldn't do that! I didn't have any idea of what it meant. It all seemed so impossible to me. I felt like an imposter."

She took a deep breath again and continued. "And it all started to go downhill from there," she said sadly. "I got worse at school. I stopped playing games, stopped reading books, stopped hanging out with friends. I had all these secret fantasies where I wished my dad were still alive. That he could be my best friend and we'd talk and watch football together and laugh about how bad fanfictions we'd read were. Of course, this was all a fantasy, because the ones I'd read were so lewd I'd never talk to anyone about them, not even you. And I have a sinking feeling that the fanfictions he often read were the same way. Which, when you think about it, makes perfect sense, doesn't it? He was trying to be like someone else's ideas. He wanted to write the way he saw his favourite authors. It was like... like I don't know." Isabelle shook her head.

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Her eyes began to blur and she felt herself drifting off once more. But then she heard a soft whisper in the back of her mind.

"It wasn't like your father was wrong to try to become like another author, though."

"No," said Isabelle. "I think he just wanted to be someone else. Somewhere else."

Isabelle wished she could roll her eyes. This whole therapy session was so stupid. She wanted to stand up and backhand her old therapist from her past life across the face fifty times till his head popped off his neck and blood spewed everywhere, but she just... wasn't able to. She couldn't move. But she sure did try.

She tried so very hard to resist going to sleep.

"You're not wrong," said the voice. "Your father was very ambitious. He was driven, he had big dreams. But it made him insecure, which meant that he was always on edge."

"Yeah," said Isabelle, thinking of the many times her father had screamed at her and told her that she was the 'worst daughter' he'd ever had. Isabelle thought about the time he'd called her a 'selfish little bitch', and then she cried for a full five minutes, even though it hadn't been her fault that he'd fallen down the stairs and shat himself. "That was why he couldn't stand fanfiction, right?"

The voice laughed quietly. "Right again. He was so obsessed with other people's worlds, especially those he'd seen in books and films and games, that he couldn't let himself be content with the world as it really is. That was what he always said. His work had to be better than anything that had gone before, no matter how much harder it made his life."

"But didn't that make him good?"

"Of course! It made him a great man, and a very successful writer. But he couldn't accept that."

"So he had to be different?"

"Exactly," said the voice. "He wanted to write something that had never been written before, to put words in front of people that they had never seen or read or heard before. And I suppose that desire to be special made him more ambitious, and he ended up working so hard that he couldn't do things for himself anymore. So then he couldn't write, and when he couldn't write, he couldn't live."

Isabelle gasped.

"What?" asked the voice.

"It's just... well..." Isabelle took a deep breath. "I feel like you're talking a lot more about my father than you are about me. Isn't this my therapy session?"

"Yes, Isabelle, and I will continue to speak as long as you need to talk about him. That's the whole point of our meeting today. I'm here to help you get better."

"Get better?" asked Isabelle. "What do you mean?"

"You're sick, Isabelle," said the therapist. "You've got a terrible, mind-numbing addiction to fanfiction. Can't you see that? You're never going to be able to go to school to study anthropology, your true calling, something you've looked forward to since you were three years old, if you keep going on this way."

"Why do you think that?" asked Isabelle.

"Isabelle, I don't think it, I know it! Why, you're on your phone reading fanfiction right now while we're having this therapy session!"

Isabelle gasped as she looked down and noticed that she was eighty chapters deep in a fanfiction about a dragon riding princess with no legs.

"I can't help it!" gasped Isabelle.

"But you must have a choice! If you want to get better, then you should stop reading fanfiction, even when you're on your phone! Even when you're walking down the street! Or even if you're having a shower! It's just not healthy for you to carry on this way. What are you afraid of, Isabelle? Why can't you live your life without reading poorly written fanfiction all the time?"

Isabelle stared at the floor, but it didn't change the fact that she was reading fanfiction right now. She looked at the words, and was instantly transported in her mind to that terrible, mouth-vomit-inducing world:

Brumhilda, our legless hero, rode atop her funky lil dragon as he danced through the air on the way to their next adventure.

"So, Sasparilla the dragon, what do you think we gonna do this time? Maybe we can find the lost treasure of Atlantis or something like that?"

Sasparilla thought for a few moments and replied "That sounds awesome, even though you don't have any legs, Brumhilda."

Brumhilda giggled and replied "Yes it does!"

"And then, once we've found the treasure, I will take a bite out of another dragon's ass," said Sasparilla, who was always thinking up ideas like that. "I mean, that's just a good idea."

Isabelle looked at the floor, but she still read the words:

Brumhilda the legless princess and Sasparilla the dragon were going on an adventure to find the lost treasure of Atlantis. The first thing they had to do was find the secret entrance to the legendary city. So, with their magic spell that they made up together, they flew above the land of Ireland, looking for the entrance.

But then suddenly, Brumhilda screamed "There it is!"

They both looked at where she was pointing, and sure enough, there it was: A crack in the ground and a small opening, leading into the mysterious cave below. They looked inside to see a giant chamber with lots of treasure chests all over the place.

"Well," said Brumhilda, "Let's get in there and start searching."

Sasparilla nodded her head in agreement and began to fly through the tunnel with his fiery breath. Then suddenly, as they got to the end of the passage, they saw a beautiful blue door, engraved with ancient writing. They both gasped. It was the lost treasure of Atlantis!

They opened the door to find a big pile of gold and precious jewels in front of them. There was also some weird crystal thingy which looked like it came from a science-fiction movie.

Brumhilda and Sasparilla looked around, but couldn't find anywhere else to put any of this stuff. They started walking down the hall with a bunch of treasure.

Suddenly, they heard someone call out from behind them, "Hey, where do you think you're going?"

They turned around to see a tall, skinny guy wearing a purple cloak. He had short silver hair that he combed back. He was wearing some pretty fancy clothes on top of his long purple cape. The stranger was carrying a staff with a ruby gem in the middle of it. He was probably in his late forties or early fifties.

"Uh, hi," said Brumhilda and Sasparilla in unison.

"Hi?" said the guy. "Who are you supposed to be?"

Brumhilda took out her notebook, pulled a pen and wrote a name on the page. "Um, well," she began, "We are, um, we are two princesses, er, um, one princess with no legs and a dragon that likes taking bites out of other dragons' asses."

The stranger laughed. "That's pretty funny," he said, "But what about me? Who am I?"

Brumhilda shrugged.

"I'm not sure. You look kind of like someone else I know."

Sasparilla looked up at the man, but he seemed very distracted by his reflection in the wall.

"Oh," said Brumhilda. She thought for a second, then looked back at him. "Well, I'm going to go check the treasure cave for myself."

"Not so fast!" said the stranger.

"Why?" asked Sasparilla.

"Because," said the stranger, "I have leprosy!"

"Oh no!" said the princess. "I'm deathly allergic to lepers! They give me hives on my phantom limbs!!"

"And I left you epipen back in the other castle!" cried Sasparilla.

Isabelle exhaled in frustration. The fanfiction chapter had ended. She'd reached the end! What ever would happen to the legless princess now?

"Seriously, Isabelle, if you don't stop reading fanfiction, you're going to die an early death," said the therapist. "And, that's our session. I'll be billing your mother three hundred dollars."