One memory connected to another, then another. Step by step he moved across the landscape of self, somehow recalling things he’s long forgotten, and hadn't thought about for so long. Painful, old memories, things he’s buried from himself.

Seven-year old Dave sat in the too-large leather chair, his feet dangling above the floor. The mood ring his mother bought him was warm on his finger, its liquid crystals shifting between dark blue, orange and black. He kept turning it, pulling it on and off, watching the colors dance.

"Tell me more about your friend," Dr. Harrison said, her pen poised over a yellow legal pad. She was a stern-looking woman with rectangular glasses and graying hair pulled back in a tight bun.

"She's a dragon," Dave replied, not looking up from his ring. "Her scales change colors like this ring. She protects me when Mom and Dad fight."

"And where does this dragon come from?" The psychiatrist's pen scratched across the paper.

"From the patterns," Dave explained. "In the TV static. In the carpet. In the wallpaper. She's always there if you look hard enough."

"I see," Dr. Harrison's lips pressed into a thin line. “And how does she make you feel?”

“Better,” Dave replied. "She's nice. She's kind. She understands me."

More scratching of the pen. "David, we've talked about this. Dragons aren't real. Your... friend... is something you've created in your mind because you're having trouble dealing with your parents' divorce."

"She IS real," Dave insisted, his small hands clenching into fists. "Just because you can't see her doesn't mean she's not there!"

"David," Dr. Harrison's voice took on that special adult tone that meant she was about to say something he wouldn't like. "I think it's time we tried something new. I'm going to prescribe some medicine that will help you focus better and stop seeing things that aren't there."

"I don't want medicine," Dave protested. "I want my dragon friend! I want her to be real! Maybe if I focus enough on the pattern, she will be real!”

"The medicine will help you make real friends," Dr. Harrison explained patiently. "Friends your own age. Wouldn't you like that?"

Dave shook his head violently. "Other kids are loud and mean. She understands me. She's quiet when I need quiet. She changes colors with my moods, just like my ring! She..."

"David," Dr. Harrison interrupted. "You're seven years old now. Too old for imaginary friends. These... patterns you see, this dragon - they're not healthy. The medicine will help make them go away."

"I don't want them to go away!" Dave shouted, jumping up from the chair. His mood ring had turned an angry red-black. "You're just like everyone else! You don't understand!"

He ran out of the office, ignoring Dr. Harrison's calls for him to come back. In the waiting room, his mother looked up from her magazine, startled.

"David? What's wrong? We still have twenty minutes..."

But Dave kept running, out into the hallway, down the stairs, not stopping until he reached the building's entrance. There, he pressed himself into a corner, breathing hard, his hand clutched over his mood ring.

In the patterns of the speckled linoleum floor, he could see the familiar form taking shape, her scales shifting through concerned violets and blues.

He imagined that she curled around him protectively, a shield against the world that didn't understand. A shield against the pain, against mundanity, against everyone.

"I won't let them make you go away," he whispered to the pattern. "I promise. Promise.”

. . .

His mom must have mixed the meds into his meals because he stopped seeing the fractal pattern converging into his best friend. He held onto the ring, trying to bring the pattern back in his dreams.

It didn’t work.

Day by day, month by month, year by year, he changed and forgot all about why he loved his little ring. He just knew that the ring was precious. That the ring was his little anchor to something else, to something special.

Not making many friends, he retreated further and further into himself. School became even more difficult. The medication made him feel fuzzy and strange, like he was moving through molasses.

He couldn't focus on anything except computers. They made sense in a way people didn't. Computers followed logical patterns, predictable rules.

If you understood the patterns, you could make them do amazing things.

By age twelve, he was spending most of his time in the school's computer lab, learning BASIC programming during lunch breaks. The lab teacher, Mr. Darish, recognized his aptitude and started giving him extra projects.

"You have a gift, David," Mr. Darish told him one day. "You see patterns that others miss. That's valuable in programming. Something for you to focus on.”

“Yeah,” Dave said, touching the ring on his neck. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

. . .

Myriads of mundane days, like gray raindrops.

By sixteen, Dave had fully immersed himself in programming, spending countless hours writing code. The patterns in the code made sense in a way nothing else did. His old ring hung on a thin chain around his neck, a comforting weight against his chest as he typed.

His home life had deteriorated further. His mother's hoarding had gotten so bad that he could barely navigate through the house. Stacks of newspapers, magazines, and "collectibles" created narrow pathways between rooms.

The patterns in the clutter seemed chaotic, random, wrong. Nothing like the beautiful, ordered patterns he could create in code.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

His father had long moved out, leaving Dave alone with his mother and her endless accumulation of things.

The fighting had stopped, but the silence and the growing pipes of things that replaced it was almost worse.

. . .

"Mom," he'd say, trying to reach her as she arranged and rearranged her collection. "We need to clean some of this out. We can barely move..."

"No!" she'd clutch whatever item was nearest. “You cannot take it away!”

He didn't.

. . .

“Why can't I take these old books to Goodwill?” He asked, exasperated. “You aren't even reading them!”

"Everything has its place. Everything has meaning. You don’t understand David.”

“What don’t I understand, mom?” He sighed, pulling up and opening the nearest open book. Random words were circled in it. A line was traced in the empty spaces, jumping from word to word like a mad, chaotic spiderweb.

Great, now there was no way to just donate these. She’s scribbled all over them.

"The System Wizards," his mother whispered, her eyes unfocused as she stared at the wallpaper covered in similar scribbles. "They're watching us through the patterns. They control everything, David. The System... it's all connected. Can't you see it?"

Dave froze, his hand instinctively going to the mood ring in his chest.

“See what?”

“Omnicode! The patterns are everywhere," she continued, her voice taking on a new, unsettling cadence. "In the static, in the walls, in the Numbers. They built our world, David. Built it wrong, for the entertainment of one man. It's all manufactured. Artificial. We're just programs running in their simulation. Everything is simulated, fake!"

"Mom," Dave said carefully. "You're not making sense.”

"No, no, you don't understand!" She grabbed his shoulders, her eyes wild. "I see it now! I was blind but now I see clearly. Why do you think I need all these things? They're anchors! Protection!”

“What? Mom, you're not making any sense, damn it! We have to clean all of this trash up! You’re piling stuff outside the house now in concentric rings! Why?! What the hell are you doing in the basement, digging a hole? Why is there a growing pile of dirt outside?”

“I need more room! I’m building an engine, David. A great engine of desire… A weapon that can divide anything, anyone by zero. I’m making the Sumerian Difference Engine. I have to reach Infinity, David. I see her in my dreams, a girl with violet eyes, Number Eight.”

Dave gently removed her hands. "Mom, please. You need to take your medication..."

"The medication is how they control us!" She hissed. "Makes us blind to the truth! You used to see it too, remember? A friend in the patterns? Before they made you stop seeing? I was wrong David! I was wrong! I understand it all now! When I’m done, I’m going to open a door to Manchester!”

“Manchester, New Hampshire?”

“No, David! The city of System Wizards on Mercury! What remains of their Mercury after the infinite, self-replicating city spread out from their Earth across the Solar System.” His mother’s brown-gray eyes gleamed. “It’s where they all meet! I’m going to reach it and give them what for! They made it all. They made it all and they don’t care! They don’t see us as people! I have to save the people of our Earth, David! Please! You have to understand! Please! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I made you stop seeing it!”

Her eyes filled with tears.

"Mom, I was a kid. Whatever I saw, wasn't real,” he said. “I think that we have the same mental problem, a disorder called…”

"It WAS real!" His mother insisted. "What we have is a blessing given to us by Infinity! You saw through the veil of Omnicode, past our reality into the future! That's why they made you take the pills. To blind you. To confuse you. But I see it all now. The System Wizards, watching through every pattern, every screen. They're coming, David. They're going to reset everything, reset me again! They’re going to try to make me forget, but I’m going to stop them. I’m going to finish the Sumerian Difference Engine and divide them all by zero, David!”

"Mom, please," Dave pleaded. "You need help.”

“Help? I know what I’m doing David! I bought you that ring… I know that it’s precious to you. I wrote Omnicode on it while you were sleeping every night for the past year! You’re safe as long as you wear it!”

“Huh?”

“It’s warded to keep you alive no matter what! Safety through my desire! Desire operates reality, David! The closer we get to the Magisphere of Desire, the stronger the ring gets. It’ll help you find your best friend! Help you find true love! Don't take it off or they'll find you and end you!”

“What? Just let me call Dr. Harrison..."

"NO!" His mother shrieked, backing away. "Not another one of their agents! You're just like them now, blind to the truth! My baby boy... they took you from me..."

She retreated into her room, climbing over the randomly arranged junk and slammed the door. Dave could hear her moving things around, probably building another "protective barrier" with her hoarded items. He noticed that there were pen scribbles all across the door, incomprehensible words connected in a chain-like pattern stretching out to the mold-covered wall.

He didn't have the energy to deal with her episodes as they had become far more frequent.

He slumped against the wall, head in his hands. He had to move out.

He couldn’t take it anymore. His mom couldn’t be saved. He tried so many times to help her clear the house, but she just kept getting more things and hoarding them, falling deeper and deeper into the same, mad pattern.

He could intern at Serv0tek, move downtown. He saved up enough money working at the dogmeat factory to rent a bachelor apartment in Chinatown.

. . .

"You're lucky," Lari said, shining a light in his eyes. "Could have been much worse. You’re only slightly paralyzed. Cheer up.”

"Yeah," he mumbled, still dazed. His hand went to his chest, feeling for his ring. It wasn’t there anymore. “Shit. Where’s my ring?” He groaned, looking left and right.

“Oh, right,” Lari blinked, noticing the movement and the panic in his eyes. "Mood ring?"

"Just... something I've had forever," he replied. “A ring my mom bought me when I was seven. It’s not precious or anything, but it reminds me of her, back when she was… less broken. Yes. A mood ring.”

He looked at her.

“Right, I got it, sorry,” she said, handing him a ring of a chain having pulled it from her pocket. “Took it off ya, when I was defibrillating you back to life. Here you go.”

Dave accepted the ring, slipping it back on himself.

"I get it. I collect weird medical instruments myself. Got a whole shelf of obsolete stethoscopes,” Lari ranted.

“What, really?” Dave asked with mild concern.

“Nah, just yanking your chain,” Lari grinned, scribbling something down on a yellow sticky note. “Here’s my number. Give me a call if you feel down. We can play a DnD game or something once you’ve recovered enough.”

“What you’re… into Dungeons and Dragons? Really?”

“Yep. I go to comic cons too, my dude. We play DnD every Saturday. Could use another nerd. Interested? I know you are. Call me. Okay, bye.”

. . .

The autumn wind rustled through the trees as Dave stood in front of a gravestone. His fingers traced the familiar shape of the mood ring hanging from his neck, the same one he'd worn for so many decades.

"You were right, you know," he said quietly to Lari's gravestone. "About finding something to believe in. About not giving up." He unclasped the chain, holding the ring in his palm. It had long since stopped changing colors, turned pure black, the liquid crystals inside having degraded. "You helped me believe in myself again. I made some pretty cool stuff. You’ve inspired me so much. Still... I lost you and without you I have very little left to look forward to. I’m going to try to move forward, to keep going because you’d want me to. Here, you can have this. I don’t need it anymore. Maybe it can protect you from now on.”

He placed the mood ring gently at the base of her headstone.

“Bye Lari,” he said, walking away, raindrops tapping on his shoulders.

There was gnawing, dark emptiness in his heart, one that could not be filled by anything or anyone.