Bornandtorn - Chapter 142 The end of a dream 4

A memory came to me from deep inside.

Everything was still normal then. My father took care of me and my mother had not yet detested me.

When I was 7 years old, the world seemed much simpler. That day, I sneaked away from my tutor. I don’t even remember why I did that back then.

I left the care of my villa and appeared in a world unlike my own. Here I was not the centre of events, so many different faces whose eyes were not on me.

A wide range of different emotions was reflected in their faces. Quite contrary to the monotonous facial expressions I was used to.

I did not pay attention to where I was going, I just followed the mass of people. They all ignored the little child that followed them. Everyone had their own worries and concerns and they were all too busy with themselves.

During my little trip, I discovered many things that were completely new to me. I, who grew up in a sheltered environment, came into contact with people, who were unlike everything I was used to. Their clothing looked so colourful to the young me. I did not notice the dirt or the creases.

My nostrils were flooded by countless smells I did not know of and I was overwhelmed by the loud noises. I tried to take it all in because I knew that I had to return to my old world sooner or later since I did not belong here.

While I was wandering amongst the crowd I heard 2 people loudly screaming at one another. I was drawn in by this new experience and my arrival came just at the right time. It is not every day someone inserts a knife over and over again into a body.

Most people walked onwards pretending not have seen anything. Some started crying and wailing, others just stared at the mangled body. On their faces appeared genuine shock and someone even puked seeing this cruel display.

Others made some photos with their handy, to capture this moment for all eternity. Yet, the men in question had not died fully. He lied there in writhing agony. He lifted his hand to search for help but no one bothered to.

Amongst all of them was me, just staring at my surroundings. I was not appaled by seeing the men in his last hours on earth, neither was I fascinated enough to continue staring at him. For me, all of this had been part of this foreign world.

Each and everyone had a different reaction to this man lying there. But regardless where I looked no one shared mine. Why was no else imagining how it would feel like to be in his body? What this not the most interesting part? My younger self was utterly confused. The vast difference in reactions was inexplicable to me.

When the police and EMTs finally arrived, they could only confirm the death of the man. Survival was out of the question after the body had been brutalized to such an extent. Yet the men had been clinging onto life till the bitter end.

I had been taught from early on that struggle against the natural order was futile. People are born with certain limitations placed on them. Be it talent, birth of origin, or lifespan. These shackles tied one down and breaking them was impossible.

So why did this man not give up, when the inevitable end was about to occur? I wanted to look at his face, to see the face of someone who persisted against his fate.

The blank look in his face, the widely opened eyes full of shock. The traces of blood that gave his face a red hue. A perfect example of a man who died full of regrets.

His end was a lonely one, everyone, he had reached out to ignored him and his ordeal. It was then I was apprehended by 2 strong hands and my trip came to a sudden end. Afterwards, I was harshly scolded for leaving without telling anyone.

It was only later on that I was taught, that the reaction everyone had shown were considered normal. I was advised not to think too deeply about it, as something like this could only happen to those of lower birth.

This was the lesson they tried to give me, but not the conclusion I drew. If such reactions are deemed normal, then it was me who was abnormal. This simple realisation was the cause of my downfall.

There were so many things I did not know about and I tried to learn about them at all cost. I watched movies, asked the personal questions about anything I did not understand. But I was always told off and the rumours about the strange child started to spread.

At that point in time, I had not become aware of exactly how abnormal I truly was. In my rush to experience everything, I enranged my parents and tutors alike. Their scolding continued until the very father chose to give up on the failure of a son.

I could understand their motivation for making such a decision but the emotions, they had shown were still something I could not imagine. From my observations, they were full of anger, disappointment and felt a tinge of regret as well. But what were those feelings, why did I not know how these emotions felt like?

I knew about hunger and pain. Signals the body gave off to inform the brain about something. Yet, anger, fear, regret was not like this. These emotions were not born from my body itself but were a result of the mind.

Even now I do not know the exact difference. Feelings like this are the result of a reaction of the brain. Happiness can be achieved by a hormone called dopamine. Serotonin, on the other hand, regulates our mood.

Our entire perception of the world is formed shaped by chemicals in our brains. Everything we feel is a product of our brain. Adrenalin for an emergency situation or endorphins to make the body forget about the pain.

Until now, I never felt something like this. So I started to think about how someone might feel and act accordingly. Yet, despite my best effort, I did not feel anything others were supposed to feel.

I tirelessly tried to invoke these feelings in me. Day in and day out I caused situations, that should stir emotions inside me but everything was to no avail.

Until one fateful day, I managed to achieve just that. I took my younger sister than me and ran away with her from our tutor. I tried to replicate the event I had seen back then. With my sister in hand, I appeared in that foreign world once more.

And to no one’s surprise, nothing happened, nothing at all. My sister looked at these people with great interest in her mind, this must have been the exact way I looked back then. Yet, the fundamental difference between her and me became clear after she spoke to me in a loud and crisp voice.

” Brother, why are you showing me these pitiful things?” There was a tinge of disgust in her voice. My sister was not like me, she was just like anyone else. My upbringing was not the problem, the problem was me.

With even my last hope crushed, I just abandoned my sister and ran as fast as my legs could carry me. What did that dying men have, what I lacked? Why did he get to feel emotions, while I did not?

I felt jealous of a dead man. The absurdity of the situation was not something I wanted to accept.

The first emotion I was conscious about was envy aimed at a corpse. Instead of becoming normal as I hoped I became only more abnormal. Because this was as far from being normal as one could be. Everything I had done, all the things I lost and in the end, I ended up even further from my goal when I started.

But my attempt at running away from my troubles had the same closure as my first trip and I was caught yet again. Further scolding ensued and since the expectations aimed at me had dropped significantly, they did not even ask for an explanation. They just declared me guilty and moved on.

From that moment onwards the contact to my sister was severely restricted as well and a guard was assigned to me to keep watch and prevent me from trying something “stupid” once more. This job was an easy way to make money, as I did not even leave the confide out of my house anymore.

Since my previous effort was a complete waste of time, I decided to observe the others, listen to everything they said. I tried to categorize the different emotions they must have felt and searched for the different patterns, which must have caused it.

This behaviour did not go unnoticed and the rumours started to spread once more. Sadly even these rumours did not cause any emotion me. My mother raising her hand was also not enough. Nothing was ever enough.

Yet my desire to be normal never truly disappeared amidst all of my failures. I had the proof that I am capable of feelings right beside me, but why could I not feel any other? The solution is more than obvious if I can not feel anything about the others than they never mattered to me in the first place.

Familiar bonds have no influence over me. If I want to feel emotions, I need more and stronger simulation. My father and my mother and even my sister are just not enough for that. It wasn’t because my sister didn’t try. She really put a lot of effort into making my life miserable though.

Whatever her motivation truly was, I did not particularly care. Whether she wanted to exert her power over others as desperately as her mother or something entirely else. All of her efforts may have permanently altered my surroundings and the relationship to my family but that was it. Not even she could give me the one thing I desired.

The memory of the dying men burst like a bubble and disappeared. My sister had been replaced by someone I was all too familiar with. I was looking at myself from the former world.

” A world full of magic and you were happy, so happy, but this is not what you are after. You want to feel genuine emotions, not ones that are made up by yourself. Even if it is a perfect dream, you have to wake up to enjoy the reality.”

Yes, seems like I forgot myself while I thought to live a “normal” life albeit in a magical world. Otherwise, I would have noticed sooner, that this was too good to be true. I do not want to live in the confines of my own mind. What I want is to experience something real something palpable.

I had long forgotten about the fight that was currently taking place with my body. Those details were not important to me anymore. I focussed on all the logical inconsistences I had found and told myself over and over again, that all of this was nothing more than a dream.

The space inside of me began to rumble and to disintegrate slowly. Yet the Moirai in front of me just continued to stare at me with great expectations in his eyes. This entire development was not something I would consider logical, but the entire situation was something I could not comprehend.

Although I found it hard to believe, that my subconscious would directly talk to me and tell me to wake up. Although in comparison to the mere thought that all of this had been nothing more than an illusion it seems more believable.

I did not even feel anger at whoever had done this to me. He or she had rekindled my desire to feel emotions again. Being satisfied by a mere imitation should never be enough for me and my ambition.

One might assume, that after being deceived and being lied to for such a long time a lot of anger and frustration might be felt, but I felt thoroughly thankful. An emotion that was still foreign to me. I wanted to explore this new feeling and try to savour its impression it left behind in my mind and body.

It was liberating to finally feel something like this and all it took was a trip to a foreign world and living a lie for several months. Achieving new emotions would not get any easier than this, but I was up for the task.

The space inside of my mind had been thoroughly destroyed and right now it was pitch black. The only thing left in front of me was Moirai and the chair he sat upon. I found myself surrounded by a darkness that had engulfed everything beside me and the other Moirai.

The other Moirai gave me a casual nod before he jumped into the black night and disappeared in it. I thought about following his footsteps but decided against it, after contemplating about it for a while. I am sad on the chair that was left behind and stared into the black night.

I looked into it and say nothing, nothing at all. My eyes never got used to its sight and I was stranded in it. After my previous world view had been thoroughly destroyed I found myself in this strange world.

I tried to feel my limbs and body but that was to no avail and I was still stuck in this sheer endless void. The only thing I could do to keep myself busy was using my imagination to do various things, I used it to imagine myself fighting someone else or seeing the magic with my own eyes. Yet another Moirai who talked back to me never appeared.

Although I could imagine all of this I never could do so myself. All I could do on the other hand was merely observing these things from a safe distance. The time passed slowly and I watched a myriad of things.

Every time I tried to interact with the darkness in any other way without using my imagination, I was promptly repelled by it. I tried over and over again but the result remained always the same. Since I had a lot of free time in my hand I began to think about possible solutions. First and foremost I decided on finding out some information about my current predicament.

But after a long time, or it might have been a short time as well, the darkness suddenly dissipated and what was left behind was the exact same thing but this time around in white. I gave up on trying to find a logical explanation for the time being and just took it all in.

My perfect dream had come to an end, so spending some time in an environment like this was not an issue to me. It was only about when and how I would finally wake up. Though I had no idea just how soon this event would come true.