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// Take Me Back To That Special Place 
// Story: Requiem Aeternam 
// by HeartofSilver 
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‘We are not what happened to us, we are what we choose to become.’
-Carl Jung


You know that feeling you get as you first stir from that nightly activity we call sleep? That stage where you’re not quite awake but at the same time not quite asleep? When you just want to remain in your nice, warm bed that, despite consisting of a mattress with more broken springs than you can count on both hands and sheets just as old, is still unbelievably comfy. That’s the feeling I had as well, at least until I remembered that my mattress normally didn’t feel like an ice cold rock. I probably would’ve thrown it away by now if it did.

My eyes fluttered open as I propped myself up with a slight groan. The sound quickly died in my throat as my brain processed the information my now wide eyes were sending it. See, I was  fairly certain the various shops around me, as well as the massive cityscape I could see in the background framed by the rising sun, weren’t exactly present in my small community where the largest building was 4 stories tall. And was there snow on the ground? Wasn't it July? And why did everything look animated?

“Well I se-” I threw my hands over my mouth in the most stereotypical gesture one could make when the wrong voice seemed to spill from their lips. The voice I heard was too high pitched, too innocent, in direct contrast with my deep, naturally sarcastic (at least that’s what my friends said) voice. There was no way, unless some mad doctor performed an illegal and immoral operation on my vocal cords, that could be my voice.

   ‘Or, more practically, maybe my voice is just a bit hoarse. Maybe I should just rest it awhile. Yeah, good idea, totally practical, not like I’m trying to avoid speaking so I don’t have to confront some frightening truth or anything!’

With that situation dealt with for now (or not), I decided to take a more in-depth look at my surroundings. Glancing left, right, up, and down in wonder at my new surroundings a few things became apparent to me. The first was that my initial view of this place was quite accurate. Everything had an animated, though not cartoony, look. It was like a high-quality animation, the type only the very best studios could afford, where objects had textures and the light filtered realistically. But no matter how high the quality was, it was still obviously animated.

  ‘Apparently the overlords have turned down the resolution of the simulation.’

I felt as though I should have been more worried about this. I mean, imagine walking up one day and the world looks like it's being rendered by a high-end PC. Most people would probably have a strong reaction to that, pondering their existence and the nature of the universe. Oddly enough that wasn't my reaction. I felt like it should have been, but it was like my mind just accepted it and moved on. Perhaps it was getting overloaded, this information piling on top of all the other concerns.

Which brings me to the second thing I noticed: I was most certainly not in a place I recognized. If the animated look wasn't clue enough, there was also the fact that I didn't live anywhere near a city this developed. Most of my region was just small, sleepy towns that were really just forests with a few houses here and there and somewhat more populous centers. Needless to say the fact that I was in a city was both rather odd and an indicator that I was far from home.

This only served to raise the question of how I got here. I very clearly remembered going home after class yesterday, chilling out for a few hours, and then going to bed. Then I woke up he--

No, that was wrong.

Why it was wrong, I had no idea. My memories seemed to be pretty straightforward: go to sleep at home, wake up here. But it was like....you know that feeling you get when you can't remember something. Like when you walk into a room to grab something and all of a sudden you can't remember what, but you know you were there for something? That's how I felt, like there was some sort of gap, something missing in my memory.

I shivered, though not from any sort of fright brought about my memory loss (though that fear certainly existed). Rather, it was quite cold out, which I guess would make sense considering there was snow on the ground. It must be winter around here or something, which only confused me more considering it was the dog days of summer back home. What exactly was going on? 

Well, now that I acknowledged it, the cold decided to come full force. It seeped through my jacket and invaded my body, chilling me all the way to the bones. Abandoning all other thoughts (doesn't that always seem to happen when you're freezing), I pulled my jacket tighter around me in the hopes of retaining at least some degree of warmth. I looked up and down the street. My initial glance had told me that I was on some sort of side street considering the width of the road and the nature of the businesses, mainly small stores dealing in specialty items, which may have also explained why I hadn't seen anyone around yet. Considering the position of the sun and the fact that most of the store windows were dark, it was early morning and most people were probably still at home, in bed, where I desperately wanted to be. But for now, I was looking around to see if at least one shop was open so I could have some place to shelter from this cold.

‘Wait a second,’ I thought, my mind backtracking a bit. I looked down at my body, taking in the orange coat, blue mittens, jeans, and the fact that my legs seemed much shorter than usual. Shocked, I sprung to my feet and realized that I normally wasn’t this close to the ground.

“What the hell, what the hell, what the hell,” I yelled, my panic only rising more at the sound of ‘my’ voice. “I don’t own an orange coat or blue mittens, I sure as hell shouldn’t be this damn short, and WHAT THE HELL IS UP WITH MY VOICE!”

My breathing was getting too quick, my lungs couldn’t fill up with oxygen fast enough. Panic was setting in. It was all too much, my memory, waking up in an unfamiliar place, MY FRIGGING BODY!.

‘No, no, no, this is not going to help at all. Breathe.”I took a deep breath, held it in for a few seconds, then slowly let it out. Breath in, hold, let out. Breath in, hold, let out.

  ‘Okay, there’s one thing I need to know.” Only a few feet to my right was a shop window, maybe not the best but good enough for my purposes. I reluctantly crept towards it, and the closer I got the clearer the image became. I felt another panic attack coming on as I completed my journey and could see….. something in the makeshift mirror.


The boy staring back was not me.