A Past Performance (1)

I wonder when I began to notice everything around me.

Or maybe it’s better to ask when I became purposely oblivious.

Is it when I first arrived in this other world?

Is it when I started streaming?

Or is it when my sister…

No, it’s simpler than that.

My body was trapped in a space of pure white. I could tell there was a floor by the circular shadow beneath my feet. But, there were no other markers to indicate the walls or ceiling, almost like it stretched on for eternity.

However, that’s what this was meant to be: a “mysterious room” you saw in your dreams. A place that could tell your future from what it learned about your past. Considered the starting point of a person’s fate, I turned around…

And came face-to-face with the blue panel that led me down this path.

Even in my fragmented memory, I still remembered the day I awakened to my first skill – the [Creation (Illusion)] magic I so heavily relied on. After notifying me that the synchronization was complete, the blue panel turned into a manual of sorts, explaining its related functions like stats, levels, and experience. Actually, ‘explain’ wasn’t the right word. It was more seared into my neural pathways, as though I had learned it long ago.

Well, I say ‘skill’ and ‘awakening’, but those are layman's terms to describe the overly technical process of how it works. It was a feat of neuroscience and quantum physics: a brain implant at birth that allowed one to finely control not only the atoms that made up their body, but also their surroundings to induce phenomena. Of course, with the inherent complexity of the task, it was impossible for babies to shoot fireballs or teleport around, not to mention dangerous. Therefore, after a five to ten year machine learning process, a blue panel would appear in a white void, acknowledging that the implant had harvested enough data for use. The concepts of stats and the like were simply standard metrics, quantifying how long it would take to do something.

At the moment, I was here once again, though for a completely different reason.

“What are you looking for?” a familiar voice rang as the same text appeared on the panel.

Why are you mimicking my memories? The panel couldn’t talk, nor could it weigh heavily on my shoulders. This was just a glimpse into my past, viewed through the distorted lens of my subconscious.

“For the same reason you ask questions you already know the answer to.” In an instant, the panel blinked out of existence as the white void faded to black. Two arms reached over my shoulders, or what I assumed to be arms. They were obscured or shifting beneath some kind of static I couldn’t, or didn’t want, to see through.

“So, what are you looking for?” she asked, even though she already knew. Still, I couldn’t help but oblige.

An answer.

“To something you already know? No. To something you desperately wish to keep unanswered.”

…

There was nothing I could say. I was standing at a crossroads once again, able yet unable to make a decision. Time was running short, and I knew what I had to do, but…

“Will you be able to accept it?”

That was something I didn’t want to think about. Creation magic allowed one to create anything, as the name implied. What’s less well known was that to make something, they had to know everything of how it was put together: an omniscience for omnipotence. While illusions couldn’t create anything concrete, they could see through other illusions – the type others wanted to keep hidden. No facade was immune unless the user chose not to look any closer.

I don’t know.

“Then are you going to watch it all play out again?”

No matter my actions, the queen was going to be assassinated. At the moment, I was watching a movie, unable to affect anything on the other side of the screen. The same way I lived my life. The same way I pretended not to understand. I could simply pause the movie anytime, where everything was still fine. The queen would live on, and my sister would still be alive, smiling with my family. But in a theater, the show stopped for no one.

I don’t know.

“Are you going to finally take that one step forward?”

The masks people wore were both comforting and terrifying. Rarely did one match the true self that was hidden behind. Words better left unsaid, feelings better kept buried, actions better left undone – I could see them, and I was scared. The mind was a fragile place, where even the smallest of dominoes could cause it all to come crashing down. No power came without its cost.

I don’t know.

“Why–”

I don’t know!

“–are you lying?”

…

…

…because I have to.

I always wondered what would’ve happened if things had turned out differently. It wasn’t like my skill was any different from back then. I could’ve stood with my parents instead of retreating into my shell. I could’ve kept pushing forward instead of being stuck looking back.

I could’ve stopped my sister from killing herself.

“Is that why you haven’t turned around and faced me?”

There was no way I could. What would happen if I made an effort to save the queen and succeed? After sitting around and failing her? Sure, I knew it was a nonsensical fear, but my feet was paralyzed at the thought that–

“Ugh, why do you have to be so stubborn sometimes?” For the first time, I heard a different voice speak to me, one I knew quite well.

Wait, why are you– My body spun around, causing me to wince instinctively. I already knew what was behind me, something I never wanted to see again… or not? I was flabbergasted. In front of me was an ordinary wooden door, one I was intimately familiar with from the golden doorknob to the callbox doorbell. After all this was the entrance to the house my family lived in, and the one I lived in to this day. Well, before I was kidnapped to this other world.

I tried to turn the doorknob, but it was locked. I went to try the doorbell, but my finger froze an inch away from the button. Pressing it was the right thing to do, yet I still hesitated, unable to take that first step. In the end though, I didn’t have to.

The weight on my shoulders increased for a single moment, making my finger move an inch further.