Chapter 1

Madness is the most insidious of creatures.

It creeps in like a vicious thief.

Stealing away fragments, before you notice.

It poisons and comforts as you destroy yourself.

For the rational, it is hell.

I swore that I would never be like that king who gave up and drank from the well.

I was wiser and far more dignified to fall on all fours and screech with mad glee like my delirious subjects.

I swore!

But I was thirsty…

Alas, such an evil knows no sportsmanship or honor!

As soon as my reality stopped hiccuping and I realized that I exist, I found myself staring up at the vaulted white ceiling of my bedroom.

Before I moved an inch or made any indication of my return of consciousness, I heard an all too familiar sickening voice say.

“Thank heavens, you are finally awake. We all were worried, young master.”

I remained still, and my gaze stayed affixed where it was. There was no point looking at that automaton in a skin suit. All of their smiles and voices blended in with each other.

I had another one of my fits at dinner, my servant said.

Fits that I always had since childhood, but I can’t remember.
We all were worried, my servant said.

“How long was I out?” I asked.

The door shut, and I was left alone again.

A hoarse laugh tickled my throat,  and I sat up in my bed. “Like borax on rats.”

I tossed the linen sheets off me and slid out of bed. I ignored the slippers placed neatly beside my bed and headed towards the marble washstand.

“What is time in this world? ” I poured water into the basin, splashing my face with it and washing away my lingering fatigue.

Ah, life-giving water ran over my parched lips. My cracked tongue craved to drink. My eyes drifted down to the basin. I could lap it up like an animal.

I want to.

My hand lifted the basin to my lips.

“Miro,” called a soft, familiar voice from the mirror above the washstand.
I tore the basin away from my lips and tossed it to the ground. The porcelain bowl cracked into two, and its contents soaked into the fur rug.

“Yes,” I answered coldly. I should thank him, but part of me was filled with resentment.

I look up at the mirror above the washstand. Staring back at me was my pale, emaciated face and sunken red eyes, and behind me was a white-haired young man dressed in silk robes who could have been my older brother.

“What do you want, doppelganger?” I grabbed a towel and began drying my face.

A troubled look formed creases on my guest’s pale face. “You were gone for a week. I feared...”

“I’m back.” I tossed the cloth aside and went to my wardrobe.

“I told you not to eat or drink anything they give you.”

“How can I–!” I stop myself. “That is a difficult request.”

I picked out my clothes for today. “ I know that everything is in my head, but my body still experiences the pains of thirst and hunger. Sometimes I wonder if you are real.”

“You know that I am,” my doppelganger said. “I know that this is hard, so I brought something for you. Please come back to the mirror.”

I closed the wardrobe with my clothes and placed them on the bed, before returning to my guest. Waiting for me on the stand was a glass of water and a loaf of bread. My parched mouth struggled to salivate, and I snatched the glass, gulping down the precious liquid. My teeth tore into the bread next.

My doppelganger waited patiently for me to finish with a look of embarrassment. Damn him.

I wiped the crumbs from my lips, coldly. “What are you looking at?”

“Um.” He scratched the back of his head and looked away. “Sorry, I want to help more, but my influence is weak here. You need to leave the mansion grounds.”

“I tried, but I always collapse once I reach the meadow. And then there are the servants who are watching more intently. Using my poor health as an excuse. It is hard enough to turn away food from them.”

He nodded as if he understood, but his face hardened as he spoke, “You need to try harder. Use whatever means possible. The longer you stay here, the closer you are to death.”

“I know, but it would be easier if you taught me how to conjure up food out of nothing.”

He shook his head. “I told you already. Although we are under its influence, you still have power, since this is your mind.”

His form faded. “Don’t limit yourself, it is unlike you.”

With my doppelganger gone, all that was left was my reflection. “Wow.” I touched my face, now restored to its fullness without any hint of my hunger strike.

“Alright, by whatever means…” I glanced at the candle flicker on the nightstand. “I can do that.”

***

“Young master! Young master!”

“Where are you, m’lord!”

“Oh no, is he still in there?!”

“Hurry! Search!”

Screams rose with thick smoke into the night sky. Beneath the starless pitch, roared a red inferno consuming the once elegant mansion as tinder. Its wooden frames crackled and warped from the extreme heat. It was a matter of time before the three-story structure would collapse, but a few of the servants wrapped their faces with wet cloth and braved the flames for their lord.

CRACK! SHHCK!

“Ahhhh!”

The blood-curdling cries carried on to the rolling hill surrounding the estate and into my ears as I watched my handiwork. The flames from my lamp danced in front of my eyes as I observed with clinical coldness.

“A pitiful illusion.”

My refined features creased into a frown when I heard their calls for me getting closer.

I turned my back on my servants. “Tsk, I need to get a move on.”

I fled into the voidless night, traveling up and down the hills as fast as my tiny legs could carry me. I pushed through the sharp pain near my ribs, daring not to slow my pace until my pursuer’s voices faded and the only sound that remained was my ragged breaths.

“I…I hate this. Was I always this weak? ” I rubbed my chest, feeling my sweat cool me from the dry summer air.

“No. This isn’t right.”

According to my doppelganger, we were esteemed scientists before our imprisonment. And I was his bodyguard, business partner, and dear friend.

Although I remember none of that, I now understand why I was uncomfortable in the diminutive frame.

I raised my lamp and looked into the ever-expanding darkness that swallowed the landscape. No moon or stars to guide me.

Deadly silent…

Just my footsteps rustling through the grass, my limbs shifting in my robes, and my heart drumming in my chest.

“Was it always this empty?”

I sighed.

“Just keep walking, it must be in this direction.”

Several hours passed until I welcomed the sun peaking over the horizon, and my eyes could finally make out a meadow that stretched out before me. A field of green with patches of yellow and white appeared from the void.

In the distance, I spotted an old wooden fence nearly overtaken by the waist-high grass. My gaze followed the posts to my left and right, but I moved my gaze up when the fence seemed to have no end. Beyond the fence, the meadow seemed to continue into infinity.

I looked away. “The sameness is maddening! Where is he!”

I take a deep breath and prepare myself for the run of my life.

“This is my mind. I should be able to do anything in it, right?”

My muscles energized, and I broke out in a full sprint, cutting through grass like a scythe. My white hair trailed behind me as the fence got closer with every step.

“I can make it this time.”

“Miro, your left!” my doppelganger’s voice came out of nowhere, but I did as instructed and evaded a pair of hands reaching for my waist.

Standing between me and my path to freedom was a woman dressed in white robes with gold trim. I could see my doppelganger behind the fence with a worried look on his face.

His lips moved. “Blast it, it showed up.”

The golden mask of my captor tilted down as she spoke to me in a calm voice. “Miro, you mustn’t be here. That creature is a dangerous sorcerer who wants to consume your essence.”

My doppelganger’s red eyes flashed with hate, “Ha, that is funny coming from a parasite!”

The masked woman reached for me, but she recoiled, and her form twisted like a wrung-out towel when a ball of fire struck her in the back.

I leapt away and ran.

“Miro, hop the fence!” my doppelganger fired another fireball at the woman.

She dodged away from the flames that lit the meadow ablaze and fired a beam of light that stuck my doppelganger in the chest.

He disappeared in several sparks of light.

“Winston!” I shouted.

“I’m still here,” he said faintly. “Remember this in your mind, don’t let it have power here.”

I ran towards the fence, trying my best to escape the flames. I could not afford to get surrounded. When I was a few feet away from the fence, the masked woman appeared before me in a blinding flash. My world turned to a white light, and my senses dulled.

What? What was I doing?

When my eyes adjusted, I found myself sitting alone at the dinner table. Tastefully arranged for one, despite the large feast of exotic meats, fruit, and vegetables. I looked down at the plate in front of me. I already ate half of the steak. I can taste its remains in my mouth. It's heavenly sent in my nose.

I put my fork down and reached for the glass in front of me. When I put it to my lips, I had the sinking feeling that I had done this before.

I placed the glass down and looked at my reflection in the fork.

“Young master, is there something a matter?”

A servant asked beside me.

I didn’t look at them. They were all the same; instead, I asked, “What time is it?”

My doppelganger replaced my reflection and shouted, “Duck!”

I fell out of my chair, evading a hand reaching for my neck. Above me stood my servant with a permanent smile stitched onto its face, its eyes elsewhere. “What is a matter, young master? Dinner is not over yet.”

“I shouldn’t be here. I should be… ”

My reality shifted, and I returned to the meadow that was now engulfed in flames. I could no longer see the fence through all the smoke. Only the woman in white and gold who loomed above me.

“Please take my hand, it is not safe here,” she said.

I shook my head. “You aren’t real!”

“You can’t honestly believe a creature walking around with your face over me?”

The flames inched closer to us. I began to sweat from the heat, and my head began to spin from the lack of oxygen.

Who am I?

How did I get here?

I’m drawing a blank on all of that.

I looked up at the woman and asked, “Who am I?”

“Let me take you out of this place first and then—”

“No!” I shouted and raised my lamp. “You will tell me now, or else we will both burn.”

“You are a young noble from a prestigious family. Your parents died when you were very young, forcing you to take on many duties you weren’t prepared for.”

Sounds familiar…

“You are a kind person who wishes to become a doctor one day.”

The gears in my mind turned, and suddenly I remembered back to the time I found a mouse with a broken leg. How small it was. How desperate it needed me.

I could feel it in my hands again.
A smile formed on my lips. “Ah.”

I took the lamp and smashed it into the woman. A loud screech escaped from its mouth as it reverted to true form, a fleshy slug writhing in fire. For me, I felt a weight lifted from my heart. I remembered part of myself again.

“I’m not a good person, silly worm.” I walked past her crumbling form, through the fire that felt like a warm blanket on a cold winter day, and jumped over the fence.

The meadow disappeared and I found myself being hugged by my best friend. A short, white-haired man who just reached my chin.

That is right, I am taller than him.

“Good job, Miro. We are also most free.” Winston said.

I nodded, but my mood soured.

Why did you make me look like him?

Winston let go and said, “We’ll escape into my mindscape. I was able to wipe most of it out of my mind.”

I clenched my teeth. Damn that thing! I don’t want to be him!

Winston looked up at me and pointed at a wooden door standing in a vacant space. “Miro, we have to hurry before it comes back. We are still in an unfavorable position.”

“Of course.”

I followed him through the door and promised that I would vivisect that worm slowly and methodically when I got out.