Distorted Diaries : Pages Of a Forgotten Self

By V Kabilan

November 16^th,20XX

Wednesday

10:37 pm

As I was staring into the screen lit in a ghastly void of a room as the caret blinked intermittently endlessly, I came terms with the fact that I couldn't muster up an idea – at least for now, probably facing a writer's block perhaps, Let's proceed to the plot I've planned so meticulously all the while just connecting some bursts of random ideas I've had at the weirdest of times... trust me, you don't wanna hear that. Sooo yeah were we? I sat there feeling numb and nonchalant, yes I get it, does feel contradictory right? Well, it just feels right... y'know after all these toiling, you just stare into space... and all these things that come out like those film strips swirling and swaying, weaving the extraordinarily ordinary into something tragic, you feel melancholic just leaning near the window, watching that 'you' in the photos crawling out that zone where no good comes out of any brooding. 

I plug in my ears to suppress sounds, and my thoughts effectively, into the breath before dawn. 

Thursday 20XX

After being thoroughly tired and tried for who knows how long, all I wanted was a sweet distraction that boosted my fantastical ego and so I went forth to play such a game and it was quite interesting in its absurdity and abstraction. Like usual I found myself overthinking what it would be like to find myself amidst such settings and personas. And I was operating the game – now as a character thrown into uncharted territory.

The game settings feel so creeped out in a manner that feels like weeds growing out abruptly on the grass and before you can even react, you see the grass covered with a thick layer of moss, enveloping you in a who-knows-what-but definitely-not-good kinda thing.

I find myself wanting to beat the lass out of her wits, at the way she's throwing her weight around me – no literacy and likability. And what's this “lady” she's been raving about? Goodness how long has she been this regressed in her mental capacity? 

I scoured through the rooms searching for an "embroidered dress" she said she was supposedly guarding ,striking a heavy contrast with her shabby clothes , making it hard to believe at first, but then what's the harm trying anyway? And I did stumble on a "bejeweled dress" in a room ,and on my way back I found a "mannequin" laid there bare, as if made for the dress to be held and then, the country girl eventually realized her "dream" , with "that world" cracking for the first time, and starting off a chase against time and another - a "figure".

Thursday still probably 20XX

The walls are all skritch scratchy, they really are devoid of any real essence, the creator didn't even bother whitewashing it and all of the land seem to be just the same. With all the gurgling sounds, it's as if it has a clearing to quench my... non existent thirst? Hang on why don't I feel hungry? Angry ? Everyone seems to be so normal yet so weirdly the same as if their appetite for survival is merely holding onto life just by... sustaining without food or water? 

For God's sake what's wrong with this frail scribe answering in such a wayward manner? Why is he even stuck here when all he's ever been doing is just longing aimlessly for something? Is it worth it? And I come again to find him nowhere near that book he worshipped?

Following the clues,I ended up in a room with a desolate statue of a spear headed soldier, surrounded by hundreds of books, placed in racks with an empty bookstand positioned on the ground, and as I took the book etched in a mysterious language onto the bookstand , I can only say that the aged scribe “left” peacefully.

The world cracked violently with a deafening roar accompanied by an agonized wailing in the end as though someone's dark reverie was landing on a grim verdict. 

Friday probably? 20XX

I see a portrait of cat stretching out its paws to rip open the gilded frame it was painted onto, with vivid scratches at the edge to make it like the cat was actually trying to escape, it feels so eerie yet somewhat relatable? It feels like an absurd attempt to break out of the reality it was cast into, in a sense similar to my predicament. 

As I was gazing onto the vast land that threatened to consume me, a book titled “Purpose and Pretense” lay on this ground that doesn't seem to be of “sandy” texture , whilst I came out of an entrance on a whim trying to break free from my “logic” that I hope to navigate through this place. The place is eerily quiet like something pristine, strangely ethereal to the touch but weirdly sturdy enough to tip off the scales entirely in its favour, yet it does not have any extravagance... rather it's too minimalistic that it feels like mockery at people being attracted to its inexplicable mystique despite its detriments. 

This place has... no sense of time, rather it just goes on endlessly like something completely unperturbed by the worldly affairs, I expected to feel some fleeting sense of peace but it feels too disturbingly numb , not like a place etched in innocence ,forever committed to its simplistic ways ... but more like intentional apathy to outright slaughter happening right before its eyes.

As I talk to the “others”, they all proclaim some sort of monster hiding here from the bottom of their hearts, in my opinion this place is that monster they're referring to. It just takes shape in the form of their deepest desires that go unfulfilled, feeding them an illusion to hang onto a glimmer of hope all to stay here for eternity, but of course I dare not say that loud.

My sensory perceptions are completely cut off and any reaction I'm having are stimulated by thoughts I go by and considering how weird these people are behaving, they feel mindless... yet full of thoughts.. Am I even in my physical form or is it only the consciousness of the personas existing? Then how exactly were we transported here? 

I feel this place is sucking all the rationality out of me? Hear me out , the people came to be here because of their unnatural obsession with... something like a hobby or material of sorts? But then what exactly was I obsessed with? 

For Who Knows how long?!

Loitering through what seems to be resembling a sparse attic, I come across artworks ,several of them hanging in unnatural angles with what appears to be holding them seemingly frayed. I cannot comprehend the randomness of all these “sculptures” placed here, as if someone had it kept here intentionally to confuse travellers, then did they know we were coming? Or were they the ones who “invited” us here? 

When the bell descends and everything goes red, I don't dare to open my eyes, what if this is all a dream like they said you wake up because your mind does not know what happens after death? Maybe I'll get jolted right from my sleep, check the phone and overthink on this dream. I've lost count of how many times I've hit and frankly I don't care.

This is.... absurd, it's as if the more I try to find patterns, the more I try to go forward, the more I am driven back to square one, intuitively I feel it's the randomness in the “straight path” I'm travelling that feels more of a reliable pattern but then what is “intuition” here?, I feel that I'm going in circles when actually going through what my “rationality” tells me to do so. 

Is the inherent chaos here the only “logic” I can go by? 

Why am I being respawned even after all that happened? I don't understand how that even happens like who exactly is clicking that mouse even after I'm gone, is “my reality” even real? But what exactly happened... all I see are frantic writings scattered all across places, that seem so much...familiar to mine? 

I see the soldier getting his redemption and after all that talk I had to endure with him, it was his own reflection that made him find his salvation, truly a narcissist obsessed with the ideals of a knight that he rather not uphold for a queen he never laid his eyes on... and he never will, because she was never real , his story was interesting... I presume.

Not so long after I met that “figure” once more, at a stand-off with “it” I found myself curious more than being spooked and it gave me a warning to “find something I must” before it is too late and I found myself at crossroads once again.

I cannot find a way back to home....not that I know what it really means but knowing enough to know that place will keep the sanity still left untouched intact. As for the rest, I hope it got stored in some “cloud” wasn't something like that there in the world I previously existed? But... do I even exist there anymore? 

What am I even searching anymore? What am I walking towards, it feels like a distant ray of light in this utter darkness yet... for some reason it feels cozy , perhaps I'm better off resigning to my “fate” here. Am I even actually feeling what I'm ''feeling''?

All I feel is just panic at the unknown at random times and then followed by an unsettling sort of acceptance of the transcendental I never knew I had. I feel tired and bored out of my wits... if I had any left that is. 

Last night I had a dream, wait there isn't a night when the whole place looks like something just trapped in time forever, with the eternal hibernation I'm facing that could be the case but thinking in that direction does more harm than good..so I'd rather stop while I can with these “silly” notions.

As I drifted into deep sleep, I found myself in a dark chamber dimly lit by the faint light coming from the corner ,where a pair of polished globes fastened by a taut string lay, and I went closer to examine the orbs, both radiating surprisingly opposing forces, as if the string that appeared to be light as a feather, was the only thing hindering them from their long awaited desire of being dispersed in their natural path. I brushed my fingers with the string that seemed to shift between clarity and blur, a low hum vibrated through the air, gradually buzzing with intensity suddenly transforming into a piercing shriek, that turned into a sharp metallic clang that seemed to splinter the crystalline case of the trance state I was under, which jolted me awake, leaving me breathless. 

What do I even write? What reason do I have any more to record? Maybe to still have some sort of direction? But.... what do I even chase, where do I even go? Most importantly what do I seek?

After all this,I venture out of the rooms just for the sake of moving as if any stopping will land me on devil's nest, but what's the harm done when I'm already in the devil's library anyway?

As I go through that book I once gathered somewhere along the way, a tiny piece of parchment landed onto my feet and the weathered paper held a few words :

“The Stories I Tell Myself”

I found myself unable to think, as though my throat was clogged, choking me until I couldn't take it anymore. All these thoughts and doubts I kept restrained came up surging like a tide, and this time, I could do nothing at their numbers, but instead face them with an unnerving sense of calm, and a futile attempt to convince myself, that everything I'm hoping for is just right up the corner. I'm tired of justifying that I still have a chance to run, when all I want is to settle somewhere

As I was wandering across the corridors that never seemed to wane, I came across an epitaph laid on the bare ground, within a room just as any other, no decor nothing excess, just the same old scratches of a rough sketch, and weirdly I felt sympathy for that person whose name was crafted in that stone tablet, held together by memory and dust. 

As I probe the tablet, I feel the coarse surface weathered by the elements of nature and as I reach the center, a message pops up saying 

“ "Another soul shelved in someone else’s plot. “

What do I even make of it? Staying in this place for so long I'm not surprised if he meant quite literally what he said, the interpretation is entirely left up to me and is it worth brooding over? Absolutely not but... something says this might be a fragment of something beyond my threshold.

With all the burden I carry, every calculated step I took feels as though walking into the very snare designed just for me,and I abandon all reservations I held, releasing me of chains I wilfully tied myself to in another set of “reality”.

A rasping sigh from unseen depths came from the other end, something phantasmal perhaps, and I feel it — the slow approach of something final, inevitable, and unseen. 

Things are getting too heavy for the ink, hold on... where did the pen and paper even come from? 

I have seen the edges of... no, lived the edges of— 

(Laughter comes from where reason once was 

as the ✷ ◎⦿☲⟁◉☍▽ ✧ ↯⊛▽⬚◍ ✷ comes to a conclusion) 

EPILOGUE

The yellowed pages with blotches of crimson sat there ruffling in the air, as the place , perpetrator and the prey, all of them lay in a crumpled heap, its essence oozing out.

As I saw that all so familiar gruesome sight, I resume my usual routine for the day, licking my paws clean as I leapt out of the window, in search of my next pawn with a persecution complex.

By V Kabilan