The Diaries of a Misplaced Main Character

CHAPTER 3: Bruce Almighty Was Right

So... in the end, we ended up lying to the other scientists. Badly.

Listen. I was usually an expert liar, able to utilize my talent for injecting the truth into the obscure whenever it suited me best, because... well, I was a Gemini. It was in my nature to use the gift of gab to secure what I needed. According to Bustle, that is. I don't know, because sometimes I was just a dick.

Kai, on the other hand, was a precious, warm, cinnamon roll. Not that he always told the truth, but that his conscience normally operated on overdrive. Even when we gamed together, he couldn't bear to pick any of the mean dialogue options for fear of hurting someone. If he lost approval points from his favorite companions, he simply restarted the game. Malakai was no Jesus, but sometimes, I swear he got close.

After all, being a STEM major in college — and making sure I passed the classes I personally didn't care for — had mostly been born of a desire to provide for the two of us. We hadn't grown up incredibly poor, but we'd seen enough of our friends and family members fall to medical conditions they couldn't pay for.

After a particularly close friend had had their insulin package stolen by their neighbor — an old, poodle-lady — and was then told to get fucked by their insurance, I'd just decided to sell feet pics to pay for shit on my own. And while my strategy was rather benign and 100% valid, Kai had politely asked me to refrain, stating that in time he would be able to support us by himself.

By politely, I mean he'd dangled my cell phone out of his bedroom window, eyes as wide as saucers, and begged me to not make him need to "envision a person's genitals in correlation to any part of his twin's toenails."

Mind you, my toenails are cute and shiny as fuck. Also, Kai has never heard of a finsta, meaning I've been in the clear for awhile now, and he's enjoyed a lot of amaze-balls Christmas presents, courtesy of kink.

At any rate, we both knew how unfair the world could be, even to the people who deserved it the least. Which is why we knew we had to keep Zazie's emergence as a secret, because who knew what other people would do to her?

Why had the world ever seen the torture of an "inhuman" thing as wrong?

Besides, I had spent way too long leveling her ass up in Faeniverse just to lose her to a bunch of old, crusty croutons who supplemented their fantasies about being probed by dissecting anything they didn't understand. Which, in actuality, was everything.

Suffice to say, there was no chance that I would ever be selling out any part of my digital creation when there were countless other aliens for boomers to — no doubt — exploit.

But also, fuck the government.

So, Kai and I tried to explain it away. And...

We told the other researchers that it was a gas leak. And a power outage. At the same time. And that the gas leak had made us all fuzzy and therefore unreliable in what we may have witnessed. I've seen enough of the Vampire Diaries to know that most people will accept shit like that because they don't know otherwise.

Like I said. It was bad.

And yet, no one confronted us with our lie! No one was able to look into the depths of Kai's earnest, pleading, gray eyes and challenge the conviction of a man desperate to see this experiment to its success.

So, I let Kai do the damage control. I, on the other hand, was too busy stalking and poking Zazie in the face, the arms, her torso... because why would I ever not? After all, now that she was corporeal, she was technically my responsibility.

Initially telling her that she'd crossed over into another reality hadn't gone as smoothly as we'd hoped. Not that we'd thought it would go smoothly at all. But, at least she hadn't wailed and screamed and told us all that we were crazy.

She simply would gaze at us in her impossibly violet eyes and quirk an eyebrow whenever we tried to explain it. And I couldn't say I was surprised, given that that was how I'd fashioned her character in the creation menu. Hot, unattainable, and mean.

For now, we'd confined Zazie to one of the common rooms in the building, high up and away from the main laboratory. We couldn't take her to our shared apartment yet, because the moment Zazie stepped outside this building would be the moment she'd lose her shit.

Therefore, we'd half-heartedly converted the communal area into a living space, complete with a coffee-maker – which she still didn't know how to use, because why would she? There was also a mini-fridge which baffled her, a communal bathroom which simultaneously delighted and disgusted her in equal measure, and a pull-out sofa to sleep on. She glared at me now, dressed in dark plainclothes, courtesy of my wardrobe, and scowled.

"Okay," I said, switching tactics. This might've been the fifth time I'd attempted this conversation. "You know how you use lodestones to teleport around the world?"

"Yes," she replied, wary. That eyebrow was beginning to rise on her forehead and I felt my own eyes narrow in response.

I couldn't help but lean forward from where I sat, on the coffee table directly in front of the sofa. "So, then, imagine that a rogue lodestone appeared out of thin air and teleported you somewhere outside of the world you know. Or, maybe, envisioning a random event which snatched you away would be more accurate."

Zazie continued to peer at me, expressionless.

I sighed. How could I tell my kind-of-progeny that she was made by the person perched in front of her? That she didn't truly exist until now? That every action she'd ever taken had been because I decided so?

No wonder God was such a dick. It was exhausting.

"Outside of my world..." Zazie mumbled to herself. "To... where? Some place where my world... doesn't exist?"

I stiffened in surprise as Zazie brought her hands to her silver hair — the same hue as mine — and paused, each palm a stagnant dove suspended between us. Her fingers rested on the intricate knots of the French braid which spilled over a shoulder, eyes suddenly wide and uncertain.

I've never seen Zazie look so vulnerable before. Not in this life, not in the game.

"What is it?" I asked, a surge of something soft yet sharp piercing through me. "You don't like your hair?"

Zazie's eyes momentarily flickered to the rows of fluorescent lights above us. The perfect angles of her cheeks and ears peeked through the artificial light despite their sickly, stale illumination, as flawless as the moment I'd selected them.

She spoke slowly, as if struggling for the words. "The braids are starting to ache." And in her eyes, I could see my fearful expression staring back at me.

"They've never ached before." I watched as her throat bobbed with emotion. "Why do they hurt my scalp?"

"Because, here, in my world, your body is heavier. It changes every second with every day that passes." I continued on, monitoring her reaction as I spoke.

"The best way I can explain it is that your world is light-weight. When you're in it, you don't change, or age, and your body doesn't get tired." I gestured to the gleam of the fringe which still hung over her forehead.

"Your scalp doesn't get tired from keeping the braids in for so long."

Zazie frowned, her full, rose-painted lips turning down. "How can you possibly live in such a heavy world?"

And, as I opened my mouth to answer, I suddenly found that I didn't have one. For a reason I very much did not want to name, I felt warm, stinging moisture gather in my eyes. I shrugged instead. I grinned away her question as best as I was able. I pretended not to notice the difference between my fake, bleached, silver-dyed hair and hers.