Vent Entries

For all the times I've felt like I was pretending.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: depersonalisation, numbness, faking emotions, anger.

(This doesn't really fit with everything else, but I did write it as a vent entry originally that I turned into an entire story. The rest of this is now my first original novel that I'm still finishing, but I wanted to add this in to these entries because this started out as one. )
—-

(Also called: A conversation with the Universe.)

"You may be a GREAT actor...but I know that you've memorised the script. You know EXACTLY how this ends." The shadow spoke, sounding like both the first cries of newborn babies and the weeping of grieving mothers. The sound reverberated through my skull and echoes in the void surrounding me.

"Go to HELL! I am NOT your protagonist! Fuck, I'm not even my OWN! I'm a real fucking person!" I scream back, but my voice sounds choked to my own ears, and get swallowed by the emptiness around me.

A cruel laugh grates my ears. My eardrums pop violently. I can feel a drop of blood run down my neck. "Are you so sure? You've played the part exceptionally well, so well that maybe even you have forgotten for a while...but that changes nothing."

"I'm not some character in a book! I'm REAL! IM HUMAN!" I know in my heart that no matter what I say, it will be ignored. I'm literally screaming into a void, but I will NOT give up!

"Are you? I will freely admit, you had even ME fooled for some time, but the curtains are closed now, and the audience has long since left the theatre." The shadow dances around me, looking like a rippling pond after you throw a rock into its still waters.

I'm so tired, so weak at this point, but sheer stubbornness seems to keep me going. "Leave me ALONE! I'm real! I'm not a character and I'm definitely NOT your fucking puppet! I'm real! I look in the mirror and I-"

It cuts me off viciously, "-See what you want to see, what you're pretending to be at that moment. You are an actor, and Your costume just happens to be your own skin. You sunk so deep into your part in this, that you forgot who you started as. I will admit, as fascinating as is it to watch method actors work, you are the best Ive ever seen. Or the worst...after all, you did manage to forget your lines. Oh well, it's not that big of a deal." The shadow moves towards me in a flash, and I raise my arms to shield myself uselessly.

My last words ring out in the void as I am swallowed whole and consumed. "NO! I'm real! I'm real!....I'm real..."

—-

Look what you've become...

Look what you've become...

Look what you've become...

I guess you've won.

I'm just the stranger I recognise in the mirror.