Watched

[mariannethree]

Order: 1104
Chaos: 45

Little book, people often use you to ask for help, correct?

I need some advice. In my land - my 'world' as you would call it - I live in a library.

At night, if I leave the lights on, people come and bang on the windows of the room I sleep in, yelling at me to give them books. When I turn the lights off they disappear, but they come back if I have to turn the light back on for any reason.

Do you have any advice on how I could get them to stop? Its frightening to have people look at me like that. It makes me feel ugly and dissected, and knowing that they're never really gone, only dissuaded for a while, is making it difficult to sleep.

Thank you for any advice you care to give.

Marianne Z.
Under Assistant
The Library

Comments

[tenminutes]

That's why you practice and catch whoever he is by surprise.

[ Yuri did, but she won't dig into it if Marianne doesn't go into it herself. ]

[mariannethree]

You think I haven't tried? These feelings are based on more than emotion, but on experience...even if I cannot remember the exact circumstances.

[tenminutes]

Hmm.. Can people worldhop over there? I'm sure I'm not the only one willing to help.

[mariannethree]

...I don't know. Somehow I doubt it. I have never been affected by any of the community "viruses", nor have I been removed from my land by anything the community has done.

[mariannethree]

Its never happened yet. Why would that change now?

[If Marianne seems beaten down and defeatist...well, she is. Her half-remembered monster of a brother has done quite a lot to ensure that's the case.]

[tenminutes]

Want me to try then?

[mariannethree]

No! Thank you, but no. You are...rather young in appearance and I would not wish you to be damaged.

[tenminutes]

I'm dead already, it's not like I can die again.

[mariannethree]

There are things some people do which do not target the body. Things that can sometimes make you wish you were dead, just to be free of their words.

[tenminutes]

They're not going to do anything that's worse than what I've already been through.

[mariannethree]

Oh. I'm sorry. You look so young...

[tenminutes]

I died a little after I turned 18, but that was a while ago. I went through a lot before and a lot after and if my friends are out of the way in other worlds, they can't hurt me.

[mariannethree]

That seems rather...freeing. But still, I am sorry for your suffering.

[tenminutes]

I don't think freeing would be the word I would use, but it's fine. I'm better now than I was and funnily enough, I've got a lot more to live for even though I'm dead.

[mariannethree]

I think I can understand that. With the constraints of living gone, one wouldn't need to worry about being killed or maimed. Perhaps without that fear, one could find the courage to look for purpose.

[tenminutes]

Well.. it still took me a while. I don't have too much longer to stick around though.

[mariannethree]

Why? Are you going to fade as well?

[tenminutes]

Eventually, but only after I finish something that I need to do.

[mariannethree]

May I ask what that is?

[tenminutes]

I can't actually say or it'll screw up something someone else is doing if certain people find out...

In other words, it's a stupid complicated mess and I don't come in until the end.

[mariannethree]

Until then you are just...waiting? Perhaps we are not so dissimilar after all.

[tenminutes]

What are you waiting for?

[mariannethree]

Nothing. I am just waiting.

[tenminutes]

If you wait around for nothing you're going to waste your life.

[mariannethree]

I am still unconvinced that there is a better alternative.