Monday

I’m in that room again. It’s so colorless. Every time I find myself here I feel like I’m going to fall, because I can’t see anything—it’s all white. No shadows, no indication of walls. But they’re there. I know where they are… I just can’t see them. They’re like glass. Glass that I can’t see the shine on, because there’s no light. At the same time, I can still see. It’s confusing, and it hurts my head to think about. Sometimes I wonder why they put me here, but then the not-memories come aga—

~

“Chickie!”

~

I look up from my book, my pen vanishing into a scarf of smoke as I close the thick leather-bound volume, which follows the pen to who-knows-where. I see one of my others, Lore, her hands on her hips, her orangey-red eyes bright with laughter against the midnight black of her skin.

~

“Your friend’s asking for you to go see a movie with her,” she says. “Out.”

~

I roll my eyes, getting off my bench and letting it disappear. That’s the thing with my mind, once inside it I can do whatever I please. Complete and total freedom, I like to think. Even so, sometimes duty calls, like now, when I have to take over my own body from my others. I phase through the common wall, so I can see the Outside. My friend is standing there, waiting for an answer in the second it took for Lore to come fetch me.

~

“Sure I’ll come,” I say with a smile, at the same time asking Lore what movie it was. When she answers, I force myself not to scowl. It’s a chick-flick, something I really hate watching unless it’sreallygood. Still, I said I would go, so I will. I say goodbye to my friend and head off to my next class. Myth asks me why I always agree to things without asking what they are first—truth be told, I don’t know why, other than I just forget to.

~

She laughs at me, her dark gray tail swishing. She’s in her wolf form today, and I wonder why. She’s been in her human form the past few days, so it’s a little confusing why she seemingly randomly switches. She says there’s a method to the madness, but I think she just likes confusing the rest of us.

~

When I enter the next class, thankful that no one else is there yet, I let Nelix take over. It’s geometry, and she loves it, so I like to have her in control when it’s time for class. She can share it with me later, when we’re back home and don’t have to worry about switching out all the time. It can get confusing, with so many of “me” inside my head.

~

Sometimes I wonder why I have all these “personalities”. I don’tthinkanything really bad has ever happened to me. But the thing is, no one inside would tell me if somethinghadhappened. They’d want to protect me from that kind of thing.

~

Maybe that’s why I have so many. It just snowballed into something that took more than a few people to handle.

~

I shake those common thoughts from my head. It’s no good thinking about something I just can’t remember, as I so often tell myself. I sigh, retreating to my part of my mind, pulling my book and pen out of thin air.

~

I like my mind. Everything is visualized, so I can “see” everything in it. Things I learn go in books. And everything that’s in my mind I had to “make” by imagining it. Some people might call it an overactive imagination, but it’s really useful when trying to study. I can look at something, and if I manage to memorize it, I can write it in a mental book. I’ve got a whole library up in my head of everything I know.

~

It isn’t much, but it works.

~

I open my book and continue writing my dream from last night. I can only remember the beginning, but that’s as good a place to start as any. Valkyrie says I should just write, not dreams or anything in particular, but just… write. I can’t do that, though. I have to have something to remember to write about.

~

Ni and Toast want me to actually type it out, but I don’t think I will. Who would ever want to know what chaos goes on inside my head?

~

My name is Ariana, and I think I’m crazy.

~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After school I go home, a headache brewing as my others argue over something I don’t really care about but also would possibly be interested in were they not arguing. I take some pain pills—more than the ‘safe’ amount—in the hopes that it will actually do something about the pain. It usually doesn’t, but I can still try to see if it might work this time.

~

I really don’t feel like going to the movie with my friend, seeing as I’m already in pain and I haven’t even done anything today. I sigh, throwing myself on my bed.

~

Nelix looks up at my mental Form, which is currently inside the common wall, where everyone can see me. “If you don’t want to go, just tell your friend. I’m sure she’ll understand.” She goes back to fiddling with some knick-knack she’s created that serves no purpose but to keep her entertained while she’s not in control.

~

“I can’t do that,” I say, replying mentally so that no one in the house overhears me and thinks I’m crazy. “I already said I would go. I’ll just deal. It’s not like I’m not used to it, anyways.”

~

She frowns, but says no more. Toast, on the other hand, has something to say. “You really should take better care of yourself. It’s our body, too, you know. We live here.”

~

I scowl at her. “I know. But I said I would. Conversation closed.”

~

“Nuh-uh. You’re going to rest, and then rest some more.”

~

I yelp as our body’s control is handed to Lore, feeling it ripped away from me. It hurts a little, when they do it like that, forcefully. Like ripping off a piece of duct tape. But it’s all in my head. My headache worsens until Lore cuts off my attachment to our body’s nerves. I can only feel what goes on inside my head now. I yell at her, but she ignores me.

~

Finally, she says to me, “I don’t care. I’ll go, so your friend doesn’t feel bad about you not going. But you’re going to rest. Your part of our mind is tired from thinking so much. Go work on that dream-journal, or whatever it was you were doing earlier.”

~

I don’t answer, instead opting to do as she says, though sullenly. I hate being taken and shoved back into my own mind, but it happens. My others care, which is more than I can say for some people who know me.

~

The thing is, I actually hate being in control. It means that I only have control over certain things. My thoughts aren’t one of them. They run wild, and often I can’t keep up. I get migraines if I’m in control for too long. I also start getting confused, unable to tell what’s dream and reality.

~

The dream I’ve been having lately, about the white room… I think it might not be a dream. It might be a memory, hazy enough that I can’t see what my surroundings were so my mind automatically put everything white. That seems to happen a lot. I go through my books of memories and there are blank pages between entries, where I can’t remember what happened and my others either don’t know or won’t say.

~

The one time I got Passion to talk about it, all she said was that all my others feel a need to protect me from everything—even my own memories. It makes me wonder what those memories could possibly be. What could have happened that would make them block it out?

~

I sigh again, suddenly depressed. I hear Myth’s large wolf paws on the stone of the commonground, walking over to me. She sits next to me. When I’m standing, her furred shoulders are above my head as she sits.

~

“The Unnamed are growing restless,” she remarks. I glance over at her. The Unnamed are the other personalities who have not chosen a name, or don’t think it’s the right time to show themselves. A few we have had to lock away, as their presence unbalanced the fragile peace we had between the Named and the Unnamed. The Unnamed believe that I must name them, but I think they should choose their own names. To me, it’s important to be able to choose, because then you don’t have to live up to any expectations but your own. For some reason, they disagree enough to try to kill my Named others. By ‘kill’ I mean forcibly merge with me. It’s painful, and makes me physically ill. It’s also wrong.

~

“How long do we have before they break out again?” I muse, looking out over a mental blue sky. I saw it once, and made some changes to the memory so I could use it for the commongrounds, where we all stay when we’re not in control.

~

“Not long. A week at most,” comes the tired reply. Myth has been on Unnamed guard duty for the day, and it wears each of us down quickly.

~

I put a hand on her side, tangling my fingers in her thick, soft fur. “I guess we’ll have to prepare then.”

~

“How can you accept this so easily?” Valkyrie’s voice startles me. I turn as she walks up, expression sad. “When you push away friends and family every time the Unnamed want to kill us… so that when the battle begins you don’t accidentally hurt someone on the Outside. And it takes longer to repair those damaged relationships every time this happens.”

~

“I do it because I have to,” I reply. “We have to. You know that. It’s less painful than the alternative, anyways.”

~

She scowls. “If they try that again I swear to God I will kill them. And I’ll block you from the pain this time. I promise.”

~

Once, the Unnamed tried to take control. They succeeded, though in reality it was only a few of the many who did anything, but they drew from the strength of the others.Our body was damaged when they got out, and they damaged it farther by cutting to try to end us all. They took pills, cut, jumped in front of a car… anything to try to go down and take the rest of us with them.

~

Lore had to stop them single-handedly, seeing as the rest of us were in too much pain to fight back. The mental battles stress us and our body, enough that we are rendered practically useless.

~

I don’t know what will happen this time. Their break-outs are happening more often, and with increasing power. I might just have to name some of them after all.

~

“Whatever you feel you need to do,” I murmur, turning my sight to the Outside through our body’s eyes, distracting myself with meeting my friend at the movie theater. She won’t ever know what goes on inside my head. I don’t know if anyone will. But this record is as close as I can get.