The only to make sense out of change is to plunge into it,move with it and join the dance.
....
"Where does this place end?"
Lynn trudged across the cracked wasteland, boots kicking up pale dust that hung in the air like ash.
The horizon never got closer, the sun never moved, and not a single breeze dared to stir the eerie silence.
Twisted remnants of trees if they could still be called that sprouted from the ground like the skeletons of dreams long forgotten.
He rubbed the back of his neck and sighed.
Seriously, i signed up to walk through someone's mind.
I thought it would be like floating through memories, maybe see a few embarrassing childhood moments... not wander endlessly through emotional sandpaper.
As he crested a small rise, he spotted something unusual: a child lying on the parched ground.
Lynn blinked. The boy was maybe ten, dark-haired, thin, and curled up with his arms behind his head like he was sunbathing on a seashore,if it were made of dead dirt.
Dust clung to his clothes, but his face wore a faint, content smile, as if this place didn't bother him in the slightest.
Lynn walked up cautiously.
"Hey… kid. You alright?"
The boy opened his eyes slowly, blinking up at Lynn like he'd just been disturbed from the best nap of his life.
"You're not from here" he said,
matter-of-factly, like he'd just spotted a tourist.
"You smell different."
"Uh, thanks?"
"What's your name?"
The boy stretched his arms over his head and yawned.
"Names are boring. What's your name?"
"I asked first " Lynn said, frowning.
"And I asked better" the boy grinned, hopping to his feet with surprising energy.
"Besides, I already know your name."
"Oh do you? Then say it."
The boy smirked and started walking ahead, hands in his pockets like he was taking Lynn on a casual tour of doom.
"Nah. It's more fun when you're confused."
Lynn stared, then followed, partly out of curiosity,
let's face it there was absolutely nothing else out here.
Lynn hesitated for a second before following. What else could he do ask the dead trees for directions?
As they walked, Lynn studied him. There was something oddly familiar about the kid. The shape of his jaw, the way his eyes narrowed when he smiled he did look like a younger version of himself. Not exactly, but close enough to stir a weird unease in Lynn's chest.
Is this my younger self? A memory?
A projection? A weird mental goblin?
He couldn't tell. But curiosity kept his feet moving.
He looks like… me , Lynn thought watching the boy's profile.
Or how I think I might've looked… before everything went sideways.
That smile.
"Still not gonna tell me your name?" Lynn tried again, glancing sideways.
The boy kicked a rock.
"Names are slippery. They change.
Like shadows."
"That's… not an answer."
"Exactly."
Lynn sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.
They continued walking in silence for a moment, the land stretching endlessly around them. No wind, no change in the sky.
Just dust and silence and this annoyingly smug child.
I could grab him,Just lift him up, shake a few answers out of him.
I mean, he's ten. I've got at least forty pounds on him.
The boy stopped walking. Without turning, he said.
"That would be a bad idea."
Lynn froze. "…What?"
"You were just thinking about grabbing me." The boy finally looked over his shoulder, smirking.
"Shaking me like a vending machine that ate your coins."
"I—what—I didn't—!"
"Don't lie. This is my head.
Kind of. I heard the whole thing."
Lynn stared at him, bewildered.
"You really think scaring me will help? You're better off using your eyes."
The boy gestured ahead.
"Why don't you stop trying to control everything, and see for yourself what your 'other self' went through?"
He turned and continued walking.
Lynn, after a long pause, followed.
"You know, for someone lying in the dirt five minutes ago, you've got a lot of opinions."
The boy didn't even look back.
"And for someone trespassing in a stranger's brain, you're pretty judgy."
They walked in silence again, the boy leading confidently across the lifeless terrain like he'd memorized every crack in the earth.
Lynn, on the other hand, stumbled once or twice, nearly twisting an ankle on the uneven ground.
"Are we actually going somewhere?"
They crested another low hill.
The landscape was still the same dust, cracks, occasional sad excuse for a tree. But in the far distance, there was something new: the faint outline of a structure.
Jagged, almost organic in shape, like a building that had grown instead of been built. It shimmered slightly, like it wasn't entirely solid.
Lynn squinted. "What's that?"
"That is where the answers start getting uncomfortable."
"Oh, lovely. I came all this way just to be emotionally devastated."
"That's the spirit."
Lynn glanced at him again.
That face. That smile. Even the way he walked,it was like watching his own shadow with more attitude and less anxiety. The idea that this kid was part of him, or maybe used to be him, gnawed at his thoughts.
"…Are you me?" he asked, voice quieter this time.
The boy didn't answer. He just kept walking, smile fading slightly into something softer. More knowing.
Lynn sighed.
"Still not gonna say your name?"
"Still not gonna ask it the right way."
"What's the right way?"
The boy winked. "You'll figure it out."
They walked a little more, the silence stretching again, until Lynn finally said, "If this is my head or someone else's head, I guess I should be able to just know things, right? Like, see what happened. Understand."
The boy suddenly stopped and turned to face him fully for the first time.
"Then do it. Stop trying to force your way to the truth. Just… look. Feel.
Let it show you."
And then, without warning, the ground beneath them pulsed just once, like a heartbeat in the earth.
Far ahead, the strange structure in the distance gave off a faint, sorrowful hum.
Lynn stepped back instinctively.
"Okay. I felt that. That's new."
The boy grinned. "Now we're getting somewhere."
They moved steadily toward the shimmering shape on the horizon, its details slowly sharpening with every step. The closer they got, the stranger it became not a building exactly, but something more surreal.
Twisted beams arched skyward like frozen lightning, curling in on themselves. At the center stood a single door wooden, old, and completely out of place.
No frame. No walls. Just a door, standing upright in the middle of nothing.
Lynn slowed, staring at it.
"Okay. That's not ominous at all."
The boy didn't slow.
"Oh, come on. You've walked through weirder things in your dreams."
"True" Lynn admitted.
"But at least those had, you know, context. Or instructions. Or exit signs."
They stopped a few feet from the door. It hummed softly, not with power, but with memory. Like it was holding its breath.
Lynn looked to the boy.
"So… this it? The big reveal?
The answers?"
The boy gave him a flat look.
"Wow. You really thought it would be that easy, huh?"
Lynn folded his arms.
"Hey, I've earned a shortcut. I've been walking through your sand-sandbox for hours."
"My sand-sandbox?" The boy snorted. "You're like a kid shaking a present, expecting to guess what's inside instead of just waiting for the right time to open it."
Lynn stepped closer to the door, eyeing it suspiciously. "And what time is that?"
"When you're not so desperate for the truth that you're willing to scare children in imaginary deserts" the boy said, grinning as he folded his arms in perfect mockery of Lynn's own stance.
Lynn groaned. "You're never gonna let that go, are you?"
"Not a chance. Besides, it says a lot. You want answers, sure but only the kind you can wrestle into submission."
Lynn turned back to the door, quiet for a moment. "And you're saying I should… what? Wait until I deserve them?"
"I'm saying the truth doesn't come just because you bang on a door and yell at it." The boy walked up beside him, eyes fixed on the wooden frame.
"You have to listen. Accept.
Sometimes bleed a little."
"That last part's not really selling it."
The boy shrugged.
"Truth isn't for sale. It's earned."
Lynn stared at the door. It wasn't locked. It didn't even have a handle. But it felt like something ancient and heavy sat just beyond it something that was waiting for him to be ready.
He glanced at the boy.
"So… do I open it now?"
The boy smiled wider this time, but sadder too.
"Only if you're ready to see the parts of someone you've been trying not to."
Lynn stood there, staring at the door like it might explode if he blinked too hard. It didn't budge. No whispers from beyond. No magical glow. Just silence and that low, constant hum in the air, like the world itself was holding back something important.
His hand twitched, hovering near the edge of the frame.
But he didn't touch it.
What if I don't want to know? he thought. What if whatever's behind that door… changes things?
He shifted back a step.
The boy tilted his head. "You're stalling."
"I'm thinking " Lynn replied.
"Same thing."
Lynn gave him a look.
"You ever think maybe some people stall because they're not sure if the truth is a gift or a trap?"
The boy walked in a slow circle around the door, hands clasped behind his back like a miniature philosopher.
"Let me guess you're wondering what your other self is doing. Back in the real world. In your body."
Lynn hesitated. "…Yeah."
"Scared he's doing something stupid?"
"Terrified" Lynn admitted.
"He's… me, but not. I don't know what version he is. I don't even know how we are ....the same.
What if he's out there screwing everything up?"
"What if he's not?" the boy offered casually.
"What if he is?" Lynn snapped.
"I don't even know what I'm walking into here.
The boy nodded solemnly.
"Yeah. That could be true."
"…You're supposed to reassure me."
"Not my job."
Lynn sighed and sat down on a chunk of dried stone, elbows on his knees.
"He looked so calm, though. When I saw him, just before I got pulled in here… he smiled. Not in a creepy 'I'm evil now' way. Just… peaceful. It scared the hell out of me."
The boy sat beside him.
"Maybe he's not doing damage. Maybe he's doing the one thing you couldn't."
Lynn frowned. "Which is?"
"Letting go."
The words hung in the air like dust motes caught in still light.
"…You don't even know what I've been through" Lynn muttered.
The boy shrugged.
"I know enough. Lynn blake"
"How do you even know me,kid?
You may resemble me in a way,which is weird but you are just a projection of someone else's mind."
The boy smiled again, faint and distant. "Then maybe it's time to stop debating and start seeing."
He gestured toward the door.
Lynn stared at it, heart thudding.
"And if I don't like what I find?"
"Then you'll have a choice. But it'll be an honest one."
Lynn's gaze stayed locked on the door, his expression tight with uncertainty. He could feel the weight of it pressing against him not physically, but somewhere deeper.
Like it wasn't just a door, but a test he hadn't studied for.
The boy sat cross-legged beside him, picking up a small stone and tossing it lazily between his hands.
"You're tangled up in knots" he said. "Your thoughts are so loud I can barely hear myself think.
And I live here."
Lynn didn't respond right away.
The boy raised an eyebrow. "Want a peek?"
Lynn turned slowly.
"A peek?"
"At what's happening on the other side," the boy said, nodding toward the sky.
"Outside. Real world. You know where your body, the one your other self is using like a rented object."
Lynn blinked. "You can do that?"
The boy made a so-so motion with his hand.
"Sort of. Not a full channel-surfing experience, but a glimpse.
A moment. Like pressing your face against a foggy window."
Lynn stared at him, tempted. So tempted. Then frowned.
"What's the catch?"
"No catch. But you can't go looking all scrambled like this.
That door isn't just decoration,it's tuned to the truth of someone who couldn't get to live long enough to see it."
"And if I go through before I'm ready?"
"Then it shows you what you think is true," the boy said.
"Not what actually is."
Lynn's shoulders slumped.
"So I have to get over my own paranoia before I can see what my double's doing?"
"Pretty much."
"Great," Lynn muttered.
"Therapy and existential horror. Just what I needed today."
The boy stood, brushed the dust off his knees, and offered a hand to Lynn.
"Come on. Let's untangle that brain of yours. Then you can peek."
Lynn looked up at him, warily.
"And you're going to help me do that?"
The boy grinned.
"What else are imaginary kids for?"
The boy's hand was small but steady, and Lynn took it with a reluctant sigh. As soon as their palms touched, the ground beneath them shimmered like heat rising from pavement and then cracked.
Not with sound. With light.
The dust, the door, the dead sky all of it fractured like glass, pieces peeling away and floating upward, dissolving into a soft, radiant mist.
Lynn instinctively tensed, bracing for some violent shift, but the change was gentle like being lifted through water without sinking or swimming.
When the world settled again, they were somewhere else entirely.
Lynn blinked. "Okay, what—"
He stopped.
They stood in a field not a dead one this time, but something softer, dimmer. Long grass swayed gently in a wind that Lynn couldn't feel.
Above, a twilight sky rippled with purples and indigos, like a painting someone had forgotten to finish. Fragments of buildings hovered in the air, slow-turning like islands torn from their roots: lots of books, a bedframe,
a streetlamp flickering softly in place.
It was beautiful.And unsettling.
"This," the boy said, spreading his arms, "is your world.
The inside-inside. Not the crusty desert where you argue with yourself. The real stuff. The mess under the mess."
Lynn turned slowly, eyes darting to each drifting shape. "Is this all… mine?"
"Bits and pieces. Memories. Feelings. Regrets that got so old they built furniture."
He pointed at a large chunk of sidewalk floating ahead on it, two figures were frozen mid-step: Lynn as a teenager, and a woman with kind eyes and a disapproving frown. Lynn winced.
"Mom! " he said quietly.
"Yep. That argument about leaving.
You remember the one."
"Unfortunately."
The boy started walking along a thin bridge of light connecting the floating fragments, motioning for Lynn to follow. "The point of this isn't to wallow.
It's to remember who you are.
Not the version you think you should be. Not the one you're scared of turning into."
Lynn followed, more carefully.
"And this helps me… untangle?"
"Yep. Once your head's clearer,we'll take that peek."
They crossed over floating snapshots of moments: an empty stage; a torn notebook with half a poem scribbled in the corner; a dim bedroom with an open window, moonlight spilled across the floor.
Each memory tugged at Lynn differently some warm, some sharp. But none of them screamed answers. They just… were.
After a while, Lynn asked,
"Is this what he,my other self sees when he takes over?"
The boy paused, then shook his head.
"No. He sees a version of this. Filtered through pain. Through guilt. That's why you need to see it clean."
Lynn looked out over the strange emotional dreamscape.
"And once I do… I'll understand why he's here?"
The boy turned to him with a half-smile. "You'll understand why you sent him."
"I didn't choose him "Lynn snapped. "Vahel did."
The boy had just stopped on the edge of a floating memory,a dark room lit only by the flicker of a candle. He looked over his shoulder, unconcerned.
"And it was his choice to go, not mine," Lynn added, his voice sharper now.
"I never agreed to it."
The boy just smiled, the kind of calm, infuriating smile that kids give when they know something you don't.
"It's true," the boy said with a shrug. "But you could've stopped him if you really wanted to."
Lynn scowled.
"Sure, kid. I'm sorry about that I did something unwanted. Unexpected. But you know what else?"
He gestured vaguely at the surreal space around them.
"That guy didn't even tell me his name. Just like you, he kept his identity locked behind some smug, cryptic smirk."
The boy's smile widened.
"Must be a 'you' thing."
"Oh, don't even start."
"I'm just saying," the boy said, hopping lightly onto a floating stone bench that shimmered under his feet,
"You keep getting mad at the mystery version of yourself for being quiet and vague, but maybe that's just how you process things you're not ready to hear."
Lynn squinted at him.
"Are you implying that I've emotionally gaslit myself?"
The boy beamed.
"Congratulations. You're catching on."
Lynn let out an exasperated sigh and rubbed his face.
The boy plopped down, cross-legged on the bench. "Look. Vahel picked him. But deep down, you knew something had to change. That smile you mentioned?
That wasn't some smug trick. That was peace. You haven't felt that in a long time, have you?"
Lynn didn't answer.
The boy leaned back on his elbows, looking up at the swirling sky.
"He didn't tell you his name because maybe names don't matter. Not here. Not when you're still trying to figure out what you're called underneath all the noise."
Lynn sat beside him, a little quieter now. "I still think it's.....little rude."
"Totally" the boy said.
"But now that we've got that out of your system…"
He turned to Lynn with a glint in his eye. "You ready to take a peek?"