Text To Truth

“Perfection,” I said with a wide, cheesy grin on my face as I shut my laptop. The grin slipped. I guess smiles and fake affirmations don’t help shake you out of the mindset that what you just wrote is a flaming hot piece of garbage. 

I sighed, exhausted. I spent the whole day at my laptop just trying to think of something noteworthy to write about. Nothing. Zilch. ZERO. I guess that’s not true. I did write an insanely hackneyed piece about some generic dystopia with all the tried and true tropes just to write SOMETHING. It…just made me feel worse. The sad thing is that I’ve been working on this for a few days. 

I like writing theory, always have, and always will. I enjoy the study, examining things from all angles, analyzing twists and turns, details, and every bit of a story. But that doesn’t mean that I’m a wellspring of ideas. 

The room was darkly lit and I yawned. So, I went to open the curtains. Hey, I thought sarcastically. Maybe some bright light will magically make me a genius writer who writes 1000 words a minute. Maybe it’ll make me into Ernest Hemingway! 

I brushed the faded, rust-colored curtains aside, and my eyes widened in surprise. There were flames everywhere, people were attacking each other like madmen, crimson blood was splattered across the roads and sidewalks, and the sky turned an unnerving shade of bright, brick red. So I think any rational person would do what I did. My body failed and hit the ground with a large thump. Well, I’m not sure about the thump part but it’s what I imagine happened.

I remember waking up a few hours later. I was lying on the floor and my cat Candy was dutifully resting next to me. I petted Candy thinking about how adorable she was when I sat up suddenly, remembering the reason why I was on the floor. I tentatively got up and peered outside. Well. I thought. That’s not good. 

Everything looked so wrong. I was stunned. Okay. I thought. Something is clearly very, very wrong. This kind of thing can’t happen in a minute, and I can’t think of anything that could cause this. So what are we going to do about it? We’re not going to do anything risky, and we’ll hunker down until whatever this is blows over. 

Of course, I did something inane and risky. I went outside, armed with a large kitchen knife and a huge canister of pepper spray. I bet I looked ridiculous, brandishing a greasy-looking knife and a pink bottle of pepper spray. As soon as I stepped outside, I looked around at all the chaos. All I could muster was a “Nope,” before trying to go back inside. I say that I “tried” because a hand caught my arm. I panicked and slashed wildly at the arm. 

“OW!” the man said in a deep, smoky voice. “Why did you do that?!” he yelped. 

“Get away from me!” I yelled back, before spraying nearly half of pepper spray in his eyes. “AHHH!” he yelled in an eardrum bursting tone. 

“I just wanted to say that I’m here to rescue you,” he said in a pained tone. I kicked him with all my strength in the crotch for good measure. You know, just in case he was lying. 

“AGH! Why are you doing this!” he screamed in agony. “I said, I’m here to rescue you!” 

“Why should I listen to you?” I asked happily, satisfied with his level of incapacitation. 

“Are you happy about this?” he asks in disbelief. “No,” I say, still slightly grinning. “Now continue.” 

The guy writhed on the ground, shaking. Then, all of a sudden, he got back up, almost as if his pain just disappeared. I pointed the knife at him, but he either didn’t see it or just unabashedly ignored it. “I’m Grayson “Flame” Druitt,” he claimed confidently pointing at his unnaturally shaded red hair. “And I’m here to rescue you.” And then he struck a really pitiful action pose.

Now, there was a lot I could’ve been horrified or just purely freaked out about. But his ridiculous, silly name was enough to make me realize. It made me instantly reevaluate the past few minutes. The obviously evil sky, the roguish, rugged, jaggedly handsome main character with a deep voice and confident air, and a damsel in distress. Namely, me. 

I ignored him completely. I knew, without a doubt, that I was in a novel. My horribly written, cliche, novel. Grayson-ugh, I mean, Flame started tugging on my arm. “Come on princess, let’s get moving.” 

“Ugh, seriously? ‘Princess’? Try to be more cliche.” I laughed mirthlessly. Inside, my heart ached though. Really having to be in my own terribly written world already stung enough. The dialogue and characters snipped away at my heart even more. 

He shrugged, then grinned cheesily again, repeating the line as if he hadn’t heard me. “You! Shoo!” I shouted, very annoyed. He stared at me blankly. “Ugh, fine,” I complained. “I’ll come with you. Just let me get something. Anything” 

“Sure thing, princess!” he smiled seductively. Well, he tried. It looked really cheesy and really wrong. “Gross” I sighed in disgust. I paused for a second to watch him. He kind of just…stood there, stagnantly, eyes devoid of any type of humanity. He just kind of froze. That was extremely off-putting. But, I ignored him and went inside my home. Then, I double-locked the door. There was no way I was going with that freak. 

I leaned against the door. I couldn’t really think of anything but ‘What is happening right now!”. I was really shaken. 

I tried my best to calm down. Took some deep, chamomile-calming breaths. Okay, Okay. Now what could be causing this. I just remembered typing away at my laptop, looking out the window, seeing horrible sights, fainting.

The laptop! I thought. Maybe the laptop cursed the world. I giggled neurotically. That very thought felt quite ridiculous but something was clearly afoot. 

I tentatively moved a trembling finger over the touchpad. The laptop brightened immediately, and I saw the draft of what I had written. An untitled document, hastily written, and nearly 7-8 pages long. A project only undertaken maybe 5 days ago. And yet, terrible. 

I don’t know what caused the world warp but I didn’t dwell on that thought for too long. I’d been writing the story for a bit, but nothing really changed. All I really remembered about that day was that I fell into one of my habitual depressions about not being able to write, but that was normal. 

I looked back at the computer screen. I highlighted all the text with my cursor and pressed the backspace button. I didn’t know what would happen, but I didn’t hesitate. I just pressed delete and squeezed my eyes in nervousness. I opened them a crack and…nothing. Hmm. 

I peeked outside, and things looked fine again. No red sky, no burning homes, and definitely no sign of “Flame”. 

I grinned widely. So. This must be power. 

Power. It’s a toxic thing. But it just feels so wonderful. Just feels so AWESOME. Hard to resist too. If you had the power to change anything you want, it might just be enough to make you go crazy.

Luckily, I’m perfectly sane. Always have been, still am, and always will be. Perfect. 

The first thing I did with my newfound power was, well nothing really. I started off small though. I did funny things like bringing iconic characters to life. That was cool for a bit, but I got bored eventually. Just copying and pasting them from their respective novels made them come to life, but they were stagnant after a while, and their life was just a script. 

So next, I made my own clone. It was boring. I just typed “I will meet a copy of me in 3 seconds, and she will not be hostile.” I had learned the importance of wording, but usually, the document knew exactly what I meant and did my will. Like a genie who could read my mind. 

The copy of me rose up from the ground. “Hi,” I said. “Hi,” the copy replied. The rest of our conversation was just parroting, so I quickly got really annoyed and erased the simple sentence. 

I put a synopsis + descriptions of my favorite game into the doc, an old hack-and-slash game and that was fun. I was literally living a game. 

That’s still one of my favorite hobbies today. But after a few weeks of goofing off at home, using the computer to print food and necessities so I wouldn’t need to work, I shook myself out of my stupor of silliness. 

I started thinking about serious things. I could change the world with this power. Make it better. Perfect it. The first few things I did was write new worlds to fix overpopulation. Then I created farms by crafting delicate words. Then I made huge homes and apartments. I implemented an overhauled and much-improved economic system for everyone. I became the Overlord. 

I know that sounds evil, but I was a very fair leader. I gave people what they wanted. People loved me. But, you know, some people still wanted my power, but I could create things beyond the imagination to defend myself. So, that’s exactly what I did. 

A flourish of a pen or a typing of the keyboard was all I needed to fix ANYTHING. And eventually, I got married. It was a love story for the ages. Don’t you worry though, I was still very careful. I vetted him with advanced truth/ lie detecting spells I created, had love checks performed, and I even rewrote details about him I didn’t like. He didn’t mind either. I mean, he did at first, but then I fixed that too! 

Oh, I completely forgot. Whoops. Slip of the brain there. The first thing I did when I discovered my power was not just having fun. The first thing I wrote on my document, the thing I’ve never deleted was “I will be happy.” As soon as I wrote that, I felt a clicking of sorts in my brain. I was suddenly shaken out of the depression that had haunted me my whole life. I never ever felt sad again. And it was AMAZING. After writing those words, I never stopped smiling. And that’s when all these wonderful ideas graced my mind. 

Now I have a wonderful husband, vacation planets, and as much time and happiness as I want. And everyone is happy. Now they are all happy. 

I know I’ve done all this amazing stuff, but things were rough at first. There was some resistance at first, but I don’t know why. All I want to do is to make everything perfect and wonderful. But the resistance was not so much of a resistance once I made them happy too. 

Things are now nice and smooth like a polished jewel. Things are beautiful and bright like a polished jewel too. Power and happiness are the best after all! 

…

My Mother finishes her story with a huge, manic smile. Her eyes are always glazed over but today, as she recounted her life story to me, again, I could practically see her mind disattach as she talked. I’m scared of her. She’s changed everything. She changes everything on a whim. Sometimes, she creates dystopian worlds just “to see what it’s like”. Then, she erases everybody’s memories but hers and mine and resets back to our normal world. I can’t really bring myself to call it normal, but that’s what it is now. 

I never saw the Old World, or Broken World as Mother calls it, but the changes she’s been describing just sound bad. And I think I’m the only one who thinks like that because she’s made everyone into a lunatic with that cursed writing of hers. I honestly don’t know why Mother hasn’t changed me. Maybe it’s because she thinks that I’m her perfect daughter already. As much as I’d like to think that, Mother has put Father through so much. What makes me different? Maybe because I’m her daughter, I’m immune. I don’t know, but I’m just glad I’m still me. I wonder what Mother was like before her story. Was she normal once, or did that writing of her’s just amplify her craziness?

Whatever it is, I take my place in her script and say what she wants. Out of fear or out of love, or just maybe out of the way she programmed me before I was born, I can only say “I love that story so much, Mother. You’re the best.” 

I’m sure that would sound unnatural, but since it’s what she wants to hear, she just grins. “Thank you, Edra.” 

“You are happy, right? Because if not-” she begins. “Perfectly happy,” I interrupt. She asks me every day. Just like clockwork. I always say something along the lines of “of course” or “absolutely” and she hasn’t changed me. Hasn’t changed me yet. I must always play the role she wants, otherwise she might just “fix” me.