Simple Stories by a Simple Man

The night is long, the studies certainly don’t help. Why did I sign up for both of my required science courses the same semester? Who can remember the elements and their structures, not to mention who cares what the hippocampus does? After hours of fruitless studies I eventually start to node off at my desk. My eyes droop as I debate if it’s worth laying down even if only for an hour. I reach for my soda, but lifting it I can tell it’s room temperature now. I set it back down. There is a flash of light and I fall face first onto the floor as I become disoriented.

“Steven, I should have known you’d be too stubborn to help willingly and now I don’t have the time to ask.” That voice sounds like me, but it’s not coming from me. I must be more disoriented than I originally realized. Someone grabs my arm and drags me from my spot in front of the desk. I’m not even sure where my desk chair went, looking around I see my own face as belonging to the body that is dragging me away. 

“Is this one of those out of body experiences?” I say in a voice I’m positive is too small for anyone to hear. Then I pass out, if it’s from exhaustion, or the events of the night, it’s impossible to tell.

I awake feeling unrefreshed, but alert, and jump to my feet. It is still somehow night. The first thing to catch my attention is the bars all around. “What in the world is going on?” I say to myself as I take in the white room with a cage in the middle of it that I find myself in. 

“I’m glad to see you awake.” a voice from the void responds. “Your body ignored the last smaller dose.”

“Dose of what?”

“Adrenaline, we don’t have time for you to be sleeping Steven. I need help and you are the only one I’ve found so far that can help me.” At this a door in the white wall opens and in steps me. My eyes don’t want to believe themselves. “That is a normal response. Your brain wants to ignore what it feels can’t be possible, you are you and therefore I can’t be.” 

“Can you read my mind?” I ask, well… myself.

“I can not, but I can read your face. The face you made is the same face I instinctively made when I started to travel the dimensions and see other Stevens like myself.”

*

*

*

This is the second section of a large story that I’m writing with roughly a week between each section. I have no idea where the story is going yet but in part that means you also will have no idea. What does Steven have in mind for Steven? We will all just have to sit back and find out.