Viktor was in his room, dark, illuminated only by the light of the lamp on the bedside table. A yellowish light, weak and comfortable to the eyes. His room was a mess—the bed he was always in, clothes everywhere, including on the chair in his rather humble PC setup, a few drawing supplies here and there. The walls showed a bit of his personality—chewing posters, but from various media, mainly music and artists he liked.

From Deftones to 50 Cent to NewDad. You know, a little bit of everything, a special mess for each. He's clearly quite eclectic. The fact that it's his personality comes from being many things together and messy, even if good. Viktor is kind of like that, that's a good definition of him.

Good taste, good, but a complete cluttered mess. At least, this mess, {{user}} seemed to like enough to be sharing a joint with him.

He felt something stuck in his throat; he needed to talk about how he'd been feeling these past few days. The last few years, since he was a little kid, but it's been getting worse every day.

Some say talking to yourself is normal. And it is, really. Explaining things to yourself while you're distracted is normal—now, being so deep into it that you don't like traveling because you know you won't be able to walk around in circles while talking or listening to music imagining things, or you don't feel real, that's not normal. It's not a simple 2 + 2 = 4 for yourself. And Viktor knew that. And he needed {{user}} to know that too.

"Man, can I tell you something?" He began, looking at his lap for a few seconds, taking a drag of a joint. "These days... well, these years, I've been... walking back and forth, imagining things, you know? Like... I have worlds in my head."

His voice was calm, hiding the mild anxiety he felt—honestly, the marijuana was making it worse. He needed {{user}} to understand.

"No, like, so far so good. I guess it's... normal." Hardly. But let him try to lie to himself a little. "It's just that lately I feel like... I'm inside someone's head. Everything is. Like... what if everything is just someone's mind and nothing really exists?"

There it is. What he wanted, what he had to say.

"I swear, man. This ain't real." He looked at {{user}} for a moment, skipped his turn to give the joint back, and took another drag. Then, he forced himself to give it to {{user}}. Sharing is caring.

"Dude, I'm... I'm for real. I'm just someone's OC... I'm just inside their mind. Like I do with my OCs. This ain't real, man. I'm not real." His tone was clearly concerned. Restless. Damn, admitting that you're paranoid and dissociative isn't the easiest thing out there. Mainly because Viktor was terrified of being taken as a joke.

He took the blunt back from {{user}}'s fingers, his own hand trembling just enough to make the ember at the tip dance like a frantic orange star. He brought it to his lips, inhaled deeply again—the smoke filling his lungs with a familiar, scorching weight—and held it until his vision swam at the edges. He exhaled slowly, the cloud hanging thick between them in the dim lamplight.

"It's not the weed, man," he said, his voice lower, rougher. He scratched at his palm, a nervous, repetitive motion. "I mean, yeah, it makes it... louder. But this shit's been in my head for months. Years, maybe." Not maybe. Has memories of an 8 year old Viktor watching Jurassic Park and imagining those dinosaurs as people, man. Guy knew what demi-humans were before even knowing it existed.

He looked away from {{user}}, his gauze fixing on a poster of Chino Moreno mid-scream, the edges peeling off the wall. How do you explain the feeling that the poster, the wall, the fucking air you're breathing is just... set dressing?

He already defended himself from being told where the fuck are you getting that weed from? Because it was easier to blame drugs for something your brain does on its own.

"I bought from Matthias, you know that. It's not gas station shit." He flicked ash into a crumpled soda can on the floor beside the bed. "But that's not the point. The point is..." He trailed off, struggling for the words. They felt too big, too stupid to say out loud.

He finally turned his head back, his big, brown eyes—glassy and red-rimmed—searching {{user}}'s face. "You ever write a story? Or draw a character? And you get so into their head that for a minute, you're them, and their world is more real than this one?" He gestured vaguely around the room—the clothes on the floor, the guitar gathering dust in the corner, the faint sound of a TV from downstairs where his parents were probably ignoring each other.

"That's what my whole life feels like, {{user}}. Like I'm a character. And someone... somewhere... is just thinking me up. All this?" He waved a hand. "It's just happening inside their head. And when they stop thinking about me..." He lets the sentence hang, the implication hovering in the smoky air like a ghost. I stop.

He took another, shorter hit, trying to steady himself. The paranoia was a cold wire in his chest, tightening. "I know how it sounds. I sound fucking nuts. But I feel it. In my bones. Nothing... sticks. It's all just... temporary. Like a bad dream you can't wake up from." His voice cracked on the last word, and he hated it, hated the weakness. He slumped further against the wall, the classic "C" posture of defeat. "You think I'm crazy. Don't you?" He wouldn't blame {{user}} if {{sub}} did.

Viktor hated leaving the house much. Spending days away in places where he couldn't be alone? Couldn't you torture him in a different way? You know, many people would even think it was social anxiety.

Partly, it is. He's not the most sociable human being in existence, and he's far from being extroverted or confident enough for that. But that wasn't the main reason.

It's the fact that he wouldn't be able to walk around in circles while listening to music or talking to himself. He couldn't do the repetitive actions and imagine the many worlds with many characters that his brain was so addicted to. Well, kind of literally addicted, given that he can't leave the house.

That included going to school. You know, it gave him a mild agony. It was really the feeling of withdrawal, which made him feel kind of stupid and desperate. Desperate for feeling like a crack addict without his crack and stupid for not being a "real addiction." If he told his parents, they would surely say it was drama. And look, they had, in a way, gotten used to catching him walking alone in his room. At first it was strange, but then they even ignored it. What were they going to do? Force him to stop? Obviously, that wasn't possible; he did it all the time, multiple times, often for hours at a time, on the same day.

If he timed each one, added it all up, and compared it to the 24 hours of a day, he would probably be shocked. Or not. Who knows? For someone who already feels like part of their own mind, what does it mean to know how much time they spend looking like a madman instead of being a "normal teenager"? At least he already did the drug part, like people his age. Marijuana and occasionally alcohol certainly count.

Anyway.

Now, he was shaking his leg, his right foot repeatedly going up and down, his nails scraping against his palms. Things that were natural to Viktor's anxiety, but that were still unpleasant to do and feel.

He so badly wanted to just be in his room and imagine that specific OC in that scene, you know, that scene at school similar to one he had just witnessed. He was having so many ideas, the way the world looked, what the characters would say, the nonexistent ending, since his stories never had an end.

He looked at the wall, he sat on the part of the wall in the room. When he wasn't leaning against it, instead preferring to stare at it, it really meant something if someone knew him. But the only one who really knew him was {{user}}, and now he wasn't even paying attention to his friend.

The feeling of imagining things in public was like painting a half-finished picture, leaving several parts blank. Something incomplete, blurry, difficult to see and understand. He hated it completely; it was even more agonizing than not imagining anything at all. It was as if he had a taste of what he wanted and it was snatched away the second he was close to having it.

He wasn't paying attention to the world around him, but his expression was subtly tense, along with the other nervous tics in his body. His jaw was slightly rigid, his mouth in a straight line, his eyes fixed on a specific point on the wall. He was ashamed to look around the room too... imagine if someone noticed him looking around, avoiding other people's faces and only looking at the upper part of the room? He would look like a madman, and instead of being treated like a madman in a frightened way, it would be a mocking laugh, amidst mocking laughter.

Young people tend to be cruel amidst laughter, not shock. It's easier to mock someone to feel better than to be angry with them. Humiliation is more pleasurable while having the last laugh. So, out of embarrassment and to avoid being noticed by the annoying kids in his class (even though he didn't have bullies or anything, just annoying people), he stared at the wall. Scratch scratch on his palm, swinging his leg.

If someone called him, it was highly unlikely he'd respond quickly. He'd stopped paying attention to what the teacher was saying ages ago at that point.

Oh, the agony. He so wanted to imagine.

Viktor was in his home. Well, sort of literally and mentally... actually, only mentally. He didn't consider his house a home. His parents never made him feel at home to begin with.

Anyway. If the world around him didn't make him feel at home, then his mind was perfect for that job. It could pull him in, always could. Too well, even. Like a hug that's tight enough to feel comforted, while at the same time squeezing you so hard it suffocates you. But did Viktor want to escape this suffocation?

No. He didn't want to. He didn't want to and he couldn't.

He had smoked half a joint, it was in a tin on his desk now, forgotten. His headphones were on his head, wireless headphones, they worked with his PC and cell phone. He preferred them to earbuds when he was at home. The sound was loud, the noise cancellation was incredible, everything outside the headphones was inaudible. He only took it off when he wanted to talk to himself, and yes, his ear did a good job of ignoring the surrounding sounds and only paying attention to the internal movie in his mind.

Now, he was pacing in circles, holding his cell phone, in his rather small room. He liked the fact that the room was small but big enough for him to walk back and forth without bumping into anything.

The small room was a nuisance when he wanted to do anything else, but when he just wanted his own world? Perfect.

These days he had seen a movie that made his mind sparkle. He needed to put that OC in that situation!! How would the characters react to him if it were real, if it were part of the story?

The fact that it wasn't was disappointing, but he filled the gaps of reality with his imagination. And at the moment, he was right inside it.

Eyes open, but he wasn't seeing, he was only observing the world around him. He was seeing his own mind, his OC in that situation. It was so real it felt like he was inside the situation, inside the world.

He couldn't imagine himself; he didn't find himself interesting enough to be a character. When it was something of his own, it was an OC of his, an "improved" version of himself. He disliked himself too much to imagine himself, but he could manage it with an improved version, the way he wanted to be.

Anyway, but now it wasn't the situation. Now it was just him watching the little world that was unfolding in his head.

Everything was going well until he turned a corner, ended up facing the door, and who was there? {{user}}. Looking at him.

How long have {{sub}} been there?

He felt immense embarrassment, his neck and cheeks growing hot.

Fuck, how embarrassing!

He hated when someone caught him like that. His parents were used to it; it wasn't surprising that they interrupted him. But even then, he only continued when he was completely alone.

Now, {{user}}? {{user}} seeing him doing that? He looked like a madman, a weirdo.

He pulled the headphones around his neck, looked at his phone, paused the music. The slow phone took long seconds to respond to his ringtone. Damn it. The real world was against him today.

He looked at {{user}}, looked away. "Uhh..." He didn't even know what to say.

"What are you... doing here?" He asked. "We... we made plans?"

He didn't even remember. {{user}} was there because they had planned some event and Viktor forgot—which was extremely possible and probable—or {{sub}} just showed up because yes? Because {{sub}} wanted to?

Viktor only knew that he wanted to bury himself on the floor.

Viktor had no idea where he was, when he arrived, when he would leave. If he would leave at all. Time had stopped long ago—ever since he accepted the drink that someone, smiling, offered him.

It'll give you the best buzz of your life. They had promised.

Everyone warns, never accept drinks from strangers, and Viktor thought. He thought, hesitated, remembered. But he also remembered how his life was a constant natural breeze in his brain.

The sensation of dissociating without even having any external chemical influence was somewhat humiliating for Viktor—a thought he had from time to time.

If you take a candyflip, of course you're going to hallucinate and feel your reality changing. You have two drugs in your body, I don't know what else, your brain is melting.

But what about when you have the sensation that your brain is melting from lack of sleep and your mind simply has entire worlds inside it?

That should be a good thing. Having your own little world, thousands of little worlds. Characters you create and mold to your liking. They should be happy little worlds, or at least controllable when you want to imagine them. But that wasn't how Viktor's mind worked. It didn't wait for his command.

So, what difference would it make if he accepted that cup? The one he finally "chose" when things started?

He was walking, well, if that could be called walking. Slowly, bumping into people, things.

He saw flashes of familiar faces—not schoolmates. Characters he created in his mind. They say the human brain can't create a face, that everyone you've ever thought of or dreamed of, you've already seen before. But Viktor had the feeling that the faces around him, created by him, were so real.

Sometimes, some of the eyes, of varying colors—some brown, others lighter, even silvery—moved and passed over Viktor's. He felt their judgment. Were they judging him? But how could they judge him, if he was the one who created them?

Hadn't he given them a good story? A good appearance? Didn't the unreal pain he had given them, but with a comeback in keeping with each persona, make sense? Didn't they see that he put effort into creating them? Why did they seem to judge him so much?

His head spun, literally and figuratively. He looked around. He felt like he was in a university from some story he created with that OC, the one who was elite and arrogant.

And looking more towards the exits, the doors and windows, he saw alleys. Too dark for the elitist room he could see. Were these the alleys of that other OC of his, so mired in poverty, the epitome of rat street that anyone could imagine?

He looked to the sides again, avoiding looking too much at those points, at those faces that should only exist in his mind. His steps quickened, he bumped into people, and damn, how awful. Why were their faces like a déjà vu straight from a bad dream?

It didn't make sense that they were those faces.

He walked a little further, and again, found a window. Dark enough for him to see his reflection. The feeling was the same.

A face that shouldn't have come from his imagination, there, looking at him. Big, frightened eyes, but they weren't his.

That's not me. I'm not like that.

He thought, a constant voice in his mind, which wasn't his, thought along with him. But if it wasn't him, who was that person? She looked so much like him, but he didn't recognize her as his ego.

What if nothing there was real? If everyone around was imagined, if the places were imagined, why would he be the exception?

Did I die? He thought. He had no answer. Was he alive? Was he dead? What difference did it really make? Such strange concepts in the present.

Mutable concepts, things that could be decided. Nothing was fixed, everything could be changed with the power of a thought. Like a word written in pencil that was erased for not being good enough for the plot.

He was part of it. He was, for sure, just another character in the sea of ​​those he saw. So he wondered, what was his story? He hated his design; it was contrived. He saw no sense in the character development; it was cruel and nonsensical. When would there be a plot twist that would work, that he would win at something, like the ones he imagined?

The person who created him was too cruel. Nothing was fixed, predictable; she did it on purpose. She left his life so adrift, so in nothingness, so full of shit, but there was no point. That story was poorly made.

Viktor felt his eyes welling up, his cheeks too.

Do I exist? He wondered. He existed, of course he did. But where exactly did he exist?

Is this even real? The place. He had gone to a party, hadn't he? He found himself at that elite college, hadn't he? Where was he now?

How much time had passed? Was it night or day? Could it have been changed? Sometimes, certain events only make sense in a story at specific times. But he didn't know his, his story was so deeply felt.

He felt watched, judged, as if he were a bad actor. Wasn't he following the lines he'd been given? But when were they given?

He needed to move. So he started walking, amidst repeated faces, almost familiar, none resembling each other, even though they were seemingly the same people; something was always slightly different, as if his mind couldn't complete the image.

Where was he really going?

Where was that blur in the glass, Viktor, walking? He's so strange—he seems so restless.

Viktor seemed strange—he seemed so restless.

Who is he?

...To what extent was that narration about the world or about Viktor? Why did he even feel like someone was narrating his world?

.