When you let your Persona out, it is like a part of you has just been unleashed. There it is. There is that little part of you, just out there in the world. Isn't that awesome? It couldn't be more awesome. There is not a single goddamn thing in the whole world that is more awesome than that.

Oh my, you don't know me at all do you? I'm almost certain that you don't, otherwise I would never have to write an intro to my own story introducing myself.
I wish I could speak to you directly. Telling my story is so much harder when I don't know how your face looks, or what kind of a person you are, or whether we would be the kind of people who would get along at all.

Because, I know there's going to be a point in time in this story when you're going to think of me as a straight out bitch. I don't know what sort of twitch your face would make when that happens. I don't know whether you'll take pity on me, or think of me as quite the fool. This drives me crazy. Crazy to the point of wishing to pull my hair out.

My story begins inside of a limo. The sort of limo that teenagers on their prom would try to score in, not that I would know of such matters.

But this was a magic limo, if you can believe it. It's the sort of limo that can take you to any place that you want to with just a simple thought. How crazy is that? I thought it was pretty crazy when they told me about it. But yet, even though the limo is stretched across space and time, for the longest time I was not allowed to leave it.

My name is Marie. I'm a girl, and just by saying that I know I'm going to have a readership greater than most. No doubt you're already thinking to yourself, my god, what does this strange girl in the limo look like? Well, I am not one to leave my adoring public waiting.

I can usually be found wearing a blue cap on top of my head with some colorful buttons on top. I've got some striped socks that go all the way past my knees, so if that is your thing ladies and gentleman, you could consider me your bundle of fanservice. On top of that, I can be found in a short red skirt and a button-up white shirt.

Zip your pants back up, please. For christ sakes, we haven't even met.

So life in this limo was boring. The spot which I sat had beautiful leathering, a bar for all of my alcoholic urges, and company that no woman should ever desire. An old man with a huge hooked nose and a massive bald spot named Igor. Yes, I think whoever created him had a fondness for Universal monster movies too. Don't tell him that.

Next to him was Elizabeth, whom some would say is very close to me in personality and spirit. I would say this is a lie, because if I were anything like Elizabeth I would to bring a gun to my head and blow my brains out. She acts like a doll. She talks like a doll. She's smart, but only in an incredibly synthetic way. Whoever created her made her to be smart, and that is the problem.
She was, in a way, created to appeal to any man who boarded the limo. She had short grey hair, a blue cap that would remind one of a stewardess, and a skin tight blue dress that despite covering much skin didn't leave much to the imagination.

I never talked to either of these people. Or rather, I would talk at them, and they would pretend I wasn't there at all. This was the only place that I was born into at the time so I just suspected that there was something wrong with me.

I would call Elizabeth the C-word, and she wouldn't so much as flinch. I would look to Igor, telling him that he was the very stuff that nightmares were made of. Neither of them would flinch. Neither of them would even look in my direction. It was absolutely incredible.

One day, we had a new visitor to the limo. Someone new. I could determine that he was about my age. He was young, slender, muscular, with a mop of neatly combed grey hair that perfectly complimented his school uniform. I straightened my back, though I knew that he couldn't see me. None of them had ever seen me.

"Ahhh," Igor welcomed to the newcomer. "Welcome to the Velvet Room. This place exists between dream and reality, mind and matt-"

"I've been sitting in this place for months now," I interrupted without thinking. My words had never been heard before, so what was the harm? "And you make the same speech every goddamn time. Aren't you tired of it?"

It was then that all faces were on me. Elizabeth, Igor, and the newcomer looked at me as though I existed. "Yes…" Igor cleared his throat. "This young one is Marie. She is a newborn. She has just come to accepting her own consciousness."

"Beg pardon," I snapped back. Igor returned his attentions back to the newcomer, but I wasn't finished. "You mean that you could hear me and understand me this whole time, and the only reason you haven't talked to me is because I'm a newborn?"

After this, he continued to talk as though I wasn't there again. Tell me something, guy or gal on the Internet, is it just that easy to tune a beings cries for attention off? I have only been born into this existence for a short while, and whenever I am seen as unwanted, people just pretend as though I'm not talking at all. So strange.

"Now then," Igor told the newcomer. "Why don't you introduce yourself?"

The boy cleared his throat, and already I was feeling self-conscious. It is the first time that I knew for certain that others could see me, and now I was beginning to contemplate why I was born into such a ridiculous get-up. No one would take me seriously in the get-up unless I was going to a comic convention somewhere.

"My name is Hero," he spoke with the confidence of a hero.

"Hero?" I couldn't help but scoff. "That's real original there, hot shot. Do you have a friend named Side-Kick and a girlfriend named Damsel too?"

"I apologize for the denizens behavior," Igor spoke coldly. "She has not yet discovered the key between honesty and integrity."

"Well," I wasn't about to stop now. "When no one speaks to you for days on end, that's understandable isn't it?"

"It's quite alright," the boy shrugged. "I understand it. I mean, I don't understand why I'm here or why I've been summoned, but I do understand speaking out of term." He didn't sound as cool as I had first imagined. There was a hint of insecurity in that voice of his. "I've been told that I praddle."

"Praddling along the lake of destiny is just what you and our dear Marie here have in common," Igor nodded. "There is no such thing as concidence in this world, and what is coincidence is predetermined."

"What the hell does that mean?" I asked. I'm sorry, once you hear so many pseudo philosophical statements, it begins to light your fuse short. "Sounds like bullshit to me."

"I smell bullshit too," Hero shook his head in confusion. "I mean, okay, you talk of destiny. And you bring me to this place like I'm just supposed to accept it. That this is where I'm supposed to be. But this Velvet Room… where are we? Are we in space? Are we traveling through dimensions."

"We are both here and not," Igor explained. "As I said, between dream and reality and mind and matter."

"And where exactly is that," he snarked back. "The space between spaces?"

"I don't understand how," I smiled despite myself. "But I understood that reference. I wish that I could unreference it."

"You two," Igor continued. "Share a similar destiny. Whether you decide to cooperate or to drift apart is entirely up to you."

"But I was just born not too long ago," I said. "Why should I share any destiny with this boy that…" I turned to the boy. "… no offense, I'm sure that you're a terrific guy and all, but there is no way in hell I'm just gonna leap into your destiny without dinner first."

"Nor I yours."

"I think that you have a hell of a lot of explaining to do," I said to Igor through gritted teeth. "Like why do I exist? Why is this guy here? And why the hell do we have a shared destiny?"

Igor smiled from ear to ear, genuinely seeming to enjoy himself. Elizabeth looked just as serene and angelic as she always had, no change in mood whatsoever. "Marie, you are soon to be birthed into a new world. The knowledge that you will obtain will overwhelm your senses, but with the assistance of this newly found Persona user, you will find your way to the path of enligtenment."

"Enlighten-" None of this was making any sort of sense to me. "Now listen here?! You just think you can treat me like dirt underneath your boot and expect me to willingly just do whatever you sa-"

Igor clicked his fingers.

And suddenly, I was no longer in the limo. I was in a new place, but my me was still the same. I was wearing the same clothes as I had before, I had the same thoughts, and the same personality. But now, there was a whole world out there waiting for me. There was no Igor or Elizabeth exchanging conundrums with one another like small talk. Much to my surprise, there was no Hero either.

Just me. In the rain. Feeling miserable in the cold, but at least I was feeling something.

I loved the rain. For the first time I felt rain, and I loved it more than anything I had ever felt.

Author's Notes

Hello, this is Marie. I realize this story is now on the World Wide Web, and I expect people will leave what they call 'reviews' like this is some work of fiction.

I will respond to said reviews in kind, answering any questions that you might have. It's hard to explain some of the things that happened to me without sounding at least a little crazy.

I want you all to understand me. I want to, in a way, allow my story to be a bond between us. So please, tell me what you think of this story. About me. About what I went through. What you think is bullshit. What you think could be 'improved' in terms of plot (though it's a memoir, so if you're angry because you're favorite waifu died in a swordfight, you will in no way be able to change her destiny).

I look forward to seeing you all tomorrow. And the next day. And the day after that. For every day that you read this, you will understand me a little more. By the time that the days end, you will know me more than I know myself.

That's incredibly sad.