Part Four: A Secret Discovered

Chapter Ten: Solitary mind games

Kari Kamiya sat alone in her bedroom, back against the edge of her bed, bum firmly planted on the wooden floor. Her eyes were closed, yet inside her mind, she could see the room perfectly. The walls were painted in the same magnolia, all the furniture sat in exactly the same place as it did in the real world and the floor felt just as hard… just as cold. There was only one major difference here, the presence of the other girl.

Kari watched from her position on the floor, as the other girl picked up the desk chair and sat it down opposite her. With hair that transitioned from bright orange to yellow and then to blonde, with not a hint of brown to be seen, the girl was dressed in the Digital Punk outfit, complete with makeup. She sat down cowgirl style on the chair and Kari found that she could not hold the gaze of those reddish-brown eyes.

"So, you wanted to talk," the girl said airily, breaking the deathly silence. "Well, here I am, so let's talk."

Kari did not know what to say, nor even where to begin. Eventually, the words, "I want you to leave me alone," tumbled out of her mouth.

The other girl let out a slightly mocking laugh, before replying in a manner reminiscent of an old sci-fi film, "I'm sorry, Kari, I'm afraid I can't do that."

"Why," she blurted out, already feeling helpless. Kari glanced up and tried to meet the other girls stare. "Why can't you just leave me alone?"

The girl looked at her, a slightly devilish grin playing on her lips. "I thought that would have been obvious." When a blank expression was all Kari could reply with, the girl rolled her eyes and said, "because I am you… and what I see is me." There was a brief pause before she added, "or at least I see a hollowed-out shell that used to be me."

"What do you mean by that," Kari spat angrily, a slight spark desperately trying to ignite inside her.

"Take a look at yourself."

Gaze quivering slightly, she looked down at herself. Her upper legs were clad in yellow shorts, while a pink and white sleeveless t-shirt adorned her chest. She also wore long, fingerless pink gloves. And she did not need to pull her bangs down in front of her eyes to know that her hair was brown. She did it anyway.

"Satisfied?" the other girl asked as she ran a few orange strands of her own hair between her fingers.

"But… this isn't me, "Kari replied, slightly stunned by the revelation.

"Isn't it?" the other girl asked rhetorically. "While you might not physically be wearing that old pink and yellow getup, haven't you virtually regressed back to being that person?"

"No… I…"

"Or do you need me to go slightly further?" the other girl asked. When Kari failed to respond, she continued, "is every day you exist not akin to one of that yellow and pink lovers worst? The days where she remained quiet, only speaking when spoken to and even then with only short, simple replies? The ones where she never argued or stood up for herself? Where her confidence was non-existent? The days when…"

"Stop it!" Kari cried out in anguish, the terrible truth too much to hear spoken aloud.

The other girl simply smiled at her. "It hurts, doesn't it? To see what I see when I look at you."

"Yes…" she whispered softly. "…I didn't realise how far I'd fallen. But I still don't understand who you are."

"I am you," the girl said with a light chuckle. "Or at least all the bits of you that you've tried to purge."

"Purge? Kari asked in confusion. She knew what the word meant, but could not fathom what the other girl meant by it.

"I'm all the parts of you that you've tried to get rid of. Ever since that date with Tai, you've been hacking away at yourself to try and stop the pain. Almost everything that makes you feel anything has been walled away to try and make it go away."

"I just want it to stop," Kari whispered, though not directly to the other girl.

"In fact, you've done such a good job that the only link I have left with you is…"

"…our music," she interjected softly.

"Yes, but even that is fading," the other girl continued. "You've not listened to much these past few days. However, even if you manage to contain that behind your wall, you might find that your pain does not go away." She then gave Kari a firm look. "There is only one way to guarantee that it ends."

Kari looked upon the face of this other version of herself that her own mind had created. She knew exactly what the girl was referring to. The pieces of the puzzle began to slot together inside her head. Now it made sense. She knew who this person was now. The hissing voice from the dark depths of her mind given form. The one that had plagued her for months before she told Tai her secret. And then resurfaced after the disastrous end to their date. The one that had… "you tried to kill me!" Kari yelled when her mind reached the events of a few days prior. She felt the spark of anger again try to ignite itself inside her.

The other girl shook her head, "I didn't try to kill you."

"Yes you did," she spat as a small flame flickered to life. "You led me to the edge of the river and convinced me to throw myself in!"

"No, Kari, I didn't," the other girl replied, a serious expression fixed upon her face. "It was you that tried to kill us."

"Lies!" Kari hissed, dismissing the claim outright. "It was you. You whispered in my ear. You told me that it would end my pain. You told me to kill myself!" Tears burst out from behind Kari's reddish-brown eyes and her body started to shake as she stared at the other girl, who sat calm, but with a grim expression.

"It was all you, Kari," the girl asserted, though her voice held no trace of malice. "You were in that much pain after you broke up with Tai that you could not fight off the darkness."

"No, that's not possible," Kari cried out, unable to accept what the other girl said. "How can that be true?"

"Because you succumbed to it and have made its will your own. In effect, it is you and you are it."

The revelation left Kari completely stunned. Yet as much as she wanted to deny it, to scream that it could not possibly be true, she knew the other girl had spoken truth. The hissing voice from the dark depths of her mind was now her. She spoke with its voice, enacted its will. Her teary eyes found those of the other girl's. "Help me," she said in a ghostly whisper, almost feeling her throat constrict in an effort to prevent the words from being uttered.

"I can't, Kari," the other girl replied in dismay. "Not until you find a way to accept your pain."

"I don't want to accept it, I want to be rid of it," she wailed. "I just want it to stop."

"It won't," the girl said firmly. "You need to accept what happened between yourself and Tai, but also that your pain is not a punishment that you deserve for your part in it."

"But it was all my fault. He would never have gotten hurt had it not been for me."

"Tai's feelings were equally responsible for what happened," the other girl countered. "He knew what he was getting into. You both suffered because of the feelings you have for each other. But you need to realise that everything else in your life, everything that I am, is not tied to your relationship with Tai."

Kari listened to the girl's words… her words, for they came from another part of herself. However, she had to suppress the urge to yell at her. To tell her that everything she said was a lie. The will of the dark part of herself that she had become, she realised. "My relationship with Tai, regardless of what state it is in, does not define me," she eventually managed to breathe. The admission felt like a stone fragment falling from a crack that had just appeared in her mental wall.

"You're right," the girl agreed. "I know it will be hard and that you'll still hurt for a while, but you can move on."

"I hope you're right," Kari whispered in reply.

No matter what way she washed it, her pain would not just go away. However, she'd faced the alternative and did not like the idea of starring into the dark water again. It seemed that finding a way to move on was her only option. She took one last look at the self she now felt an urge to be again. "I'll see you soon," she said with a smile, the first genuine one she'd made since her date with Tai.

"Good luck," the Digital Punk version of herself said, before fading from view.

Kari opened her damp eyes onto the empty room. She had fallen so far since running away from Tai on that fateful night. Now she had to find a way to pick herself back up. With a deep sigh, she wiped her eyes and took the first difficult step. Shakily, she picked herself up off the floor. Finding a tissue, she dried her eyes and took a deep breath. Her relationship with her brother was over, no if's, but's or maybe's about it. That fact she just had to accept. But that did not mean her life had come to an end too. She had been down a deep hole before Tai found out about her secret and afterwards managed to pull herself out. Meaning she could do so again.

Moving to stand in front of the wardrobe mirror, Kari looked herself up and down. It might not have been her old yellow and pink attire, but the knee-length beige skirt and plain white long-sleeved top she wore reeked of that individual. That had to be the first thing that went. Tearing off the offending articles of clothing, she balled them up and threw them into the laundry hamper with a vengeance. Opening the side of the wardrobe that contained her new outfits, Kari ran a hand across the hanging garments. When she reached the Digital Punk one, she pulled it out and stared at it. Had she really had the confidence to wear this outside? Her mind cast up images of the night she had gone bowling with her friends. How night and day that person was to her old self… the self she had regressed back to. Glumly she put the outfit back. Like everything else, her confidence had been shot to pieces. There was no way she could go out wearing that in her present state.

Kari sighed. Could she wear anything from this side of the wardrobe? For a moment she stared despondently at the collection of outfits. She had to find something. "Go back to the beginning," a voice from deep inside her mind whispered, so soft she barely heard it. Her hand moved along the rail until she found her ripped black jeans and green weirdo t-shirt. The jeans had been the first thing she had ever customised and the t-shirt the first item she had bought from . She pulled them out and quickly closed the wardrobe door.

What are you doing, she thought as she sat the jeans on the bed and removed the t-shirt from its hanger. You can't possibly go out wearing that. Kari shuddered. Those words, so full of insecurity and doubt, were her own. No longer confined to the dark recesses of her mind, the hissing voice of disgust and self-loathing had become one with her own.

It was with great difficulty that she said aloud the word, "no," in defiance of her own self. She did not want to be that person anymore. The one who had spent countless nights sitting on the floor, crying her eyes out over the love she had lost. She needed to move on and it started right here, with a pair of ripped black jeans and a slashed green t-shirt.

Further thoughts of protest filled Kari's mind as she pulled the t-shirt on, quickly followed by the jeans. Again she stood in front of the mirror and for the first time in over a month, saw a faint smile on her lips. It may only have been two articles of clothing, but already she felt more like the person she wanted to be. Unfortunately, her hair looked a mess with all the brown now showing at her roots. Nothing she could do about that. However, that did not stop her from spiking it a bit. Rummaging around in her bottom desk drawer, she found her styling wax along with her makeup bag. Both had been unceremoniously shoved in there not long after the breakup. For the regressed Kari that she had become had needed neither. Rubbing some of the wax into her hair, she proceeded to mess it up; much better. She gave half a thought to applying some makeup, but on this occasion decided it would be too much too soon. Instead, she went back into the wardrobe and pulled out her short denim jacket. While common sense told her that it would probably be cold outside, wearing her pink winter coat would not only ruin the look but also destabilise the fragile pieces of her psyche that she'd started to cobble together. Putting on her headphones, she slotted her music player into the pocket of her jeans after hitting play on Guitars; one of the three albums Tai had bought for her. Finally, she stowed her purse and cell phone into the pockets of her jacket.

With one final glance in the mirror, Kari tentatively walked to her bedroom door. Her hand gripped the handle at the same time as she thought, don't do this, Kari. She froze, as though a bitter-cold hand had touched her shoulder and instantaneously turned her body to ice.

"That's it, now take your hand away and go change out of those ridiculous clothes," a voice that was not her own then hissed.

"No," Kari said aloud in defiance. Sounding far more sure of herself than she felt.

"What?" the voice replied, almost in disbelief. "I said take your hand away and go change out of those ridiculous clothes. Do it now, Kari."

"I heard you," she said internally. "Which is why I'm able to say no. Your thoughts are no longer mine."

"You will not defy me, little Kari. You are mine!"

A small grin formed on Kari's lips as she replied, "not anymore," and she turned the door handle.

"No, stop this at once!" the voice yelled at her.

"No." She opened the door.

"You've not heard the last from me!"

"I know," Kari thought internally. "I accept that you're a part of me and one I will probably never be rid of. However, you don't control me anymore. Now get back into the dark recesses of my mind where you belong."

"KARI!" The voice screamed, but she paid it no more heed.

Walking to the front door, she slipped on her trainers, it was not the weather for converse after all and left the apartment. For the first time in weeks, Kari felt like herself. And it felt good.