No.
I halted my thoughts.
It only feels like a few months.
An hour at most must have passed in real-time. Dreams were like that. And this had to be a dream. It wasn’t possible to hurt as badly as I did, only to wake up pain-free… yet I had.
I ran my hands down my naked, clean body. The sores and bug bites were gone, as was the infected cut running down my hip. The pain from my broken legs was a bad memory.
Bodies didn’t magically heal.
I snapped my eyes open. Dark stone walls surrounded me, lit by a plum-purple mist floating out of translucent cauldrons in every corner of the ceiling. A crazy giggle slipped out of my mouth.
Magic. Magic again. God damn, my psychosis was persistent.
Automatically, I reached for my cell phone before pulling back. There were no cell phones in this delusion. For some reason, my made-up reality was one of limited technology, made up of a bizarre cross betweenMerlinandMad Max. I’d spent an unbelievable amount of time during my hours of endless wandering, trying to remember when I’d last seen either movie.
“No. Not endless. Don’t do that,” I said out loud, as if hearing myself would make it feel less real.
‘Don’t do that.’ My last three words echoed in the cavernous space, and I cringed.
A wave of homesickness and frustration washed over me. I was twenty-four and still lived with my dad because I was sick. He wanted me to get better. I wanted to get better. That’s what this brain surgery was for. I had to stay strong.
I squeezed my eyes shut before opening them to the new world my mental illness made up this time.
I was in a small room of dark, polished stone walls that swirled with texture. To my right, a shelf covered in glowing bottles and bunches of herbs I didn’t recognize, mixed with bandages and basic medical supplies. My mattress was a bit hard but much more comfortable than the cold ground I’d slept fitfully on for the last… no, recently.
A smooth metal mug filled with water sat on the bedside table next to me, and I helped myself. The water was good. Clean and crisp, with a hint of mineral. It was far too real.
Once again, I had to remind myself no matter what I experienced, outside this new reality, I still lay on my surgeon’s table. My struggle with mental illness was at its end. The personality inside of me that lied, stole, and did whatever it needed to fake magic was literally being cut out of me.
Magic didn’t exist.
Miss Q, the name I’d given the part of me who thought she could use magic, would fight me. My surgeon, Doctor Oz, and multiple therapists warned me. It never occurred to me Miss Q could create an entire world in such vivid detail.
“Just wait until Doctor Oz finishes cutting out your broken bits.” I chuckled and tapped my temple. “Then we’ll see who wins in the end.”
A shiver ran up my legs, and I rubbed them again as my last delusion came back to me.
I stood in the middle of what looked like a small coliseum from those movies about gladiators. People wandered around the seating area wearing a mix of uniforms, fancy sweaters, and some medieval wizard robes. It reminded me of a Renaissance fair. My layers of dirty, stolen clothing blended in perfectly as the town beggar. I played the role well, no one paid any attention to me, which was perfect.
I had no idea what I was doing.
My feet tingled as if I stood on something charged, and a zing of energy shot through me. Suddenly, the milling people went silent, and every eye turned toward me. Someone gasped.
Hot breath hit my back, and I turned. A massive, black, spike-covered medieval dragon looked down at me through prismatic crystal eyes. I screamed and ran. What had seemed like a large oval coliseum now shrank in size. Too fast, I collided with a curved wall and spun back to face the beast.
Behind the monster’s hulking, scale-crusted ass, the entrance I’d come through warped smaller with every sway of its tail, each lumbering step sealing me deeper into its shadow. Two men dressed in black leathers and covered in medieval weaponry stood on either side of the door. One of them met my gaze and shook his head in disappointment.
I clenched my fists. Fuck Miss Q.
For months, I’d done everything I could to ‘blend in’ and ‘be normal’ in a world of her creation. And for my troubles, I’d almost been raped, kidnapped, and tied to an altar as a sacrifice. Now a fucking mythical beast was going to eat me.
A half-insane laugh and half-scream tore out of me.
I wasn’t playing this game anymore. My subconscious could suck it. None of this was real, so fuck trying to do the right thing.
I charged the dragon and slid between its legs like a ninja. Driven by pure rage, I managed to hook one of the big spikes at the base of its tail and climbed up the massive, ridged spine along its back. It turned circles looking for me, stupid thing, but once I got to the top of it, I could… what? I didn’t have weapons. My hiking boots were rubber and leather.
