Overlap: The Other Side

<11/10/149,566 {Avion 148} - 00:00 | Corral Position, Genosis, Altiri Sector Space>

Even though such little time has passed since our bond has formed, very few know any details about what kind of people we both are. You should already know by now what kind of woman I am, and everything I have done to make all of this possible. Reed on the other hand is a bigger enigma to most, especially to my sisters. Partly this is because, he doesn't talk about himself much. As observant as the guy is, he's more self-reserved than I would have expected. He has no problem talking his mouth off through telepathy, but outside of that, Reed is mute, almost never speaking.

His own family doesn't know him. He has little if any friends to speak of. I'm even beginning to suspect that Reed doesn't even know himself as well as he once thought. There was a time when he had such a specific personality, one easy to observe before the purge, how well I remember it.

With the power of clairvoyance, I watched over him for years, taking most of an interest by the time he was being homeschooled. Personally, the choice to homeschool him made little sense for anybody, but the change in scenery gave many benefits to him and his family. Reed got to have fun during that year, but he also grew into himself more, being in the comfort zone where none would ever judge him.

I've learned already that, Reed is the kind of boy who wants to be alone; not most of the time, but some portions of each day, to unwind and relax, to unload all of his private thoughts into the vast infinite scape of imagination, or to process the existential situation around him. Before the divorce of his parents, life was pretty easy for him despite the lack of interaction, and this is because his family was well balanced.

He has a younger brother, Ivan, who he doesn't get along too well with due to their inevitable difference in maturity. He also has a half-sister, but she isn't around anymore, not that she was the best influence on anybody. His mother, Marrie, worked two jobs at both a day shift and a night shift just to keep living in that home. Reed would often stay up beyond midnight watching game shows on the GSN channel, waiting passively for his mother to return home, before retiring for bed himself. Reed never needed any particular reason to do this, nor was he ever worried about his mother's return. The simplicity behind such action was more attuned to how he became an avid night person, almost to a point of a possible montrum of the night.

His father, Nigel, was different. He worked plenty of shifts with only one job, but he wasn't around as much. Despite this, there was plenty of cohesion available; Reed got along with everyone almost perfectly.

He favored game shows due to the hidden mechanic of math involved in each game, even if that math was nothing more than specific probability. He would literally draw graphs and charts during some of the games to track the numbers remaining on how likely it would be to win, and in some instance, absorbed some knowledge from the trivia.

I knew that he wanted to track the numbers, because if there was anything he could to do keep his mind busy, he would willingly go for it. It was strange to see at first. When Reed was back in elementary school, the factors of observation he favored were of those around him, but since we was taken away from that for almost two critical years, that observation fell into other areas, including from within. I was able to deduce all of this without having to read his thoughts.

The negative impact on all of this led to a slightly longer time outside of school than expected. Essentially, he was held back an entire grade without will or fault of his own, the realization of such too late to fix immediately. Eventually, he was placed back into school by the third grade.

I also remember how much the kid loved video games. I could somewhat understand why. Putting aside how addictive those consoles might be, we Altiri have no such gaming machines in our world; it is one element of technology we are behind on, where it concerns anything heavy in graphics or in proper design, to which I blame the resource shortage. The point is, these games allowed yet another outlet for him to hyper focus his thoughts on. I could always tell that Reed loved to have something, anything at all occupy much of his mind in all spare time. He was always great with learning and adapting to the world around him.

The exception came when he was around strangers, of his age or outside his age. He could observe and judge them well enough for his intellect, but despite any judgment, Reed struggled to lift his voice higher than a nervous whisper to say anything to anybody, regardless of intention or gender. There were times it really hurt me to watch, my sympathy grown from wanting him to speak louder and confidently, as I am always able to do.

The kid was no genius; he didn't understand as much as he presumed to; even I knew this much. Still, when I compared how he analyzed everything and everyone around him, to the efficiency level anyone else would do, the difference was still staggering. Simply put, he knows more about facial gestures and body language than most his age would. The problem was, knowing this didn't help him where he wanted help the most.

Everyone on Earth has probably met that one shy kid in school. Those who observe and never speak are not exactly rare on their own; it doesn't mean they are great people, but it leaves an air of mystery about them. There could be so much locked behind the self-created prison of any shy human, or sometimes, nothing at all. The problem with people this age, is that going out of one's way to talk to an introvert is rare in that of itself, and Reed wasn't being granted any favors that year either.

Reed is also very kind, more so than I initially anticipated. He would go out of his way to be helpful to respectful teachers, and there were even times where he cried believing he had made some kind of mistake which hurt someone, like walking headfirst into a teacher and being scolded for it. It didn't help his friendship situation at all, but Reed wore himself like a badge out in the open. Instead of being rewarded for being who he was, other kids took this as an opening to try bullying him, their efforts only partially impactful.

All of this is the kind of person Reed is, or I should say, the kind of person Reed used to be... So much has changed since those brighter days. Apparently, not long after his parents divorced, hidden from my own knowledge, he and his mother moved in with an insane lunatic of a heathen, Peterson. The situation was made worse for Reed with Peterson's monster children came over for a specific summer. Reed told me they were menacing, the son both a punk and a bully; the daughter both a control freak and a potential psychopath by behavior. He claims their behavior was more influenced by Peterson's ex-wife, but I don't know who to believe personally. I never once got to see any of it due to the timing of the weather in which it all went down. The point was, Reed's life was becoming worse and worse the closer it was to the time I decided to send my purge.

Chapter Theme Shift: Valley of the Ravens ~ VPG (Wind of Spring)

There was another element to all of this that I didn't quite anticipate properly though. The purge itself leaves effects on the human mind that greatly stretch and warp the entire personality matrix of the human targeted for that purge. Even though the personality changes revert back after completion, the longer the purge has been going on for, the longer the reversion takes. For Reed in particular, I recall him telling me that he is still very confused about who he is supposed to be...

Compared to before, I know already that Reed has lost some of his youthful innocence he used to know. He doesn't smile anymore, and his outlook on everything in life is extremely negative. It's almost as if he is another person entirely. This much is what I was initially afraid of the entire time, the one thing I wanted to prevent using my purge.

I of course bare all guilt and shame for confusing Reed as much as I already have with this purge, and while I felt it was necessary, I have also given him an outlet of aggression, convincing him that heathens are an enemy of us all, to himself and to The Unity. I know I'm not wrong to do that, but... Somehow, what I've done lacks a misunderstood perfection I cannot exactly describe right now. Did I singlehandedly change all of who Reed used to be, or, is there simply so much more about Reed that I never knew to begin with? Am I the person who misunderstood who Reed was for years on end, or did I merely create paradoxical versions of the person I care about through my own forbidden interference?

Reed is not happier with my presence in his life right now; that much is clear already. Therefore, I have no idea if the choice I made last year was really the right call or a huge mistake. The thought of this all being for nothing has driven me insane over the past few days, and as such, I have needed my own personal time away from him and my sisters, to think on all of this alone.

Maybe the biggest problem is that people, Reed included, are not as simple as I made them out to be. I thought Reed wanted to make friends, and while I have been helping him with that goal, I seldom feel any kind of happiness from his mindscape. The thoughts Reed has inside of him, they’re not as black as death, but they're not clear skies and rainbows either.

There was a conversation Reed and I had over the weekend, one I think he failed to mention early on in the tales of his own memory. Even though the purge is long gone, the pull of its montrum is still as strong as ever. It's like some kind of hypnotic trance, of wonder, certainty, and affinity, centered on outer space, centered on the Altiri, and centered on the possibilities of worlds beyond worlds, as he so plainly puts it.

Reed hasn't spoken about this montrum in any negative manner. In fact, due to the desires to have his entire mind taken up by intense thoughts, he has welcomed this montrum more than either of us expected, as if he has absorbed himself into some hidden addiction neither of us know enough about. While it may be a good thing for me, in that I may interest him and help him long enough to one day convince Reed that I do exist, some of this feels wrong too, as if some of his thoughts are still not his own, like he's still being controlled by something that is no longer there, by something I put into place.

We have no power to mitigate the side effects of a purge, so this was always unavoidable. Even so, I'm worried that I may have caused a little too much influential change in too short of a time... Maybe I'm simply overthinking this. I don't yet understand Reed as much as I thought I did; that is the only truth I have come to know in the past few days. I don't see it as a bad thing; the fact that there is much more depth to him than I thought is more wonderful than I could have imagined.

What's even more impressive to me is how well he is keeping up with our information. I wouldn't say he is accepting of all of it, nor will he understand some of the additional context of our world at his current age, but, he has a lot more headspace than anyone I've ever seen before, almost as if his default is hypo-stimulation.

For the tenth time, I am uncertain of all this. Reed and I have only been talking for about a week now, so there is bound to be more change coming. I have to be careful with every step I take, to avoid pushing too much pressure onto him, for I want him to be comfortable in our presence. All of this has been harder on my heart than I expected it to be though. I've never been this scared before of the many possibilities of what could happen. Everything could still backfire in my face if I'm not paying enough attention.

You see, curious readers, Reed is a special person, one in a billion. However, this truth is merely subjective only to my own experience; anyone else is bound to disagree. What matters are the choices that I made. What's important is the effort I've put in to make him happier. Even if nobody cares about either one of us, this is the most important moment in my entire life, so I have no choice but to treat it with utmost seriousness.

The Altiri are a real race of people in the universe, as much as the humans are. We all coexist together, every last one of us is important, if not to one individual, then to another, given time. I don't care how Reed sees himself or how unimportant he thinks he is to the world. He's important enough to me, so that's all that matters now...

What's done can never be undone. Reed has been purged by me, and so he is my human node, bound to me by telepathy for the rest of his entire life, as well as his second life if ever he is open to the idea of transperation. Our fates are forever intertwined now. Reed belongs to me and nobody else. No matter what happens, I'm not going to let him go. I've come too far for a bad ending to this recent chaos.

I love Reed, and I care for him a great deal too. It doesn't matter what anybody else tells me; I will never see anything wrong with how we feel. No matter what happens to us next, I will not give up on him or myself. After everything I've already done, I have no choice but to help him as much as I can, whether anyone thinks I am merely a phantom, or a real leader.