Well, I was just good and goddamn stuck.

I’d love to tell you I made it home that time. I’d love to be able to tell you that I developed superpowers and punched through a wall, or could see in the dark and found my way out, or teleported, or even phased through my obstacles. I’d love to tell you that I sped over to the heart stone, grabbed it up, and flew through the narrow opening in the 30 ft high ceiling. But I’d be a liar if I did that because absolutely none of that happened. What happened was I got stuck there for a while. Don’t ask me why Mom didn’t notice - or maybe she simply didn’t care because she got a break from seeing my ugly mug every day.

I eventually found myself at home after a few more things happened.

The ground rumbled as soon as I sat down. I felt isolated - well, I actually was isolated, but you know what I mean. Debris still fell from above and I could feel everything around me vibrating. The light from the heart stone seemed to pulsate, dimming a little and then regaining strength. It had a steady rhythm that sort of hypnotized me. I remember thinking its light was so beautifully sad. It wreaked of sorrow but it was intoxicating. I reached out for it like I could hold its light in the palm of my hand. I sort of felt it. It wasn’t something I felt with my flesh, however, it was more emotional. It was almost like I was empathic.

Real quick, let me get something out of the way. Human beings aren’t empathic creatures. No, you don’t feel my pain. You don’t know what I’m going through or went through unless you also experienced it firsthand. That’s an ideal. It’s ridiculous. Stop saying that shit because it’s not real with our species. The science has come back, the jury has issued its verdict, human beings EMULATE empathy. We make educated guesses based on the nearest parallels we can draw from our memories and the information we’re able to collect as we estimate how someone may feel in a certain situation or about something, especially an incident. You mean SYMPATHETIC. You understand the emotions expressed to you because you’ve held those emotions before, though you don’t exactly share them in the moment unless you’re reminded of those instances. We don’t have psychic connections, an uncanny sense of smell, or any of that. Shut the fuck up, I don’t want to hear it. You’re not an exception. It’s not true, you’re wrong, period.

You know what creatures are somewhat empathic? Dogs. Dogs are somewhat empathic. Dogs can smell your emotional change, identify what you’re feeling based on that scent, and do feel the same way as their caretakers do whenever appropriate because they’re inundated by the odor of their emotional response. They're pack animals. That's important to their survival.  WE don't need that. Emotionally speaking, they’re right much more than they’re wrong and have absolutely no idea what human life is like from a first person perspective. See, that makes total sense. What doesn’t make sense whatsoever is you saying you can do the same.

To be able to share the same emotions at the same time with a human counterpart just because they can smell that emotional change is uncanny. That’s an uncanny sense of smell, which you do not have. You’re not a fucking dog, so let it go. If you didn’t see or hear it happen, if someone poked my shoulder with a needle in another room, you would be none the wiser. NONE the wiser. Fact. You would just wait until I mentioned it and then say you knew something happened but couldn’t put your finger on -- blah, blah, blah. There you have it. Don’t like it? Get thicker skin.

Rest assured someone is going to eventually start telling everyone around them they know me in real life. A work of fiction. Someone is going to tell people they know a fictional character based on them knowing who they believe I’m based on. Well, aren’t they pompous as all hell? Again, a literal work of fiction; the imaginings of some lonely old dude who just wants to create magical stories for the enjoyment of other people. Even if I was based on any number of real life people, wouldn’t you need to know who the author is first? How could you know my suspected real world counterpart(s) without first knowing who created me to begin with? Does that make any sense to y -- I’m done! I’m over it! Let’s move on.

No, wait. Fuck that. I’m NOT done. I’ve got more. Out of all the millions of poor people who have walked similar paths to my own, how the absolute HELL do you reason that you know who I’m based on? A little presumptuous, isn’t it? Maybe even a bit arrogant, yeah? Imagine if I walked up to your delusional ass and was like, “I know where you came from. You’re someone I know because I heard a story like yours before. I know you’re someone from my past. I know it for a fact, I just need to remember how long ago I knew you.” That sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? For starters, how could you know me if you don’t even know WHEN you supposedly knew me?! How?! How could you be that certain? You obviously didn’t know the person you’re mistaking me for too well if you don’t have a clue how old you may have been when you were close to them. Secondly, correlation is not ipso facto causation. Just because you’ve heard a similar story, which could have come from the evening news or A GODDAMN BOOK, doesn’t mean you know this stranger you overheard sharing details of their life with someone else.

Do you remember that young woman from that daytime talk show who, when she was just a teenage girl, was stalking this grown-ass woman on Twitter for months? That young lady was so certain she knew this woman she had never met before, had conversations with herself in that poor woman’s DM’s, built a whole relationship with this woman in her own mind, TOLD people they were together despite the fact they had never met before, somehow obtained her rough location, and then went to meet her without her knowledge or consent. Have you taken note of the snowball effect? You sound THAT kind of crazy when you say things like that. You sound THAT kind of crazy when you say you’re empathic. You’re not. I am so sick and tired of this rampant social conditioning. Empathy doesn’t exist in human beings, probably never has, and probably never will. Get over it. You were not a telepathic witness to anyone’s life, you don’t see the future, you can’t look into the past with your mind’s eye to witness events you weren’t present for, you can’t go inside the astral plains, your pineal gland doesn’t do anything like that and no one’s has EVER demonstrated any such abilities, you’re a little crazy, you’re a lot of high, shut up.

NOW I’m done. *Mic drop.* Adam out!

Okay, that Adam out part was a little premature. I still have to finish telling you the rest of the story. My bad. Sorry I was kind of a dick just then too. I just get so tired of the dozens of UNREGISTERED readers telling my creators they know me as well as my creators know me, or even better than they know me. These people try to predict the story or present these wild theories about how my writers sourced their work and that is so goddamn disrespectful. Why can’t you just read and enjoy the story? Why do you have to ruin every-goddamn-thing by inserting your uninformed opinion into it? Talk less, listen more. You don’t know what you think you know. Just. STOP. Jesus-fucking-Christ! It’s so exhausting to be relentlessly harassed about it day after day. I actually know what they're going through because they write me that way. And, no, it’s not just you. You all know who you are. Not you, those ones over there. You. YOU know you’re one of the one’s doing it, and you, and you too. Leave them alone about it and let them work. Let them finish their story. Assholes. Shame on you.

Anyway, I bet you don’t know what happened next. Wrong! Nothing happened at first. I sat and stewed on the fact my mom hadn't once seemed to notice I had gone missing. Not once. I mean, I know we had it rough up to that point, but I expected her to at least notice my absence. And you know what? That made me angry. I was angry because I was hurt by it. What kind of mother is so jaded by life that she doesn’t notice the fruit of her own loins had gone missing at night a number of times? My heart started to race and tears welled up in my eyes. I was so frustrated I could cry. My breathing quickened and I practically ground my teeth to dust. I dug my nails into my own knees through the fabric of my pajama pants until what sounded like thunder suddenly boomed from above and below.

It took me by complete surprise. It shook me. I looked around hastily for the source. I was almost scared. I was surrounded by darkness just that quickly and had to carefully feel my way around. I’ll be honest, I don’t fare very well in total darkness. My mind goes to terrifying and evil places when I’m in the dark. It’s too comfortable, like drowning in a pool of warm water. You don’t even realize you’re drowning until you’re gasping for air that isn’t there, like you fell asleep in the warm embrace of that deceptive, life giving fluid. You make the mistake of closing your eyes in the tub, you slide under, and then you’re gone. That’s what happens to my mind in the dark. I start to see things and I become an animal. My instincts rage, and the wicked thoughts and demons in my head break loose. Suddenly enemies are everywhere and I have to fend them off on my own. I can only fixate on the spectres of my past and consider the most savage and effective ways to tear them apart. I have no control and that scares me. It really is just like drowning.

I finally stumbled forward into a new wall. Yeah. It was moist and felt like clumps of soil were stuck to it. The ceiling overhead was still sealed. Not a speck of starlight came in the new corridor I found myself clumsily falling all over myself in. I had to hurry before my episode got worse. I felt my chest tighten as the noises from old memories began to get louder inside my head. A piercing ring began to sound beneath it all and the hallucinations became more lucid. I could see the faces of old friends turned enemies, new enemies, dead loved ones - my mind painted every painful memory in horrifying detail on the black canvas around me and tears started to escape my eyes in my distress. I wanted to fight what I couldn’t and destroy everything around me. All I saw was painful to look at and I couldn’t simply turn it off.

I suffered for what felt like an eternity. I estimate it to have taken me another half hour of tripping over my own feet to reach a corner and find the now rapidly pulsing light from the heart stone hidden within the inner chamber of this place. A little bit away, I heard the familiar rumble of more walls going up. The structure was growing. I hurried toward the light, which seemed to match the rate at which my heart was beating. I damn near had a seizure as I approached. My head felt tight and I was woozy. But I forced my way through it and continued until I rounded the corner to the entrance. With a sigh, my heart began to slow down and the stone’s light stopped flashing. I was exhausted from the experience I had.

I fell to my knees and closed my eyes. Then I woke up at home.