2 Cards
4 of Diamonds, 2 of Spades, 9 of Hearts
Morning: I think that I might be losing my mind a little. Either that or the shock from yesterday hit me worse than I thought. Either way, I am sure that I did not write the note stuck to my laptop when I woke up this morning. It’s definitely my handwriting though… There’s really not much on it either. A name, Alina, and an address.
I looked up the address, and it turns out that it is a library. I wonder if I am meant to meet this person there, or if there is something else going on. I know that I need to go, but there is another problem with that plan. I am supposed to be dead, and my picture was plastered on the news only yesterday saying as much. I might need to try and tap into that ability to change my appearance again. Hopefully, it will work enough not to draw attention. If I remember how I used it in the first place. If it even still works.
Noon: It worked, after a fashion. I think that I might have messed something up because I just vaguely tried to imagine myself unlike how I am now. The result was… interesting. I am still me, with purple hair and eyes as I was before, but I look a lot younger now. I look like a young teen in fact. It was not really what I had expected, but I guess that it will do the job of not freaking people out, thinking that a dead woman is walking around. It will take some getting used to, but I might keep this appearance for the time being.
Now then, I guess that I am off to the library. I have the sticky note in my pocket and my laptop in my bag, so I think that I am good to go. Do I need to get a new library card?
Evening: I wasn’t supposed to meet anyone at the library it turns out. Someone left a message though, unhelpful though it was. I did come away with plenty of notes about cults, and survival techniques, so that is something. When I got there, I wasn’t sure what to do at first. I couldn’t exactly go up to every person I saw and ask if they were called Alina. But as it happens, you can search for books by numbers. And if I know anything about this game, it is that numbers are always important.
I started with my own number, and the book that came up in the system was very interesting indeed. It spoke about different kinds of cults and stories about people getting out of them. But somehow I didn’t think that was the book that I was meant to find. And I was right.
I took the book with me and went to do another search, this time for the numbers making up the name Alina. It was a thick book, with the rather ominous title of ‘When the World Turns’. I took it with me as well and sat down at a table to look through it. I couldn’t take the books with me of course. I would need an ID to get a new library card, and that would just stir up problems that I am not in the mood to deal with.
I started with the book that ‘Alina’ had obviously wanted me to find. I don’t think that is actually the person’s name, I think that they – or I, seeing as the note was in my handwriting – used it specifically because it corresponded with that book. It was, as you could expect, not about the actual turning of the world. No, it was about what you do when the world turns on you. And at the front, just when you opened the cover, was a note. It was handwritten in a cursive font, and it only had three words on it. ‘Trust no one.’ I almost laughed out loud. At this point, I am almost two weeks into this hell, and that is the one thing that keeps repeating. It keeps getting hammered in until that seems to be the only thing that is real. I get the message ‘Alina’, believe me, I do.
I ended up spending the entire afternoon in the library, reading through the two books that I pulled from the shelves, and taking a truly massive amount of notes. At one point I noticed one of the librarians hovering in my vicinity, looking at me with a worried look. I don’t really blame her, to be honest. In her eyes, I was a teenager reading up on how to get out of cults, and what to do when the world turns against you. She must have reached her own conclusions about why I would stay to read those in the library, taking notes, rather than taking the books home to read. She is wrong of course, but the reality of the situation is something that she would never understand. Something worse. I could never tell her.
11 9 20, signing off.
[[Ending Roll: 2; Tokens Left: 9]]