ImpSyndrome

Shoot, this should've been here last night...Sorry about that, guys. Anyway, albeit several hours late, here's the second chapter of "Tales from the Nexus".

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((I have decided to start tracking each significant day I spend in the Nexus in order to show how quickly certain events occur. I will begin recording my exploits from the moment Ophelia was born, which I shall refer to as Day 0. I would like to remind those who have decided to follow my story that the Nexus is an unreal dimension, occurring only within the human mind; thus, it does not conform to the normal laws of space and time. In other words, if I was only really inside the Nexus for eight hours, I could actually experience as few as four hours of time or as many as sixty.))

Day 0: Hour 6

As I had expected of her, Ophelia knew how to behave like an adult from the moment of her birth, but she lacked the skills of literacy and speech. Actually, this is what I had been hoping for; now I was both her creator and her mentor. I spent the next few hours teaching my pupil the basic foundations of the English language, both written and spoken. Progress was slow at first, and I often became frustrated at the tedious chore, but in reality, I was enjoying every second I spent with her, regardless of how it was spent. She had the body of a woman my age, but she acted just like a young child during her studies; she would smile when I praised her and grow depressed when I had to correct her. She is simply adorable; I have failed to find any other word with which to describe her.

After six hours of study, I concluded Ophelia's lesson and allowed the both of us some rest. I had expected slow but steady progress throughout, but when she finally began to grasp some of the basic concepts I had taught her, she began to catch on very quickly; I had not expected her learning curve to jump so sharply. I began to wonder if, perhaps, she actually already knew how to read and write, how to speak and understand; it occurred to me that she might have had the knowledge all along, buried deep within her artificial mind, and my interaction with her had brought it to the surface. The thought occurred to me that she might really be much more intelligent than she seemed, and, though I was skeptical at the prospect, I dared to believe that, given time, she would grow even more quickly than I believed possible.

Immediately after Ophelia's first lesson was finished, I took a short walk outside my Room to stretch my legs. After a few minutes, I was ready to resume teaching my artificial counterpart, but I stopped at the door when I noticed the nameplate fastened to the outside of the door. I expected my name to be printed there, and it was, but so was Ophelia's. Upon further inspection, I found that the nameplate was stamped with a great number of other names as well: the names of all the characters I had ever created of my imagination. This made a lot of sense, but it also posed a very important question: why had I never encountered any of those characters in the Nexus before? I decided that question could wait; I made a mental note to find the answer once I finished passing my knowledge on to my artificial goddess.

Day 0: Hour 8

I resumed Ophelia's lessons, this time to teach her about basic mathematics. To my utter shock, she picked up each of the concepts I put before her almost instantly, and she became quite eager to learn more than I was ready to show her. I began to believe that she inherited my mathematical skills upon her genesis; in an hour and a half, she advanced from addition and subtraction up to and beyond basic algebra. Her abilities were, and still are, almost frightening; I had to wonder what else she was capable of.

In any case, I decided that I had taught Ophelia enough for the day, so I allowed her some free time to do whatever she pleased. Pleased with the speed at which she was learning from me, I decided that I needed not devote so much time to her lessons; two or three hours, spaced apart by several minutes, seemed appropriate for the material she was learning. A few minutes later, I began to feel my consciousness fade from the Nexus, meaning that my physical self was preparing to awaken. I looked back at my student, who seemed sad that I had to return to my fully-conscious existence. In an attempt to ease her depression, I slowly walked up to her and kissed her lightly on the cheek. She went red in the face, but she managed to smile all the same; my one anxiety relieved, I let myself float back to reality.

Day 0: Hour 10

When I had awoken, it was still late at night; I had only been asleep for four hours, and no sunlight parted the midnight blackness yet. Normally, insomnia would have set in, and I would drink some water and lay in bed, tossing and turning as I sought peaceful rest. Thankfully, though, sleep found me again rather quickly, and soon I found myself back in the Nexus, my body lightly dropping into the center of my Room. Ophelia was waiting for me; the moment I was fully aware, she leapt upon me and wrapped me in her arms, clinging to me like a child to its mother. She tugged on my arm, trying to drag me towards the door; I instantly knew that she was tired of the Room and wanted to be outside. Holding her hand so not to lose her in the maze of corridors, I opened the door and stepped out into the Nexus with her.

The first thing I immediately noticed as I closed the door to my Room was that the doors around me had been rearranged, per usual; all the nameplates showed new names, and I noticed that some of them had multiple names, some bearing more than a dozen. Once again, I had to wonder why none of the people listed on my door were ever around; hoping that my random outing with my goddess would help me get closer to the answers, I led her around the Nexus, turning corners whenever it struck our fancy. We were in the hallways for an hour and a half before Ophelia grew tired and, to my surprise, spoke to me, addressing me and asking if we would return to our Room soon. For a moment, I was speechless; my man-made goddess, who had not even known how to use her voice not ten hours ago, was speaking perfect English, as if simply walking around had caused an invisible key to turn in a lock in her mind and tap into her ability to speak. I was so happy for her breakthrough that I would not refuse her request, and we immediately began retracing our steps.

We were not long on our merry way when Ophelia and I realized that we were hopelessly lost; the Nexus had shifted multiple times since we had left our Room, and now there was no way of telling which way to go to get back. This was an obvious problem, for more than the obvious reasons; most prevalent were the effects that the stress of being lost were bound to have on the both of us. Not knowing what else to do, I turned to the power of the Nexus, hoping that I could somehow force it to align itself long enough for us to return to our Room. With the image of the Room clear in my mind, I summoned the Nexus' powers to me; I was unsure of what happened next, but a split-second later, Ophelia and I found ourselves standing just outside the door to our Room.

Once back in the safety of our Room, Ophelia caught my ear once more, asking that she have her own living space. Without thinking, I pulled a second ceiling out from the far wall and created a staircase in the center of the Room that led directly above it; calling it the Second Floor, I announced that, as a reward for being such a great student, I would make the Second Floor her territory, giving her the ability to change it as she saw fit. She immediately asked me how she could change it, and that caught me off-guard; I had no idea if she could tap into the powers of the Nexus as I could, since she was created within the Nexus and did not have a Room of her own. Challenging her, I created a soccer ball in the middle of the First Floor and politely commanded her to make it disappear again, if she could. My artificial goddess pointed two fingers at the ball, ordered it to vanish, and waved her hand; as if it were an illusion, the ball dissolved into thin air, leaving not a trace behind. That feat confirmed that she was just as able to use the Nexus as I was, and I explained to her that she could make the Second Floor her living space by using the Nexus' power in similar ways. Ophelia immediately went to work, customizing that Second Floor, as I pulled a bed out of the space in one corner of the First Floor and laid down on it, letting out a sigh. The day had been quite eventful, and my mind was weary; I hoped that I would awaken to reality soon and allow both myself and my goddess a short reprieve.

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Here's the list so far of hArtists who want to be included in the Nexus story.

--UsakosKitty featuring: herself
--QuadManXXX featuring: Valerie and Marishka
--Gnomduploom featuring: Rene
--UsakoMan featuring: himself
--Steveman featuring: Steve and Yumi
--Dark-Kuja featuring: Janette and Jenny
--Chaosflare featuring: Chaos
--Dead-Dolls featuring: Melissa
--Ultamisia featuring: Aurlena
--SpaceCoyote featuring: Levistus and Elyria
--Thebenja featuring: himself
--jenniforth featuring: herself

The way I've been writing so far, I'll probably start with the hArtist parts after the third or fourth chapter, depending on how much I write into one chapter. Please, be patient with me; I'm almost done setting up for this thing.