"Just stepping out," I thought to myself. I needed a break, a short escape to catch my breath.

Then on the way out, I was having second thoughts about whether I wanted to go back. Something happened just as I opened the door. I'm not about to tell you what it was, but let's just say suddenly I was feeling awkward about going back, even though I had no real reason to.

There was nothing that I truly expected to happen, nothing that was said or needed to be said, but I was feeling unsure of myself, what I really wanted to do.

"I definitely need to catch my breath," I told myself. My heart was pounding, and I tried to calm it down. "This is definitely going to take longer than I expected."

I wavered. It was starting to feel silly, putting so much importance, so much of my morning, on one little thing. One little thing that seemed so inconsequential on the surface.

"I'll wait." I didn't really want to go. I was trying to come up with excuses not to go, yet I couldn't bring myself to go back in either. I needed a disguise.

I needed to be someone else. Someone that didn't carry the same burden of who I was leaving.

Entered again, sat down. Same chair, different perspective, or at least a different perspective on the surface. I wore a different lens, but beneath that filter, the perspective was still the same. A different skin, a different relationship with the rest of the crew, different expectations from each of them and the group as a whole.

I wanted to merge my different relationships, pick and choose what I liked most from each identity so that I could experience that all together, as one person, rather than as many.

The perfect height. I couldn't get that out of my head. Looking down and looking up, wide-eyed. Everyone wanted to freeze time at their favorite spots, yet no one could. Not that I knew of anyway.

My newer incarnation beat a hasty retreat as well. "I have nothing to work on." That was the excuse I gave. It was a good excuse too.

Outside, I talked to my counterpart. We shared notes and discussed what happened. We tried to share our experiences of what happened inside as well. That was partly what tied us together. Lives not wholly our own, but memories that could be relived almost as if we were more than distinct individuals.

Was it enough for the day? I didn't want it to be. I wanted more.

My impatience nearly drove me to madness sometimes. I wanted everything to happen within an instant. Multiple lifetimes within an afternoon, long threads of fate all resolved so that I no longer had to worry about them. Most of all, I wanted access to the source. I had some, but it was not enough. I was always yearning for more.

I wanted satisfaction. Maybe it was becoming an addiction, satisfaction coming only in short bursts, while most of my time was spent looking for my next fix. I wanted access to be easy. It was not nearly easy enough. It strained what I was willing tolerate.

I wanted to rush back in, in both my forms, and lay out my entire reality for possible judgment, but hopefully to push the escalation forward.

It was too slow for me. The nights dreaming of what I wanted but didn't have. The continual ache that was beautiful in its own way, but still demanded satisfaction, demand that I change to satiate it. I probably would have been much happier without it, but it promised me so much, if only I could make it work.

I had to part ways with my other self. We each had our own lives to live. We were both outside the room, outside the center of observable existence. What we did could only be implied. We existed in multiple states. The wave function had not collapsed. It would if we went back in, but we were too afraid of that at the moment. Too much awkwardness.

We needed courage of some sort. Sad to say, maybe in a liquid form in the coming month or two. If all else failed, that was what we may have had to resort to, if we wanted to get anywhere at all by year's end.

We each had different levels of connection. Neither could say they were closer than the other. Perhaps that was the intention. This was not a place meant for battle. If we could work together, we could potentially achieve far greater things.

We needed to gather information. It could provide us with a source of safety, calm, and courage as we went about our encounters. I wanted to go back so badly, as my first form. I wanted much more today and tomorrow than what I had yesterday. I'd been waiting too long. Too many months on the sidelines. I was almost kicking myself for running away.

But the break was coming up. I had an additional connection not many others had. Could we make the most of it? Dare we paint everything the colors we wanted? Or should we have just found a new place, lived for ourselves, and ignored what those who hate us said?

"Maybe I'll wait outside," I decided. If it was meant to happen this way, then it would. If not, then I could possibly force it some other way. I had more tools at my disposal. I just needed the motivation to use them. I didn't want to spend the rest of my day kicking myself, but I was starting to get the feeling that I would.

Short moments of wonder did that to me, especially when I thought I could have had more. "Next time," I told myself, "next time." But was increasingly afraid there wouldn't be, perhaps due only to my own actions.

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