210
I have become completely deranged! I look like a child clinging to her mother, crying, “Don’t leave me!” I used to be a ruler; now, I am but a husk of my former self.
211
Another wave of depression is hitting me. It’s making me squirm, showing me how I scream and throw every object I can find against the walls.
That actual screaming happened on Sunday. It’s almost Thursday now, and I just got hit by a strong wave of grief. The Keeper cracked, so I was whispering something to myself uncontrollably.
I am being abandoned. Nobody cares about my imploration. Julija does not react. I am completely invisible to everyone. Why … Why …. Why …
212
We were about to disembark, but everything came to a halt the moment I fell on my knees and clutched Julija’s right leg, begging her not to leave me, not to let me die. She’s just standing there frozen, letting me squirm in pain. Nobody cared about my pain, nobody cares, and nobody will ever care. I will die and be turned to ash. Why …
213
Everything I ever did was in vain. Julija was right. I have always been torturing myself for nothing. I should have died in two thousand fourteen – no, I should have already died in two thousand and seven. I was so prepared then. Everything was prepared.
214
Almost two decades of constant suicidal thoughts is too much. I am sick. Mentally ill. Abandoned. What do you think has been stopping me for twenty years? Now that Julija is ignoring me, no one can help me.
215
I’ve been weeping and screaming in spirit for so many years now. I won’t be getting an evaluation. I should be weeping in reality until I drop dead.
216
It seems that Julija, who is now the sole ruler, has frozen the Flatlands because she wants to punish me for my lack of coöperation and the fact that I have started to treat her as if she were my mother. She thinks this is yet another proof that I am becoming more and more deformed.
217
A voice: “Aurora L-”
Silence!!!
You are nothing but annoyance. You are filling my head with more sadness. I am still clinging to her, even if she does not react.
…
I am not going anywhere. I will stay with her.
218
I cannot afford to lose her. We used to overlap effortlessly during the years of two thousand seven and two thousand nine. After that, she started to slowly break away from me; she became a completely separate person somewhere around the end of two thousand twelve and the beginning of two thousand thirteen. Her primary function has always been to protect me. And protect me she always did.
219
The whole world of the Flatlands is now frozen because I have relinquished my right to rule, so Julija refuses to put our world in motion unless I let go of her, sign the confession, and accept my execution. I was thinking, though: if I keep myself together until the next summoning ritual, I might be able to forcefully re-start the world, as said ritual never fails to bring her to me, even against her will.