Now During Present Time
What was happening? Suddenly, Virgil's mind was filled with memories of a past he had forgotten. A past of a full family living together in the Light Side of the mindscape. His head hurt as he slumped over in Thomas's arms.
"Woah hey there. Take your time, I think we all are feeling rather confused right now."
Thomas looked to the others who were holding their heads. It looked like they were all having a massive migraine.
"What is this? These memories...are they real?" Roman was in disbelief.
"No please stop!" Patton cried out. Whatever he was remembering seemed to be painful.
"How could we have forgotten? Is this another side-effect of destabilization? How cruel." Logan mumbled.
Virgil stood up, gripping onto Thomas's shoulder for support. "Guys, are you all okay?" It's like they were all having a mind blast! It was going to take a second for the dizzy spell to disappear.
"I don't know, this is all so confusing!" Roman shuffled over to grab Virgil's hand. "Still to think we could ever forget you. I'm so sorry Virgil."
Logan followed suit, except for the hand part. "Indeed, I am also sorry Virgil. This current situation is unprecedented! A complete wipe of someone's existence from the mindscape...it's too much to fathom."
Patton remained as the others looked to him. He was bawling as he continued to wipe away his tears in a losing battle. "I can't! This is...this is too much. It's all my fault Virgil! How could I ever apologize enough to you over what I've done?"
"Patton...it's o-"
"IT'S NOT! It's n-not okay Virgil. I-I-I caused you to destabilize!"
This was the shocking truth. Sides didn't destabilize by nature and they didn't do it to themselves. Destabilizing always required a catalyst and for Virgil, that had been Patton.
Many years ago in the mindscape Virgil was known as Curiosity. He was naive and full of questions. He had no sense of danger and this had led to a tragedy no one would remember. The aftermath is the story of his own destabilizing.
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Many Years Ago in the Mindscape
Months...it had been months since Janus was erased from the others minds. Yet, for some reason I remember him. How he was like a big brother to me and would always keep me safe. How did this happen? Was it my fault, or was it them who made him disappear? Virgil felt like he was losing his mind as his doubts grew day-by-day.
"Hey kiddo! How are you doing?" Suddenly, Patton snuck his way into the sulking sides room with a fresh batch of cookies.
"Fine I guess...I'd be a lot better if you told me where Janus went to though." Virgil pleaded with his eyes as he stared at Patton. If he could trust anyone it should be Morality right?
"Oh no. Did you lose your imaginary frien-"
"HE'S NOT IMAGINARY!!!"
Virgil shoved Patton up against the wall with a loud thud. His strength was unreal, the innocent cookies fell to the ground in horror. "Woah! Woah! Virgil I'm sorry. I-I didn't mean to upset you. Please you need to calm down."
"NO! What I need is big brother Janus!!! Where is he? WHAT DID YOU DO TO HIM!?" Virgil came in fast for another go, but Patton dodged as he scrambled to the door. "I'm sorry."
Patton let out a sorrowful apology as he fled from the room to find the others.
"Patton! What happened to you?" Virgil's shouting and that large thud had alerted the entire household so some kind of trouble.
"Ah Roman...I-I don't know what to do." He began crying into his stock friend's chest. "I want to help, but I have no idea who this Janus person Virgil keeps going on about is. What do I do?"
"Oh gosh Pat, it's going to be okay. We can work together to figure this out."
"Y-yeah you're right let's go find Logan and come up with a plan."
Roman smiled as he held his friend's hand tightly. Hastily, they walked down the hallway until they reached Logan's office. "Hey it's Pat and I." A quick knock and then they entered. "Bro!"
"Ah Remus? Why are you here?"
"I thought it best to have all of us here to discuss this current issue with Curiosity."
Guess that made sense. Still it was hard for Roman to be near his impulsive brother. His thoughts were always too intense. Yet, he seemed quite calm for the moment; at least Roman could breathe easy for the time being. The group took their spots around the desk to begin formulating their plan. "So...what exactly is happening with Virgil?"
"Well, we have a theory."
"We? You don't mean you and Remus do you Lo?"
"I do actually." Logan eyed the creative twin while adjusting his glasses. "The both of us believe Virgil is undergoing a mental change based on Thomas's growth. Yet, it's putting a strain on his mind...thus he is mixing up fantasy with reality."
"Really? You think Curiosity is having some kind of meltdown?"
"Well brother, you and I both know first hand how intense mental changes can be on us sides." Remus smirked, twirling his mustache.
True, the twins were definitely the prime example of how extreme these changes could be. However, this had been going on for months. When Roman and Remus split it only took a few seconds. Why was this situation so different? Because it was Virgil or because it was only one side being affected?
While Roman was lost in thought Patton spoke up, "If that's true then we need to be there for him. He's obviously confused and pained by thoughts he's not able to control."
"Agreed. I'd like to have you be led on Virgil's treatment until this passes. If you need anything the rest of us will support you Patton."
"Thanks Lo!"
With that their plan was set into motion...the only problem being that they had no idea what was really going on. Lurking inside the darkened room was a side falling into madness by his fragmented memories of a now forgotten family member. "Liars. They are all liars."
Two weeks went by with Virgil sinking further and further into his paranoid thoughts. He spent most of his time in his room and avoided contact with the other sides at all cost. Annoyingly, Patton always came to his door in the morning, afternoon, and evening to talk with him from the hallway.
"He's a deceiver. You can't trust them or anyone. They lie, all they do is lie." Virgil only let out hushed mumbling to Pat's meaningless chatter.
"Think you could come to dinner tonight? We miss you a whole bunch kiddo!"
Same kind words. "Will Janus be there?" Same old question.
"...no. Virgil please, this Janus person isn't real. You're just confused kiddo, but that's okay. I'll always be here for you, we're family after-all."
Liar! Deceiver! Fake! All of them were just a bunch of snakes trying to lure him out in order to suffocate his mind with false ideas. No more. No more. NO MORE!!!
*CRASH*
"What in the world?!" Suddenly a loud crashing sound came from behind the door. "What was that?"
"Roman! I-I don't know. I was just in the hallway when this loud noise came from behind that locked door."
"Stand back!"
Quickly moving aside Roman proceeded to slice the lock with his trusty katana and kick down the door. Yet, nothing could prepare the sides for what they saw next. A tall, looming shadow inching higher and higher into the air until two large purple hued eyes stared down at them.
"Oh my..."
"I-it's a giant! We need to get the others, we're under attack!"
Snatching Patton's hand, the two booked it to the dinning hall and alerted the others to the current situation. Mysteriously though, once the group returned the giant was nowhere to be seen and another family member was erased from their memories'.
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Back to Present Time
Slowly, Virgil made his way to his crying friend and shifted to a size where he could easily pick him up.
"Hey there Pop-star. You don't need to cry so much on my account."
Patton chuckled a bit at the pun as he looked up to Virgil with a lingering expression of pain and sorrow. "I-I'm so sorry I didn't believe you. That I wasn't there for you like I should have been."
The baby sized side raised a hand up to caress his long lost friend's face. "You couldn't have known Pat and besides it's in the past now. I'm just glad that you remember now...you do remember right?"
"Yeah, I think? Like I remember you, but Janus...he's still kind of fuzzy. I remember him interacting with you, but still nothing on my own relationship with him. Sorry."
"No, no it's okay. What you've said is enough."
"While that may be true I'd like to know more about this strange phenomenon. Why do we forget...why do you forget?" Logan came over. He needed answers, they all did. "I mean not even Thomas himself was aware of this!"
"Now that I've remembered everything I hope I can answer all your questions." Virgil set Patton down and shifted downwards. "To start, when you destabilize your mind and the entire mindscape goes into shock."
"Shock?"
"Y-yeah. In order to fight against the trauma the mind r-represses Thomas's mind and our minds as well. That's how it affects all of us. I forget about you all and you forget about me in order for the mindscape to stay balanced. It also works to stabilize my body as it expands."
Everyone was gobsmacked at this information. "Wh-what do you mean by stabilizing your body?"
Virgil looked to his family with saddened eyes. "As you expand...cracks appear. The repression helps stop the already unstable core from....shattering."
"Fuck. That's so messed up." Roman held himself, pained by what he was learning.
"So either you forget about who you are and about all your loved ones or you break?" This was all so heartbreaking as Patton made his way to Roman for comfort.
"Mhm..." Silence. Virgil didn't really know what else to say at the moment. Honestly there was nothing more to say. This was the cold, hard truth and yet there were two blaring problems. "Remus...what about my brother? H-he remembers! How!?"
"Yeah what about Remus and Janus too? You were able to restabilize so can't the two of them as well?" Was there any hope for the others who were afflicted? Virgil appeared uneasy at the notion, but tried to stay level headed.
"I-I'm not sure. The thing is that we shift in size to minimize the damage to our cracked bodies. Even though growing causes cracking, the cracks are smaller in comparison...so tha-"
"That means the bigger you are the more cracks you have." Finally Thomas spoke up with a serious expression plastered on his face.
"Is that why Remus is different, because he's the biggest?" Virgil nodded.
"The way we destabilize has an effect on it too. I destabilized because I felt betrayed and alone so forgetting definitely helped to lower my anxieties. Remus on the other hand destabilized because he wanted his brother back. I think because of those strong feelings he remembered at least you Roman. Yet, that discrepancy in his mind caused him to crack even more than I or Janus."
"And because of that we remembered him as well."
"Though, I forgot because the effect was only on you guys and not me overall."
"So it's my fault my brother ended up like that."
Virgil winced and quickly embraced Roman in his arms. Princey's eyes widened by the sudden show of affection by the usually shy side. Still he wrapped his arms around his friend's warm body and internally thanked him for the hug.
"Roman you can't blame yourself. You didn't know, none of you did!" Ro nodded, pulling Virgil back to look him in the face with a brand new resolve.
"Right! Then we have to make up for our ignorance and save them both!" His eye's sparkling.
"That's the spirit kiddo!" A rescue operation huh? Guess it was only fitting with this bunch of action heroes.
It was time for a plan, a real plan now that everyone had the necessary information. Finally the truth was revealed, the cruel reality of it all lay before them. Although, who were they going to go after first?
To be continued.