I opened up my eyes to see a hated, but familiar, scene. A room that was pure white except for the few pieces of furniture in the otherwise empty room. This was the place I called home for the ‘first’ 17 years of my last life, that is to say the 17 years after I had reincarnated into this 5 year old body. This was the place that was the beginning of my ruined future.
I had returned back to the exact same time as when I first came to this world, even though going back further, to when I wasn’t in prison, would have been far more comfortable. But, for the millionth time, I lamented that my simple choice during my reincarnation, to skip my boring adolescent years, had caused me so much grief and pain. Since I used my soul as a conduit for time travel I was unable to go back any further. However I could still change the future, and that thought pushed me forward.
Immediately I started to enact my plan. I entered mana meditation with practiced ease, and when my consciousness entered a separate, magical space, I navigated towards a red gem-like tablet that floated inside this ethereal space. I didn’t hesitate to mentally grab ahold of this ruby tablet and use it. Suddenly I was brought to another place that looked like a luxurious room.
I didn’t actually physically travel anywhere, it was more like astral projection, but what mattered was that I wasn’t being watched here, and I could still do what I needed to do. I hurriedly sat down on the soft carpeted floor of this new room and closed my eyes.
I used my Power [Mental Operator] to sense deep within my mind. Immediately I could sense the sinister mental hooks that were slowly creeping into my brain trying to exert their subtle control over me. The sensation nearly caused me to start hyperventilating, remembering the trauma of when I wasn’t in control of my body for nearly 40 years. I took a deep breath and forced myself to focus. I used my [Mental Operator] to delicately control my Metaphysical Organ [Adaptive Mind] to slowly create a virtual copy of my mind; that would act as a decoy to interact with outside influences and be a primary shield to protect my mind.
This technique took me 40 years to perfect, and took way too much energy for my current five year old body to create, but I had planned for this, and had sent back in time the extremely compact [Mana Reactor] artifact. The whole thing barely fit inside of the storage space of my Metaphysical Physique [Body of Artifacts], but I wouldn’t be able to get my hands on any other artifacts for the foreseeable future so I didn’t mind.
Without this [Mana Reactor] none of my plans would matter, and I would’ve only been able to go back in time to when I was already sixty years old and had just completed my [Virtual Mind]. But by that time my life had already been ruined and I would again have to be on the run for the rest of my life. Thankfully I was able to come up with a solution, my [Mana Reactor] combined with my [Body Of Artifacts] would open back up my restricted world and allow me to break the shackles that held me.
It took me a little over an hour to create my [Virtual Mind], and after completing it, without wasting a second, I frantically destroyed any traces of mental influence in my real mind. Fervently combing through it over and over again with an anxiety and fear that reared its head like a ferocious dragon. I had to make absolutely sure that there weren’t any more sinister influences lurking inside of my mind.
After a while I finally heaved a sigh of relief. There were no more mental influences in my brain, and once this realization dawned upon me, my whole body started to shake, not my real body that was being monitored, just my projected body within this room. My overwhelming emotions threatened to burst forth, but at the moment I didn’t care. I let the emotions flow through me as I knelt down on the soft carpet. Tears flowed out of my eyes, and I started to grin, “ha… haha…HAHAHA HAHAHA! IT’S DONE. I’M FREE! HAHAHA…haha…ha…ha.”
I started to sob as I hugged my knees to my chest and just sat there crying in relief for what felt like forever. After calming down I wiped my eyes, got up from my seated position and went to lay down on the lonely bed in the corner of the ‘fake’ room to let my mind relax.
After more than a century of constant worry and fear, I was free, both from outside mental influences and my own self imposed rules and isolation. I no longer had to worry about constantly being mentally monitored and tracked, and I could finally do the things I wanted instead of cowering and running in fear of being captured and enslaved once again.
As I lay on the bed I started to think about what came next. The first and most crucial step in my plans was finished, but everything from this point on also had to be done to perfection if I wanted to have any chance of escaping this prison. By the time I planned to initiate my escape from this prison, I needed to have made my captors believe that they had me in the palm of their hands, and that all started with cultivating my image and manipulating the attitudes and actions of my captors.
One of the things I learned from my years of experience running and hiding from others was that, if they can’t predict what I’m going to do, then I’ll be miles ahead of them by the time they realize what I’ve done.
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” - Sun Tzu, The Art of War.
I found that the quote from Earth was very accurate indeed. Although I will have to suffer some losses, in the end I’ll make sure to win the battles that will ultimately lead to my victory.
In order to escape from prison, and evade subsequent capture, I needed to carefully manipulate the image I showed. I had previously decided that the persona that would give me the best results was that of a na?ve child who, at first, believed everything he was told, then after feeling betrayed and manipulated I would grow to resent the people who held me captive, and then I would start to constantly try and do everything I could to plan an escape from prison, unaware that all of my plans were already known and prevented by my captors.
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An inexperienced individual might say that letting my audience know that I wanted to escape sounded like a horrible idea, because if they knew I was trying to escape then they would start to monitor me even more and eventually find out my actual plans right? However, by showing them that I wanted to escape and feeding them false information, I would lure them into a false sense of security by giving them the illusion of control. After all, if I have been planning my escape for years unaware that all of my thoughts are already known to my captors, how would I possibly be able to escape when all of my plans have been foiled before they can even begin? Thus, by manipulating the attention of my audience I would be able to perform my disappearance act right under their noses. And, by my memory, my first acting performance was set to arrive very soon.
So, I exited the comfy room and arrived back in my real body like nothing had happened.
A brief moment after I returned, one of the seemingly bare walls split open revealing a doorway into a similarly bare hallway, with a pair of guards standing at the doorway. The guards told me it was time for my appointment with the Mentalist, and, just as I remembered, they didn’t allow me to respond before they activated my prisoner collar.
A black film spread out from the collar and encased my whole body, blacking out my senses and restricting my movement, though I could still breathe just fine. Then I felt a muffled sense of motion as the guards picked me up and started moving me to the Mentalist Radix’s office.
-Break-
As soon as my collar was turned off, I regained my senses and found myself in yet another familiar room. I didn’t spend long looking around before walking over and sitting down on the only free chair in the fancy office. Sitting behind a desk in front of me was the man who started it all, Chief Mentalist Radix. This was the man who began my mental manipulation that ultimately led to my true captivity.
However, despite what he had done, I had no truly bad feelings towards the man, although he had indeed mentally manipulated me, and implanted the curse that caused me so much trouble in the future, his mental manipulations were like sugar compared to the metaphorical hard drugs I would later be exposed to after I came of age at 22.
Radix stared at me for a while from behind his desk without saying a word, and eventually I felt something intrude into my [Virtual Mind]. It was obvious to me that it was Radix, and I used all of my mental faculties to make sure he didn’t notice anything off about my [Virtual Mind].
Soon after he entered my mind I felt a magical construct flow through the connection from Radix and land in my [Virtual Mind]. The magical construct quickly started to send out roots, but I could tell that it was like a tiny flame in the wind, it didn’t stand a chance of surviving on its own. However, Radix continued to stay in my mind and shield the fragile magical construct as it grew.
As this covert operation was going on inside my [Virtual Mind], he spoke out loud, “Radiant Shadow. I know that you must be feeling somewhat confused about your situation right now, but I’m here to help you adjust. I’m the Chief Mentalist working with all of the children here who are just like you, so if you have any questions feel free to ask me and I’ll try my best to answer.”
It seems it’s time to start my act. I carefully curated my [Virtual Mind] to corroborate my act. I wanted to come across as a slight psychopath, so I made my [Virtual Mind] reflect this with muted emotions and a sense of irritation that I couldn’t be relaxing at home enjoying the things I liked. So, while Radix pretended that he was only listening to what I said out loud, I immersed myself in silent mental deception in the background.
I said to Radix, “I want to know how long until I can go back to my house?” I tried not to use too sophisticated language, I was 5 after all.
Radix nodded his head and said, “Yes, well in order to answer that I’ll have to explain your situation first. Do you remember the Future Assessment Examination you took?”
“Yes. It was only a few days ago.” At least in this timeline it was.
“Well you are here because your FAExamination found that you are special, and you need some help to grow and take advantage of your talents.”
It sounds like you’re helping me because I have something special about me, but that’s not the truth. In reality all of the kids who were sent here were said to have dangerous mindsets, like that of a murderer, abuser, psychopathic killer, kleptomaniac, or any other number of destructive tendencies that were labeled as dangerous to society.
“Help me grow?” More like control my growth.
“Indeed. In fact your FAExamination found that you are particularly special, which means it might take longer for you, than for others, to return home.”
Keeping my resentment towards the government from showing in my [Virtual Mind], I nodded my head and continued to ask, “How many more days until I’m able to go back home?”
Radix almost seemed to hesitate before he said, “Don’t worry about it. I’m sure you’ll be back home before you know it. The more you worry about it the longer it will feel, so focus on the present for now and the time will pass by in a flash.”
Oh how I wish that were true. But it wouldn’t be until around 55 years later that I would escape the grip of the government, and even then I couldn’t go back to my home. My thoughts weren’t carried to Radix though, as I continued to ask simple questions that a five year old might be expected to ask and acting like a na?ve child.
As the conversation went on, I could feel that the magical construct had finally grown to the point that it would be able to survive on its own within my [Virtual Mind], and Radix stopped nurturing it, but he still stayed inside to monitor my thoughts.
I almost visibly shuddered when looking at the magical construct, but I held it in and didn’t display any abnormalities. Despite the fact that this magical construct wasn’t in my real mind, my past experience with it wasn’t pleasant, leaving me with some rather unpleasant mental scars. In fact I would rather call this construct a curse, although the government didn’t refer to it as such, but there was no denying its effects. This curse had followed me throughout almost all of my past life, and I was happy to be free from its control.
With this my initial set up in the eyes of my captors was set. Now all I had to do was keep up the act 24/7 for 17 more years. Easy.
