2021/6/2 “Only this one time, OK?” “Of course!” “Alright, go.” “The light shone off the top of the puddle as if it were a silver blade polished to unblemished smoothness. She threw the stone in, scattering the light and shattering the reflection. Unlike the expected return to stillness, the puddle remained in frenetic chaos as it folded and congealed itself around the stone.” “I see it.” “She quickly stepped back as it began to rise up away from the impression in the ground it had been filling. The mass was about the same shape as the stone but about fifty times larger and it was starting to modify its surface to match the stone as well. The color was still that of a mud-puddle. It reflected tones around it in rapidly shifting shades of brown and grey as it continued to change shape. The flitting movement slowed as it settled into a replication of the stone. Once the surface had seemed to cease moving the colors flowed over its surface for a few seconds until it had matched that of the stone but in the inverse. “She looked at it, waiting to see if the transformation was complete. Rotating, ever so slowly, the massive stone was otherwise still. She swayed forward, almost tripping when her foot didn't leave the ground as intended. She again attempted to step toward it and this time her foot dislodged from its nest in the grass but then hovered in the air. She slowly, hesitantly, put it down just in front of where it had been. She checked herself. She knew what she was going to do and that she was doing it now and would not do anything else before this was complete. What was preventing her from taking action? It was a tense moment to be sure, plenty of reasons to be overcautious. She would just have to push through that. Focus on the goal and breathe. Act to the best of her knowledge and accept that that would have to be enough. If something unexpected came up she would have to deal with it then, not before. “Closing the distance between her and the stone she took one last deep breath and bent forward, pulling her hair back out of the way with both hands, and pushed her forehead into the object.” “Urhmf...” “It moved again, more quickly than before. Its surface bulging out in every direction. As she confidently and calmly righted herself the material remained attached to her forehead and trailed back to the main mass in a long snaking cord. The mass seemed to move up the cord, pouring itself into her head, the main body shrinking as the cord thickened and it flowed in. In less than a minute the whole shape was an elongated cone, point in between her eyes, and rapidly disappearing. In another half a minute as the last dollop of material slid into her head, she let out a forceful breath, suddenly realizing that she had been clenching and only inhaling shallow sips.” “Argrgrrrahh!... Huuhh.” “That's it! That's the stone! You /can/ pull things out of peoples memories!” “The story has to be well told. You...aren't bad.” “This is incredible! Unbelievable! wowww... Why does the story have to have it disappear into their head? Be inverse? Couldn't I just have told my actual memory of me with the thing?” “I'm tired.” “That felt weird, not like I was telling a story, it's almost like I was there and here at the same time.” “...” “OK, you're tired, I get it.”