Refraction, Reflection

Government File: Mystery

Status: Unsolved

Clearance Level: Level 10

DO NOT PUBLISH, DO NOT COPY

CLASSIFIED

June 5, 2023

I see existence in a mirror.

No, that’s not right.

I see existence in a mirror that I see in a glass of water.

Let me explain.

When an object enters water, the light shining on that object refracts in such a way that the object looks bent or twisted out of place. It’s not, of course, but that’s what it looks like. I see existence kind of like that, only the object in the water is a mirror and I see everything around me through it at all times.

Oh yeah, and I am the mirror.

I sit in my glass of water, my safe little world, and see the outside world through the distortion of the refracting light. I often see things that are not what they seem and in my mind they become something important.

If the things I see look wrong or harmful, I change them.

See, I am a writer, and it is my job to change things, to write better worlds than the one I live in.

But…I am not the sort of writer who can just let their muse take them.

Any reader worth their salt will know that there are hundreds of stories about writers who can change the world with their words or manipulate reality. It is a tale as old as writing, but the horrible thing is, I actually can. I discovered my ability when I was in the fourth grade and…well, it was not a fun time for a while.

See, my reality-alerting abilities come with a catch. If I change reality even slightly, even without meaning to, I lose something precious. It started small at first, stuffed animals disappearing or a favorite shirt vanishing, and it was fine. I got friends out of my first few accidental changes, but then I figured out what was going on and I changed a few things purposefully.

I decided to save my favorite tree in my childhood back yard in Colorado. It was a huge old thing and blocked out views of the mountains, and my dad wanted it gone. So I wrote a story where it was saved somehow and just as I had put down on paper, it was saved.

We moved to Texas.

No more mountains, no more tree, problem solved.

But I lost my first home.

Of course, I didn’t realize that we moved because of my story, and so I changed a few other things.

Our dog got sick and so I wrote a story to save him, to make him stop hurting, and he died.

I wrote myself a best friend, and she stopped spending any time with her other friends.

I wrote my dad a better job, moving him up the business ladder, and his boss died. Dad took the man’s place and got his better job, but it was the first time a person died.

I realized what was happening at about that point and stopped writing for a long time. My mom encouraged me to keep going and so I started writing science-fiction, hoping that it would fall under the category of impossibilities.

My purple aliens attacked the International Space Station and everyone on board died.

Sounds ridiculous right? Well, it was anything but ridiculous when I heard about it on the news and recognized the creatures that had done it.

I stopped writing again.

Mom got me to start again.

That time I tried comedy.

I have always likes Shakespeare and so I tried writing something like one of his stories, somehow forgetting that everyone dies in his plays.

Yeah…that did not end well.

I am really, really tired of not being able to write freely because I have so many ideas running around in my head all the time, and it almost hurts having to hold them back. I dream about all sorts of things and not being able to put them down on paper is torture.

Maybe one day I can stop being like this and write to my heart’s content.

I doubt that will happen any time soon though.

I suppose it’s about time I explain why I am writing this anyway. I don’t usually write journal entires of any kind, and I certainly don’t write about my abilities.

So, here’s what happened.

My mom had cancer.

It happened so fast, the doctors catching it when it was already too late, and…well…I wrote her a story to make her feel better. A story that would heal her. I wrote a story that would get rid of cancer entirely, wipe it off the face of the planet.

It worked, because my stories always work, and cancer no longer exists.

Everyone who had it in any stage is dead.

Turns out, my dad had it too.

So, my abilities have now taken everything from me, because I thought it would help. And so that’s why I am writing this. As a prologue to a new story I’m writing.

Starting now, I’m going to write my parents back.

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Charlotte Brown. She had the ability to change reality, and one day her powers took her family from her. So, she sat down, picked up a pen, and wrote herself a new story, a story in which they came back.

She sat at her desk, writing quietly and hoping that it wold work, when there was a knock on the front door and she heard her mom’s voice call out, “sweet heart, we’re home!”

Her parents came back and stayed forever.

There’s my story.

And…and I just heard it come true.

My parents are home!!

Charlotte Brown

Government File 2216: Audio Recording Transcript

This case has yet to be solved. The strange occurrences noted in the above journal entry did indeed happen, but no one had an explanation for them until this entry was found.

Charlotte Brown went missing two days after writing her final story and she has yet to be found. However, security tapes have shown that two people did indeed approach her home on June 5, 2023.

According to those who have reviewed those tapes, those two individuals did not appear human. Or at least, they did not appear to be living humans. Whatever they were, Charlotte Brown has been missing for nearly two years and there have been no sightings of her since that day.

If she is still alive, I doubt she is well.

General James Attinger