A Discussion Within

Waking up in the morning, Cyrus felt extremely refreshed as he stretched and yawned away the sleepiness that still clung to him like a cobweb. He made to stand up, when the dim light of the magical lamp on his desk revealed something that was not there the last time he had checked.

"What is this? Someone wrote in the desk with a knife…no, it was something corrosive or perhaps extremely hot that ate or burned away the wood to create these letters" mused Cyrus as he inspected it.

"Meet me in the world within – the better half…what an arrogant statement, but that is just what he would say I suppose. My counterpart appears has discovered how to affect the outside world quite nicely, although I wonder what is so important that a meeting is suddenly required."

Still, he did as was requested of him and sat down in the meditative pose and slowly sunk into the world within.

Opening his eyes once more, a familiar scenery greeted his eyes as well as a familiar fellow.

"So? What is so important that a meeting between us is required. You should know that time appears to flow somewhat differently in here, so such a meeting is extremely costly" remarked the bright half.

"A few things, but the most important would have to be the side effects of not wearing the mask" began the dark half before being interrupted.

"Huh? What side effects, there was nothing different that I noticed except your supporting ability has gotten quite strong when compared to before" said the bright half, confusion written all over his face.

"That is exactly the problem, you did not even notice that your entire perception was being altered. I know not the end result of such a process, but I do not believe it to be anything good. Take a look for yourself" said the dark half, before writing some kind of symbol in the air with his finger.

The sky behind the dark half began to tremble, eventually what looked like a black screen formed and on it a scene began to play out.

"This…this is a memory being played out right in front of me? My memory at that" gawked the bright half.

"Indeed. As you can see this is when you first began yesterdays experiments, feel anything off about the actions taken by you?" asked the dark half as the scene played out.

At first the bright Cyrus did not think anything to be off, but he did intuitively know something was wrong. As the memory continued to play out, however, it became painfully obvious what was wrong.

"Uncaring in the slightest, a total disregard for the plight and suffering of others. Even if these men deserved to die in the most horribly of fashions for the crimes that they committed, I did not even stop to check if this was so. Perhaps they were innocent, perhaps their crimes did not warrant to be killed in such a horrifying and gruesome way, but even so the very act of me not even stopping to consider the moral dilemma of the situation is the problem in of itself" admitted the bright half, one after the other.

"Correct, if we are to properly balance the other out then we should not be so similar all of a sudden. Even if I do think most of what you believe to be a waste of time and effort, it has been shown from time to time to be somewhat useful. There is more, however, do you see it? Pay close attention to what you said and how you said it, as well as your stature and movements. The art of deduction, we both know it, so put it to good use here" said the dark half, in almost a lecturing tone.

"Is that…obsession? Is that not your deepest and most dangerous flaw? That is not good at all, actually that could be seen as catastrophic! I have seen what it does to you and if I am in a state that can not fend it off as easily as I have in the past then we might just be defeated not by our enemies but by internal forces. How horrifying…" muttered the bright half, the full weight of everything slowly settling in.

"Correct once more, how smart of you!" chided the dark Cyrus, his tone one of mockery.

The bright Cyrus simply scoffed, having long gotten used to the odd personality of his counterpart.

"So you think that this is the result of not wearing the mask for a few days in a row? While that could be true, what proof do you have exactly?"

"Simple. My proof is the fact that you are here in the first place and that you can now realize that which you were unable to do before as I had placed the mask on you for a moment while you were sleeping and then removed it. While that is a bit weak, I think the most important evidence will be what happens when you return back to the world and try to continue the experiments. At that point, all will be revealed for sure" said the dark half in a self-assured manner.

"I suppose we can only wait until then to be sure, but I will try my best to be careful even so. The pitfalls of the behavior that I was exhibiting, they were fatal ones for sure if left unchecked for too long" said the bright half, a slight bit of fear in his tone.

"One of my conjectures as to the end result of that process you were undergoing would be something akin to what happened to that guide the Inquisitor destroyed. Slowly twisting your world view, making you do things that you would not normally. Eventually as you descend into depravity and madness a flaw in your soul is revealed, allowing whatever is affecting you to take full hold of you. In our case, this thing would be whatever is on the other end of the vast amount of obsession that always whispers in my ear, trying to seduce me into giving in to my most selfish of desires" explained the dark half.

"You believe that there is some kind of force or entity that is responsible for the obsession then, something like the night dwellers where they tried to break you through manipulation of the mind."

"Most likely, but not something as direct as the dwellers. I believe it to be something more ancient, and far more powerful but also limited in what it can do or perhaps we are just not important enough for it to act. The proof in this is what happened when I first absorbed the night dwellers, when their power tried to open some kind of gate or portal to who knows where. The other end of that portal…was extremely familiar to me. It was like a far more concentrated version of my obsession, of the call, the thirst and the hunger that tugs on my soul and mind all the time" explained the dark half.

"Wow, that sounds a lot worse than what you have revealed before" said the bright half, his tone accusatory.

The dark Cyrus simply shrugged, "I am not one to enjoy weakness, nor admit to it if I can help it. The time for silly pride is long over though, as if you do not take this threat seriously then I lose my main means of security against it should the worst occur."

The bright Cyrus sighed at that, knowing fully that his counterpart was correct.

"I see that you finally agree completely, good. We can save the rest of our discussion for another time, I have not fully fleshed out the ideas and theories behind it either way. But from now on we should continue with switching every other day, just in case."

"All right, I can agree with that. Let us be on our way then, we only have this one day to make as much progress as we can with our independent research before all the focus will return to Academy work" said the bright half, preparing to rise back into the world at large.

As he was fading through, he heard a voice from behind him say

"Do not forget about the possible danger to our two allies, you were ambushed remember? Yet another thing that you would have normally thought of and not me…ugh the feeling is revolting…"