Chapter 9: held captive

It's been a long time.

Or has it?

Hobbies rose from the dusty ground, feeling dazed, confused and tired. His whole body was aching and he was thirsty from the dry heat.

Where was he? He didn't know how he got here, how long he's been here, he had even trouble remembering who he was. The thoughts in his heavy head were clouded and fuzzy, no matter how hard he tried to focus.

The featureless flat desert landscape stretched out seemingly forever, with absolutely no trees or hills to shield him from the glaring, torrid sun that sat in the sky in front of him, close to the horizon. Yet it wouldn't set, Hobbies realized. He turned around to hide from the bright light in his own shadow – Only to stare into another, mercilessly blazing fireball in the sky. It sat there like a mirrored image, at the same height, exactly opposite the first sun.

“Oh,” Hobbies thought, his fighting spirit coming awake. “Well, that's interesting...”

meanwhile...

The cell wasn't big, but it wasn't tiny either. It was spacious enough to contain a bed, a desk with a chair, and a small toilet, and left still some room for her to pace up and down, which she did often, in thoughts about the past few months. It's not that she was surprised by this outcome – after all, what could you expect when you travel with a potential personified apocalypse? Still, there was something odd about how the whole thing had progressed, and while she couldn't quite grasp what it was that bewildered her, she was certain that it existed – some mysterious background scheme, someone pulling strings to whatever end. She had never really enjoyed conspiracy theories, and being stuck in one sure wasn't great either.

“Oh Hobbies,” Maria thought, “why did you leave me alone in Ruskala? Was that part of your plan – and do you even have one? And most importantly, where are you?”

It's a mind trap. And a pretty solid one, too. It has taken him quite some time to realize that he was stuck in one, and that shows serious workmanship.

Hobbies had experienced one before, but back then he had only needed a few minutes to free himself. The premise was simple enough: Isolate someone from external stimuli and turn his thoughts inwards, giving him some simple “dream scene” to distract or confuse him.

The empty desert didn't leave much room for details to go wrong, yet it was seemingly physically and therefore mentally exhausting – a good choice.

Shaping these false realities doesn't take that much magical skill, but rather requires creativity. The scene the captive is held in is built by his own mind, and therefore quite tricky to shape from the outside. Some errors are unavoidable, but in this case, the double sun had played straight in the hands of his enemy, weakening Hobbies even more. Could this have been deliberate? Was his enemy so skillful that he could even use the errors to his benefit?

“Excellent handiwork,” he thought, “I'm actually looking forward to meeting my captor once I'm out of here – I wonder if he'll share my feelings?” Grinning, he straightened up, now no longer held down by this dream world's fake torments. Silent and motionless he stood there, preparing to tear this reality apart.