CHAPTER 1: IMAGES

Alone... Staring at the brown door in front of me... Waiting for a companion... It's too early for my class. I don't know why I suddenly tucked my hand in my bag and reached for my pen and notebook. Am I just writing this damn boring article right now?

Images appear in my mind... not sleepy... I am wide awake, but these visual images still appear. I don't understand what it is, but I'm perfectly sure it's one thing I used to imagine every time I am under attack by perfectionism and expectations. And here it goes again... a dream I can never get... never in my whole life.

I can't think of anything now. I'm disturbed by the noise coming from the room beside me. Those images are becoming blurred. Thank God! However, my brain still functions, commanding my system to think about the dream and respond to it. I hate it! I don't want to think about it anymore, it's no use.

"Why doesn't my mind obey me?" I thought. "It's my life. I want to see reality... I don't want to live in a world full of illusions any longer. I want to wake up and face reality. Wake up, RM. Wake up!!!"

My system just doesn't want to... it's telling me that reality hurts... it knows that I don't want to live with burdens and pain, but what can I do? It's what we call life, and it isn't perfect at all.

"I don't have to feel satisfaction all the time," I thought again while remembering something that I should've forgotten. "I have to get hurt. It's no use... there's still disobedience in my system, for it knows what my life is like in the real world. There is no joviality. All I have is full of sorrow. It doesn't believe in life as a balance, for it knows that my life is a misery. My system just wanted to help me by letting me dream, live with imagination, and feel free."

But no matter how my hypothalamus commands my system to make every illusion in my mind and make me feel at ease, no matter how it controls my heart not to fall in love, not to feel pain, and not to know what love is, they cannot control the whole of me, their work isn't enough.

"They can't transfer me to another dimension where those illusions would be. They can't control the people surrounding me. That is why they cannot prevent me from getting hurt, from reality. I still have to face reality, no matter how cruel it is. I have to know the real me and my real world by letting my system take away all those illusions, dreams, and identities that they wanted me to be. They can't change who I am. They can't control my emotions."

The challenge is still starting, and it's time to dare my system to face the challenge, no matter how hard it is. I will strive hard to make this journey I'm taking off. No dreams, no illusions, no imaginations, and no perfections.

But can I do it? I tried to have a new life and start over so many times, but I failed. I kept on looking back. I don't want to let go. I have to face all the challenges, but there's something that is still telling me to forget reality. Am I just going to live in a world of fantasy where no one can hurt me?