Chapter 1

You know that feeling when you wake up and don't remember where you are?  I was feeling exactly that, except, I had never been in this place.  That's the only thing I can call it, a place.  There was nothing I could really distinguish, not any specific word or stereotype.  It was all one mass, somehow, all one dull brown, undulating mass.  It almost looked like strokes of paint, a paint-stroke world.  The ground was dry paint, a frozen snapshot of where the fluid paint had ended its kaleidoscopic movement.  The strokes of paint were all colors, and almost all sorts of paint.  I recognized the paint as acrylic, thick and creamy moving against the limits of this world.  I knew because my girl had taken a painting class.  She painted me once.  It was beautiful.

The paint was dead and lifeless below my feet, but the higher I looked, the colors were more active, as if they were traveling across the surface, if this world had a surface.  Right above me, the paint swirled dizzyingly.  

Although I felt quite alone in this place, there were imaginaries everywhere, sitting, standing, wandering silently.  There were no groups of imaginaries:  They seemed like they didn't even know there was another living thing near them.  They seemed like they were lost and blind and insane and deaf.  I wasn't willing to find out anytime soon, though.  A shiver ran down my spine.  There were no children, anywhere.  Imaginaries were rarely seen without their child nearby, and it was even more rare to see so many childless imaginaries in one place.

"Love, where are we?" I whispered.  Love's what I call my girl.  It's her middle name, honestly, and it fits her.

There was no reply.  I spun around.  For the first time in sixteen years, I was completely and utterly alone.

Love, my girl, no longer needed me.

I fell to my knees and cried.  

I'm imaginary, known commonly as an imaginary friend.  Contrary to media, imaginaries are quite serious.  Imaginaries and their child have a special bond that cannot be recreated or broken except only under extreme and rare conditions.  Only one child to only one imaginary, which can take on a multitude of forms, even multiple entities.  It is their child, their imaginary.  There are few if any exceptions.  

My name is Aemy.  My girl, Love, is perhaps the most perfect child for an imaginary.  I am not just saying that.  I promise I'm not.  She has always had an amazing imagination.  She looks like she is talking to herself when she's really talking to me.  She's always had a thirst for adventure.  She will always be a child at heart.  The last time I saw her she was sixteen.  Most children stop having imaginaries before their twelfth birthday, not my girl.  She may not have talked about me because other children had let go of their imaginaries, but I was there all the same.  In fact, the last time I saw Love, she had lost faith in Santa Clause.  She is an amazing girl to believe in Santa until she was sixteen.  That's part of why I love her, why I love my Love.

I was always there, in some form.  She changed my image often:  I rarely stayed the same.  Love had made me look like everything from Native American cartoon princesses to aliens.  The form I've assumed the longest is the image of a curious little princess from a book.  I have jaggedly cut shoulder length black hair, large green eyes, and pale skin.  I looked like a porcelain doll.  Sometimes, I would be dressed in rags, other times, in fine archaic silks, of course, depending on what Love decided or felt like.  I'm about ten, maybe twelve.  Well, I look ten or twelve.  Imaginaries don't really count birthdays.  We are not defined by an age.  We're imaginary.  When does a thought really begin?  Or are thoughts stolen and remolded clay sculptures?  An idea truly doesn't have a beginning or an end.  It just changes, changes owners, evolves and grows.  

That's my favorite appearance, though, the little ten or twelve year old girl from that charming idealistic tale.  I always see myself as that green eyed girl.  Love sees me most as that green eyed girl.  I wouldn't change because my girl recognized me the most in that form. 

I did eventually stop crying, and when I did, I just watched the other imaginaries for a while.  I was numb.  I had never felt so…alone.  I really, truly had never been alone before.  There was always Love.  What was I supposed to do?  What could I do?  I didn't know how to exist without her.  So, I waited for something to happen.  Love always had me in some wonderful adventure.  

Except, I'm not with Love anymore.

I stood and started to walk.  Nothing was going to happen unless I made it happen.  I couldn't wait for Love to decide:  I would be sitting here forever, waiting for nothing.  So, I started off, looking for something to do, someway to begin an adventure worthy of Love's imagination.  

Even though I knew I would never see Love again, I held on to her memory.  She was mine, she created me, she loved me more than anything.  I was for her and because of her.  Imaginaries are made with a reason.  Imaginaries are for play, for protection, for love, for safety and comfort, for creativity, for exploration, for growing, for creating, for an attempt at control in the child's life.  I was created because Love needed me.  All imaginaries fill a need, if even for a simple moment of entertainment.  We are there for our children.  We owe them our existence.  We owe them everything.  There are those rogue imaginaries who want to be their own person, have their own power of creation, but generally, imaginaries love their child.  It is unnatural for a child to create a being that did not love him or her, the creator.  It may prove to stimulate conflict in their play, but the imaginaries, like myself, who have been loved do not welcomely understand the desire for a hatred in an imaginary friend.  Those imaginaries who were created and formed with hatred are shunned from the socially limited community of imaginaries.

The imaginary community is not very prominent.  It only appears when our children bring us to play when they are around other children.  I personally, when Love has given me the form of the little princess, did not usually play with other imaginaries.  I would appear when she needed me, and that was most often when she was lonely or needed an imagining to whisk her away from something.  I would not interact with other imaginaries often besides.  Love was protective of me.  I was her imaginary, and it was not always acceptable for her to speak of her imaginary friends, and she did not want to expose me to criticism.  In my earlier forms, I was her personal friend that would play with her and tell her what to do, what was right, especially when she gave me the form of a cartoon Native American who had very strong beliefs and opinions of what was right.  I taught her and helped her realize what she already knew.  I taught her morals.  I taught her beliefs.  I taught her what she needed to be reminded of.  I was her ideal then.  I was who she wanted to be, and I was there to help her become that.  

She never actually became like that cartoon woman.  She grew proud to be unique, and she would not allow herself to be a copycat.  She did adopt some views from her cartoons, but Love was determined to become her own person, not one of someone else's imagination.  She wanted to be the one in control, the one to choose, and that is some of why she created me, as Aemy.  I was hers to mold, create, control, and take care of.  

I was hers and hers alone.  She was responsible for me, and I was proud to accept it.  While she disliked others treating her subordinately, treating her as if she was incompetent, I was hers to take care of.  She would take care of me.  She wanted the control.  I was hers to control.   

The wandering made me nervous.  I didn't know where I was going, or if I was going anywhere.  The entire scene looked the same, the dull, dried paint beneath me and the swirling fluid paint above me.  I could only tell that I was going anywhere by the different imaginaries I saw around me.  Imaginaries took many different forms, sometimes of their own choosing, more often a form of their child's choosing.  Imaginaries could deny their child, but it was not often.

The imaginaries I saw here were…unusual and different.  I had never seen imaginaries that behaved or looked this way.  Imaginaries were usually very clear, crisply seen with defined images.  These imaginaries were smoky and gray.  They looked like faded photographs or a watercolor picture which had been spilled on.  The edges were soft, fuzzy, and indistinct.  I avoided the other imaginaries.  They frightened me.  Would this be what I would become, eventually, after I had forgotten that my child no longer needed me?  These imaginaries were…strange and twisted, pieces of memories and thoughts and theories morphed slowly together and meshed into a being that would most likely have frightened the child they had left.  Some imaginaries were bright and garish and ridiculous beneath their stained, blurry edges.  Others were simple and drooping, loosing all of their vibrancy of their original vision.

They never looked at me.  They acted as if I wasn't even there.  They looked right through me, as if focusing on an object a foot behind my head.  Their eyes were inhuman, not a product from their human children.  The eyes are where others can see into the being's soul, or that is what I have heard.  To me, eyes are just things that help you see that come in pretty neat colors.  The eyes of the imaginaries who have lost hope were grey, completely cloudy grey orbs.  They looked like those smoke filled crystal balls that fortune tellers used.  They were unnerving, very unnerving.  They gave me shivers every time I looked at a pair.

I couldn't avoid all of the imaginaries forever.  Interaction was inevitable.  I just wish that it hadn't been this unnerving being.  I was trying to avoid the imaginaries, scurrying past the most frightening ones, and of course, it was bound to happen, but someone came up behind me and tugged on my hair.

I jumped and spun, stumbling slightly.  

"Nelly," the imaginary rasped sadly.  The woman who stared at me sent shivers down my back.  She must have been beautiful once, but it had clearly changed.  Her skin was pale and gaunt and thin.  Images flitted across her visible skin, her arms, her chest and neck, her cheeks, like tattoos or the glow of changing channels on a TV.  Her eyes were only starting to grey, and I could see the rich color underneath, a darling sepia.  Her auburn hair changed as often as her skin.  One moment, it would be short and gelled, the next, it would appear long and flowing and tied with ribbons.  She was lithe and elegant, but etched in an eeriness.  

"Who are you?" I whispered quietly, staring at the constantly shifting young woman, not wanting to frighten her or make her angry.

"Nelly, where is my Nelly?  I must find her.  She must be lost.  I had so many stories for her."  The woman looked around anxiously, searching for something, her foggy eyes only returning to me for help.  

"I'm sorry, I don't know where I am,"I replied quietly, trying to step away from her.  This imaginary was so sad, so lost, so broken.  She was a piece of a whole, part of a puzzle where the pieces kept getting shuffled and put together wrong. 

The woman began to cry.  "I need to find Nelly,"she murmured, taking my hands.  "Please don't leave.  Please help me find her.  I can't find her by myself."

I twisted my hands, trying to get away from her.  "I don't even know where I am," I told her louder than I had been speaking before.

"But I need your help!  Nelly!  Catty will be so sad!  Please, you look just like her.  I can't be without my Nelly!"  She had stopped looking at me at all in her anxiety.  Even though her grip on my hands was growing tighter, she was turning her head every which way, frantically trying to get a glimpse of her child who had no longer needed her.  

"Let go of me, please," I asked.  "I can't help you," I told her sternly.  

"But I don't know what to do!" she mewled with pure agitation.  Although imaginaries didn't need to breathe, I saw her breathing was becoming almost frighteningly shallow, and she was shaking.  The flitting images under her skin joined with their own fleeting energy.  "I need to find her, and you can help.  I know you can help."  Her voice was becoming strained and scratchy, and her last statement sounded like a threat.  

"Let go of me!" I demanded, managing to finally rip my hands from her tight grip.  I was free, and it took me less than a second to run from her.  I could only hope that I would be able to stay away from the worst of the unnerved imaginaries, because I was sure that there were worse than the imaginary who belonged to Nelly.

I avoided nearly all of the imaginaries that came within my sight as I traveled through the paint world.  Each one I saw gave me tingles down my spine, and I didn't want to have a run in with another one.  

I walked for a long time when nothing exciting happened at all as I was avoiding the imaginaries.  I noticed an imaginary come into sight and was about to avoid it before I noticed that she was familiar.  It was a pretty little fairy with sunset wings.  I knew her from Reality.  She was the imaginary of a playmate of Love's.  The girl went to the same school as Love, and their mothers were friends, but Love never really liked her as a real friend.  I knew her, and she had never been prone to craziness, so I couldn't just pass her by.  I dashed to her and hugged her tightly.  Everything here was strange, and it was so nice to find familiarity, even if I hadn't particularly enjoyed her.

"Amber, I'm so glad to see you!" I cried, my arms tight around her.

"Caitlin?" she whispered, turning her face to me, but her eyes were smoky and unseeing.  She used to have the prettiest violet eyes.  "Is that you?"  Caitlin was Amber's girl.  

"No, silly, it's--" I tried to tell her, but she interrupted.

"It's time for a tea party, Caitlin,"Amber said, oblivious to my attempts to speak to her.  "All of your toys will be there."  She took my hand and led me to a few steps to the left.  "You'll be the guest of honor.  Everyone will adore you, Caitlin."

"Amber, it's me, Aemy,"I tried to tell her.  I thought she would remember me.  Love may not have liked Caitlin and Amber, but she never showed it so they always thought we liked them.  

"Just sit, Caitlin, and make small talk.  No one will notice.  They don't listen anyway."

"Amber, stop talking like that."  Amber had never acted like this before.  She was usually very cheerful and down to earth, and now she was…oblivious to everything that had nothing to do with her own little mental world.  

"Don't be afraid."  Amber hadn't spoken.  I turned to see a small boy, his form only about seven, behind me. He had blonde hair in a mess, just like all little boys who've been out to play, curling just above his ears, and blue eyes that were more serious than a seven year old's eyes should ever be.

"What's wrong with her?"I whispered to him quietly, trying not to let Amber know that I was bothered or hostile to her.

"Shock, denial, insanity.  It's not anything new."  He was very matter of fact and a bit too cheerful for a little child talking about insanity.

I looked back at Amber who was talking to something that clearly was not there.  "Who are you?" I asked the boy.

He smiled sadly.  "I'm afraid I've forgotten."  He had an adorable accent, British, I think.  I couldn't tell.  My girl was American, and all the accents sounded similar to her, and so I couldn't tell either.  He sounded very proper and very grown up.  It was endearing.

I frowned at him.  "How can you forget who you are?"

He chuckled.  "It doesn't really matter here," he said with a shrug.  He turned to leave.

"Wait!  What is this place?" I asked as I followed him.  I couldn't stay with Amber anymore.  She brought up too many memories, and her fate scared me a little.  

"It's the place where nothing has a place.  It's the Realm of Nothing."

"It's so sad here."

"It is, isn't it?"  He stopped and looked at me.  "You're new here?"

I nodded.

He cocked his head like a curious puppy.  "There is something weird about you."

"Oh?"  I blinked.  "Weird good or weird bad?  Or just weird where my eyes are actually clear?"  At that, I realized that this boy had clear blue eyes, and his eyes were in no way clouding or greying or dulling.  

He shook his head.  "No, you're just different.  Do you remember your name?"

I was surprised again.  "Yes, I'm Aemy, spelled A-e-m-y, not A-m-y."

"That's pretty."  He pulled an ornate quill from a pocket, and he placed it in my hand.  "Write it on yourself.  Your name is so important.  Anywhere that you can see it will do."

I obeyed, scrawling my name up my left fore arm.  I've never realized how beautiful my name is.  I quite liked it in that writing that was a little bit more ornate than I usually saw my name.  I didn't write with quills.  My girl is an American and didn't know where to get a quill and ink, let alone how to use one.  I'll be learning a lot on my adventure, if I ever get over my fear of meeting new imaginaries in case they were completely mentally unstable.  

The boy cocked his head again.  He was so cute!  "Why did you put your name there?" he asked me simply.

I looked at the letters.  "I'm right handed.  I couldn't write it on my other arm."

"There's something familiar about that."  His eyes were glued to my arm.  

"Okay."  I gave back the pen.  I moved my arm and noticed that the ink changed colors at different angles.  There were all colors of the rainbow.  It was pretty and made me smile.  I looked around and realized that there was no source of light.  There was light, no source.  I shuddered.  No Sun.  That can't be good.  I couldn't say why not, but it just felt wrong.

"Aemy, I think you need to help us?"

"Us?  Help who?  And help you do what?"  I was still disturbed by the fact that there was no sun.  I must've looked silly with my face twisted up at the sky of the paint stroke world.  

He pulled a large, bronze skeleton key from a ribbon around his neck.  "This has a place.  No one knows where or to what.  I just know that it will return the Realm to glory.  I don't remember why the glory is lost, but it does need to be fixed."

I smiled.  Finally, something to do.  I was afraid that I would be stuck wandering aimlessly.  "I'll take care of it," I grinned.

The boy studied me.  "You're weird."

"Thanks, I guess."  I smiled at him.  Even though he was a strange little boy, I liked him.  

He put the ribbon around my neck almost reverently.  "Keep track of it.  If it ever falls out of your hands, all hope to find our lost glory is lost."

I nodded and tried to decide which direction I should start walking in.

"Aemy."

"Hm?" 

"If you would, could you find my name, too?"  I looked down at him.  He suddenly seemed like the small child he looked.

I smiled and nodded comfortingly,"my pleasure."

A wandering cloud of darkness engulfed him for a moment.  When it cleared, he was gone.

Author's Note

This is the edited version. New scene, new character, new information!

Reviews

[Jack Isaac]

[first impression] wow! --what an interesting angle! First line is great; invites the reader, keeps attention going, stays interesting. Gets a lot more interesting when you make the connection as to what an "imaginary" is. Nice mix of narration and dialogue. A few technical issues that I will over later on. Also, do you study Greek Mythology?

[StoryTailor]

I think this is a really cool idea.
It certainly caught my interest after only a few paragraphs.
I liked the scene that they were put in-- I kinda wished you could have described it more though-- the scenery I mean. ^^"
Other than that-- the dialogue flowed, the story plot (so far) is interesting. And even though you haven't really gotten your characters or plot developed I feel like it'll be really interesting.
Definitely something that I'll keep an eye on!