![]() ![]() At her request, Julian has been reluctantly bringing her best-sellers and new releases from the real world. Crying is not going top make her feel better. She feels like crying, but she’s already cried more times she can count. Jenny makes a frustrated sound and rolls on her back again. Julian looks at her impassively through his heavy lashes. I need to interact with other humans like me.” You can’t just feed and clothe me and expect me to be happy because you’ve met my basic survival needs," she says. ![]() ![]() “You can’t get sick here, I made sure of that.” Take the worst cabin fever imaginable and multiply it by a million. There just hasn’t been a reason to get up yet. She's been lying there since she woke up many hours ago. Julian is sitting cross-legged beside her amongst the thousands of colourful cushions and pillows on Jenny's giant bed. And then she would be trekking through strange, surreal environments like fields of purple ice or a maze of otherworldly flowers, and she would be so focused on her goal of winning that she could forget for a couple of days or weeks. Jenny avoids visiting Shadow cities if she can help it. At least, she hopes that's still the case. Somewhere beyond the veil, the real versions are bustling with tourists and locals. The streets are unnaturally silent and lifeless and only sounds that can be heard are her lone footsteps echoing on the sidewalk and Julian’s familiar lilting voice. But the cities are ghost towns, empty husks without their inhabitants, and no number of painstakingly recreated gothic arches can disguise it. But there’s not much she can actually do.Īt the beginning Jenny had said she wanted to travel, and Julian had recreated Shadow cities for her. Julian has made the house beautiful, breath-taking. All she knows is every changeable detail of this paper house, from her ridiculous room of clothes and dresses to the sumptuous dining room with its candelabras and silverware. It’s been years, no a decade, since she last saw - much less spoken to - another person. Jenny’s thinks she might be going stir-crazy maybe just plain crazy. What happens if you have an eternity to do anything, but you can only spend it with one other person? Who’s not even really a person. But they’ve already played plenty of those games as well, with canes and leather restraints and elaborate sets that Julian builds especially for that purpose. “We can play another type of game,” he suggests, his expression darkening with hunger. His games are huge, elaborate, fantastical, but lately they’ve been feeling empty and uninspired. “There are still games we haven’t played,” Julian says, but she’s lost interest in games now, however clever or thrilling he tries to make them. ![]()
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