The Truth Behind Vialism

I woke up, and everything looked normal.

And that was the problem. My clothes were usually piled messily on the floor or heaped in my closet, threatening to spill out, but now everything was folded neatly in my drawers. My jeans folded like little terracotta soldiers. I know I didn’t do that, so who did?

Did my mom sneak in and I didn’t notice?

Is there some magical room-cleaning fairy that never existed until now?

Maybe I did it half-asleep.

But no. I was never half-asleep. I was either awake, my mind was running a million miles an hour, or asleep. No weird in-between section.

And my room was never like this. I knew that for a fact. I liked to call my room a mess, but it was an organized mess. I knew the general vicinity where everything was, but not the specific place.

My books were also usually piled everywhere without rhyme or reason. Here they were neatly put on my shelves.

By author.

By book series.

And alphabetized.

Never in my entire life had I organized my books.

I usually piled them up.

I didn’t care.

Everything looked gray as well. As if the color had been leeched out of it. I mean, my clothes still had color. My Clancy shirt was still red, my pajama pants were still brown, but the colors were duller, as if someone had turned down the saturation on my life. It was so weird. I’m not used to waking up and everything looking like I’m in a 2000s dystopian YA film, or the last 4 Harry Potter movies.

I got up and opened my drawers to make sure.

Yep.

Everything had color; it was just duller than I remembered. I opened my phone to check. My photos still had the same resolution as earlier. Yeah, it was definitely different. My pictures almost hurt my eyes since the colors were so bright.

I closed my eyes and counted to thirty. I hoped that when I opened them I would be in my normal room.

In my normal life.

Not this weird alternate universe.

I opened my eyes.

Nothing changed.

Even the room smelled weird. It kinda smelled like—I don’t know how to describe it. An almost empty smell.

And everything felt weird. Almost like it was all manufactured in the same building. I knew it wouldn’t go back to normal, but you can’t stop hoping everything will turn out how it was.

It was also colder, as if the very thing that gave it life and character had died the moment I fell asleep. I also had a splitting headache. I really wished I hadn’t stayed up late watching that show. Sorry. I start rambling when I’m tired. But it really was freezing, and I don’t get cold. Ever. No, I’m not crazy.

I ran to the bathroom to check my theory, and everything was neat. Again, my family doesn’t care about neatness unless someone’s coming, including the cleaning ladies. The towels were hung and folded. Everything was placed in the drawers as if someone was playing Tetris with our house.

Mom’s office/Guest room was about the same as it was, except the blankets were folded instead of thrown on the couch. I know I’m running around the house like Tim Curry in the Clue Movie.

No.

I’m not trying to solve a murder.

I’m trying to figure out why everything’s wrong.

I walked down the stairs as my mind raced through the possibilities.

What’s happening?!

Wonder what’s going on?

Is it…

No, it can’t be….

Could it…?

I knew what I wanted it to be, but I put it aside as I thought I was going crazy. My brain does this thing where it convinces me something weird is happening, but it’s just normal. My mom takes a route I don’t recognize….Is something crazy about to happen?

I remember one time I was with my mom on the way to the airport, and she took a different route than normal, and my brain went wacko. I kept thinking she was setting up some trick so that when we got there I would be surprised with a trip to Disneyland….

That never happened, but it didn’t stop my brain. It was probably just that. But still I gripped the handrail extra tight.

When I got down there, it was the same. The color, the life, the very thing that made places interesting to be in was gone.

Everything else was normal though. Mom was talking as she flipped crepes on the griddle, which was kinda weird since we usually only had special breakfast on Saturdays. Maddoc, my brother, was lounging around like a half-dead person in the same clothes he wore yesterday— guys, don’t do this, it's gross— probably because he couldn’t sleep in until 11:00 like normal.

“Morning, Fi. How’d you sleep?” Mom’s voice sounded wrong. Canned, almost.

“Fine. Does everything look weird to you?” If it didn’t, I knew something was wrong. Mom was pretty observant.

She blinked for a few seconds.

Like her brain was processing the fact that I was talking to her.

“No. But I like the change. DEMA is so beautiful…”

Now I blinked back at her.

Wait… What did I just hear?

I hoped I had heard her wrong.

I paused.

Did a double take.

I knew that name.

Mom wouldn’t.

Shouldn’t even.

“Wait…what?” I heard her, but didn’t believe her. I just needed to hear it again.

“DEMA is so beautiful. Don’t you think?”

I froze.

Nope.

This was definitely not normal.

“Um…I don’t know. I guess it’s… different?”

Oof.

That sounded so bad.

I couldn’t let her see that I hated this place. Put on the act. I’m good at that.

I ran to the window.

I had secretly hoped it was this, but this couldn’t be happening. This place didn’t exist. It couldn’t exist. It was a figment of…of…his imagination. A window into his mind. Why would it appear now? And why would we be in it? I don’t know why I was excited. I should’ve been scared, but I wasn’t.

When I looked out the window, we weren’t in our normal yard. Does that sound weird? Our yard was like one and a half acres, covered in grass, and the garden that Jer cared so much about.

Sorry. Jer is my stepdad; his name is actually Jeremy, but we call him Jer or Jerm.

Our house was now on a concrete yard, and a little ways in the distance were tall, imposing gray cement walls. No guards.

No movement.

The sky looked weird too. It looked like not a sky, but a gray blanket completely covering the entirety of the sky. My brain glitched. I knew those walls. I mean, I had never seen them before in real life, but I knew them. I watched them on my TV.

The feeling was so nostalgic even though I’ve never been there. You know when you’re in a room, and something happens, whether that be people are arranged just right, or someone says something completely random, and you just think, I’ve been in this exact same situation before even though you haven’t? It was like that, but only ten times stronger. I saw these things so much I never thought they would be right outside my window.

They were the walls of DEMA.

My escape from reality became my reality.

A shiver of excitement coursed through me. No. I can’t be excited, but I couldn’t help it. DEMA was my fantasy. Every time I imagined it, I thought it would be amazing to join this world. This story. I dreamed about this moment, but it was nothing like this.

“So what do you think about Vialism?” My voice was cautious. I was hoping she wouldn’t say it. Hoping she didn’t believe the lie.

“I love it. Why?” She smiled at me, but it looked fake. That’s not at all how my mom was. She was the most genuinely nice, kind, and loving person I knew. Not… this.

I stopped short.

She said it.

In my mind, every time I thought about joining this world, this story, I saw in my mind that my family would join me in opposing Vialism, not supporting it themselves. This was wrong. I knew it. I knew I should say something, but how do you tell your family they are doing something egregiously wrong? How do you not just shut up and play the part they lay out for you? Dinner was going to be a nightmare.

“You…you…like the religion telling you that killing yourself is the only way to get to paradise?”

“Is that wrong?” She sounded genuinely concerned. I didn’t know which was worse, her actually believing it, or her concern for my mental state.

“How can you throw away all that you told me to believe? Everything that you raised me on?”

“You don’t have to believe it all right now, but just come to the service tomorrow. It might make more sense then.”

What happens then?

Will I need to hide?

Will I find others like me?

“I’ll come, but don’t expect me to convert.”

She just sighed as I headed upstairs.

When I headed upstairs into my room, I noticed something. A small black book was on my bookshelf. Now, there were a lot of books on my bookshelf, but I had never seen this one before.

When I pulled it off the shelf and saw the title, I froze. It was called The Book of Vialism: The Path to Peace through the Transcendence of the Soul.

I froze. They had an entire book dedicated to their lies.

I got an idea.

A dangerous idea, but an idea nonetheless.

I hopped on my bed and pulled out my computer. Opened a Google Doc and named it Refutations. Opened the book and grabbed my Bible. Every point in the Book of Vialism was written down in my doc.

I didn’t want to refute Vialism. I mean, a part of me wanted to believe it just to make my life easier.

I wish I could roll through life with absolutely no conflict, and just make everyone happy all the time.

But I can’t.

The anger that fueled me was so great I almost punched my wall.

Vialism can’t be right. This thing that swallowed all my family and brought them into the lies?

I hated it.

I hated it even before I knew it was real.

I hated it when it was still my fantasy world.

I care too much. I wish I didn’t care so much, since it would just make my life so much easier. But I’m sorry. I do actually care, and I can’t stop it.

Actually, I’m not sorry.

I don’t apologize for doing the right thing.

And of course.

Mom had to come in.

Right at that moment

I switched to a new tab.

“Fiona, what are you doing?”

I sighed.

Time to lie.

“I was working on writing some books, and transposing some music.” Thankfully, I had already had those tabs open.

“Fine. I want you to read some today, though.”

“Yes, Mom!” I said with this fake cheerfulness.

“Love you.”

I pause.

Only for a second, but I paused.

“Love you too.”

I hoped it was true.

I mean, I did love her, but it was hard too when she didn’t believe the same thing as me.

The rest of the day passed in a blur. I know what you’re thinking. I should just pretend to believe in Vialism to lay low, but I can’t. Once I know something’s wrong, I can’t just shut up. Some might call that guts. I call it a problem. I don’t really remember what happened that day, but I do remember what happened from dinner and beyond.

Jer made Marry Me Chicken. Seriously, as someone who loves food, it’s one of my favorites. We were sitting, and it was weird. No one prayed. I mean, it’s a small thing, but it meant a lot. It was a part of me.

The conversation around the dinner table seemed normal on the surface, but if you dug deeper, it wasn’t. Usually they complained about how horrible our government was, but today they talked about how excited they were to possibly join the ‘Glorious’ Gone. I was just planning to stay quiet when my mom turned to me.

“The next Annual Assemblage of The Glorified is next December.” My mother said with this air of awe and reverence in her voice. “Isn’t that exciting, Fiona?”

I froze. She was trying to trap me, and I knew it. I clenched my fists under the table and put on my best fake smile. “It’s a party for a bunch of rich, important people. I don’t really have an opinion, Mother. I’m not going.”

“Well, you might if you listen to the Bishops.” Maddoc. Don’t get me wrong, he’s annoying, but I love him. Having him harping on something, Vialist just killed me. He’s one of the only people I can open up to about my faith, and now I can’t. Great. Just great.

“It’s just taking me a while to adjust. I’m used to something else; now my world is turned upside down. Give me a minute to adjust, please.” I lied. Like usual.

My mom stared at me. That one mom stare that, with it, you immediately knew you screwed up and were going to be in so much trouble.

“You’re coming to the service tomorrow, and we’ll get you fixed. Now I don’t want to hear another anti-Vialist statement out of you.” This didn’t sound like my mom. It sounded like a clone of everyone else in this city, and I hated it.

“I’m not a problem. I’m one of the few humans who can think for themselves without spewing the lies the Bishops told. I’m just doing what you told me to the other day. You told me, ‘Don’t hide your faith. Don’t be like the other idiots in the world.’ Well, you should be proud of me. I’m doing that. I’m not being like the idiots in the world following the Bishops. I love you, but I just can’t agree with you.”

Shit. Why'd I blow up like that?

I know I have a hard time regulating my emotions, but this was too much. I'm walking a tightrope here. One wrong word and the Bishops could kill me.

I went upstairs before they could yell at me even more. I hate my life.

That night I avoided my family like the plague, and they did the same to me. It was so nice. I got ready for bed as quickly as I could and hopped into bed, immediately grabbing my stuffed Dino Maximilian Von Schmidt. I know. I’m 18, and I still sleep with stuffed animals. There’s Maximilian, Fred, Beckett, Misty, Tangerine, Freckles, and Coffee. I once read that no one is too old to sleep with a stuffed animal, so don’t judge me. I know some of you are secretly hiding your stuffed panda, Mr. Snugglemuffins.

Sorry.

Don’t know what happened there.

Actually, I do. I balance humor in the hard times. Laughter is the best medicine. So sorry if you don't find it funny. It helps me.

Moving on.

The weird thing about night is that once the lights turn off, the door closes, your breathing slows, and it’s just your brain and you.

No one cares. You’re all alone now.

Shut up, brain.

You can’t turn me off. I’m the only friend you have now.

The tears started falling. My brain always waged the worst wars against me at night, when I’m helpless to stop it.

I have more friends. I knew it, but now that we were in DEMA, it all felt wrong. Would they still like me if they knew I still believed the Bible? Would they listen? I always listened to their obsessions, hoping it would help me understand and be more in their group, but as soon as I opened my mouth to do the same as them, they stopped caring.

I’ve been struggling to have friends since third grade. I just don’t fit in with my classmates, but now that I hate Vialism and they don’t, it just gets weird.

See, I told you. You have no friends.

SHUT UP! They still care about me. My pillow was wet with tears by now, and I had my Dino in a chokehold.

Hey, um, God, if you’re there, I don’t know what to believe anymore. My entire life you’ve been there for me, and now I don’t know. Should I listen to my parents? Is that what you want? I’ve always struggled in my faith. You know. But now I feel way in over my head. I know I should do something, preach the gospel to them, but how? They know it, just forgotten it. Why me? I’m no one. I’m just a stupid, idiotic high-schooler that no one can bother to listen to. I can’t get captured. I know that, but it kills me to act and put on that fake face of 'I love Vialism.' What should I do?

The only thing that answered me was darkness.

This year, though, I’m far from home. In Trench I’m not alone…