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Remember when you were so obsessed with that one videogame about Vertumna? But you could never get through it to the end, because you were too anxious about the horrible things you expected to see there. Even with frequent reloading and cheats you still felt unable to face the ending, any ending. All because you were worried about getting the wrong one, a bad one. One where you could live with your friends in peace.
You had given up on that for a while already when you came across some kind of mod online that promised you everything you wanted, a guaranteed happy ending ... as long as you never lost a single card challenge.
But your excitement quickly turned into dread as you inevitably lost one. In fact, it seemed unwinnable, even using all tricks and options you had available, despite being tied to the simple routine task of shoveling dirt that you had completed so much before with no second thought. It was like the game was now making you fail on purpose here.
A small note popped up saying a huge bag of Earth soil had fallen on you and knocked you out cold, and that you were taken to medbay.
Thinking that it must have been a prank, a trick the mod author played on you would have been a reasonable assumption, right? But then a dialogue box popped up saying "Still having nightmares about the accident? Don't worry, we're all here for you." Then your game crashes and you see your desktop had its background changed to the image showing the barn. You quickly went to bed rather unnerved after that, I think, but it wouldn't leave you.
Fortunately it really was just a dream, because you woke up safe and sound in the medbay. Agitated, sure, eyes darting wildly from left to right and back, to the window, to me, as if I was a ghost, and then to yourself, as if you had turned into a monster. But you looked the same you always had. Hair colored like the sky at dusk just before the stars show up, skin a healthy mushwood bark color, eyes like a dark sunset.
I had no idea what was wrong, or why you then started screaming that you shouldn't be here, that you were actually an adult who belonged on Earth and other things where I had no idea what you were even meaning. I still think it was just the bad dream you had, but then your father walked in and mumbled something like "again with the past lives?" and that he would get Dr. Instance.
You know how much my heart sank at that moment? I knew they were going to give you a sedative and I hate when they do that, how I can only stand by helplessly as the syringe sucks almost all life out of you and you're reduced to this uncanny puppet-like being with an empty stare and wordless sounds.
But I guess I can understand why your father feels that way, too. He must feel hurt, too, when you talk to him like that. Is he not your father to you anymore? The world outside your window, the gently rolling hills around the colony with fungal trees dotted on them or the valleys with trippets and vriki, is that not your world anymore? Your home? You belong here, to us. And I know after that horrible accident in the barn with that bag of Earth of soil you need us more than ever to get well. I'll always do my best to help you. But now I have to go back to Geoponics to finish work in the fields.