Aclysia turned a corner into the alleyway in Downtown and promptly fell over a bag of garbage somebody had left there. She felt the rough cement of the ground scratch off a layer of plastic. Nothing major. It would heal in a second, she only needed to make sure nobody saw her scratched surface.

Aclysia slowly rose and walked the last few steps to the random point in the well known alleyway. She stopped for a moment. Took a trembling breath. Then, one more step. Confused, another one. Desperate, another one. Any moment, she would transition into a Protected Space. She would see that old arcade building.

Her foot hit the fence that separated the alley from the private property.

There were steps behind her. Loud steps and panting of somebody who followed her. “Wait….” The Apothecary gasped. “…You…lost…this….” He handed her the sunglasses he had given her, “Although now that I know that you are an Artificial Spirit… I guess you really don’t need them, huh?”

“Thank you…?” Aclysia received the glasses with jittery hands. She wasn’t even sure what was going on or why these were suddenly hers but she took them anyway. The young man took a few deep breaths and quickly regained composure.

“Why did you run here?” He took a look around. “…this is where the incident happened, right?”

 Why did he care? That was the primary thought in Aclysia’s mind. “Why did you follow me?” She asked and cowered down against the wall.

“You looked like you could need the help,” The man answered. “It’s not like me to leave people hanging.”

Aclysia stared at him. His gracious smile slowly melted into awkwardness as she kept staring. “Why?”

“Ehm, because I was raised this way?”

“Why?”

“My mother thought I should be nice to people.”

“Why?”

“She said that if you are nice to people, people will be nice to you.”

Aclysia looked at her feet.

Her experience with that saying was twofold. The first time she went out and abided by the code of politeness had been a terrible day. This was all too clear now that she remembered the context of her overall life. She had obeyed the street code, she had greeted and said her goodbyes at the grocery store. Yet all she remembered of that day were sneers and stares of contempt. Only when her Master had raised her Charisma did she get some kind of reaction that could be described as politeness. Looking back, she recognized all the awkward mistakes she had made. Still, if she made those same mistakes now…

“In my analysis, it's less what you do than who does it,” Aclysia said. When she had been molested by a somewhat attractive male everyone had been indifferent. When she had been asked for a photo by a slightly sweaty male everyone had been judgemental. Her Master said people were like that. The man seemed to agree,

“Yeah, there are a lot of people out there who are not that nice.” He kneeled down in front of her and extended his hand. “But normal folk like us usually abide by that rule.”

She had the feeling that his definition of ‘normal folk’ was very skewed if it included her, an Artificial Spirit barely capable of discerning her emotions, himself, part of a bio-alchemical Apothecary, and other segments of the Abyss at large.

The man recognized his mistake. “Normal-behaving folk like us,” he corrected himself.

Aclysia nodded. That seemed like a focus group she had not yet encountered. However, she rarely talked to anyone besides whoever sat behind the checkout at the supermarket or the people around her Master. She had talked to Jimmie sometimes. Jimmie who wasn’t around anymore.

She started crying again, leaving herself and the man absolutely confused. “What is going on now?”

“I just… I just…” she stammered, then it finally fell into place. “I just wanted to say goodbye but now I can’t,” Aclysia sobbed, “because he is gone already. Because they are both gone.”

There was a new feeling she had yet to experience. Regret. She wholeheartedly decided that she did not want this one. It did not care. It stayed.

“Stupid past me,” she cursed.

That was also a first. Since when did she ridicule herself? It was almost painful being this sad as well as trying to understand herself. What had her Master done this time? Did he even know what he was doing when he gave her more extensive memories? Who was he to decide what she was living through?

‘But I asked for this myself.’ She realized ‘I asked for him to make me able to remember because I wanted to know. Because I wanted to not forget the times when I was happy.’ She looked at the man as he was the only one around she could ask right now. “Why do I have to remember the pain as well as the pleasure… Why can’t I just block out this sadness?”

“Anybody ever told you that you ask hard questions?” The man broke his benevolent pattern for a moment. It returned with a smile that tried to make his question into a joke. It failed, nobody laughed.

Aclysia answered instead, “Master makes such comments all the time.”

“No wonder,” The young man awkwardly laughed. “Well, philosophy has it that good times mean nothing without bad times. How would you know that you are happy if you were never unhappy?”

Did that make sense? Aclysia went through her memories and tried to remember how she felt. True enough in her early days she hadn’t felt a lot, outside of mild curiosity. That feeling was born from the feeling of serving John though so it didn’t come from her. The first actual feelings she remembered were when she asked for what Wisdom was. The first time she felt really strongly about something was when she had pleaded to not get put back into her Master’s inventory.

“Can you tell me now what you were searching for here?” The man asked, “Maybe I can help you.”

“I was searching for an Illusion Barrier. It is gone.”

“Oh. Well. Can’t help with that I am afraid.” The man looked honestly troubled. Somehow that made Aclysia feel better. She stood up and cleared the last tears from her eyes. Thanks to her physique no signs of the emotional outburst were left.

“You don’t need to. I will need to think about this some more.” She would need to think about a lot of things that happened today some more. In depth contemplations and questions for John to help her understand. She bowed, “I thank you….” She suddenly realized that she had never asked for the man’s name. “How rude of me. Can you tell me your name, helpful individual?”

“I am Herman Glaurum. Who do I owe the pleasure?”

“My designated name is Aclysia,” she said to the well-built man and smiled. It felt good to smile. Especially on days like this. “I am very thankful for your help, Mister Glaurum.”

“That makes me sound old, please, Herman is enough.” He smiled back, an honest smile, she thought. He opened his mouth again but was interrupted by the buzzing of an object in his pocket. He pulled out a smartphone and checked the message. His nice expression suddenly became deeply worried. “I need to go. I hope we meet again some time,” he said and turned to leave.

“Me too,” Aclysia said her goodbye as Herman dashed away.

Now alone, she turned to the empty alleyway once more. She knew it was useless yet still she reached for the point in real space where the barrier had started. As expected, there was no change. She felt the sting of regret again and wondered how long she would carry this feeling with her. For some reason, she was sure it would be forever.

But she was also sure that it was preferable to forgetting about it again.