Page 34 of Control

“Why?” she asked. “What about you? Where are you going?”

“ I have something I need to look into,” I said back to her.

“Ana,” she said, her eyes getting glassy. Reyna was definitely worried about everything that was happening. “Let me come with you. Maybe I can help.”

“No,” I said, putting my hands on her shoulders. “I have to handle this on my own and I don’t want to draw you into something that you have nothing to do with. When you get to Shazzy, do what you can to distract yourself. Don’t just sit there and let the anxiety build up.”

“What’s going to happen?” Reyna said. “Ana, I’m scared. What if they find out about you. About me!” Reyna was holding back tears. I was beginning to wonder if sending her away was the right call, but I knew I had to. “This is all so screwed up!”

“You’re going to be fine,” I said, pulling Reyna to me and hugging her. It was the first time in 18 months that I’d had Reyna in my arms and I was so distracted that I was unable to enjoy it as much as I felt I should. “Reyna, go. Find Shazz and go to him. Now.” Reyna paused for a moment and looked me over, unsure of what it was I was planning. “When I can, I’ll come find you.”

“Let me add you back!” she said, going into her HUD and sending me a friend request which I quickly accepted. “Please don’t do anything insane.”

“I won’t,” I said. “I promise as soon as I get some things done, I’ll come find you.” I looked away from Reyna and back into the room to see that more people had made their way into the small waiting area of the top floor of Cris’s brothel. A lot of the girls had come up, wanting to see if they could talk to her to find out if she knew anything else that wasn’t in the statement or that I hadn’t covered. Given their in game positions as escorts, I imagined a lot of them had something to lose should their in game avatars be tied to their real life identities. Reyna was afraid because of the types of things she had done in her in game life, including her affinity for race play and other wild role play sessions. Cris and Caster were in the same boat as I was, although Jazz had made it very clear that I was the primary target for any troll or obsessed fan or player looking to find out our real life identities. It had finally started sinking in that I could potentially be in serious danger.

I kept my cool as I scanned the room and the more people came into it, the more it felt as if chaos could erupt at any moment. Cris and the others had finally made their way out and she immediately approached the girls so she could speak with them. Giff walked by me and only offered a nod, seeing that I was with Reyna and probably thinking I was speaking with her and didn’t want to be interrupted. Caster walked out and headed straight to the bar. He took a bottle of whiskey right off the shelf, opened it, and took a swig straight away. Mustafa, who didn’t come across to me as being scared for himself, walked over to Cris to see if he could offer them any sort of solace. I could feel the pressure in the room building slowly, but I did my best to keep my wits about me.

After sending Reyna away to stay with Shazzy, I looked around one more time, my heart starting to beat faster and faster as it had when I was addressing everyone. I knew what was happening and I was afraid if I didn’t teleport away soon enough, I might have a panic attack right there in front of everyone. I’d managed to keep myself together through the meeting and through the game-wide live stream, but I couldn’t keep it up much longer. With only a moment of thought in front of me, I closed my eyes and thought of the most peaceful place in the game that I could and instantly teleported there.

I was never much of a room builder. Most of my time in Aurora was spent socializing or meeting with individuals that were in need of my help in some way. I’d gotten so used to either being out in the world or spending time with someone that I’d almost forgotten the inner peace I could find from simply being alone. After Reyna left and after a few very public meltdowns, I felt it best to stick to myself during at least a few hours of my nightly gaming sessions while I wasn’t out being promiscuous to deal with the pain. To do this, I started fiddling around with the in game building system.

Included with the game was a way to create your very own rooms using a vast number of items that were provided by the developers. Not only did I have those items at my disposal, there were also pre-built rooms, furniture, and other items that were created by players themselves that were purchaseable through a cash shop for either gold or real world currency.

I had no idea what I was doing when I first got started so I just created a very basic space and used all of the included items that were available to me as part of the game. In a way, it was therapeutic because while I was building and figuring out better ways to build, I often found myself in a trance-like state. While in building mode, I was able to manipulate items in any way I wanted. I could change their shapes, colors, hardness, and move them at will. At one point, I remember simply having fun by taking things like couches and refrigerators and just tossing them around in the air and stopping them mid-fight with a flick of my wrist. Over time, I disciplined myself to the point where I was able to manipulate and move them around simply by thinking about it. Before I knew it, I’d managed to create a fairly nice looking room where the weather was always chilly and the skies always clear so I could look up to the stars.

Sometimes I would log in and go directly to the room I’d made. There wasn’t much to it, but I’d created it as an outside space similar to a park. Within my park, I placed a pond complete with ducks and geese similar to ones I’d seen out in the world before. By the pond I’d placed several benches as well as trees, shrubbery, and other natural adornments. I made sure to minimize any artificial light, having just a few places where I could turn on lights in case I ever decided to have someone over so they could enjoy the space with me. In one spot in particular, I placed what was basically an over-sized bed, complete with pillows and blankets where I could lie down and get the best look at the night sky which was real world accurate and moved with the rotation of the Earth based on a preset location.

I was happy with my little space and when friends started asking me where I was spending all my time, I told them that I had taken to building to try and keep myself busy and not think too much about the real world or my most recent in game problems. Because of this, word spread and I started to receive vouchers from various other builders that allowed me to obtain some of their own materials and custom objects. Each day I would log in, a few more items were there available for me to use so for a time, I built in that space every day and made the area a sort of cubby hole for my mental health. Every time I was out in Aurora and I began to feel overwhelmed or simply needed a break, I would quietly make myself unsearchable and sneak off to my haven.

One day a particular supporter of mine gifted me something I’d never thought of placing in my world until I saw it - a lotus flower, complete with lily pads. I ended up placing several of them in the pond I’d set out and made them various colors. I made some purple of course as well as blue, red, and even set out a golden lotus. I enjoyed the flower so much I made sure to thank the creator personally.

Due to the problems I was facing on this day, the day the hack was announced, I felt the need to visit my creation. I teleported in and went straight to a wooden bench by the pond where several NPC ducks had gathered and were nesting under a nearby bush. I sat down and almost immediately felt tears in my eyes. I was losing control. I took several deep breaths and tried my best to calm myself, but it was no use. I covered my face with my hands and cried, tears streaming through my fingers and soaking my palms within seconds. The light sounds of the crickets chirping and the chilly, nighttime breeze did nothing to settle me. It was all just too much and I was coming apart.

I slid down off the bench and onto the moist grass below. I ended up on my back, pulled my hands from my face and cried out to no one in particular. All of the things that had been weighing on my heart for the last three years were apparently coming back to get me all in one night. Reyna’s untimely return as well as the hack which could expose me and everyone else in Aurora were just too much. I’d had horrible problems with people looking for me in the real world in the past when I used to stream games online, before Aurora was around. One day a regular viewer had gifted me a small amount of money through my donations page and I thanked him accordingly by mentioning his name and gift while I was streaming. This wasn’t good enough for him though.

He started to become much more aggressive, asking me for personal information not only during my streams, but also on my various social media platforms. It had gotten so bad that I had to publicly ask him to stop during one of my live streams, but he was unrelenting. Before I knew it, he’d managed to get my personal cell phone number as well as my home address. Driving several hundred miles from another state, this man ended up at my door, banging on it while I panicked and called the police. I had no idea what he was planning to do to me had he managed to either get into my place or if he had happened to catch me out in public. The scare was enough to get me to not only move, but to completely leave the state and relocate to another part of the country. Since then, I’d been living in a large Brownstone which had a security door. The neighborhood, while not overly expensive, was gated and there was even a security guard on duty 24 hours a day.

While it was definitely safer than where I had been, I knew a single security guy and a locked door could only do so much. Any lunatic who’d set his mind on finding me may not care too much about a guard and a simple wooden barrier. My fear this time was the sheer amount of people I had unwillingly and unwittingly attracted to me. I knew I was popular, but not to the extent that Jazz had told me. I knew there were those that talked about me negatively, but I didn’t know to what degree it all went. I often ignored it and whenever I was in a room and trolls started giving me problems, the room owner would usually warn or remove them before it became a much more serious issue.

Given my popularity in the game and outside of it, the chances of someone taking my personal information and coming to find me in the real world were far greater than before. While I’d taken proper precautions with the information I would give out to those in Aurora, I never thought that I would get as popular as I did nor did I figure in a potential leaking of my personal information that included my name, home address, and phone number.

I cried from worry and uncertainty as I stared up into the night sky, several thousand twinkling stars raining their faint light down upon me. What would often comfort me and relax me didn’t seem to be helping much. I was far too stressed out and all I could do was just cry it out and hope that I could settle myself down afterward. I’d managed to start doing what I would normally do and started looking for all of the various constellations. I went through the most popular. As I located Orion’s Belt and the Big Dipper, I traced their outlines with my fingers.

Through the cloud of uncertainty, I found my mind exploring several old memories that have haunted me, some for only a few days or weeks, others for years, and still more from the time I was a child. I remembered the pain of my father leaving me when I was little, claiming that there was no way I was his. He’d left after I was only a few days old, but would sometimes come by to visit my much older brothers whom he’d raised for the most part. I was the “Second Life,” unexpected daughter he’d never planned for nor wanted. When she revealed that she was pregnant with me, my father, according to my mother, asked her to have an abortion as he had no interest in bringing another child into the world. At one point both during her pregnancy and even years after I was born, my father accused my mother of having an affair which led to her pregnancy with me.

After he left, my mother sued for child support because my dad had refused to pay, still hanging onto the belief that I wasn’t his. This battle between the two of them ultimately forced the judge overseeing the child support case to formally request a DNA test. After initially refusing to take it, the judge ordered him to and it was done. It came as no surprise that I was in fact his biological daughter, the test coming back with a 100% match. There was no scientific doubt that I was his, but no test would convince him otherwise.

Still, through the years when he would come by the apartment me, my brothers, and my mom had to move into after he left, he often refused to interact with me. He would spend time with my older brothers or as he would come to call them, his “real” kids. I would spy on him while he visited with them from the hallway, watching them joke and laugh about things they did with my father when they were younger. I remember wondering to myself if I would ever be able to create memories with my dad at some point in the future. Maybe when he’d realize he was wrong about me and finally see that I was his. Maybe he’d finally accept me as his own. That same day, being only 7 years old, I watched my father as he said goodbye to my brothers. Without thinking, I ran after him as he walked out the front door to his car. I grabbed onto his hand and felt the band of his wristwatch in my palm. He turned to me and once he realized who it was, pulled away and rebuffed my attempt at affection.

“Get away from me,” he said, a look of disgust coming over his face. I remember looking him in the eyes, the disdain and unease readily apparent. He looked at me as if I were some small animal that were looking to him for a bit of food. The whole time after he pulled away from me, I could see my arm stretched out to him and felt the burning need for him to reach back. Time stopped for me, but I could still feel the warm breeze of a South Texas autumn against my face. The sun was already setting and the neighborhood dogs who often barked and yelped as people came and went through the parking lot of our apartment seemed to go quiet and that’s when he said the words that have stuck with me for my entire life: “You should have died at birth.”

I watched him as he turned back around and walked toward his car, his steps angry and resentful. I watched his green dress shirt, unbuttoned, sway with the breeze, and his black dress slacks which were too tight for his legs hugged his waist a little too tightly. He opened the door to his black sedan which looked as if it has been in a minor fender bender from the damage to the front bumper. He stepped in and fell into the driver’s seat, not caring to fasten his seat belt. The engine roared to life as he turned the key and angrily put the car into reverse. After almost hitting the car next to him from reversing out, he put the car in drive and with a light screeching of the front tires, tore out of the parking lot, turned into the street, and was gone.

I stood there a moment trying to figure out what had just happened. I wasn’t sure at first what it all meant. I just remember feeling a dark and remorseful sadness take over my heart. I felt as if maybe I wasn’t supposed to be there at that moment and that maybe I should, if possible, simply disappear - turn into dust. I’d never heard him speak that way to my brothers ever in my short life. What had I done to him to make him so angry? Why would he never come to me and spend time? Why was I always ignored? Why did he feel such hatred toward me? What did I ever do to him to make him say such things to me? Why? Why? Why!

I shook my head and tried my best to push that pain back down inside me as I continued to lie there in the grass. I couldn’t let it cloud my head. I’d always had problems with invasive thoughts eating away at me, ever since I was struck by a car when I was 10. I was playing with some other children there in that same apartment complex that seriously needed to repair and repave the parking lot. During a game of tag, one of my friends ran out into the parking lot and behind a car. I never saw them turn to hide behind the rear of that vehicle. Instead, I ran straight out into the lot and the driver who hit me didn’t even realize what had happened until he heard a loud thud.

I felt pain unlike anything I’d ever felt up to that point in my life. I remember being face down on the pavement and loose gravel sticking to my hands and face. The first time I tried to turn over I found that my arm wasn’t working as it normally should. It felt wobbly and disjointed as if something had broken inside of it. The second time I tried I succeeded, using my other arm to force myself to turn over. I remember looking up and seeing the clouds in the sky and the sun far too my left, it’s light painting the clouds various sheds of purple, red, and gold. I could feel something wet coming from my forehead and dripping down to the pavement. I could hear yelling and screaming and the warmth from the still hot parking lot began to burn the backs of my arms and legs.

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