Later that day, Akeidat sat on the bed of their room, quiet. Darius was there, too, irritatingly enough, because he refused to leave, even though they weren't even doing anything, and could almost certainly handle themself on their own. Didn't the angel have better things to do, like whatever it is he was doing with the string in the shared dream?
Why was their room so boring? There weren't even nearly enough books on these shelves, and the walls were so plain. They liked the shade of blue, but wouldn't it look much better if it had patterns like ocean waves? Or perhaps pixel squares, if that was easier. Was it just too expensive?
Their gaze drifted to the computer sitting on their desk. It didn't feel right, for some reason, the idea of looking; even though they never had any problems looking through their phone. Their parents were strict about computer usage; only one hour a day. The one time they tried to protest it, they'd ended up scolded, because of course they did. They'd misbehaved and spoken out of turn. That's just what you do to misbehaving children.
They certainly felt like they were about to be caught for misbehaving now, just thinking about looking at what was inside.
Oh, let's just get it over with. It wasn't as though they could get in trouble with themself. They shuffled themself out of bed, and slunk into the seat by the study desk. They took a moment to locate the turning on button, and finally, they pressed it.
And were immediately hit with a login screen, asking for a password. The lock screen's wallpaper was that of some kind of dinosaur fossil buried in the sand, and the profile picture was a painting of a seahorse. Akeidat groaned aloud, leaning back in the chair- oh, it was actually very comfortable- with their paws over their face.
The sound apparently got Darius' attention- the angel's wings fluttered above their shoulder, "What'cha doing?"
"Nothing," was their immediate reply. They shoo'd him away, as usual, in hopes he'd leave them alone.
"Oh, come oooon," he grinned, "You can tell me, I'm curious!"
Fake. Fakest-fakity-fake smile of fake-town. They didn't know how they could tell he was being fake, but they just knew it. Nobody's ever that eager for anything. Nobody's ever that nice to them, unless they wanted something from them, or were going to betray them and make fun of them; and all the alarm bells were ringing in their head the longer he was here.
"What do you want?" they asked, directly.
Instead of an actual reply, Darius just hovered there, and tilted his head. Every minute of silence was another minute they grew more irritated, "Well?!"
"I... want to help you?" Him and every other crackpot psychologist their parents shoved them into, that tried to change something about them- their picky eating, their distaste for talking to their annoying classmates, them not being the ███ they wanted- none of them ever worked. They only made them feel like more of a freak, "Why are you still so hostile to me?"
"Do you think I asked to get paired with a glorified hummingbird?!" they snapped at him, "You can leave whenever you want! I don't need you here!"
Leave them to rot and die. Let them rot and die.
"It's my duty to look after you!" Darius sniped back, and Akeidat hated how easily tears came to their eyes the second someone raised their voice even the slightest amount. What they hated even more was how Darius was now muttering apologies like they were some precious glass vase.
"Can't you just leave me alone?!" they hissed, blinking away their tears, "I know you don't even actually care about me, so why not just get this act over and done with, already?!"
Skip to the end. Fast forward the cutscene. Just get to the part where it hurts, so they can shove it off to the side as part of the past.
"What?" Darius hovered backwards, phasing through a lamp. He briefly looked back at it, before looking at them, again, "Of course I care about you! What do you mean-"
"It's been, like, a few days!" they yelled, "You act like you care about me, but nobody cares that much in just a few days! You barely even know me!"
Silence. Say something. Anything. Confirm their suspicions. Please.
There was an inhale from Darius, and then a slow exhale.
"Look," Darius began, "I'm sorry if I've done something to make you think I don't care, but I do. Madison trusted me to keep you safe, so that's what I have to do."
"Psch," they scoffed, wheeling back to the computer, "A likely story."
"Not everyone's out to get you, you know."
Akeidat did not turn. They heard a sigh.
"What can I do to- no, wait," he paused, "If you don't trust me, that's okay. I can't force you to like anyone. But is there anything I can do to help?"
Akeidat flattened their ears, still annoyed. If he wasn't going to leave, then they'd might as well do something with him as a resource.
They pointed at the computer, "Do you know what the password is?"
Darius glided closer to the screen, examining it, "What makes you think I know?"
"Question. Ans- answer it." damn their stuttering. They were trying to go for clever and cool-sounding, but of course they had to fumble even that.
"No, I don't know the password," Darius admitted. He looked around, "Got any ideas?"
They shook their head. Darius clicked his teeth, "Right. Okay- maybe there's another way we can unlock it? I mean, this is the future, right?"
"Mmm..." an idea came to mind, "My mother's work computer lets her log in with her thumbprint."
"Does this thing have a scanner?" he flitted around. Then his ears perked up, and he pointed a finger at a button- the only one on the keyboard without a label, "Try this."
Glancing at him, uncertainly, Akeidat pressed their finger on the button. As promised, it unlocked. Akeidat breathed out a sigh of relief, and then set themself to curiously peering at the screen.
The wallpaper was- well, it looked like a pixel-art room with a bookshelf. On each of the shelves, were icons- all of which actually looked like books. How on Earth had their older self done that? It looked amazing. A flutter of pride and excitement filled them; they really wanted to learn how to do that with the computer back home.
"Oh-hoh-hoh, man, that takes me back," Darius observed, laughing lightly, "Everyone and their mom had desktops looking like this, back in the day. It was all the rage."
It wasn't hard to guess what was in each 'book', underneath the icons, they were labelled. At least that, like many other things, hadn't changed over twenty years.
Now that they were in... Akeidat had absolutely no idea what they were looking for. What if they broke something, looking for clues?
Two folders caught their eye; one labelled 'arcade', and the other, labelled 'my games'. They clicked the latter. Inside, were more icons- blank, instead of customised. The only exception was an app with some fancy foreign-looking name they couldn't even hope to pronounce correctly. They clicked on it, was instantly met with a splattering of graphs and diagrams and lists and dates and numbers and confusing terms they only vaguely understood- and immediately clicked out.
Alright. No idea what that was. They clicked on one of the blank icons, and another app opened; their browser, presumably, and then they were greeted with a bunch of featureless shapes and lines. When they moved their mouse, a square in the middle rotated to follow it.
This was a game. A heavily work-in-progress game, by the looks of it, but a game nonetheless. Akeidat let out a string of laughter, relief finally coating their earlier panic like a balm. This had to be what their older self was doing. They could never truly wrap their head around monetising their projects in the present, but surely, an adult Akeidat would've figured it out by now, wouldn't they?
Now onto the controls. WASD. It didn't look like there was really anything to do, other than move their character. They tried every other button on the keyboard and smooshed the little player on every object they found, but nothing happened. They leaned back in the chair, stroking the furs on their chin.
They clicked out. Then tried another game, and another, and another. There were about thirty-ish in total- some duplicates of each other with only minor differences, some more complete or bare than the others, some only lines of text in a notepad document- code, they guessed, from all the brackets and columns and numbers. Akeidat didn't understand any of it- they'd never made games with raw text code, before- they always used whatever free block-coding app they could get their paws on. Tools that simplified the process in ways they could more easily understand- if Sprite10 collides with Sprite3, perform this action.
"Ooh, future you's a game-maker, huh?" Darius cheered. Akeidat rolled their eyes, pointedly. Here they go. If it wasn't deemed a waste of precious studying time like their mother did, then it was an opportunity for a lecture on brushing up their skills as soon as possible, enter a contest, get all those eyes, EYES, EYES on you, hone your talents, like their father did.
So many expectations. They just wanted it all to leave them alone.
"Love looking at behind-the-scenes stuff like this," Darius said instead, "Fascinating what's under the hood, making things work, isn't it?"
"Mm..." they hummed, scrolling through the code pointlessly, "I don't know what it means."
"Maybe you will, one day," Darius mused, "If you want to, I mean. None of this is pre-destined."
"I do want to," they affirmed. This was their entire thing. This was what their whole life had been leading up to; game design. They had it all planned out since they were nine- be the best student in school so they could get into a good Secondary School, and then be the best student there so they could get into a good college and study game design. It was the only possible career choice they could see themself enjoying; and it had worked, hadn't it? The future them was living in a quiet flat with a roommate they could tolerate, and they were free to create whatever games they pleased.
Why did it all look so bland?
Even the most finished games looked flat, and far too... empty. They didn't know how else to describe it- but when they daydreamed about the games they'd one day make when they had more skill, they imagined fantasies filled with swordfighting, pirates, oceans, adventure, and- well, whatever they imagined, it certainly wasn't whatever strange overly-geometric nightmare this was.
"Oh, that looks fun!" said Darius, as he watched Akeidat control a green ball over a featureless yellow platform while music that sounded like it came straight from an advertisement they wanted to skip played in the background.
"It looks boring," Akeidat commented, dully, "Where's all the art? The story? All the things that make games cool?"
Their art wasn't exactly... the best, they knew; honestly, most of their sprite-work still involved a copious use of the circle and rectangle tool- and scribbling they knew didn't really look great; but surely an older Akeidat would've improved over time, wouldn't they?
"This isn't a game," they scoffed, "This is just things happening with a points counter."
"Oi, maybe it's not finished," Darius chided, "Or maybe this is the other you's way of doing things, now. Don't knock on someone's art if it's not up to your taste."
"I wouldn't!" Akeidat objected, gesturing towards the screen, "But this isn't my taste! In no universe would this ever be my taste!"
They weren't a fan of how the art looked, but that wasn't really the problem. They weren't going to make fun of how someone drew, even if it looked bad- they certainly didn't like it when people made fun of their drawings. The problem was that it didn't feel like something they'd make. They couldn't see even the slightest glimmer of Akeidat Hart in any of their supposed older self's work. No puns hidden somewhere in the text, no silly little easter eggs- not even a littlest bit of story written beyond basic information.
It wasn't like they thought it was made by someone else. It was all just... hollow.
They let their computer screen darken into black, meeting with a blackened reflection. Seeing their older self's face, they wondered endlessly about who that person was. Why would they do something like this?
"Why would the other me do this?" Akeidat repeated aloud.
"I dunno, marketing, probably?" replied Darius, "Maybe that's just what's popular in the future- or, makes the most bucks."
They knew how popularity worked, thank you very much. But they wanted to achieve it as themself; because whatever they'd made was fun. Not... this. With a groan, Akeidat slumped forwards into their arms. Then they felt a sting of pain shoot up their back, and they shot up with a wince, rubbing the area sorely.
"Ouch??" they exclaimed.
"Yeah, sorry, bud, slouching a lot can do that," Darius grimaced. No kidding. The angel zipped through the walls out of their room, and as Akeidat leaned back into their chair, he returned less than a minute later.
"I couldn't find any pain meds, but I'm not exactly able to open cabinets with my paws, either," Darius rambled, "Maybe if you-"
"I'll be fine," Akeidat grumbled as the angel fussed, "I can handle everything myself."
"I know you can. I don't doubt that," Darius continued, "But you don't have to. It's okay to accept help, y'know?"
Neither said anything for a moment. Then Akeidat sighed. With a press of a button, they switched off the computer, and lay back on the bed with a weary poof.
Inhale. Exhale.
"...I apologise for being angry," Akeidat mumbled, a paw hanging off the side of the bed, "Everything has just been..."
They let the word slip off, the quiet dragging on.
"I get it," Darius replied, softly. The angel was now back to normal person-sized height, lounging in the chair Akeidat had just left, "I think anyone wouldn't be feeling a hundred percent in your situation."
"This is supposed to be my chance to prove I'm ready," Akeidat sniffed, raising their arm over their eyes, "But all I've done is be a big crybaby."
"Well, that's fine, too!" Darius exclaimed, "Who says you have to be ready for anything?"
"Everyone," they responded, dryly. They raised their other paw, counting it off, "My parents, my teachers, my classmates. If I'm not ready, everyone's going to leave me behind."
Silence. A much longer one, this time. Akeidat rolled over in their bed, defeated.
"Don't apologise for feeling emotions," Darius suddenly said. They didn't turn around, but they raised an ear, to let him know they were listening.
"Huh?"
"Earlier, when you said sorry for being angry, or a crybaby," Darius elaborated, "You're not a robot. You're allowed to feel things. You should feel things."
"But I yelled at you," they said, their voice small.
"You did," he agreed, "That's an action. Not an emotion."
"I guess I'm sorry for shouting at you, then," they murmured, rolling back to face him.
Darius was smiling. That was good, right? "I'm sorry, too. Guess I should've known you weren't in the mood for me always talking to you, hah-hah. Should've given you more time to process."
"Well, I guess you're not telepathic," Akeidat chuckled, mirthlessly. Then they frowned, "You're not telepathic, are you?"
The angel shrugged, "Not as far as I know of."
"Hmph," Akeidat grinned.
And maybe they would be okay.