Private Unfurling the Past

A scroll? Carmin had been walking through the courtyard looking for a book he'd forgotten, when the scroll rolled into his foot. It had blown away from its original placement on the bench. He picked it up and looked at the thing, rather confused. There weren't really any others around so it must've been dropped a while ago. It certainly couldn't have just been some random litter.

He opened it up to see what was written, only to find it was blank. Odd. Still, it was good paper and would probably make for some good school notes or poetry material, so he held onto it.

After several more minutes of searching for his book, Carmin decided to call it a day. Though it wasn't totally wasted, it was a nice day, there were no people around and he had writing material. He lifted himself onto a bench, took out a pencil from his back pack and started to unravel the scroll once again. However, something was different. Before, he could've sworn it was blank, but now there was writing, a lot of writing.

It wasn't in English, but it somehow still made sense. Either way, it seemed to tell a story, and with his book missing, Carmin was looking for something to read.

Although... After some light reading, the story sounded almost familiar. Carmin started skipping through the scroll rather than reading it, somewhat weirded out by familiar looking pictures. He got to a picture that looked a lot like himself and stopped to read what was written there.

Matters only became weirder as he started to read. The story depicting a kid stealing a pot of flowers that were specifically pansies came as a red flag, but he kept reading. Or at least he would have, before he knew it he was totally out of it. He was never capable of falling asleep, but somehow he seemed to have suddenly dozed off.

When he opened his eyes again, Carmin found himself kind of disoriented. Although, after blinking for a few seconds, the area around him began to strike him as familiar. It was a street he used to walk to and from school on. Not Starlight Academy, his old school, he was in the narrow reality? It suddenly sunk in that he needed to hide, but just as the realization came to him, he heard a noise from just behind.

It was himself? 12 year old human Carmin was rustling around in a backpack, somehow not even noticing him.

Carmin hesitantly walked up to the boy, shaking a hand in front, but it seemed he couldn't notice him. It was like he was invisible. Carmin went to try touching the boy, when he froze up. He recognized the event. It was the same one from the scroll a few moments ago. Human Carmin was going through his backpack trying to find the money he was supposed to use to buy a gift for Fiona. He was going to need that later when he was going to confess his feelings to her. But he wasn't going to find it, he lost the money and now he was going to...

Plant Carmin started yelling at him, frantically trying to get his attention as he began to stare at the flower pot on the window sill of the flower shop next to them. But it wasn't any use, human Carmin couldn't see or hear him.

"Stop! You fucking idiot! You're going to screw everything up! Come on!" Carmin started trying to grab onto the boy as he advanced towards the flower pot, but nothing worked. The event played out exactly how it had before. Human Carmin lifted the pot very casually from its place and kept on moving.

Through all of this, plant Carmin was too busy trying to stop him to notice Sumi enter the memory.

Carmin fell to his knees as his human counterpart started making off with the flower pot. It certainly wouldn't be long now and the boy would get a random woozy pulse through his whole body and collapse on the ground. Carmin didn't really need a refresher on these events, as much as he'd tried to forget them, they just sort of stayed.

He was really on edge from all of this, and as soon as he noticed Sumi, he jumped to the conclusion that he was responsible for whatever messed up trick this was. "Sumi? What are you doing here? Did you do this?" He was visibly upset. He'd stopped crying now, but it was obvious that he was recently crying.

If all Sumi did was read the scroll and end up here, then Carmin guessed it probably wasn't his fault. After all, that was exactly how he'd ended up there too. However, that was concerning in another way. If it wasn't Sumi's doing, then who's was it? And more importantly how were they going to get out.

When Sumi explained that they'd likely be heading to the next part of the memory, Carmin didn't even have time to process things as the human Carmin behind them collapsed and everything faded out.

In mere seconds, the world seemed to fade back in, but in a new location. This one didn't take Carmin a whole lot of time to recognize.

There was a young slender woman, dressed all in black, peering down at another Carmin a short distance from them. The witch. Carmin just stared at them, with a seriously concerned face.

The other Carmin looked identical, the only difference was how he was dressed. black pants, a white dress shirt and a purple bow tie. He seemed to be just waking up, looking very disoriented as he squinted at the woman's face in front of him. The woman wore a cheerful smile, chuckling as she greeted the freshly plantified Carmin. "Rise and shine, Pansy."

Meanwhile, the real Carmin turned to Sumi, once again looking quite upset. "Do you have any idea how we get out of here?"

Carmin just watched as Sumi seemed to dip out before he could give a response. He walked over to where Sumi was, but was more confused than anything. How'd he do that? And was it even safe? Carmin crossed his arms uncomfortably, hoping Sumi would pop back soon and let him know what to do. In the mean time, his eyes drifted to watch the events play out.

A very confused Carmin with a bow tie seemed to be realizing the situation he was in and starting to panic as the witch laughed and explained what she'd done.

The real Carmin covered his ears. He really wished he never had to hear that lady again.

Then that memory Carmin started to freak out. Speaking confused nonsense that was hard to make out and trying and failing to stand himself up. The worst of it was the witch's enjoyment of the situation.

The real Carmin looked around where Sumi had disappeared into. If he didn't get back soon, then he was just going to start trying to get out himself. Even if it wasn't safe, it was probably better than this.