Eve and the Illusionist
A dark fantasy short story exploring control, truth, and the price of comfort.
(AI Artwork)
“This… wait… this is all an illusion!” Eve whispered. Sudden realisation made her gasp. She stared at the man in front of her. “You... you are an illusionist, aren’t you? You’re a fucking weaver!”
“No, I am not!” The Illusionist looked Eve straight in the eye, and she believed him. Or so it appeared, but things kept turning over and over in her mind. Inconsistencies in her life that, truth be told, she had noticed before. There were the little shadows that flickered in her peripheral vision. There were the frayed edges on some of the things she looked at. But each time she had spotted something that might alert her, she turned her mind and eyes away from it, subconsciously avoiding the truth that stared her in the face.
“You are! I knew it! You are an illusionist! I have heard of them. People talk about them. But I never expected to meet one, let alone be trapped in his orchestration!”
“I am not a weaver. You are misinterpreting.” He smiled reassuringly at her, and Eve felt herself start to believe again.
Glancing around her world, Eve saw the kind, loving and generous man who supported her wholly, the beautiful house, her freedom to live in happiness. Her world really was perfect, wasn’t it? Not a hundred percent perfect, of course, which perhaps was why she had thought it was real. She smiled for a moment, enjoying her world, until a shadow twitched. Her mind flickered and she rebelled against the construct.
“Oooh, you nearly had me there! You fucking-well are controlling my environment! You built this world on a lie! You let me be comfortable and whole, and allowed me space to relax and be vulnerable, to give and receive love, to be happy. But it is all a lie! You have constructed my entire existence, and I’ve been living in it, blissfully ignorant of the magic you used to weave it around me!”
“Your perception is wrong…”
“Don’t fucking give me that shit! I am trapped in your illusion! No…” Eve’s mind raced, horror-struck. “Wait, I was never trapped, was I? I stepped into your story with eyes wide open. I wanted it! I wanted this life so badly that I ignored all of the signs!”
“You live, laugh and love here. How is it not real? Forget about what might be happening outside. It doesn’t affect you. You can’t see it. It is separate from your world, so why persist in trying to focus on it? Why let it infect your well-being like this?”
“Because it is not. Fucking. Real!”
“How can it not be? This here, this is what you have.” He gestured around, moving his arm in a sweeping arc. “Look at it all! The ideal family, home, life. Why destroy all of this for some vague shadows of a reality that is outside of your existence?”
“Are you fucking crazy! It is not real! How many times do I have to say it!”
“Look at everything I have done for you, everything I have given to you. Doesn’t that count for anything? I have built all of this, for you! I am here, for you! I make your life happy. I give you everything you want and even things you never knew you wanted. Doesn’t that count for anything at all?”
“What is the matter with you? You think I can be happy now that I know all of this is just a construct? A lie? No fucking way!”
The Weaver’s face changed as his mask fell away, his temper flashing at Eve’s ingratitude and refusal to acknowledge everything he had done for her. Rage flashed across the weaver’s face, twisting it into something mean and ugly. His eyes darted about for a minute as he thought. She could almost see him thinking at the speed of light. She stepped back for a moment, falling silent, seeing his true colours painted all over his twisted face.
“Fine!” he hissed at her abruptly, his eyes dark with fury as they turned back to her. “Yes! It is an illusion! So what? You are still here! What now? Leave? Go on then! Throw it all away! That is your choice!” The weaver’s voice raised. “Go! Do what you like! I am sick of your accusations!”
Eve stepped back in horror. She turned and ran, racing to another room, and collapsed. Curling up on the floor, she wailed a loud keening cry as pain rent her from the insides out. The irony of it was not lost on her, that even this room she had run to was within his construct. She had lived in the weaver’s world for so long, she barely knew what life was like outside of it anymore. Where could she go? What could she do? How could she even get out of the world he had built around her?
Days passed, weeks, months. Eve mentally searched for a way out, railing at her life, sometimes out loud and sometimes within her frantic mind. She withdrew into herself, closing herself off from her friends, family, partner, everyone. She had no energy to spare for anyone else, her every thought scrabbling to find a way to escape!
“I can’t leave, even if I wanted to!” she yelled at the illusionist on one frustrated day. “I am trapped here!” Her voice rose to a desperate scream, and she sobbed.
“Who is the liar? You lie too. To me and to yourself. You could leave at any time, if you really wanted to,” he said, his cold hard eyes boring into her. And she knew, she knew the truth in that moment.
This was on her. At every turn, every hint of truth, she had turned away from the knowledge of it. Even now, whilst she was as internally shattered as her illusive world had become, she did not break free.
Eve gave a sad smile to herself and then turned a sunnier one to the weaver.
“You are right,” she said. “I don’t belong out there anymore.”
She ignored the sound as something cracked.
The weaver sighed, and pulled her into his embrace, weaving his magic around her again, rebuilding his construct.
Eve settled into his embrace and forcibly ignored the weight in her heart, turning to live once again in the world the illusion weaver had created, whilst in a deep, dark place in her mind, her spirit screamed.
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