PRIDE & JOY

you fling your eyes open. gaia stares at you as you bamboozledly glance around the room.

gaia flicks a lighter twice, realises it's empty, and tosses it aside carelessly.


GAIA: there. no more journal.

(next)

GAIA:
i'm so disappointed in you. if you had a full name, i'd use it on you right now.

(next) you stare at gaia. you notice you are trembling a little.


YOU:
what was that..

(next)


GAIA:
that? that was you invading someone's personal space.

(next)

YOU:
but the— the dreams—

(next)


GAIA:
they're just some silly old subconscious nonsense.
they probably don't even have any meaning to them.

(next)

YOU:
...


YOU:
you're hiding something from me.

(next)

GAIA:
i'm not. stop saying that.

(next)

GAIA:
...

(next)

GAIA:
an old friend gave me this journal, and i have no idea where the writer of it, 'alasa', is right now. i'm not going to loan it out so freely to pests like you.

(next)

GAIA:
that's all there is to it.

(next)

GAIA:
nonsense. i bet you just have one heck of an imagination.

(next)

GAIA:
you looked kinda spaced out reading the journal. it was hilarious.

(next)

YOU:
no. that doesn't explain anything.

(next)

GAIA:
there's nothing to explain, my friend.

(next)

GAIA:
the owner of this journal. i don't know who this chump is.

(next)

YOU:
no, you do. i can sense it.

(next)

GAIA:
at this rate, i'm kicking you out of the museum.

(next)

GAIA:
so you can't read the silly journal anymore.

(next)

YOU:
why didn't you want me reading the journal?

(next)

YOU:
(also, did you really have to burn it?)

(next)

GAIA:
the owner probably wouldn't like it if you did.

(next)

GAIA:
at all.

(next)