My imaginary friend is easily influenced.

  I guess it’s somewhat understandable since she is barely four weeks old, but it’s still a big problem.

  I never believed it was possible to get such preposterous ideas just from watching some television.

  Perhaps it’s my fault after all, she might be taller than me but she is still basically an overly talkative baby.

  Of course she doesn’t understand that not everything on the screen should be believed.

  It should have been on me to put some parental controls in place so that we can avoid such problems.

  Maybe it’s not too late, I’ll set it up now and make sure it blocks any content that glorifies sunlight, because there is absolutely no way I am going outside.

  “But why can’t we go outside just once?”

  I might have been a bit of a pushover until now, but there are lines we definitely shouldn’t cross and I fully intend for the threshold to be one of them.

  Besides, I’m pretty sure babies shouldn’t be taken out of the house for the first thirty years of their life , I’m just being the responsible adult here.

  “I won’t make you try on any clothes, let's just go and look at some, or we can watch that movie you wanted to see.”

  Absolutely not, this self improvement spree has gone too far.

  I already cooked for myself, wore something that wasn’t my pajamas for over twenty minutes, and I trained my vocal cords like some kind of socially awkward and slightly confused muscle builder.

  I never actually been in a gym before, but I am fairly certain that voice day is not a thing.

  I’m also quite sure that I am not a cactus, so I shouldn’t be exposed to the sun.

  “N-never.”

  “But it looks so fun on tv, I wanna try it”,

  Don’t fall for it, it’s special effects, all of it.

  The only unedited scenes from the outside are of vampires turning into ash when the sun hits them.

  That’s just a normal human reaction to sunlight and everything else is pure propaganda.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “Karaoke then, we can take a private room and it will be like you never went outside at all.”

  It will still force me to leave the house and be judged by a stranger wielding a cash register.

  They hit you with the whole thing whenever you sing a wrong note, or at least I think that’s how karaoke works.

  I don’t know, I have never been to one and don’t intend to find out.

  I don’t think there are any of those places around here anyway, foreign TV shows really messed with Ami’s common sense.

  “N-no!”

  “Maybe we can start with a little walk, you didn’t want to talk at first either and now you hardly ever write anything down.”

  There is nothing good outside, why do you think the front door is adorned with such horrible images if not to deter me from leaving?

  Those pictures of me are a constant reminder that I should be embarrassed to go outside.

  I’ll just put up some karaoke songs online and she can pretend we went outside.

  “S-sing here.”

  “Mai, you can’t keep this up. You know your mom won’t let you stay home for much longer, and pretending to be asleep so you can avoid her won’t change it either. I know it’s a difficult subject for you but if we do this now, we can take things at your pace and start small.”

  So what if she comes into my room every night and screams at me, it’s not like she ever needed a reason to do so before.

  She is just mad because it makes her look bad, everything about her is entirely preformative.

  In her eyes the fact that I failed to be normal or exceptional is an entirely unforgivable blemish on her preferred image as a perfect mom.

  She definitely works hard and she tries her best to stand up for me whenever other people are involved.

  But even if she would never admit it to anyone else, she was always certain that everything was my fault and that she was simply covering for me.

  She was never truly on my side, just loosely aligned with it when it suited her interests.

  At least Ami should be on my side, is one imaginary ally really too much to ask for?

  It’s not like I’ll ever have anyone else.

  “I’m sorry, I should have probably said it better. I…”

  Oh great, now she's at a loss for words.

  I’ll just call it a day and go to bed, so what if it isn't even noon yet?

  It’s not like staying up will do any good when I’m feeling like this.

  “Mai, I just don’t want to see you sad. You try to avoid it but the whole situation is hurting you, I’m going to be with you no matter what so just trust me and let me help you deal with it.”

  I avoid things because I can’t handle them head on, nothing will change even if I try.

  There is not a single place out there where someone like me belongs and even in this house I will no longer have a place the moment my existence stops being tolerated.

  I already know I can’t change that, I don’t want to try anymore, I have failed enough times to earn the right to give up.

  “J-just go.”

  Just go outside and leave me alone.

  “I’m not going anywhere, if you are going to stay here then I’ll just stay right here with you and when you need it, I’ll still be here to help you no matter what, I promise you that.”

  She climbs into my bed with me but I keep my back turned to her.

  My pillow is getting wet, Ami must be crying.

  Imaginary tears sure are impressive.