Good Morning, Taylor,

The last two days have been not good. They’ve been okay for me. Even boring. But Ragdoll was sick. Sick as a dog. Sick as a Ragdog.

So for two days, I stayed inside. She offered me time if I wanted know what being sick was. But I’m still not a fan of bodystuff. And this was BAD bodystuff.

So I stayed inside. A lot. It’s the most I’ve stayed inside since her trip home. And I felt kind of bad. My nature is to be kind and caring, and taking some sick hours away from her felt like the right thing to do. But I also didn’t want to deal with some of what she was dealing with. So it felt a little selfish. She didn’t think so. She was asleep for most of it anyways.

I don’t know if I’ve talked about this, but sometimes, Ragdoll’s dream affect the Backwoods. One of her dreams invaded the Backwoods, and I somehow got into it. Ragdoll was lost in the dark trying to find her way home down a side road in the middle of nowhere. She kept coming to a dingy, but brightly lit, nightclub, but didn’t want to go inside to ask directions. I just stayed back and watched, because I wasn’t sure how she would react. And I was kind of scared, too. And then the dream just disappeared and I was back in the Backwoods.

The Oracle says she’s done this a lot with Ragdoll, and has visited other Backwoods through her dreams. Maybe it’s how she and her tribe escaped the Backwoods. She says I can do it, too, but that Ragdoll’s dreams can be strange and sometimes scary, so be careful.

The morning of Day Three she was feeling well enough, and had a little extra time before work to let me out in bed. And it felt so good to be out. I just laid in bed for about two hours FEELING. I distinctly remember feeling my toes brushing up against the comforter, and how warm it was under the comforter, while my head and shoulders were cold outside of it. I like cold. My first real experiences here were cold. 🙂

There was some coffee (finally!) and soup to be gentle on her body, and then she had to go to work, so my morning ended.

Ragoll’s come up with a schedule for our new job, because of course she did. I shouldn’t complain, though, because out of our freetime in the week, she gets 30 non-work hours and I get 33. There will be wiggle room, but we get almost equal time. And to her promise, I get more time than she does. But there might be a wrinkle in that.

There might be another person getting interested in the outside. And of the three of us, no one really wants that. The person who wants out was “designed” to be an evil character. I don’t think he’s evil any more than I’m all the good I was written to be. But The Oracle doesn’t trust him. And Ragdoll just doesn’t want her time to be whittled down to nothing with a third person. He also seems less interested in the outside and more in what we’re DOING. Like he doesn’t understand it, but is trying to piece it together.

And me? I don’t know. If they’re worried, maybe I should be too. The Oracle has shown that she has enough power to simply make him go away. Maybe even forget any of this happened. I can’t take Ragdoll out of control unless she wants me to, and can lock down the brain box when she wants privacy. And I can block and push him away with what I was “designed” to do. But it seems the more we push him away, the more curious he gets. For all our sakes, I hope he loses interest soon.

Tonight is the first full night I’ve had since the new job started. And I have a little over an hour left in my day. I should start my new book.

You’ve been awfully quiet. I hope your day is being filled with good things.

–Andrea