John flipped to the next page of his refinement manual, but it was blank. Flipping back, he simply sat and stared for a while at the strange book in his lap, uncertain what to do next.

A log popped and shifted, sending orange bits twirling into the air. Mindlessly, he added another to the fire. His stomach, tired of being ignored, growled a pitch-rising interrogatory, seeming to say, you planning to feed us any time soon, or…? John pushed the hunger from his mind. His reserves of fat had to be good for something, after all, and if it wasn’t survival, he had no idea what it could be. Floating?

Pay attention, moron.

Seconds crawled by. In the distance, a high-pitched scream split the air, conjuring forth an image of some fuzzy, innocent herbivore dying beneath a predator’s slavering jaws. Apparently unwilling to oblige him further, the book entitled Way of the Balanced Mind refused to script more words onto its page. Eventually, John decided it was time to confront the question the odd, self-writing stationary had asked him.

What do you fear?

“Well,” he said. “I guess the short answer is everything.”

Nothing happened.

“Do you need it in the form of a question?” he asked. “What is everything?”

John leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes, exhaling emphatically. What was he supposed to say here? He wasn’t literally afraid of everything, obviously, otherwise he would have been a walking panic attack, but it was pretty close to that. Close enough for government work, as his mother always said. Aside from video games and food, John couldn’t think of anything that didn’t make him anxious. Even food was stressful if he couldn’t figure out where to order take-out from. Video games too, for that matter, if the quest information was unclear and he didn’t know where to go next…

Fuck. Maybe John really was scared of everything.

A look back at his last two years would certainly support that theory. After Kaelin had dumped him, and John had stopped doing anything at all - including classes and homework - he had dropped out of State and moved into the apartment above his parents’ second garage. After that, he had spent ninety-nine percent of his waking hours in “his little hole,” as his father liked to call it, playing Nordic Runes, smoking weed and watching television. It was a more elaborate way of saying, he hid.

When he was honest with himself, he knew he had lived that way because everything outside of those walls scared the living shit out of him.

But why, though? What was it about the outside world that terrified him so much? Was it living his life he was so afraid of? Could it be that simple?

“Life,” John said to the book, throwing up an exasperated hand. “I’m afraid of living my life.”

His heart knocked once against his ribs as new words scripted themselves onto the page.

“What do you fear most, John Robbie?”

It knew his name? The weird, interactive magic book knew John’s name?

That’s the part that freaks you out? Seriously? You really are clueless.

Clearly, John was on the right track, otherwise the book would not have prompted him further. There must have been something about life that John feared above everything else, though. Clowns? John definitely hated clowns. They weren’t exactly the most ubiquitous threat in the world, though, were they? It’s not like the possibility of feral clowns was the first thing on John’s mind when he left his apartment.

That was actually a good question. What was the first thing on John’s mind when he left the apartment?

John closed his eyes and visualized his living room. Within his mind, he sat on the old, bowed-in couch that had once belonged to his grandmother, smoking a joint and playing video games among the festering piles of garbage and dirty laundry that had so effectively reminded him what a piece of shit he was. Setting the controller aside, John rose and walked to the door. He stepped carelessly through the detritus of his sad life, knocking aside cans and empty Chinese food containers. When he touched the handle, nervousness ignited in his chest. He didn’t want to go.

A familiar voice at the back of John’s mind - a voice that spoke to him often, though he was only dimly aware of it most of the time - whispered to him as he opened that door inside his mind.

You are going to fail again, John. That’s why he hates you.

John jerked his eyes open.

His chest heaved with suddenly labored breathing, as though he had just climbed a flight of stairs, and something akin to electricity buzzed up and down his spine. The pit of his stomach sunk with dread and despair. It was the uneasy sense of having touched something forbidden, like his fingertip had brushed the skin of an apple in the garden of Eden, or the gilding of a cursed treasure in an ancient Pharoah’s tomb.

What the fuck was that? And who was he?

The moment he asked himself the question, a face filled the screen of his mind’s eye. It loomed gargantuan and celestial like a deity’s avatar, the scorn of eternity etched within its clenched jaws, furrowed brow and narrowed, judgemental eyes, grinding John down into nothing. Yes. John was afraid of him.

“Gerald Robbie,” he said flatly, all doubt gone.

What do you fear of Gerald Robbie?

“I’m afraid he hates me.”

If Gerald Robbie hates you, what does that mean about you, John Robbie?

“It means…”

John hesitated, knowing the answer but unable to find the words. It was an answer he had always known. It had been with him from his earliest memories, when his father would show John how to build a lego set and then correct his mistakes in clipped, frustrated commands. Whatever inward path this book was leading him down, they were at the core. They had reached the nucleus. He could feel the pent-up energy within it, ready to detonate if broken. He just needed the right words.

If Gerald Robbie hates you, what does that mean about you, John Robbie?

Though he knew the answer on a deeply unconscious level, John had never directly considered it before. On the surface of his mind, John had always assumed his father hated him for his, well… Johnness. It was clear he hated John’s incompetence, his constant failures, his blatant awkwardness in pretty much any social situation - essentially he hated all the ways John was the opposite of his siblings. None of that quite hit the mark, though. None of it captured what lay at the core. It was less than that, but also it was much, much more.

Suspending thought, John decided to simply speak from his feelings. He no longer cared if it made sense. Whatever came out was whatever came out.

“If my father hates me, it means…"

He steeled himself with a breath.

"It means there is something wrong with me, fundamentally. It means there is something wrong with who i am.”

John's lips peeled back in a silent scream as something surged within him like a boiling geyser.

It defied description. It was fear, shame, worthlessness, joy, sadness, rage, hope and despair all mixed and shook until the reaction exploded into scalding acid that burned through his body and ate away his insides. It was the loss of a beloved dog on a joyful Christmas morning. It was the thrill of a first kiss wrapped in the agony of a broken heart. It was the warmth of a mother’s embrace amidst the cold of a father’s hate. It was everything and it was nothingness. It was panicked, hopeless exhilaration, pushing John further than he could bear beyond the bounds of reason until he was teetering on the edge of madness.

Then, like a receding hurricane, it was gone. Nine words scripted themselves into the book.

John Robbie’s Greatest Fear: Who I am is wrong.

John’s head sagged forward, and he fell asleep.