• Carl Jung, a famous psychologist, believed that mankind is bound together in an unconscious world, which he logically named the "collective unconscious". This unreal space, according to his theory, is the plane upon which all human minds are bonded; by exploring the collective unconscious, it is possible to gain knowledge from the minds of others, regardless of the real distance between them, by experiencing them in that unconscious space. Personally, I believe that Jung's beliefs were not that far from the truth. The plane mentioned in his theories has appeared to me as an impossibly complex labyrinth of endless blank corridors; I have spent hours at a time (or so it has seemed, for it exists outside the limits of normal space and time) wandering these hallways, opening each of the thousands of doors that line their walls and exploring the "Blank Rooms" inside. Every door is marked with someone's name, and each Room I have seen has differed from the one before it; some have been larger than others, some have sported rich decorations where others have been left bare, and some have been crowded with masses of people while others have seemed utterly devoid of life. No matter how many times I have tried to stay in one spot, I have always found myself in the Room bearing my own name whenever I have drifted off into this beautiful, desolate place; it is for this reason that I am sure this world, this "Nexus", must be the collective unconscious Jung spoke of.

    What Jung didn't explain in his conjecture was the Nexus' tendency to change, as if it is alive and evolving. I have found, over the course of many visits to the Nexus, that my Room is never adjacent to the same neighbor Rooms; the names I find printed on the doors nearest to my own always show different names. The Rooms themselves also change, just as rapidly as the Nexus on which they are built; on the rare occasion that I find a Room I have visited before, I almost always find it altered in some way. Even my own Room has undergone some transformation; upon every new visit, I find that my own blank space has expanded somewhat. At first glance, I believed that my own Room would expand as I explored more of the Nexus, but when it continued to grow in size without further adventuring into the empty hallways, I understood that it was not my experience that shaped the Room but my own imagination. With that in mind, I realized that the Rooms in the Nexus are not gateways to other human minds; they are the representations of the mind of their owners, much like a person's clothes reflect some part of their personality. Understanding the true nature of the Nexus helped me to make a very important discovery: that the way my Room is constructed is limited only by my own imagination, as if it were softened clay in a sculpter's hands.

    The ability to change my Room at will did not come easily, but with time and practice, I found that I was capable of changing the size of the space, the paint on the walls, the lights on the ceiling, and even the decor with which I eventually filled my personal void. With the power to change my own Room came the potential to have a real effect in others, but as quickly as the idea came to me, I dispelled it; changing another Room meant modifying another real person's mentality, and that could have resulted in devastating damage in the physical world. Knowing better than to test the boundaries of the mental plane, I began spending a great deal of my time in the Nexus cooped up in my Room, constantly shifting the walls and moving or removing furniture. I even found it possible to change my own image; I found it extremely entertaining for a short time to transform myself into various creatures, my morphing limited only by the thoughts that constantly flowed through my head. No matter how many times I redecorated or shape-shifted, though, I would not be happy with the result, as another idea would soon strike my fancy and force me to change everything again. After much frustration, I returned to my normal human form; being inhuman was fun, but it took great pains to continuously rearrange the bones and muscles in my body to support my altered shapes. I also stripped the Room of decoration and left the walls white; if I ever felt the urge to accomodate for a guest, I could always change the scenery at that point.

    The thought of having a guest in my Room made me realize that I was desperately lonely in the Nexus; I had all the time in the world (in theory, anyway), but I had no one with whom to share it. Soon I found myself craving for companionship, pining for human contact with vigor I never thought myself capable of. Not knowing how to locate my friends and allies on the Nexus, outside of pure chance, I reasoned that the best alternative would be to create myself a new consciousness, one that would take human shape, and I would form it from my very thoughts with the help of the Nexus' limitless powers. Of course, this was a daunting task, and at first, progress was slow; after all, I could not simply summon another human being within my mind out of nothing but air. I wondered about some of the characters I had created for the sake of writing, but it did not take long for me to push those thoughts aside; thinking about it, I realized that those characters and I might not get along too well, and I knew that I wanted to make my artificial life form into someone I would not simply grow bored with and cast aside. Then, an idea struck me as I pondered over the creation of Adam and Eve, the first human beings made by God in the Christian Bible; I got the idea when I remembered how one of Adam's bones was buried in the ground, and Eve subsequently grew from it. That gave me a crazy idea: what if I could create an Eve of my own by using some part of my own body to mold her into existence?

    So, in a desperate attempt to remedy my longing for human contact, I began experimenting to re-create the birth of Eve. In order to make her properly, I had to be sure she was constructed in the image of a woman; after all, what I desired was a human companion, not just a pet or familiar. Additionally, I wanted her to be able to act on her own; though I once thought of her being like a "golem", a mere mockery of a human without emotion or cognitive thought, I wanted her to be as human as I was, able to think and feel of her own volition. Finally, as I endeavored to create her real image, some perverse desire from the dark recesses of my mind coerced me into crafting her after the goddess Aphrodite: a lady of supreme beauty, one who could satisfy my animal desires on levels I might never visit in real life. Once I had finally set my creation's image in stone and cleared the Room of unnecessary furnishings, I began my procedure by offering up a part of my own body. The creation of my companion would require a plentiful sample of skin, muscle, and blood; thankfully, the time I spent experimenting with altering my body gave me the ability to make such a sacrifice without too much pain or hassle. Though it cost me several days, I was able to use my shape-shifting abilities to remove suitable samples of blood, muscle, and skin from my body without causing myself excessive harm. Laying those ingredients on the floor, I put the vivid image of my companion into my mind and summoned upon my discarded flesh and blood the powers of the Nexus. A blinding white light shot forward from the center of the room, forcing me to shield my eyes, as the tissue and humour I had laid on the ground began to contort and reshape itself, as if it had a mind of its own, into a completely new form. After a minute or so, the artificial flare subsided, and I lowered the hand that had guarded my eyes. Standing where my sacrifice had been made was my goddess, my "Eve", a glorious testament to the power of the Nexus. She opened her shining emerald-green eyes, tossed her long black hair lightly, and shifted the weight of her slender-yet-bountiful figure, looking around as she took in her surroundings. I walked forward from the wall, in utter awe of what I had created, raised my arms, and gently felt the smooth, pale skin of her shoulders with the lightest touch, as if I needed to make sure she was real.

    "Ophelia," I said, breathlessly, as her eyes met my own. "You shall be called...'Ophelia'...my goddess."