"FIGMENTS OF IMAGINATION?" exclaimed Darren and Daniel. "You mean our life as we know it is just a dream?"
"Sort of," replied the voice. "Your life is just controlled specimens...replayed footage...rip-offed music...all those around you are just actors...actors in the mind..."
"Hang on a sec," interrupted Daniel. "I can't understand a thing you're saying!"
"Neither can I," continued Darren. "Please elaborate!" The voice obliged, telling them their life story...
"You were born as brothers. Your parents died soon after Darkiel was born, leaving me with an opportunity to shape your life my way. I gave you both separate families and separate life-styles, fashioned in my mind. From my mind I also created the characters you will meet on your journey - your teachers, friends, even your first loves. I then decided to get you back together, and as I made Darkiel a musician, I decided that the best way to get you two together was in the form of a band audition."
"Wait a minute," said Daniel. "Why are you calling me Darkiel...and why did you make me call Darren 'Draken'?"
"Draken and Darkiel were your original names - I thought that for your new life, Draken and Darkiel would sound too weird, so I changed it to Darren and Daniel." said the voice. "Anyway, I knew Darkiel would never take Draken in using his own brain, so I took control and had Darkiel select Draken."
"You mean Daniel...erm, I mean Darkiel never actually wanted me?" asked Darren, looking at Daniel with slight fume in his eyes.
"The way you were singing, no-one would want you!" said the voice. "Well, I had the both of you together...now it was time to make music. I'm the one who created the music in your head - and you went and took all the credit for it!"
"Well, sorry, but we didn't know," said Daniel. "But if you could control all the characters in our lives, how come 150 demos were rejected? Surely you would have made our demo immediately acceptable!"
"I made all those rejections so that it'll leave a learning impression on your normal brain," replied the voice. "But soon I got fed up of rejecting and decided to have someone accept you..." Just then one of the tanks' covers fell off, revealing a severed head. "Draken and Darkiel, meet John Woodruff, your first fan!" Both Darren and Daniel were disgusted - it was, after all, a severed head.
"What happened to his body?" asked Darren.
"He never had a body - neither did anyone else," answered the voice. "I just took their heads and placed it over me - boom! I was them!" Daniel then noticed something amiss.
"You just said all the people connected with us were figments of your brain, and that you could be anyone just by wearing their heads," said Daniel. "What if there's more than 1?"
"I'm magical - I can duplicate myself into thousands of people, each with their own separate personality," replied the voice. "I can always kill someone off and make them mine if I wanted to!"
"What about US?" asked Darren. "Are we YOU but with our heads?"
"No, you still had your brains, only I could control it," replied the voice. "You guys were born normally, so you already had your heads with you - these heads were made by me and my brain!" Soon all the covers fell off the tanks, revealing various heads, like those of the guys' families, fans and back-up band. Darren almost wanted to puke.
"God, I feel like I'm in the Truman Show," said Daniel. "Only this is the Savage Garden Show!"
"This is much more different than Truman," said the voice. "Normal people were watching Truman's world, where everyone else except him were actors. In your world even the people watching are actors!"
"You mean we're the only non-acting people surviving on the face of this Earth?" asked Darren.
"You and all the people who've never heard of you," replied the voice. "Your fans were just a multitude of heads in my collection." Darren then remembered something.
"Are the 'swapped souls' incidents and many others just stories, or have they really happened?" asked Darren. He remembered that he and Daniel were reading a lot of fanfics on the Net, and the stories seemed to have happened to them.
"They happened for real - you just don't remember them," replied the voice. "You see, I didn't want you to wise up so soon. I had all these experiences documented as fanfics written by many people. Do you remember Tiara?"
"Yep - we met her once, at Jardin Sauvage," replied Daniel. "We also read her fanfics - why?"
"She's actually my alter-ego," replied the voice. "You would notice that most of the fanfics available are written by her - well, that's because it's me documenting your adventures. I used her coz her name sounded interesting. You'll notice that most of what you've been through will appear as a fanfic on her site - which is actually my site."
"Then why are there loads of other fanfics written by other people?" asked Daniel. "Are they true stories?"
"Everything you read about yourselves is true," replied the voice. "I didn't want to use Tiara all the time coz that'll sound suspicious. In fact, Tiara wasn't the first name I used. Kirri was one of the first."
"Wait a minute - Kirri's story is about me and Daniel breaking up," said Darren. "Did that really happen?"
"It did - but at a rate so fast you never noticed," said the voice. "All those 'adventures' you read in those gay fanfics? They happened too..." Now both Darren and Daniel wanted to puke.
"Any more things to tell us?" asked the both of them.
"Loads more - just wait and see..." said the voice. The room went black again, but this time Darren and Daniel decided to just sit down and wait.
