Living Likeness

Living Likeness–Freewrite January 24, 2023

Have you ever been between two mirrors facing each other? Looking at your reflection, It repeats endlessly.

Not so in my world. Reflections are in your likeness. And anything image of you, whether it be your shadow, a doll, a carving, or your reflection, is alive. We call them Figments. Most people have only one shadow. It often follows them but not always. Reflections however are a different matter altogether. They generally consigned to whatever frame or material they were born in. And then, only one reflection of yourself exists in that entity. So if you were to look down into the lake from your rowboat, you would see your reflection. It would be the only one of your reflections that can exist in that lake, And it would be unable to leave the lake, but could travel freely within it.

Figments: any living likeness of a person. A Figment is not a person, and thus no likeness of a Figment can exist. This means a photo of someone next to a mirror will only show the person, not their shadow or their reflection (the person in the image, of course, would be a Figment as it is in the likeness of a person. A living human being cannot be a Figment.

Reference: This is what we call the person that a Figment is the likeness of. Only human people can be References. Plants, Animals, Objects, and Figments cannot be References and their likeness does produce Figments. It is impossible to create the likeness of a Figment.

Shadow: No matter how many light sources spray upon you, you only ever have one shadow. It continues to exist even in darkness. They usually follow their Reference, but are not compelled to do so. They grow in age with their Reference, but they stop aging when their Reference dies. Unlike Reflections, Shadows are not restrained to a frame or material. They can wander the world as they please, to any distance away from their Reference with no negative repercussions. And some choose to do so. However, they cannot fly, they must walk along a visible surface and fall through invisible ones. They appear to be restrained by gravity.

Derange: A verb. To derange. Since corpses are in the likeness of their former selves, a person becomes their own Figment when they die. Thus they do not appear to die, but rather to go insane, taking on the properties of a Figment. But unlike any other Figment, they have the memories of their Reference. To Derange is to kill, as applies to humans.

Reflection: Reflections are generally consigned to whatever frame or material they were born in. And then, only one reflection of yourself exists in that entity. So if you were to look down into the lake from your rowboat, you would see your reflection. It would be the only one of your reflections that can exist in that lake, And it would be unable to leave the lake, but could travel freely within it. But you could have another reflection in a mirror, which likewise cannot leave the mirror and is the only reflection of yours that is in the mirror. They age with their Reference, but stop aging once their Reference dies. These appear to be restrained by gravity,

2-D depictions: Drawings, carvings, paintings, tracings, or any other number of two-dimensional likenesses of a person are Figments. Unlike Reflections, any number of these Figments can exist in the same frame or material. So while a mirror would only reflect one Figment per Reference, you could draw as many Figments of a single person as you wanted on that mirror. 2-D depictions, however, are still bound to the frame or material they are formed in. So a picture cannot leave its page. A carved image cannot leave the mirror it was drawn on. Unlike Shadows and Reflections, these do not appear to be restrained by gravity.

3-D depictions: Sculptures, Dolls, Statues, Corpses or any other physical and 3-dimensional material representation of a person are Figments. They are not limited to a frame or material. They are animate, able to move their own forms as though they had the requisite muscles and structure to do so. They are not tied to a frame or material as Reflections and 2-D depictions are. They are restricted only by their form. Thus, a large Figment statue might have a hard time fitting into tight spaces and a tiny doll might have difficulty reaching high places. They also appear to abide by gravity and most all other physics that apply to the natural world.

Are there any other forms of likeness that I have not considered?