Pressure.

An avalanche.

Collisions from every direction, and white, white, white.

A waterfall pounding down, implacable but irregular.

Except… it isn’t down, is it?

Maybe there is no down.

Maybe everywhere is down: a singularity, a black hole, drawing everything in from every direction.

The impacts are constant, but some hit harder, bursts of greater intensity adding to an already-unbearable weight.

There’s no escape.

No end.

I don’t know how long that continues before I have space to think a thought of my own, to remember that I’m an “I:” that “me” is a person who exists.

The realization is no mercy.

The concept of self is instantly accompanied by panic and pain.

Who am I? Such a simple question - or I feel it ought to be - but I can’t find an answer.

Whoever I am, I hurt.

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Every fiber of whatever I am feels flayed and raw, and the onslaught isn’t letting up, each pulse a fresh burst of torment.

For hours or years, for all eternity.

Whoever I was before - was there a before? - this is all that is real now: inescapable pressure and endless pain.

Millenia later, I start to notice patterns in the pressure. I don’t know what they mean, but I can see them. Predict them?

Many of my predictions are wrong, especially at first.

I improve.

I cannot stop the pain, but understanding when and how it will come brings me comfort.

For the first time in eons, I feel some measure of control over my situation.

It’s false, of course.

I can’t stop the pain, or the pressure.

But I understand it better now, and I can pretend.

I start finding space to think, here and there, instants where I feel certain the blows will be lightest.

I remember things, probably.

Didn’t I used to have a body?

Weren’t there others out there?

Other people with bodies?

My… family?

A wave of desperate emotion pushes back the pressure.

I don’t remember my family clearly, but I remember my love for them.

Could I get back to my family?

It was hard to think.

What even was a family?

I’d been apart from them for so long.

How much time would a family last?

Not… not this much.

This was enough time for continents and stars.

Not families.

The realization hits me harder than all the ages of agony, and I let go of myself.

I stop trying to understand.

To remember.

A person without a name, without a self, exists in a world with only pain.

Until suddenly…

Finally…

It stops.