Darkness enveloped me completely. The circumstances that had led me here were like mist in my recollection, utterly impossible to grasp and comprehend. I felt slightly lightheaded as I stumbled forward, further into the impenetrable abyss I found myself within. My senses were subdued and I scarcely felt the ground I was stepping on, despite my impression that I was walking barefooted.

The further I ventured, the more the veil on me seemed to shift and become less overbearing. The shading wool over my eyes began to lift ever-so-slightly with every step, but, even as sight was returned to me, it did little to make my surroundings comprehensible.

But then, from one moment to the next, the ground below my feet became ‘visible’, though it mostly just looked like a dark-grey carpet of tangled-up shadows. I knelt to touch it with my fingers, but the fabric of the ground was like tendrils of fog that slipped between my fingers.

A sound, or, rather, a voice, then hailed me from all around.

“Welcome.”

I looked up, finding suddenly that a mirror stood before me, its frame made of the same incomprehensible shadow-woven fabric. Its surface was like unpolished silver or smoked glass.

“Hello?” I called to the voice. “Where am I?”

The voice erupted from within the mirror in response.

“Choose who you were meant to be,” it said.

I looked deeply into the smokey mirror and, in the same moment, it instantly cleared and my perfect replica stared back at me. I instinctively touched my fingers to the surface, and our hands met. Then an out-of-body experience pulled my perspective back and away so that I found myself looking down on my own body.

Choose, the voice had told me. I repeated this to myself and wondered its meaning, but it seemed quite obvious.

I imagined leaning further in to get a better look, and my vision zoomed right up close to the face… my face… I thought how I had always hated those dark-purple half-moons below my tired eyes and bordering my nose, and, in a moment, they vanished, replaced with the same complexion as the rest of my face.

For one terrifying instance, I imagined myself with a beard, and a Fu Manchu manifested on my upper lip and fell down below my chin, stopping only above my torso.

I blinked the image away and wondered what else I could do to this worn-out and depressed-looking body of mine.

After a bit of sculpting, I had the visage of an Asian supermodel, similar to Ishihara Satomi, whom I’d often seen in magazines before coming here, wherever here was… But then I thought about it. Was this really who I was? Who I wanted to be.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“Revert everything,” I told the mirror, and it obliged and remade me as who I was before I came here.

“Okay… maybe just age me back a few years. You know, to my prime.”

Again the mirror obliged, and now I looked like my mid-twenty-year-old self.

“Perfect. I think I’m done.”

“This choice can only be changed once more before becoming permanent.”

“No, that’s okay, I’ll stick with this.”

“Please choose your name.”

Again my first instinct was to change my boring name to something exciting or maybe exotic, like my favourite character in Shin Megami Tensei IV: Yuriko. Or maybe her true demon name: Lilith. But then I thought about it some more.

“My name is Aomori Aiko.”

“Is that your final choice? Similar to your appearance, this can only be changed once more before becoming permanent.”

“Actually, just call me Aiko.”

Instead of replying, the image faded away and my perspective was returned to the eyes of my own body, where it belonged... I looked at the mirror-image that was now a younger version of myself, but was otherwise faithful to who I was.. mostly… A bit of vanity was okay, right?

As I watched my other self, the image blurred and the mirror sprouted hundreds of small shadowy arms that reached for me and pulled me into itself.

----------------------------------------

I am the Thousand Eyes in the Abyss. I am the Watcher of Worlds. I am the All-Seeing.

Through my power, you have been given new life in this World.

This ‘Forlorn Kingdom’ is the first of many Worlds plagued with a sickness that runs deep. Should you manage to alleviate, or even cure, this sickness, I will reward you with a fragment of my power, a memory of yours returned, and allow you to progress onward to the next World.

But tread carefully: Death in my realm is not final, but with resurrection follows the forfeiture of your memories.

Now then, go forth and face the trials of my realm. I will be watching.

----------------------------------------

I awoke on the green grass of some strange place, with rolling hills and a gentle wind stirring the greenery all around me into waves that moved back-and-forth.

Where am I?

I stood up and looked around. I was utterly alone and the lingering echoes of that alien voice resounded within my mind. It seemed I was in one of those vivid dreams I occasionally had after playing through the night and early morning, although it perhaps felt a bit too real, but I tried to convince myself that it wasn’t that big of a deal.

Suddenly, a flittering little butterfly made of incandescent sunlight started circling my head in unadulterated excitement. I held out my hand and it alighted on the first digit of my index finger. I had a look down myself and was surprised to find that I was dressed in what looked like a repurposed flour-sack. I clenched my eyes shut intently and imagined myself wearing a resplendent suit of shining armour.

Might as well go all out if this is a vivid dream.

I also added, for additional flair, the image of a purple-hued LightsaberTM to go along with my ridiculous getup.

When I opened my eyes, however, I was still wearing the flour-sack-turned-clothing, although the idea that so flimsy a linen fabric could be consider clothing was criminal.

“Hmm, no LightsaberTM either…”

The glowing butterfly lifted away from my finger and started circling my head frantically again.

“What is it? Also, aren’t you supposed to go: Hey listen!”

My bright companion did not reply, sadly, but then suddenly just took off down the landscape, leaving a trail of bright light in its wake.

“Hey, wait for me!” I called, as I ran to catch up.[1]

----------------------------------------

[1] I did not for a second consider that this was anything but a dream. Oh, how wrong I was.