Where is this?
Even if I ask myself that question, I still don’t know.
The surrounding space was dark. It was a vast, all-encompassing darkness that stretched out for as far as the eye could see. Rather than calling it dark, it would be more accurate to say it was empty. I was within a place completely devoid of anything, where neither light nor color existed. Even if I extend a hand out in front of me, I’d still see nothing but black. It was a thick, opaque sort of black. A black that seemingly devoured everything it touched.
I don’t know how I got here, nor do I know how much time passed since I first came here. My stay felt both long and transient, as if an eternity’s worth of time was shoved into one, fleeting instant.
As for memories, I have little, if any at all.
The few things that I do remember, are all a blur. They come as fragmented images or fuzzy, faded impressions. Maybe these were memories or maybe they were all just delusions, but still, as the moment inside this darkness dragged on, I began to desperately horde and cherish each and every one of these uncertain thoughts.
Was I going mad?
Maybe, but if you think about it, it was only a natural outcome. After all, within this sort of eternal prison, where the only thing to entertain me existed in the form of jumbled thoughts in my head, it was only natural that these things became the things that I would come to cling to.
As for what these memories were, well, they were vague and disorganized.
Scenes of my, of a person’s childhood. An image of a farm, of a school, of a big city filled with cars, trains, and people. The people within these images, they too, would appear and disappear at a moment’s notice. Faces change, people age, encounters come and go… Did I know these people in the past? Were they friends, family, or just mere strangers?
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None of my vague impressions could give me a proper answer.
There were sad times, there were happy times, there were times of yearning, times of anger, of pain, joy, grief, resignation… It was a never-ending clip of experiences. Maybe it composed of an individual’s lifetime, of their highest peaks and lowest moments. Was it good life? Was it a bad life? Was it a life well lived or a life deserved living? That, I don’t dare to answer.
Finally, such a life came to a stop, or at least, that’s the conclusion I came to. It’s ironic actually, this end was in fact the first real memory that I could remember. In a sense, the end of that old life was also the start of a new one.
My life, the life of the person whose memories I recalled, his life came to an abrupt stop, and from its tattered remains, a world of complete darkness.
A truck… or was it a train? I don’t know for certain, but he died because of it. It was a quick and painless death, almost instant, but prior to that moment, there existed a fog. The memory, the moments leading up to that final second, were filled with a hazy, dark fog, one tainted entirely in black.
It was a black darker than the darkness around me.
Vivid thoughts, painful thoughts swirled around that person’s heart. Pain, resignation, unwillingness, relief… it was a difficult emotion to describe. In fact, maybe no one emotion existed that could properly describe it.
It was a maelstrom of chaos, one that barreled straight down into a path of inevitable self-destruction.
Every time I recall that particular memory, it starts to hurt. I don’t know what hurts exactly, after all, inside this wretched place, I don’t even know whether or not I still have a body to hurt, but still, something hurts. Because it hurts, I try not to recall it, but in the end, I can’t help myself.
It hurts more than anything else within both my mind and within this empty space, but at the same time, it is the most vivid memory. Maybe because I relish that vividness, that feeling of life that it sometimes gives, but that particular memory is the one that I think about most often.
The best way to describe it would be that it was a painful memory. A painful memory, but one so painful that I can’t help but yearn for it.
An uncertain amount of time passed before a change within this empty world occurred.
It was a light. A faint, distant light that shined vividly, even amidst this dark, and empty space. It glowed dim, yet undoubtedly real.
That light spurred something on within my mind. Emotions that I previously thought had all but disappeared, suddenly came back to life. It wasn’t much, just a tiny little spark that threatened to blow out at a moment’s notice, but still, it was enough. It was more than enough. Stretching out my nonexistent hand, I slowly approached that fleeting glow.