First came the pain. Like a body of water spilling over into my mind, faster than even thought. Then it was gone. Then came the light, and then the sound. I realized then that I must have opened my eyes, how I knew what eyes were I could not tell you. I had a body, and it was moving. Breathing.“ I am breathing” I thought. That was the first thought I could ever remember having. I am told that it was also the last. In jest, I hope. For some reason the fact that I was breathing seemed very important. It seemed good, no, it felt good. I felt like I had been starved for breath.

I blinked, it was very unusual. I blinked again. “ No” I thought, “ too often, I need to start the count” I started counting down from one hundred and once I reached zero I blinked, as if on instinct and sat up. Now some of my memories were coming back. I knew I had a head, eyes, limbs, muscles and blood. Lots of sticky dark red blood between my fingers. I looked down on my center. “ That’s not right, it should be inside” I remarked absently that the blood leaking from me was probably what caused the pain in the first place. I realized the pain was still there. “Never gone, always present always there like an anchor. Keeping my eyes open, my lungs breathing and my limbs moving” Neither was the count, I was counting, carefully timing every blink and every breath. Not that I was actually counting, it was independent from my thought and yet somehow not. Perhaps I could have many thoughts? No that’s not right a thought follows a thought follows a thought, like a chain. A chain to bind me to control and suffocate and to confine. Perhaps there were many of me? No that could not be that could never be not again not after –

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Sorry about that, it happens sometimes with us, we get so absorbed in the memory we lose track of ourselves and we live it. Again and again. But don’t mind that. I stood up, and felt the blood running down my legs. I took of my shirt and ripped it in half, fashioning a makeshift bandage out of it and tying it around the holes in me as tight as I could. That done I looked around but somehow I already knew I was in a forest. I knew there was grass and small animals and insects. I knew that there were exactly one hundred and eighty seven life forms within three miles of me. How could I know this I had already counted my senses. It was the first rule in the third protocol. “Upon awakening identify all possible assets”. I missed one, not even 5 minutes awake and already I broke a rule.  Perhaps it would be wrong to call it a sense, it was like my mind took up a circular area for three miles in any direction and I knew everything inside. It was me and it was not. “Of course, I am awakened and aware”. I started going down the checklist, according to protocol. All was right, not necessarily good, like the holes in my body but right. Except one, I didn’t know which name I was. Since I did not I figured it must not matter so I could use my first. Artavian. That would do.