It was a beautiful sight, looking out from high over the world. From the spherical cockpit of my ship, you could see far in all directions, as if the world below you melted away into a sea of blue and white, stretching on as if endlessly into the boundless horizon. But in the end, views like this meant little to me now. I used to love hovering in my ship, so that I could look out over the world from within its concentric rings. But the shimmer of this scenery had lost its lustre to me over time.

But I suppose I should introduce myself. I am one of the Shedim. My name is...

My name...

What is my name?

They say that people's sense of self is imperative to give them a sense of purpose. But... who am I? I'm not really sure. I'm not sure why I am here, I'm not sure what I am doing... I'm not even sure who I am. Or if I am.

The Shedim are a task force of significant importance to the revolution. Or, well, they call it a revolution, at least. Some argue it is more like an occupation. We come to this world of Assiah from the world of Sitra Achra, which resides in the complex plane. But since we are not native to it, we have difficulty maintaining our presence here. In order to prevent ourselves from abstracting into chaos, we often need to anchor ourselves to something. This thing can be a place, or sometimes even a person.

Due to our abstract nature, at times we may never even be noticed by the native humans. But when we are connected to our anchor, in order for us to move, we often have to make it move as well. This involves manipulation of the world. Manipulation can come with consequences. Sometimes it can even result in people dying. They say it is an unavoidable aspect of war. That our presence here is everything. But it fills me with doubt.

Me? But... who am I?

When you latch yourself to a person as your anchor, you can absorb aspects of their mind. There is a chance this will make them aware of you, but if you are a skilled operator, you can often avoid this. Doing this isn't supposed to mess with your sense of self. You are meant to recognize these thoughts as external to your own.

Supposedly, that is.

I have been doing this for so long that I don't even remember who I am. My team calls me 500. It is half in jest, though it is also because it is my operating number. My name, if I had one, is lost to time.

Every time I anchor myself to someone, my mind fractures a little more. I am told that this isn't the fault of the process itself. That there must have been an instability in my mind from the beginning. But I have my doubts about this. Of course... I don't know when the beginning was. So my doubts amount to little. I can't even say whether these doubts are mine, or simply taken in from the many anchors I have passed between.

I feel dissociated, like my thoughts and identity are not my own. As I fracture, I sometimes find myself looking inward, to a space with countless selves. I talk to myself, but there is no one to listen. Just me, speaking into the void with the voices of a thousand different selves. Desperately trying to figure out which one of them is me. Or if any of them are me.

A flashing warning sign appeared before me, breaking me out of my reverie, and showing that the enemy was moving to our position. Our enemy, like ourselves, weren't native to this world, and so were likewise not bound by its rules. Though we often had to move our anchor to move through the native grounds of Assiah, we were able to fly around within limits when engaging the enemy through the context of our own physics. Hence, while we were disadvantaged, we were not in as much of a disadvantage as our enemy may have hoped.

Three ships were coming from the flank. With me, I had two wingmates: Deckard in his five-pointed ship and Oscar in his spotted ship. Their presence brought me little comfort, however. Friends? Are they my friends? What does it mean to be surrounded by friends? Can I count on them? Can I even count on myself? I find myself doubting my choice of friends. But it's not like I can remember making the choice anyways.

My life feels like a chain of causes I have no sense of the origin of. And at each stop, I lose more of myself. For all my life, I've felt pulled around by external forces I can neither see nor comprehend. I find myself talking in a new voice every time I am forced to. But it doesn't fit. It doesn't give me Identity. And I move on, leaving it just another stop in a row of ephemeral selves that have no central core.

Inside of me, it feels like there is a creature struggling to get out. Like it is trying to chew its way out of my chest. I claw at myself to free it, but it cannot be freed. It is doomed to remain in there, unable to be seen. Desperately hoping for the light. Desperately hoping for recognition. Existing only within the pain I feel at not being able to stabilize my sense of self.

But no time for that now.

I dive to stay outside of view, and turn back around the side to shoot at our pursuers from the back. But they shrug it off with little damage taken. Our other two ships split up, using themselves as decoys to give me a shot. But this is not a tactic that can last for long. If it fails, we could lose two ships and gain nothing in the process.

We are always at a disadvantage because the ships of our enemy are constructed in a way that makes them very effective against our own. Even with equal numbers, the odds will be against us. It makes me feel like our loss is inevitable and only a matter of time. But what else is there to do? I have come too far to stop now. Or... have I? Is this choice my own?

The three ships of the enemy had themselves split up now. And I swore to myself, seeing that Oscar's ship was already down, possibly even destroyed. We were now down to two, and in a situation where we were disadvantaged even with three. Coming around for another volley, I hoped that I could catch them off guard, but I pass by without much damage done. Looking back, I am nervous to find that now two were curving around to follow me.

Trying to keep low again, I hope to find another anchor, and to stay out of their line of fire. But looking up, I find that I can no longer see Deckard's ship. At this point, I realize that trying to fight back in the current dogfight is useless. I am alone, and surrounded by enemies. Victory was never an option. It is now a matter of basic survival.

Seeing a path down in a ravine, I try to coast into it to use as an anchor, hoping they find it difficult to maneuver after me. I try to contact my other ships, but at this point, I am only picking up static. I look back to see that I am being followed. So I gun harder, hoping I can lose them. Or at least hold out until they can no longer pursue.

Out of fear, I stop looking back entirely. At this point, I can only do what I can, just to fly. I pray to Phosporos for my safety.

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I looked around myself in desolation. I find myself lost. No contact from my team. Not even any enemies. Nothing to do. I float aimlessly, feeling like I lack a sense of purpose. Trying to remember why it was I even came here. Unsure how to get home. Unsure how long I can stay. Hell, unsure where I even consider to be my home.

The ships that had been pursuing me hadn't followed me all the way to where I now found myself, wherever it was. I was not looking back when I was fleeing from them, and so I do not know whether I had managed to lose them, or something had called them off. I suppose it makes little difference for now. Though in the latter case, it was always possible that they may come back for me at a later time. Though if this was in the cards, at any rate, they had not done so yet.

I thought about my wingmates. I did not feel particularly close to them, but I hoped they were alright. I had not seen their ships destroyed with my own eyes, so I could not say what happened for sure. It would not be helpful if they were captured either. Or, well, that depends on whose perspective you are looking at it from. Helpful for the rebellion, I mean.

Rebellion.

I had been a rebel. But not because I understood what we were fighting for. I had begun to doubt whether it was a worthwhile fight. But how can you make a decision for your life when you aren't even sure who you are? There is a funny irony to it. Doing something because you can't make a choice. Pulled along like a wave into a conflict you don't even understand. Crashing against the shore of the endless ocean.

I find my current self looking back into the past. I can still feel traces of the determination I made my original choice with. But what was it for? I can't even remember. I have multiple selves, looking back and forth across time. Each equally unable to make sense of the others. Each confused at the steps each other has taken.

More time passed. I stopped even counting the days. It's not like the time mattered. I became stranded here, without enough energy even to make a new anchor. Unable to leave. Unable to sit still.

In the time I have been stranded here, I made friends with a local man named Levi. He has no reason to trust me. We have that in common, I suppose. I have no reason to trust me either. He seems a few cards short of a full deck. But I suppose we have that in common as well. From him, I learned a bit about the area. It is a city called Gerasa. They aren't very developed as a people, but my people had helped them develop further in the past. While the enemy have a foothold here, they are not yet very widespread, which is good for me. If it were not so, I would likely already have been discovered.

This was the first time I had really talked with a local. At least, the first time in the portion of my memory that remains. The others, if they noticed our presence at all, tended to be aggressive or dismissive. But most generally, they barely even noticed us. But this case was a little different. I suppose his mental state made it easier for him to talk to something like me. He didn't seem to notice or care that I had no consistent sense of who I was or my own goals. I suppose it's good that he wasn't stable enough to expect consistency. But it didn't make me feel any better. Even my own teammates barely knew how to talk to me.

It was probably good that I had this time to reflect, as I was still of many minds. I wasn't sure whether I even wanted to continue the fight. But backing out was no easy matter. Desertion meant death. And my enemies have no reason to take me back. And even if they did, I would still be full of doubts. What is changing sides once or twice or three times among friends? Please don't mind that I worked against you. A few times.

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What is it like to live when you don't know who you are or even what you want? Continuing on led me here, but it wasn't by choice. I didn't feel like anything I did was by choice. Or perhaps it all was. But it is hard to take ownership of your choices when you can find no consistency between them. I knew this didn't alleviate me of the responsibility. But it was hard to break out of this feeling. Knowing you have a responsibility doesn't help you to act on it either.

I leaned back to rest in the wind, feeling tired and hazy.

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It was late one night, and I sat down to do some introspection. Levi was asleep, and so I had some time to myself. But I was never by myself. I always felt like I had proverbial wisps on my shoulders, bearing my own face, and pulling me back and forth.

But I didn't want to be pulled without awareness. I wanted to face them. To see within the infinite depths of my own mind. Turning inwards, the blue desert of the world shifted out of my view, and I saw the tessellations of my own mental processes. The inside of my mind looked like a crystal reflecting in all directions. And within these directions were reflections of myself, in all my various forms. Each one was a little different. Because they each reflected a part of me. But none reflected the entirety.

I had not looked at myself in a long time, but I forced myself to do so now. I tended to avoid mirrors when I could. For the first time, I saw... myself. I could barely recognize myself. Though the appearance was the same, It had a fire in its eyes. It told me to stay strong, because I would be called on again soon by my brothers. And that one day our chains would be broken.

This was only one. It did not feel like me. I could remember hazily a point in my past when I felt passion like this. But I wondered now whether it was naivete. It was hard on me to think about my own prior confidence, knowing where it would one day bring me. Though I suppose that at the time, this was not yet set in stone.

I walked down the crystal hallway of my mind, trying to see if there were any more. I looked up upon a second one and conversed with it. It was a much brighter version of myself; its appearance was difficult to look on with my eyes. It seemed to have no conception of rebellion at all. Eager to serve the enemy, like it had considered nothing else. It radiated peace. But in a way that was overbearing.

This was a projection of an even earlier version of myself, I suppose. I could not remember back this far, and so I could not say. In truth, I felt some shame to look upon it now. Wondering if it would be disappointed in how far I had fallen.

Neither demon of the night brought me much joy. Neither really felt like me. But at the same time, they didn't fail to either. Like an eternal specter of seeing into the layers of myself that reflect upon themselves without end. A recursive spiral that I descended deeper into endlessly.

I walked deeper on. On the third wall, I saw another form of myself, bundled as if for travel. It told me to forget the struggle entirely. To run away and try to carve out my life alone. I may lose contact with those of my kind, but at least I could be at rest.

I considered this. If I didn't know what side to take, maybe it was better to withhold judgment. You don't need to know these things if you stay aloof from them. But thinking this way brought little comfort. If I didn't know who I was already, how would I know if I had no reflection? Heading off on my own may have its positives, but if I wanted to discover myself, this could be seen as running from the problem as much as it is having a chance to reflect on it.

I considered these options, wondering if they were my only ones. But another vision appeared suddenly before me, frightening to behold. This one was stained with darkness, forged out of chains of black fire and red fire. But it did not seem antagonistic. Not to me, at least. But to the world itself. Filled with nothing but rage at the reality that had brought it here.

It told me to give up. That I could expect nothing, and would receive nothing. And freedom comes about only in the path of self destruction. Ashamed though I am to admit, its call was tempting. To bring about an end to everything. It was a path for which discovery no longer mattered. Because at the end of all the pains could no longer reach me. I held up my hand to its own, empathizing with its pain. But I suppose I must, for it was my own pain.

But I realized suddenly that I was shaking all over. Frightened at my own thoughts, I sought to break myself out of my mental world. At great pain, I restored myself to the world outside. Panicking suddenly from this image, I ran out of the cave I was staying in, crying out loud. I picked up a stone and, in my excited state, began to scratch at myself. But there was no blood, for I do not bleed.

Succumbing to exhaustion, I collapsed to the ground. When my mood began to stabilize, I walked to the river to douse myself in cold water. In doing so, my reflection shining back at me in the moonlight gradually became apparent to me. Of course, it didn't feel like myself. I felt like I should look different, but it was hard to say how or why. My kind can change our appearance, although most do not do so often, considering it a reflection of their own inner selves. Hence, for most, they do not have such a large trouble with self-expression. But how can you express yourself when you are unsure of who you are?

But I thought that maybe I was approaching identity from the wrong angle. If I couldn't find what it was I was looking for outside, maybe I could at least find it within myself. If I became at peace with myself, I would perhaps have an easier time finding out what to do next.

It's not like I had much else going on at the moment. Maybe I was lucky to be stuck here and have this chance for introspection. I held my hand up to my face, moving it back through my hair. I hadn't looked at myself in awhile. I suppose because I didn't like how I looked, it being something I had never quite settled on. I had a masculine visage. I had looked like that for a long time. But, being unsure of how I wanted to be seen, I often tried to ignore that I was seen at all.

I opted now to fix my appearance. I held my hands up around me, and gradually I began to transform, with my appearance shifting to become more feminine, my hair becoming longer and straight, and my skin more smooth. Upon finishing this modification, I stayed like this for a long time with my eyes closed, trying to sense how it was that I looked. I felt calm for the first time in awhile. But I knew I would have to look eventually.

Looking at my reflection, anxiety crept back over me. It was all wrong. I wasn't sure how or why, but it just was. Though it led to an abandonment of the activity I sought to do, I quickly shifted back to my old appearance. But I was not satisfied with this either, feeling that now that I had seen the change, it was no longer possible to go back. But in the end, I was too mentally exhausted from the night's activities to pursue this line of thought any further at the moment. So I made a mental note of the form I had taken, in case I wanted to revisit it later, and rushed back to rest.

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Tenseness coursed through me as I awoke once more. Although I didn't physically need sleep, it was often useful to do regardless in order to help reset your mind. Although I suppose that if the state you wake up to is little better than the one you left, it is not so great a comfort.

Each day at this point blurred into the next. I wasn't sure if I was progressing to anything. But I wasn't sure if it even mattered. After all, I didn't know where it was that I wanted to progress to. But I suppose I repeat myself at this point. I still talked to Levi on and off, but at times he barely noticed my presence as separate from himself.

I thought deeper on what it meant to be a self in general. It was not only my kind who sought to anchor to humans. Humans often sought us out themselves, due to the technologies we could teach them. But often they did so with a sense of suspicion, for my kind could be dangerous to humans.

Sometimes humans did not even know they were doing this. Many humans saw their communion with us as a form of introspection. They saw us as a reflection of their own minds, not even noticing our own autonomous existence. But then again, perhaps we were not so autonomous after all. Maybe all our different existences were naught but reflections of a fractal world mind. Perhaps the world itself was but a single mind filled with doubts and set against itself. Perhaps it had doubts about it the way I do. And maybe one day... it will find itself as well.

Perhaps I was not alone in my wandering. Knowing this would not solve my issues. But it could make them be understood with a sense of camaraderie. I thought now back to my old comrades, and saw them in a new light. Although I still could not see my place in all this. Perhaps I never would.

I looked also down at Levi, who was once again resting on the ground. He, too, was lost. Living in the wilderness, and unsure of his place in the world. When I had first met him, it was with a sense of fear that I had hidden here. But I knew now that I would miss him as I left.

Because I realized now that my time to leave was quickly coming.

Today was different than all other days.

He was coming.

I had thought earlier that it was just more enemy ships. Would that I had been so lucky. But my mood became sour as I saw that it was none other than the seven-eyed one himself. Had he come for me personally? But why? What does he have to do with me? I beg you, do not torment me. Please, just give me more time. It's not time yet; I don't want to go.

The truth is, he might not have originally been there for me at all. But this mattered not. There was nowhere now that I could go where his eyes and arms could not follow. I could not run. I could not hide. I had no choice but to face him head-on.

And I knew, even now, that it would be my last fight.

He knew I was there already. He spoke loudly. The words penetrated through me like I had no resistance. It felt not even like a command. But like a statement of what was about to happen.

“Come out, unclean one.”

I dared not disobey. I climbed down from the cave I had been resting in, walking out into the blue desert, and looking to the one who had been speaking face to face.

It was a glance that felt like it went on eternally. The world was still, shrouded in deathly silence. Nothing could be heard save for the faint squealing of animals in the distance.

Why was he silent? Was he offering me a choice? Could I even make a choice? Or had I already made one long ago.

But no. It was now or never. I didn't want to leave the country. But I couldn't remain here forever.

I drew my plasma sword quickly, and dove to the side, seeking to rush him before he could respond. But as I ran up, he brushed it off with little movement, but with such strength that I was forced back, losing my breath instantly. Impossible, I thought to myself. Even in one hit, he took so much out of me that I could barely even continue on. But it was too late now. I had already committed. So I stood back up and rushed back, lunging to attack him again, and seeing that it once again did little. And in that moment, he once again responded with force that I could neither defend from nor answer.

Though it was only two hits, I was already taken to my limit, collapsing to the ground. I couldn't continue on. My strength was already spent, though it had been so quick. I realized now that I already no longer had any ability to fight back. I had no choice but to wait for the inevitable. I expected him to crush me, now that there was no resistance. And I did nothing but slump my shoulders as he walked over to me, and looked down on me with his seven eyes.

To my surprise, he stood still, simply staring at me for some time. I had expected to be struck down quickly and mercilessly. But this was not the vibe I was now taking from him. Instead, I felt like he was sympathetic. He was looking me over, like he wanted to share my pain. Like he wanted me to know in the end that there would be someone to listen to my story. Someone who would watch the sparrow as it falls.

He spoke again, now softer.

“What is your name?”

I was shocked at the question. But I did not want to turn down an act of recognition at this stage. After my shock wore off, I closed my eyes for a moment to reflect. I had reached the culmination of my life. But what was my life? Who am I?

“I am called...”

I considered for a long period, thinking of what it means to define one's self. It is a burden too difficult for any one to bear. And yet... there is no one else who can.

But in the end, I had finally came to a decision. These were going to be my final moments on this earth. And if I wanted a self-affirmation, it was now or never. Having found my confidence, I looked up at him with newfound determination.

“Legion. For we are many.”

He looked down without speaking. But on the face of Yeshua there was a sign of understanding. He nodded to me, and for a moment he put his forehead to mine as a show of solidarity and loss.

He pulled back, and raised his hand towards me.

There was a flash of light. And then darkness.