The young man opens his eyes slowly. At first, it’s all he can do. There had been pain, an endless sea of pain. A pain so deep and strong it went beyond his concept of what pain was and became something … More. He had no words for what that pain had been. No ability to put it into a box with a label that read PAIN. Hell he couldn’t even imagine the so called box strong enough to hold the label. It had been all consuming, all encompassing, and never ending. At least until it did… end. It had been there; it had been everything. Then it was gone. No gradual decline, no fading, no lessening of sensation. There had been a forever of pain, then nothing.

This had been worse than the pain. This had almost broken what little bit of self he still had. This had taken from him an identity of pain. He had been pain, was pain, surrounded and subsumed by pain. He would always be PAIN. He had been a part of, and made for, and by pain. Then he wasn’t. He then had nothing, was part of nothing, and almost lost himself to nothing. Unfettered and adrift not belonging to anything after a forever of something. Even if it had been pain, at the end he was part of it. Part of something, until he wasn’t.

Then, ever so slowly, like a small trickle of water, the memories started to flow. At first, they were just flickers in the void. Half remembered sounds and echoes of things once known. Gradually, like a glacier pushing its path through mountains. The flickers became like old picture stills, or Tin Types. The sounds morphed between basso rumbles and mosquito pitched whines. This lasted for centuries and mere seconds. There was no reference for time in this state. Then with a sound of thunder, and flash of lightning, movies. Movies with sound and texture. No longer random faded images. Garbled static filled sounds. Movies about him, not just him but two other people who were also him?

Then it hits him, all at once. His life, all of it. Memories of everything he had ever been, who he had ever been. Even when he was someone else. He knew why he had blinked so to speak. Knew why he had moved from one place to another, with no knowledge of ever doing it. He knew now the WHYS of it and the when it had all began. He can see the point it all shattered. He can see the point where the pain had been to much. The point where when all was lost, he had broken and fractured. Unable to bear the weight, the loss, and the pain. It had been a gradual thing, the breaking. Not like the movies or books he had read or seen. There was no sudden moment where he was whole, then fractured and broken.

No…it had been a small thing at first. A slight crack, a hairline fracture, that many people get. One that would have healed, if it wasn’t for the pain. Instead, he was to wrought by grief, too wraped up by loss, and unable to cope with pain. It was this pain that took that small chip in his self, and like water in a fissure, slowly started to erode and expand it. Ever so slowly expanding and branching until the strain was too great, and he broke. The one became three, one for finishing. To bear with the day-to-day existence of a life without them at least until it was done. One to avenge, to balance the scales in some small way, to take all the pain and loss and give it reason. The last one, the one he had been, was what was left. When the First was done, enduring. Done with the platitudes and grieving. Done with the endless procedures and paperwork. Done with the arraignments and motions needed to show he was alright and had finally come to acceptance. Then he was done, then he could sleep and fade away.

His second self, planed and waited. Letting the Third take over and survive as best it could. It cared not for the hardships or hurdles the Third endured. It was hate, and rage, and wrath. It took all it needed from their life experiences. All the training from the military, all the experience of what to do when needed. How to hunt, both people and animals. How to find, track, seek. All the abilities and instincts that had been drilled into them during their several tours of duty overseas. It took all this and more. Nudging Three when needed, to move him where he wanted to go. To see what needed to be seen, and find those that had hurt him. Those that had hurt his family. It had no care about Three, or the fact that it had been nothing more then a horrible accident. Just a series of ill luck for several people that culminated into one horrific and avoidable mishap. There was no reason in Two. Deming that an unnecessary junk mentality. There was no mercy, no kindness, just an unrelenting need for payback. There was patience however, a hunter needed that. Along with the drive to wait, and hold fast.

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So, Three just was. Left with just the barest of emotions and knowledge. Three fumbled his way through life. Barely surviving, finding his nitch in the dregs of society. Learning how to survive on the outskirts with the forgotten and unwanted. He was a small thing at first. Not quite a person, more than just an engine for his shell. Following the nudges without knowing from Two. Fading into the background when Two acted, or moved him to some other place. Always asleep when Two took action on his goals. Until the end, when Two had finally found the last piece, put an end to the last of those who had hurt him. Those who had taken THEM away. Only to find there was no peace, no ending to his rage and hate. There had been no satisfaction when through all the years and decades, his job was complete. So with nothing else to do, no more of THEM, to hunt. He turned his rage and hate on himself. After all wasn’t he also part of the reason his family was gone. So maybe, just maybe, with his ending there would be rest. There would be at last… something else.

There was however a problem. Three had grown stronger over the years and decades. From the least of them, he had grown stronger. As all things do when they manage to survive, they learn, they grow, they become more with each accumulation of knowledge and action. Three wasn’t whole by any means. Compared to the other two however, he was as close to whole as a jagged fragment of self could be. Three had learned to survive, to live within the confines of his small world. To interact with others living in that same world and learn. While Three had been unaware of Two, he didn’t succumb to the nudges and urges of Two either. Three could and would continue, to live, to learn, to BE. Even when Two took over and Three slept. Two could not force the shell they both inhabited to end itself. Two had not changed since his birth. Three had been forced to, just to keep going so Two could hunt. Three had been forced to survive, and grow. To learn and experience, through year after year. They had been in their late 20s when the split happened. Two and Three had been just over 50 when Two ended the last person who had been involved. Almost 60, when he decided to end himself as well as Three. The problem was that while they were both the same age. That Three had started off the weakest of them. Three had become more, while Two was just an engine for destruction and death. Two had never grown, while Three had no choice but too. Three wanted to live. Three WOULD live… And two could only rage and rail in the quiet dark parts of their mind.

So, Three continued, with no regard or awareness of Two. Living another span of years, with the occasional blackouts wrought by Two. This continued until with black and white wings, at the age of 79, the asshole bird changed his fate.

The young man smiled at the memories. The Bird had been right and wrong both. It had been a crucible. That Tribulation or lightning storm or whatever. It had not been a smelter however. That would have been too easy. A melting of all things him into something new. A new blank made out of old scraps into something whole and ready to be… something else. Instead of this, he got a forging. Re-forging to be precise. The Remnants of the him before the breaking, the faded and almost nonexistent One. Two with his rage and need for vengeance and unsatiable want for an end. Three with his years of growth, and experience. With his utter will to live as a base, the other parts were stacked one upon the other. Then Heated and forge welded together. The heavenly lightning then, took this billet, hammered it into shape, only to fold It upon its self. Over and over, it did this. Fold, hammer into shape. Fold, hammer into shape. Fold… Until at last, not only was he whole again. All the layers were so integral to each other that there was no choice but to be someone, while not quite new. Not the old man from before. Not any of them, but someone who was and was not all of them.

The young man finally manages to focus on his surroundings. Then with a snort he mutters. “I’m too old for this shit.”