Chapter Text
“You know what must be done, Dante.” I cough out before vision blurs and is replaced with another. The warm soil beneath me seems to disappear. I am swimming, swimming, swimming, yet not moving. My arms lay still, my legs make no attempt at movement. But I am swimming all the same. Liquid, or gas—I cannot tell which—swirls around me. It’s cold yet not uncomfortable. Speckles of stars and dust are all that I can see. I reach out to a bright star, one impossibly far away. I must grab it. Not physically, my arms are still paralyzed and can never recover, but I reach out. It pulls itself closer to me. The light of the star enters what I can merely posit is myself. We are becoming one. No, we already have, the star has been a part of me.
Faint ticking plays through my head, calling out. It’s close to my ear, pulling me out of the pool of stars I swim through. I feel a familiar hand holding onto me, pushing against my skin and recovering me from the vision. “<I’ll remember you…I can’t forget again. That’s a promise, I don’t break promises.>” They tell me. I can’t speak, I can’t move, but I have to muster out through thoughts alone that I can only hope is received.
“I love you.”
When I close my eyes at night, I can see myself, my body, laying on the ground. My true self floats away and the world slowly disappears. My physical form, the false self, is swallowed by the void. Huge trees sprout from the void that was previously the City. The leaves spread and overwhelm me. They trap me and I can no longer fly away.
Those nights, with that vision, I can’t fall asleep. I awaken and my body seems to move on its own. I trust my body, I trust myself. I follow where it leads.
These memories flash before me. I’ve been waiting for this moment, planning around this moment. I feel numb, I feel nothing. I…should feel nothing. A dim sense returns to me. I have a presence, I have faint thoughts, I have no form but I have myself. I reach out for it. The nothing fades as I grasp onto my presence with intent.
My sense of smell comes back first. It’s indistinct at first but I can smell the twinge of sweetness from floral plantlife and woodiness of trees carried by what I can only assume is wind. The air smells fresh. Sand, dirt, and concrete all mix together into one urban scent. The self, too, has a scent. My body odor is one of lavender perfume and salty sweat, letting me know I have a body currently even if I cannot feel it. One doesn’t realize how discrete common smells can be. It’s as if I have been born anew, experiencing for the first time.
My taste buds reappear and I can taste all the smells in the air. Air has a distinct flavor, but it’d be impossible to describe fully. It tastes crisp like life itself. It tastes like the morning after a terrible dream when one wakes up and realizes that they’re safe as the sun rises through the window. The inside of my mouth tastes salty and metallic. I can’t feel anything but I can taste it. It tastes alive.
Then my hearing. My heart thumps. No, not just my heart, all of my organs. I can hear my insides squishing about, sending energy through my body that I cannot feel or sense. Outside the self are the chirping of birds. “Twoot twoot” “Choop choop choop” “Tweetweetwee choop” they call out, all screaming over each other in hopes to find a mate or some singing just for fun. Murmuring surrounds me, and the sounds of footsteps. Wherever I am is in public, surrounded by people. Could they, too, be dead?
I can feel myself now, and I can feel where I am. I can feel my tongue resting atop the roof of my mouth. Breath flows in, and out. My stomach rises and falls while the air pressure makes it difficult to breathe. Gravity pulls me down and makes my body heavy. I try moving an arm, it’s heavy but possible. The wind flies past me, it’s not fast, yet feeling for the first time creates an overwhelming sensation. It’s as if I’m a heavy boulder in a whirlwind being eroded as I lay there unable to do anything about my situation. My hair whisks around, the strands hitting my face. My arms lay upon something smooth and sharp, I believe I’m laying on grass. I push my hands down and they hit something coarse and rough. The texture of dirt. It’s an unpleasant texture, yet I push myself up. My body shakes and tremors as I fight against gravity and my own weight.
The eternal darkness is exchanged for bright orange shapes. My veins are visible through my eyelids. It burns, but I pull my eyelids open. The blinding light of the sun is the only thing I can see. I squint my eyes and wish to close them again, but I know it’s not possible. Tears well up as I force my eyes open. The sun’s blazing beams are overwhelming so I turn my head down without closing my eyes. My gaze is met with my own legs. My knees bend towards my body and my feet are firmly planted on the ground. I’m surrounded by bright green grass and weeds. There are small yellow dandelions dispersed throughout. Little bug friends are crawling around, looking for food. Many bees flap their tiny wings as they hop from flower to flower. A curious spider crawls up my leg, it’s so light it can barely be felt. My vision adjusts to the brightness and I can look forward again.
Students walk across the concrete paths that guide to various classrooms. They talk amongst themselves, speaking about things that frankly don’t matter. None of these people are dead; I’m not dead. I look to be at school again. I haven’t been here in years. It hasn’t existed for years. Am I trapped in my own memories? No, this feels real, it doesn’t feel like I’m only hallucinating. I know what that feels like. Could my entire life up to this point only been a long and arduous dream that I have only now awoken from? It’s a possibility.
I stand up with difficulty. My legs are shaking, they’re always in pain, even in that dream they’ve always been in pain. I try floating, like in the dream, and it works just the same. I still move my legs to reenact how others would walk, as to not draw too much attention. It’s simply an act; my feet only graze the ground beneath. My true self is the only thing moving me forward.
I remove myself from the patch of grass and onto the slick concrete. I float somewhere. I’m not entirely sure where I’m going but the only thing I can do is proceed. A couple of classmates run up to me so I stop to humor them.
“Heeeey, you’re that one transfer student, ain’tcha? Demian was it?” One says to me.
“That is me, yes.”
“Well could we maybe, if you want, hang out and maybe try being friends?” The other chimes in.
I’ve had this exact conversation before, in the dream. I’m not sure if I can even call it a dream. Was it living out my whole future? An extended vision as to what exactly I should do? Or a warning to what will happen? I can’t be sure.
Regardless, these students only wish to befriend me because of my status, and not out of a real curiosity for myself as a person. I could tell even back from the first encounter. I accept their proposition—I did in the dream to get to know them better—and it’s not as if I have anything else to do really. The time of action is not now.
I walk with the other two while they chat with each other. I say what is expected of me and nothing more. They spoke about school and of other friends. Often I got away with not responding at all as they had their own conversation without me.
I walk in front of a window, like any other, yet it’s not. The one peering through at me is my dear Sinclair. I lock eyes with them as the two pretending to be my friends walk off, perhaps forgetting that I was with them at all. I give them a smile and they look away bashfully. The last time I saw them in my dream, they were sobbing. They were so strong at that point, fully realized, but they still held an attachment to me despite my efforts to keep distance from them. I’ll have to do it all again and they’ll have to experience all the grief I’ve seen for the first time. It’s for their own good.