Boredom Ensues

The Beginning After the End.

Is this the end, or maybe one of few? Only time and choice will tell.

I fall, my body and soul limp after so many years of tension. The endless abyss of darkness coats me like a warm blanket, yet all I feel are the chills and shivers of my spine. Do I land, or am I just floating? I don't know, but I sense my momentum slow to a stop - even if I feel no ground beneath me. I try to remember who I am, where I was, what was I doing? There was a man... and someone wearing a mask? No, they removed their mask, and their face was shrouded in fear. I was holding something, a weapon or a tool? The man was screaming at me, yelling some form of command in a voice of desperation. I put the item to my head, confused.

I yell into the darkness, yet my voice does not carry. I can't remember! How am I here?! Where is this place?! Maybe this is another nightmare, another puzzle my subconscious has set up for me to decipher - another hidden outcome to put to my calculations. Is this how my story is meant to end? Or is this how it can end? Will I just be lost in darkness, unable to find my voice forever?

Someone appears, no, something appears. It looks at me with disgust, like I'm some filth stuck at the bottom of its foot. I sense the hatred emitting from it, the feeling of pity and doubt wave over me like a tsunami, drowning me in the tide. I open my mouth to ask what it wants, but it puts its hand up, "Do not try to speak, mortal, you lost your voice before you even came here. You now only speak in writing and code, unable to ever fully speak again."

"Oh be nice to them, brother, they are confused like everyone else that winds up here. We must guide them like always." Another thing appears, so similar to the first and yet so strikingly different. Both seem human, yet both show forms of creatures beneath. "Go on," The second being speaks, "I am sure you have a voice somewhere within."

I open my mouth, and to my surprise, no language comes out, apart from a strange set of symbols, "}&=*= (^ @? }(@), }&()'{ }*>~9 }@)& ^=?!"

The first being sighs, "I told you they had lost their voice. You have seen their life, brother. They lived in a world of mystery and their reality was lost to its confusion. They can no longer talk, just like they wanted."

"}&()?" I try to speak again, yet the symbols continue. Why is this happening? What do they both mean? Is this hell?

"No it is not hell, mortal. You all see the world as life, and this as afterlife, but what's to stop this place from coming before? A divide between good and bad, bah! Such subjective terms come from such hypocrites!" The first being speaks again, as if they read my thoughts? Then where am I? Why only answer that question?!

"You've upset them again, brother. Mortal, think of your name, allow your face to tell us what you speak."

I think of my name... my name... Why can't I remember?! It began with an E? Or was it S? However some of my thoughts make me believe P is what it really starts with! Why is it so difficult to remember my name? The first being sighs once more, "You really thought they would remember their name after all this? You have seen how often they change it - like a pen once it runs dry, they switch names as often as we change forms!"

"This will be difficult then... Do you mind us calling you mortal, then? Granted, the term does not fit you now that you are here, but it is what it is."

I nod, understanding the complications, but cursing my memory.

The second one steps closer, and I flinch backwards in fear. For all I know this could be a set up, someone has drugged me and is planning on taking me away! Are they aliens? How do I know I can trust them? As I worry, the second being smiles, "Perhaps a familiar face will be better for you?" As it speaks, its body morphs and twists in unimaginable ways, bending to become a sphere of pure light. Out of the light, flesh is made, skin and bones, organs and limbs, and someone so familiar to my mind appears. Someone I love, or someone I loved? Yet its form makes me feel at peace. I step closer, trying to decipher the finer features.