A Soul's Memory

Prologue

A Soul's Memory

She was the first life. She held the first breath. Her eyes looked at the world after darkness. Her ears heard the first silence. It was her skin that first touched the Earth. She was the first face of a soul. She lived the first life. She was alive.

"You've escaped," the voice held a tone of nothingness. There was no amusement, no confusion, no surprise. It just said words. It was unrecognizable.

She never knew who was behind those sentences. Was it the Highest? Was it mother? Or was it her?

It was always in the back of her head, its identity unknown. Low whispers, blank tones, sighs.

Perhaps, the voice was someone that knew what was to come as it had already happened to another and another.

It was there to question your story and offer you the endings. The voice was there to describe life and narrate death.

"I was born," said her.

The voice spoke, "You've escaped, impatient. The family you have, who merely desired another daughter, were blessed with a cursed child."

She replied furiously, "I waited and waited but I didn't have time. Life welcomed me into its arms."

"Life embraced you because you were already there. And Time watched as you left. Time was heartbroken to see you fall and reached out to hold your hand yet you let go."

The voice continued, "Your family knows, child. They know. They've seen it all when you reached out your hands just like Time did."

She smiled, "But they didn't let go like I did. They've accepted me, cherished me," she proudly said. She loves her family.

"Yes, they didn't do what you did. Like Life, they didn't banish nor disowned you because you were already there. They weren't cruel. They weren't like you. They were not but foolish," said the voice, still in a tone of nothing. Yet she hears the displeasure in it.

The other raised her eyebrows, "You speak against Life? Are you Death?"

She heard no immediate response. Scoffing, she thought the voice as cowardly. But then the voice came again, "Life is Death and Death is Life, child."

Life and Death as lovers, as family, as enemies, or as each other—it was all the same. Life and Death gave beginnings, endings, lines, hearts, memories...

"Tell, how broken do you think you are, child?" asked the voice.

"I am not," she uttered displeasingly. She imagined the voice laughing, accusing her of dishonesty.

"You deny everything you are, child. You are of the most broken ones."

She retorted, "I deny because it is in the past. It has already happened, it's been done."

"Then, you refuse to acknowledge the past. Child, why must you ignore Time? It longs for you."

"Time is arrogant. I am not broken," she persisted.

"Child, look in the mirror. Do you see your reflection? The scars connected in each end, all over everywhere. You are only half of creation."

She looked. Even if she did not look, she saw. She saw the blameless scars buried in her skin. It was like roots of a forgotten tree. The reaction of the earth after an earthquake, the cracked ground to rocks after rocks. It concealed what she wanted to be. She was flawed.

She touched the lines; it was there as if it was not. As her skin came in contact to one another, her fingers on the scars reached more than it held. It was as if the marks were alive. Every turn, every curve kept breaths of untold stories.

It wasn't her, she thought. She hated it. She hated when it revealed itself under her desires. Disgusted, she only craved for more so she slowly welcomed herself in ruins.

She was nice when she was oblivious. She was beautiful when she didn't know. She loved what she saw when she was blinded. She knew what she wasn't but didn't truly know what she was. When she did, she had already lost what was found.

She cried about her mistakes. She lied to herself. She lived when one died. Yet her grief belonged to no one, she said. When her body was crumbling and leaving, she left with the breath of her memories. And her last breath will become the first of the second.

"Awake, child."

A chance. A gift of change. A judgment to be told.

They were the second life.