Memory Fragments: Probity

As It Begins (V/X)

...It feels strange, somehow. Edward, you once said to me about something relating to another version of me, right? Even though I knew that was not possible, I found myself believing it profoundly each time I saw myself in a mirror. Like a portal to another world where shit does not make sense anymore because all sense has been lost. Well, more like, it has ended. Nothing is there, yet, there I am. Standing alone in the darkness with nowhere to go. I saw myself in the mirror and every time I did it, I also felt a sense of stagnation. Like seeing the same face time and again filled me with anger and resentment as it did not change no matter what I did to it.

You told me this Crow was, indeed, another me. Like a shadow self, lurking past what seemed tangible. Light does make the shadow, so I am the creator of this Crow. And yet, why do you proclaim your right over it? Like a father to a foster son, why is it that you think you have any control over my own shadow? Maybe you made us both. That much, I can believe. Seeing as you did make me who I am today, in a sense. But you hold no power anymore in what makes me, me. But how can you be so sure that this Crow character is not myself, yet it is me regardless? Is he really me, or is it a person you made to be me? Gods, this is so confusing.

Why am I having trouble now? If I am to be sure, then there can be no shadow of a doubt on my thoughts, yet there he is. Clouding my mind. Edward, could you elaborate on your whole schtick about versions and all that crap? I need to hear it again.

...Ah, so I see. Not a word anymore left in you is there? You might be dead in body, but you are still here. So answer me, please. Be a father for once and enlighten your son.

...Fine then. It seems we will need to change into something more drastic if I am to get the answers that I seek from you.

...Gabriela, please watch over my things for a minute, will you? I will connect now, so give us some time for ourselves.

...Let us see what heart-to-heart you are still capable of doing, Edward. If can call that thing heart, anyway.

...So, this is what it feels like. To change perspective, eyes and mind both. I see your wavelengths changing, just as mine intertwine with them. What carcass of a heart it is left, I can feel it changing the more I stay here. But it is not a change made by me, is it? You are making it yourself, Edward. Why? Why was it so hard to do it before all this? What made you stagnate in this version of yourself?

The more I search for you, the more things I see stay the same, yet change. Like painting over a canvas again and again, the art changes, yet it is art all the same. Was it so hard to grasp? The meaning of change does not have to do with parting with something in order for new things to arrive. I see now that your humanity was traded away long, long before I even met you. Yet you remained human up to this point. You did not only change your human heart for a pacemaker, you changed its meaning. You changed everything about you both physically, mentally, and meaningly.

That is why I can't find you, right? I'm inside you, I'm standing right beside you on the outside, I'm in your heart, yet I am not. You are not Edward anymore, right? Erick? What has prompted this change? Was it me? Or was it the other version of you? Living alongside you, yet I am yet to find its home inside here. If I am to find it, then I need to go further in. On this twisting, changing maze of yours I have come to known, I have yet to find the entrance and exit of it for you to escape.

...The more I search, the more my need. What more is there to find if all else is the same? And yet, and yet, and yet, is changing. Like you said, it is the same, yet it is not; a version of it. Is it really that way? What change truly is? Just the same thing but not? So Edward and Erick are just that, then? A version of you? What then, was the original you? Where does it reside inside here? Is it the same for me? I...I had not thought of the idea. Inside me, are there really copies, no, version of me besides Crow? Am I not the original, then? I need to venture further down this rabbit hole, for my own sake and peace of mind. If I want to truly change, then I need to find its meaning first. Be it here or in me.

What I know for certain is one thing though: What Crow is like, I am not. Yet I was, and he, me, will never be. Stagnation let him to an end, but progress shall lead me to a new beginning. If I can go back to him and change him for the better, then I will have succeeded. If I go back and change you, Edward. Then I will have accomplished. Whatever happens, change will follow. Whichever of you changes, a past will be overwritten.

As it begins, the beginning of progress. I, too, feel change inside me. A moving clock hand, ticking in either direction, yet I feel it moving correctly. Whatever change it may bring, I know it will be a positive one. I know progress is not dictated by how far you go, but how you get to it. It may seem like I'm regressing to a previous life, but in reality, it's just the next chapter on my journey.