Awakened

To Wake

He blinked. Awake.
He wasn't sure if he had been asleep before.
Or what sleep was.
But he was awake now, something slightly obscuring his sight.

He reached up to touch it, but saw his hand.
That was a hand, right? Why did he know what that was?
It was slender, pale, the many bones floating perfectly in place. But something beyond the hand distracted him.
Looking up, he saw light. Above him was fading light, a deep color seeping out of what hung over him.
It was all.. blue. The color was blue, with a few stray patches of white like his hand. Clouds in a sky.
He liked that color. Wanted to be up there with it. He was white like a cloud, right?
But the light was fading now, leaving darkness in it's wake. Small lights glimmered in that dark, and he admired that too. The clouds, now a dull, shadowy gray, would occasionally drift across the black, glittering expanse.
He missed the blue.

Blue. The word rolled around in his mind. How did he know that word? …How did he know anything? The knowledge was simply there inside him, appearing from nothingness just like his mind had.
Who was he? What was he?

A dull clatter caught his attention, looking to see a face made of bone, pale yet expressionless. He stared, taking in the other. A skeleton. He knew what it was, just like he knew the other was holding a bow. With a jolt, he realized something was in his hand, unnoticed as he'd previously stared at the unoccupied one.
Also a bow.

..Did he look like that? Blank, ridged face, dark, empty sockets?
He didn't like that thought. It seemed.. wrong.
But he was also a skeleton, right? He. He looked the same. At least, the parts of himself he could see.
How was he supposed to see his face? It was what he saw out of.
He didn't know.

So he took a step forward. There was a dull clatter, making him look down. His body was the same as the other, but something brown covered his legs. Now that he was paying attention to it, he could feel it there, rubbing slightly at his bones.
Pants. They were called pants. Leather pants.

They were fairly rough, he knew, though he had no idea how he knew. This strange knowledge was weird when he questioned it. Even weirder when he wondered what happened. He wasn't asleep yet he just woke up. He couldn't remember what was going on before. He simply.. was.

So he looked out at the place he had woken to, as if the swaying trees and bubbling brooks could answer him. There was nothing but the wind in the leaves and trickling water in reply. So he looked to the skeleton beside him.
“Why am I here?”

The words surprised him. He hadn't realized he could do that, touching his teeth in shock. The other hadn't reacted to his words anyway. He tried again.
“I? … I am here.” The words thrummed in his skull, hummed in his ribs. He could feel it all. Hear it. Taste the letters, even. But..
“..But why?”
The wind sighed in response.

There was nothing here that could answer him. He was alone here, thinking, speaking, awake in this world with nothing but the bow in his hands and the pants on his legs. Wait.. was..?
He also had a helmet on his skull.
Nothing but a helmet, pants and a bow.

So he started walking, glancing back briefly at his fellow skeleton, seeing a cave behind them both- and deciding to move on. He strode under trees, past silent creatures and shifting plants; all the while their names came to him. He had to whisper them under his breath, awed at his knowledge of him, mysterious and magnificent as it was.
Did that make him magnificent?

He could recognize all he saw at a glance, knowing its name and attributes, able to speak for no discernable reason and think for himself. He knew everything else he looked at couldn't, though not why.
Maybe he was magnificent. He was special, for some strange reason. He decided he would treasure that. Magnificent was a delightful word.