The Boy

It started out with nothingness.

He wasn't sure where he'd come from or how he knew that he was a he. His hands were small and his body a mass of brown fur that fell into his eyes from time to time. The space around him was empty but it felt warm and peaceful. No one else was there with him but he could never remember feeling lonely. Drifting through that empty void was uneventful but he wasn't restless or wanting. There were moments where he'd hear things. A soft voice speaking to him through the void and muttering sounds that he couldn't understand.

On one of those days, the void seemed warmer than it ever had before. The sounds became words that he struggled to make sense of. He'd been accustomed to the empty void and knew when something was out of place. A speck appeared that stood out in contrast to the white and slowly it was growing. He came closer to it and poked cautiously at the speck as it grew wider and longer. 

It formed circles and swooping lines, some pressed together, and others farther apart. He followed the speck as it went from one part of the void to the next in a rhythm that seemed endless. Then it came to a halt.

Hello, Jack.

He blinked and stared at the phrase as the speck stopped as if waiting for him to catch up or recognize the gravity of the situation. Jack. It was a word that he could make sense of but wasn't sure of. So he sat and he thought.

He sat.

Looking down, he realized that his furry body had grown into one that he was unsure of. 

He had legs.

Arms.

A torso.

And a mess of brown hair on top of his head.

His skin was a rich shade of brown and he could only wonder what his eyes looked like. Placing his hands at the sides of his head, he jumped at the feeling of the strange fleshy parts sticking to the sides of his head. 

"Can you hear me?"

The sounds became words and his heart felt lighter. He looked up and then to the speck that hadn't moved from its spot. When he closed his eyes to blink, he caught a distant picture of a smiling person that looked like him but different at the same time. Her hair was curlier and black, her skin a darker shade than his own, and her eyes were brown. She was holding onto a piece of paper with a pencil poised to take another stroke. 

The speck was written by her.

He wasn't sure whether to speak but the thought of her made his heart feel warmer and he closed his eyes from time to time so that he could see her image again. He spoke to her over the time that followed. At times, the speck would move and words would be written but she would return to speak to him again.

Jack.

"Is that my name?" He asked her. 

There was no reply and he wondered if she was upset or listening. He'd ask again from time to time but there would be no reply and he was growing worried. The speck was still and when he blinked, he couldn't see her anymore. Jack would curl into a ball and hold his knees close to his chest as he wondered when she would return. Then one day, the speck moved.

It moved farther and farther away from him and he found himself chasing it. His legs would become tangled together and sometimes he'd fall but rise again to follow. The speck stopped and moved up a wall that he wasn't even aware of being there. 

Then it grew.

Longer and wider until it formed a gaping doorway in the white void.

Jack watched curiously as a hand pushed through the doorway and then a leg. And soon, the entire body emerged as someone who looked like him stood there. This person had dark curly hair that came to stop at their shoulders. Jack's hair only stopped at the middle of his neck. Their eyes were blue and their skin was a darker shade just like the girl he'd see when he closed his eyes. Specks dotted their face across their nose and on their cheeks, something that Jack found nice.

When they took notice of him, they smiled.

And he smiled in return.

"My name is Damiano," they said. "Who are you?"

Jack glanced around as if waiting for the voice to return. A part of him hoping that she would answer the question that he wondered himself. However, no one spoke and Damiano stared at him expectantly. 

"I'm Jack," he said. "It's nice to meet you."

From then on, they were inseparable. Always talking about what they were interested in or the things that they wanted to do. Damiano was there when Jack closed his eyes and he was there when he opened them. He was constant and never leaving and it was nice. 

"Hey," someone called.

Jack looked to see someone standing outside the doorway. 

However, unlike Damiano, he noticed that they brought something different with them. The space beneath their feet was green and the space above their head was blue. Jack wasn't sure what the name of these things were but he recognized them as the sky and the Earth. This person walked as if they'd lived in the void for their entire life and sat next to Damiano without a second thought. The pair began talking and would drag Jack into the conversation even as he wanted to take in the world around them a little more.

The world.

It was the first time that he'd called the void anything but that and it felt right on his tongue. The person eventually introduced themselves as Rien. 

When they spoke and Jack referred to Rien, he was caught between calling them a she or a he. Damiano noticed and told Jack that he didn't mind being a he. However, when Rien was asked, they wondered what was the difference. Jack tried to put it into words but wasn't sure and Damiano couldn't supply any answers either. Rien stuck with "they" and Jack was relieved even as Damiano told him that he worried too much.

At times when the pair were asleep, Jack would stare at the sky watching as it changed from a light blue to a darker shade. Little specks would appear once something called the moon arose and Jack's gaze would shift to Damiano. The specks across his face reminded him of the ones in the sky. It wasn't until he asked Rien that he found that the specks were actually stars. Jack noticed that Rien didn't have the specks on their skin and they looked differently than Damiano. Rien's hair stopped at their mid-back, they were shorter than Jack and Damiano, but broader than the two of them. 

They were always fidgeting with their hands and playing with the ends of Damiano's hair or the hem of Jack's shirt. And while Damiano smiled without showing his teeth, Rien smiled brighter than the sun. Time passed quickly and her voice was lost to him as more people came through the doorway. Men, women, children. 

Jack's world was changing.

Damiano and Rien were changing as well.

Sometimes when he looked for the speck, he would see it in the freckles on Damiano's face or the light in Rien's eyes. He could see bits and pieces of her in all of them. 

And when he looked in the mirror, he could see her.

His eyes were brown just like hers and he could see her smiling back at him as she put the next speck on the paper titled "The Boy".