Vessel

Chapter 1: "I'm the worst person."

The atmosphere is tense from all of the intense gazes in a certain direction inside of the competition hall.  Nothing but little taps of little wooden pieces on a table in the front of the room can be heard.  There are two chairs on either side of the table, which aren't very comfortable to sit on (especially because of all of the stares), and I am sat on the one to the left.  I can smell the sweat of my opponent and the restless audience and as I reach out my hand towards one of the wooden pieces, I can hear the deep breaths that occur across the entire hall.  I move the wooden piece forward by one square on the board which is on the table, and my opponent takes a deep sigh and lowers his head in shame.  A short instant later, the deafening silence is shattered with a tsunami of claps.

"And the winner of the 2017 South England Chess competition is..."  Yells the commentator way too enthusiastically.  "Nymph!"  And there!  He says my name.  I'm not particularly proud of it since it's very unusual.  Despite that, the audience seem to take no notice and continue to clap furiously which is starting to hurt my poor ears.

So I just won a chess competition and claimed my prize money of £2000!  That'll keep me living well for the next couple months perhaps.  If you're curious about what I mean by that, I'll tell you.  I'm 15 years old, I live alone and have done so for over a year.  Why?  I have no family or friends and most importantly, I don't have any memories from over 2 years ago.  I'm fully aware of why, but it's not a subject I like to think about.

It's two months later and I've almost ran out of money to pay my rent.  So... Today I'm entering a local running competition which is organised by an Olympic runner!  The Olympian personally has a meeting with each participant before the race to interview them.  This is an opportunity I can use in order to be victorious in this petty race.

I can feel sweat running down my face.  My body feels as if it's slowly melting into mere ashes.  However, I can't let this get to me for it's all a part of my plan.  I've set the room temperature high deliberately.  As I hear a knock on the door, I wake up from my very focused reviewing of my plan and go to open the door.  I gesture for the Olympian to enter and close the door behind him, smirking behind his back.

He fans his face subtly as he sits on a chair.  "It's a bit warm, isn't it?"  He asks rhetorically.

"Are you okay?  You look like you're sweating."  I speak, trying my hardest not to sound sarcastic.  He smiles and waves his hand as if to say he's fine, but I place my left palm upon his forehead.  I feel like I've been struck by lightning, but I manage to cover it by widening my eyes and speaking.  "You're temperature is so high!  Let me turn down the room temperature."  I've done what I want to do.  Now I can get this interview thing out of my way.

After the interview, he leaves the room.  Following this, I slump myself onto a chair again.  That's two memories stored... I should delete the other just in case.  I grab a pen from the coffee table and write the name of the chess player I had played against to win the chess competition on my left palm.  Then I place this palm onto my forehead.  There is another shock throughout my body, but since I'm alone now, I let myself cry from the pain a bit.  Moments later, I feel perfectly fine again.  I doubt I'll need to play in a chess competition in the near future, so I won't need the memories of that chess player.

At the start line of the track, I ready myself like an athlete would and patiently wait for the race to begin.  My opponents seem to be doing their final stretches.  I glance over at them to examine their fitness.  The majority of them seem to be rather muscly and well built.  On the other hand, there are a select few who don't show anything visually to indicate them as an athlete.  Naturally, I shouldn't judge them based on their appearance though.

Everyone prepares themselves at the start line.  The crowd goes silent and all you can hear is the gentle rustle of trees.  A few long seconds later, the Olympian calls through a megaphone, and the adrenaline builds.

"On your marks..."

I release the tension on my body and take a deep breath.

"Get set..."

I lift my body a bit and my eyes wander to the track ahead of me.

Then there was a gun firing.  My mind went blank for a split second for reasons that I do not understand.  Shaking my hesitation, I suddenly bolted into action and overtake the opponents and take the lead.  Without a doubt, I won the race by far.  Unfortunately, the sound of the gun fire kept replaying in my head.  On top of it, I heard a girls scream which seemed to go on forever.  The voice sounded so familiar yet so different.  The voice... Was mine?

Personally, I think this is just a phobia of guns.  It's not unusual to be scared of such dangerous things.  It could be a bigger fear because of what I was doing before I was living on my own.  Or maybe it's something from before the start of my memories 2 years ago...

The way I'm living is very unfair.  My method of earning money is a unique ability of mine and I sometimes feel like I'm cheating at life.  Really.  I'm the worst person.  But it's all I can do.  It's not a sin to want to live, right?