The Masked Demon

Memories

Apprehension filled me as I immediately resisted the tug which followed and pulled myself in the opposite direction. I managed to pull myself away and I breathed a sigh of relief as the feeling began fade. Then questions flooded into my mind. Why? Why is this happening to me? I could not remember ever doing anything to deserve this. It was then that I realized that I didn't even know How I even got here? I attempted to delve into my memories, latching onto snippets of memories as they danced across my mind. Every snippet brought me down a trail, with scenes acting out scenarios as I moved through them. The faces of the people were blurry, to the point that I did not recognize them. There was also not enough detail for me to truly understand what was even happening especially with big black holes of nothing that permeated the scenes.

Desperately I moved through every scene, searching for something, anything that I could recognize or connect me to myself. After a while I came across nothing and I looked around me in frustration. I had continued to move away from where I felt the tug during my journey through my mind. Mist still blanketed everything around me and the ground was still barren of anything but black dirt. There was a difference however; the ground began to change around me, rising into a...... I scrunched up my face trying to come up with the word as I continued to moved. Searching my memories again I tried to remember what they were called, the word was on the tip of my tongue but it just wouldn't come out. With reluctance I pulled my attention back to the world around me and though the change wasn't much it was oddly relieving for me to see the dirt raised higher, I don't know why but the flatness of the plains had began to start unnerving me.

Since nothing was happening around me I once again started reviewing my memories as I continued to move. Only this time I noticed something different that I don't know how I missed it before. In the place in my memories where everyone gathered in these strange structures, They were surrounded by huge piles of dirt and rocks towering high into the sky. Then the word for what the smaller piles of dirt around me came to my mind, "hills", and in turn the word "Mountain" came to my mind when I thought of the things surrounding the structures in my memories. When I thought about that place and those structures the word 'Home" came to mind.

I stopped as my environment started to change slightly when I had these realizations, the wall of mist had receded by half a mile. At the same time I felt a very familiar feeling of strength seeping into me, It was the same type of strength I received when I ate that....thing. I became more corporeal as a grimace came to my face as the image came to my mind with nausea close behind. Doing my best to keep myself from falling over I looked around at my surroundings that I could see now, waiting for the nausea to go away.

The ground around me had began to rise up into what I now knew were hills and with my improved vision range I could now see in the distance the beginning of mountains. Seeing these mountains I thought again of "home", a longing to go towards the mountains, to find that place settled within me. I set course for the mountains not knowing what I would find, not caring if they were the same mountains, just that they were a place I felt that I would be safe in.

My mind returned to wandering, specifically on what just happened. My environment has only changed like it did in two scenarios; When I....ate that thing, and when I remembered something about home. The change was more significant with me remembering what a mountain was and that the mountains surrounded the place I called home, more than when I ate that thing. If the change is based on memories does that mean that when I ate that thing I had actually been eating its memories? I scowled at the thought, but if that is true then my situation is as follows; I am Currently in an erratic state of existence that hinges on my memories or in other words, what allows me to determine who I am. Based on the fact that I grew stronger after consuming that thing I would have gained the memories of its existence therefore stabilizing my own.

In my mind I looked at all the snippets of memories flying around. My theory was confirmed when I pulled myself back a little and noticed something I couldn't see before, all of The memories I recognized as my own were surrounded by a bluish hue and there were 2 other colors among them. There was a group with a red hue, similar in amount and mixed around with my blue some merging together , and a small group with a white hue sitting separately below the red and blue. Although concerning, I ignored the red ones for now and focused on the nearest white one. My movements came to a stop as several of the white snippets of memories suddenly converged onto me. Scenes began to flash across my mind, faster and faster, too fast for me to see, and then they suddenly stopped on one scene.

In the scene I was standing in a peaceful grassy field, I looked above me into the sky and an expansive sea of stars that was breathtakingly beautiful filled my sight. Among the stars sat two moons which shed their silvery light all around me. My eyes were drawn to the the field when a small buzzing sound began to build up around me, soon the field was awashed in light given off by small flying bugs. All of this combined with the blue of the night dumbfounded me and I stood there taking it all in for a bit.

I was pulled out of my trance like state when melodious music came to my ears. Turning to the direction of the music a path on the ground came into my sight which led into the shadows of the trees. Without realizing it I was already moving toward the music, and I began down the path and left the open sky behind. I followed the small trail through the trees and the further along I got the more the sound of the bugs faded leaving me alone with the music. Soon it was all I could hear and before I knew it I had began humming along with it. The trees started to become less frequent and soon I came into another clearing. In the center of the clearing lay the origin of the music, a small female human was sitting on a tree stump singing a song.

Carefully I made my way into the clearing and towards the center. Everything went as expected until everything around me began to go fuzzy, the ground around me began to break and fall leaving behind nothing. Panic filled me as I tried to run but my body wouldn't obey me. It calmly kept walking towards the center of the clearing like nothing was happening. I was forced to settle down and a realization came to me. "I" wasn't in control; this was not my memory, it was the memory of that thing. I separated my thoughts from the thing but I was still stuck inside of it. The world fell apart around us as he finally came within a few feet of the girl and said a few words which I assume were a greeting. Throughout this whole time the girl had been singing and at this point she stopped to turn around and look at us as a smile began to light up her small face, words beginning to come out in response. Her face then froze and morphed into a look of terror, her words intended as a response turned into a yell of warning, the last thing she did before she too disappeared into the blackness. The thing spun around in anger to see whatever had frightened the little girl, a desire to protect her filled its entire being. This was not to be so however, as the first thing it saw was a heavy club about to hit its face. Then the world went dark.

Coming to I found myself curled up in a small ball on the ground, all my limbs were shaking and everything felt really cold. With shaky limbs and several deep breaths I heaved myself up to my feet and continued on my journey to the mounts, they weren't that far now. The cold feeling wouldn't go away, not even when I rubbed them. Even though it didn't help I remained in that bundled up position as I walked. My thoughts again returned to that things memories, were those its last memories before it ended up here? Did it die there and if so what happened to the little girl, Did she die too? I didn't know but it's likely that either she didn't die and get sent here or she didn't manage to escape from the place I escaped from. I didn't know what It was called but the term void seemed fitting.

At this point the base of the mountains came into my sight. Craning my neck I was just barely able to see the top of the mountains going into the white sky. Looking again at the base of the mountains I was able to see a small natural path winding through the mountains. Meaning to go up the path I tried to take a step forward, succeeding in tripping over nothing. I would have been able to catch myself, if my arms weren't wrapped around my body. This is how my glorious face meets ground experience occurred. I layed there for a moment, wondering how something like this even happens, and then I let out a long sigh because at this point I just felt tired. Pulling myself to my feet, again I looked at the path through the mountains, and then I looked at the base of the nearest mountain. I saw what I was looking for and made my way towards it, when I came to the crevice I looked inside to see enough space for me to sit semi comfortably. I went in and curled up again into a ball wrapping my arms around myself to try to get warm. Here I sat slowly rocking myself back and forth, I found myself humming to the tune of the song the little girl was singing, the sound of my voice humming the song was the last thing I heard as my consciousness faded and the world went black.