Dark Light

Chapter 10: Trembling Consciousness

My wrongdoings will never be forgiven. I must always suffer. There will be punishment.

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Void – The world I called home. It is my own world, my personal space. I could do anything, from sitting to playing God, creating anything and everything. But why had I returned, unwillingly, unknowing? Running away from monsters, saved by someone speaking in my mind, I could only ask for the reason, only to be met by the answer.

"It is because I've summoned you here," a kind and gentle voice spoke forth from the nothingness. The shadow smiled in my mind as the landscape full of flowers sprouted into reality. With light, scattering the fragments of emptiness, the endless beautiful white lilies glowed beyond wonder. And even if there were some red dots shaped like the flow of blood dotted throughout, they all gave me a feeling of what I had lost so long ago. So beautiful.

Within the blood-red flowers danced a black shadow. And everywhere it stood, red lilies popped into existence. Made purely of nothing like an outline visible, it was just the same as me; a spirit of the mind. That was what I saw, what I called it before; but not any longer. The one who danced deep within the emptiness of my mind was never a shadow. A person, it was, waiting for me to call its name.

"Liliana."

I called out, with no reaction. The shadow stopped dancing, silently standing still.

"You're Liliana, right?"

"I'm happy you remembered my name," it spoke, a soft, girl-like voice, as the shadow faced my way. "I would be sad if you had forgotten." While the shadow had no mouth, no ears, or eyes, it still felt like I could see them. How she watched and talked.

"Who are you?"

In my asking, clenching my hands, she, Liliana, turned around and resumed her dancing through the void. "You don't know?" she continued as her outline darted through the fields and emptiness. "You still haven't figured out who I really am?" 

"It is simple; I'm you. Your inner self, your true self. Now only a spirit of your mind, your imagination, your hopes, and dreams. I'm you, and you're me. A person. Or a guardian."

"Then, why did you save me?"

"You know already the answer to that question." She, avoiding my eyes, came to a halt. "Look inside your heart. There, you will find your answer."

"You... only wanted to protect me."

"The only thing I want is to make you live happily," she corrected. "I want to fill that void of emptiness inside your heart where we now stand so that even this world can be beautiful. Still, even that is lost to me now. Why am I here? Honestly, even I can't answer everything."

Without speaking, without knowing her story, I kept quietly waiting for her answer. With her look, directed at the endless sky without an end, her voice spoke somber, unknowingly. "I don't know anymore. Once, I was a person, I know that. But everything is vague and blurred out now. Just like how the people speak about me; demon-spawn in human flesh."

"However," – her gaze directed back – "if I say I'm not truly a human, what do you think that means? And more importantly, what does that mean for you?"

With her words, I came to a halt, my mind crashed to a stand-still. All the questions lingering inside, all of them stopped rumbling. My body, together with my soul, collapsed in misery to the ground. My hands, covered by the blood that switched between existence, asked a question I wanted to be answered. What was it that she meant? I... I'm... Just what am I? Why am I here?