404. Steps for a new life, 9

(Rose)

I realised that I wasn’t dead.

But also that I wasn’t quite alive yet.

That pit where I saw myself standing, surrounded by dark walls, below a dark sky. It’s kind of a metaphor for the bottom layer of my consciousness, of my personality.

I’ve been dead a few times now.

Being aware, I know it means I’m not entirely gone yet.

And I realise that there are different ways to resurrect, since I’m now experiencing one I never went through before.

Blume and Dragod first created copies to a quantic level of accuracy of who I once were.

That’s one way. My first merging with Blume was another. A reconstructive symbiosis, with something able to go beyond cold flesh.

Rebuilding myself after visiting the other world is another technically, since for a short time, I wasn’t anything human and physical anymore. I probably forgot another one or two.

Now, what is growing, the Rose that is growing, isn’t a copy of the previous one.

I’m resurrecting in a different way. It’s closer to the merging with Blume.

Everything we’ve all left behind as we collided there, it’s fusing.

I have gained a part of the memories of Licht along the way.

Licht and I, were two variants of the same kind of roses, the same species.

The new human mind I am, through its genesis in this pit in the ground, is repurposing the memories left behind by both Licht and Rose as if they were once one and the same.

Along other petals I can see from Bleue, Blume and Ogre around me...

I am Rose. But my memories and my personality have accepted Licht and what she left behind, as a natural part of me. I remember most of both pasts as if I lived them. For the memories, it’s not an issue.

For the personalities, it does feel a little odd.

Because even as I stand there in that dream, it feels as if a little voice is speaking to me inside my head.

The voice of Licht.

And I could see her ghost.

There is also the voice of my darkest thoughts and feelings, speaking along sometimes. It’s there...

As for the resurrection of my body, somewhere out there, I certainly owe it to Blume.

I can’t fathom anyone else doing such a thing.

I can feel it a little out there.

The resurrection or rebuilding of my mind, down here, it’s a painful process I can only work by myself.

Along the fragments of our pasts.

In this world, dying means new opportunistic life-form will fight over your leftovers.

Coming back to life is harder than it even seem in that context.

Because the boundaries between body and mind, from where I am, are still in a very soft and blurry state.

My mind or its primal elements, survived the absence of body because they were translated in the other world. I mean... In T.I.

I recognise some patterns now. Elements of memories and minds, translated into structures of T.I. and proteins.

They all swim around in this sea. They speak. They collide. They fuse. They mix.

My awareness has been reborn from a growing amalgam of these.

Now it’s mine to rebuild the puzzle, to build something that works with what I can still find in my surroundings.

And to grow from these materials a human mind out of it, in due time to merge it with the body offered to me by Blume.

I can come back, rebuilding myself.

Although I don’t have any perception of time from here, I realise that there’s a body growing nearby. It makes me fear that if I’m too late, if I fail to build a human mind right enough and in time, then maybe I will lose my window.

If I can’t catch that train in time, then I will likely collapse and die here for good, and something else than a rose will grow inside that body.

It’s stressful.

But I will be successful. I’m confident.

Because I want to live.

~

I’m making the leftovers of everyone parts of me.

All these dead minds fertilise my own very well. They are absorbed easily as they become more to grow with.

Even if it’s extraordinarily painful to accept Ogre as a part of me.

She... Always disgusted me. She always made me violently opposed to everything she said and did.

Because she reminded me of the part of myself I hate.

She realised that far before me, and used it well.

She was right... The more I denied everything, the stronger she became, outside and inside of me.

She was a monster at some point. But she became my inner demon, my own darkness incarnated.

The scary thing is, I don’t know when exactly. But probably right after we first met.

We collided, and she used everything I was, desired and hated, to become my enemy. She used what she could drain and learn from me.

It’s awfully painful to admit that I created her, unknowingly. I made it adapt and change to me.

She’s everything I hate in myself...

Only in this world, it was able to gain a life on its own...

Bleue on the hand, was everything I loved... Mostly.

She was created willingly, as my selfish wish.

It’s been so sweet living along my dream come to life.

In a way, all of them were variants of the species of Rose Blume.

They were attached to this... let’s say species, or genre. A kind of family.

I will be the next one, inheriting the name, the personality, the past, the genes and memes, everything. Growing from the leftovers of all those who came before and collided around here.

I am Rose.

Not quite the same as before, but I am the new Rose to grow on my own self as a part of that species.

I want to live again.

And I did it.

I created my mind. My human mind.

And I’ve begun merging with my body as we matched.

I am coming back to life, thanks to everything that was before.

And though it pains me, that includes Ogre. But also Blume above all.

I can feel or hear the little voice Ogre could be in my head, grinning happily.

I finally admitted that parts of me enjoy being monsters.

That’s not everything I am. But yes, that part that sent me to fight and face monsters I should never have ran toward, it’s her, it’s my thorns.

It’s my primal sadistic savagery. It’s my warrior.

So far away from my motherly ideal. But a primordial force of nature, that will survive against everything, against all odds, and laugh as the world ends.

She’s my weapon and my muscle, and my indomitable will to use them until I prevail, no matter what stands in my way, no matter what are my desires.

She’s the demon I am inside.

The Lichts are closer to the human I am and want to be. Bleue was the closest creation to what I wanted to love.

Blume used that a lot as well. I noticed it more than once. They had similar ways of speaking, similar behaviours, similar opinions. They both had a persona created for me to love them. Blume has always been so kind to me.

Dear Blume...

All my wishful thinking, is you.

Now comes the time to awaken, once more.

I feel the body warming up.

I will gain life again. I have my long share of good and awful memories to carry. I will have sweet dreams and awful nightmares for years to come, that’s for sure.

My end was a long trauma I will keep as a deep scar forever. No point trying to minimize or deny it. I will always hate Ogre and myself for that ending to my previous life...

But aside that dark wound I have to overcome, my mind is well.

I am confident for my life to come. I want to live further. Not as an opposition to a fear of death. No. Far from it.

I’m not trying to run.

But I’m smiling.

The skies are opening themselves to me and I’m ready.

There’s a huge, immense world I love out there. I’m sincerely eager to return there.

I want to live, but because I know it will be in that fantastic and magnificent world I know and love.

I will be sad, I will feel pain. But I will grin, and I will prevail.

For I am Rose. And I’m grinning already.

I have my figurative wings of light.

I also now have my figurative wings of darkness.

I’m flying out of the well. Into the light, into my new life and rising new body.

I can hear something sounding like thunder far outside. I miss the real sky. I miss the rain, and the cold water on my pale skin.

I miss being alive, I won’t lie!

Tomorrow, whatever happens, no matter what I have to face, I will watch the sun rise.

And I will be happy, to be alive.

Rise and shine.

~