474. Pragmatic flesh, 4

(Rose)

I have withered.

But oblivion still doesn’t dissolve me entirely.

I feel myself crumbling down, but still not fully dying everywhere.

I kept crying. Almost praying for death to release me from that suffering;

Something does not let me die.

Something wants me to suffer.

My memories torn, ripped apart like shreds of paper away from me. My identity shred into dissolving pulp from every side and corner.

All in an endless night without any sensation from my body remaining.

The hellish abyss beyond reality, where I’m not allowed to disappear, is now my jail.

It’s a grim endless end...

~

At some point, a light of hope appeared, as a figure of speech.

A mantle of darkness even deeper than the abyss appeared to my illusion of sight.

Something darker than night had come for me, wrapping my dusting leftovers in its linen.

That silk of ink brought me back together, put me back together, to a humanoid silhouette even.

That silk drew the shape that my chunks of flesh or memories filled, randomly.

Together, we almost looked like something trying to be alive and human.

And fragments of voices echoed in my broken mind.

I realised my spirits were now a scattered jigsaw puzzle.

And I could figuratively feel her fingers beginning to piece them together in me.

She clumsily attempted to reconstruct me.

I could feel my emotions, thoughts and memories being swapped, turned around and rearranged. Thus over and over, with every little piece of me remaining, until a consciousness resembling a little bit to what I once was finally clicked together and worked. Some thoughts travelled.

I felt like waking up, a little.

I was still out there in the hole of daiûa, or worse, and shapeless.

N - Can you understand me?

R - I... I can... Nightmare... It’s you, right?

N - Yes...

My emotions and thoughts grew like a puff of smoke from there, wrapping her and us. I hugged her as tight and warmly as my absence of body could. I cried over, so relieved in that nightmare.

I’ve been so terrified and so much in pain, for goodness knows how long. It feels like decades of loneliness just ended.

Feeling her close to me is heaven caressing me in the lost depth of hell.

I would kiss her in gratitude if I only could.

For now, my soul just overflows with suffering to excise.

Waves of sadness spread and vanish in the void surrounding us.

Pieces of my mind sent too far wither and die.

I feel like I’m waking up again.

I’ve cried enough for now.

R - Where are we? What happened to us?

N - We died. What’s left of us being digested in the belly of the beast.

R - What’s left of us?

N - What was able to survive on the other structure of reality, in smaller fragments formed with T.I. I’ve rebuilt my awareness and memory first. Then I began collecting what I could still find of yours. I saved what I could of you...

I can feel that I’ve lost a lot more of myself this time. I am dead after all...

And there are thus wide gaps in my memories and ideas. Most are surely blind spots, but some I can even feel they’re missing.

I barely know and remember how I am. But I still do mostly, thanks to Nightmare. And thanks to Blume.

R - I had a pendant... I think it helped... Safeguard parts of me. In a seed.

N - I can still hear very distant echoes of ourselves out there, far beyond this plane.

R - Meaning?

N - We have a thin chance of actually returning into the reality you know someday. As long as we manage to survive in here.

A chance to live again...

Should I even consider it? My doubts irradiate.

Nightmare strangles them and me immediately.

N - Don’t.

R - Why...

N - ...

She’s trying to find the right words, the right idea to keep me alive. The best fuel to give to me when I’ve lost my will to live...

She rummages through my remaining memories, looking for it.

I’m completely under her power. She could make anything she wants out of what’s left of my mind.

She could just eat me, turning me into nutrients for herself.

Yet she doesn’t want to take control in any way or form.

That’s not what she wants...

What does she wants?

Life... Chaos...

And curiosity, for what would happen next... In stories...

What would happen after the story is over.

After the prince and princess are wed. After the hero has won. After the villain has died...

I have a blurry recollection of wings of light and darkness.

N - You bring chaos. You make life interesting. You make things change and evolve around your path.

You make the impossible possible...

Who told me that before, I don’t remember. Some memories that seemed to fit me that Nightmare brought to me were never mine.

Because she, and her house looked like me and mine...

R - I’m... I’ve failed... As a human.

N - I don’t care for what you want to call yourself. Life itself is the only thing making life interesting. I want to see more, and so do you.

A little part of me understands her nonsense. I can relate.

Something will always happen next as long as something is alive. It doesn’t need to be human.

I do want to see what happens next...

And I briefly recall saying to myself, more than many times, that I enjoyed being alive in this world. It’s always been true and sincere.

Daiûas bring chaos and make events and stories fascinating to my eyes.

They always motivated me to evolve.

Though I’m not really sure who’s me anymore.

N - That will change. What matters now is that we want to survive.

R - So how do we do that? Where are we?

First, we’ll secure a spore of ourselves. A seed that could lie dormant forever even in this awkwardly hostile place we found ourselves in, and regrow ourselves when it reaches a better environment.

First is first.

Then, we will find our way to grow inside that space that is trying to digest us.

~