The Echo

As if it never occurred, there is a period of my life I cannot remember.

It happened during my third year of high school when I returned home from a long day. I went to bed that night, directionless and depressed, and when I woke up the next morning I discovered that four months had past, having been comatose and hospitalized.

My sudden coma went unexplained, and my life continued on. Somehow I barely managed to finish high school, was accepted by my top-choice college, and I met the woman of my dreams.

But one night, just a few weeks into the first term of college, I had a strange dream: a dream of a magical, far away world. A place filled with powerful foes and even stronger allies. It was a familiar dream, despite simultaneously feeling disconnected.

The ending of that dream was the most memorable, for the dream concluded with a singular voice. That damn voice, the same one keeping me up each night. A voice I can never shake from my mind, a voice which served only to remind me of my shortcomings and my mistakes.

A voice that mimicked my own.

It was two in the morning when I awoke abruptly. I stepped outside into a torrent of rain, and I took each and every careful step down the stairs of the building, descending lower and lower until I could go no further, having reached the bottom of a bottomless pit. And then, I continued to walk.

A couple of months had passed since that strange dream. Where do I begin to describe the state of my life? How do I describe where it all went wrong?

Her words continued to burn at the back of my mind, yet instead of anger I only felt empty inside. It was as if I was incapable of feeling anything in this moment, despite it all. Should I be feeling something at this moment? Why wasn’t I?

I thought we understood each other. Turns out, no one really understands me at all. Especially myself. As quickly as it had begun, our relationship had ended, and I only had myself to blame. I walked away from her, because I could think of no better alternative.

Because you’re a coward?

The voice, right behind me, just a few feet away.

I pivoted around, but not before my head was overwhelmed with sharp, stabbing pain. I fell to my knees, desperately clutching my head as I suppressed a scream.

You may be a coward. You may have failed, but that doesn’t mean you get to run from your problems.

“Who are you to judge?” I questioned, shouting to the empty air behind me, “You don’t even know who I am!”

The rain fell harder, yet the voice was just as clear:

Perhaps you are correct, yet you are only making excuses for yourself.

“So why are you here, then? Why can I hear you? What do you want from me?”

So many questions… but I suppose that was always in your nature. I am here because it is time for you to return.

“Return where?”

The pain in my mind intensified, as if sharp knives were driven directly into my skull. I struggled to hold back the tears forming in my eyes.

It is time for you to face yourself.

The voice had one last thing to say, before the world around me turned to white.

Welcome home, Blake Seer.

I found myself in the middle of a large, thick forest. The sound of the city was replaced with the hums and buzz of small critters around me, and the concrete was replaced with a field of lush, green moss.

As I lay on the ground, pain subsiding, I could not help but ask aloud, to no one in particular:

“Where… am I?”