Virtuose Rebirth

Squeezing my eyelids together, feeling like my retinas had been singed by unfiltered sunlight, a cool metal rubbed against my fingertips, so smooth like marble against my skin that it felt like my fingerprints had been burned off. Sprawled out before my numb body and pulsing eyes was a long, rectangular thrum of tangerine and violet, and flushing inwards from that looming, flat gradient was a cool warmth, like the spring heat under wet clouds.
Sensory bearings came second to the rush of information that flooded my orifices, and I could vividly feel unwelcome memories cascade from eyes, forgotten promises mumble and trickle down my ears, and the smell of sweet almond coffee drip from my nose like I had been punched square in the face.
It didn't take too long to prop myself up, stare around the cream-coloured couches, peer at the scarlet square carpet, and become heavy with the sensation of urgency. Unfortunately, there was no outlet for that sensation, because everything that had once been urgent about that room had dispersed like mist under the morning glow. No blood, no shattered glass, no sparks and glinting blades, no goddess roaring into the heavens, ruins crumbling from her heads like water droplets from an uprooted lily. 
None of the people I remembered were here, no traces, and I staggered through that cloud of memory, falling against and gripping a long, oak table littered with papers, an old, marble-white phone, and an ashtray too clean to have ever been used. Not even a smudge against the clear glass. Now, adjusted to the world, my eyes could sweep against the city that stretched out against the mountains, their peaks lost in the swelter of sunlight, and inside me the sensation of being cloistered in familiarity bubbled up against my cheeks. Fingerprints staining the glass, I looked out against the buildings I loved, and that frightening remembrance of things past almost melted into the landscape. 
What exactly was I remembering?
A dream?
Another life?
Neither seemed very believable, the former because it felt too real, and the latter because it seemed too fantastical.
Listlessness that I was used to still drenched my heart like the warm buzz of summer heat, and permeated my insides like boiling chicken spreads its scent across the entire house.
Something was there, in that memory, and though it was too long ago to be anything but snippets of sensory information, smells and sounds and glints of light, it somehow felt less distanced from me than what had, purportedly, happened only hours, days ago.
It felt like six months had passed since any thoughts had whirled about my head.
Was the world still ending, or was that a part of the dream?
I wandered back over to the hardwood table, the polished floorboards creaking under my lightweight stride, and flipped with a finger through the selections of cheap coffee capsules, lined in a rainbow of colours. It seemed like whoever had organised this place was the kind of person to order their bookshelves by colour, rather than author.
After choosing a mild, almond-flavoured pod, realising that these probably weren't at all cheap after scrutinising the label and finding the manufacturer, and pressing down on the fancy, sleek black machine, I let its whirring monotone pedal forward my critical thinking.
Ahhhh, how I missed grinding, pouring, and tasting my own coffee...
...that wasn't part of the critical thinking I was getting to, though.
Had I been drugged?
Kidnapped?
Memory transplants?
Virtual reality experiments?
Every conclusion seemed as unlikely as the other, and it felt like I was leading myself in circles, chasing my own tail until I was dizzy.
Once the machine lulled, I took the porcelain, faded turquoise mug and stood before the cityscape again, feeling alone and small against the soft gaze of the verdant, jade mountains.
Maybe I should forget those fragments of memory, a past life, a dream, whatever, and live on in this world as it is, as I am.
But what's to say this all won't be scrunched up into a ball and thrown in the trash can, too?
Maybe I'm delusional.
Is this the onset of a cataclysm?
Is everybody going insane, experiencing the same things I am?
Maybe it's a late, heavy onset of eight-grader syndrome...
No, for it to be that vivid, it's probably hallucinatory and far worse.
Should I go to a hospital?
Just the thought of stark white, sanitised, garish white hallways and incessantly polite, in that kind of distanced, inhuman way that's exclusive to hospitals and courts, nurses and doctors made me shiver. Suddenly, like that unconscious, physical reaction had nudged something in my body, jettisoned my synapses into linkage, I remembered something far clearer than all the rest. It almost felt like the words were being whispered beside me, and my ear itched with the sensations of warm breath and sound.
"Live"
Such a cliche, unremarkable line.
But it was pressed firmly into my grey matter.
I couldn't remember who had whispered it into my brain.
But for some reason, somehow, someone wanted me to live.
Somebody wanted to implant that message into my skin like a tattoo, and engrave it into my being.
...ahead of me, lush trunks of Hinoki cypress and honey-tinged maples lay outstretched against the azure skyline, and the back-and-forth swaying of the leaves by the frost-tinged zephyr bathed the city in a low ocean of green shades, ebbing and flowing with each rustle.
Truly in coordination, no, harmony with each other, the cavorting shadows, low hum of the commercial streets and quite, harmonic whispers of the residential districts all united into one, singular city, welcoming all, as long as they were content with loneliness; because, no matter how tightly knit of a family, how strong a bond, how passionate an adolescent couple, there was a pervading sense of loneliness drenching life as it was here, clutched by the mountains, and stroked by the sea-tinged breeze.
And it was impossible to shake off the feelings of connection, of that complete opposite kind of tenderness that had swarmed like an invasive species into my heart.
When I sipped the warm, almond-smelling coffee, that emotion poured down my throat and drowned me in yearning to discover what I had lost, why it had appeared to me in the first place, and how I could honour it.
Just then, a slow, tentative click of the door handle drew my attention way from myself and the city.
Slowly, like he was hesitant to place a foot into the room out of concern it would disrupt some kind of natural balance, a man, eyes downcast and long, heavy fringes with onyx black curls dangling against his forehead, placed a willowy, scarred hand against the spine of the door, and peered with deep, crimson eyes in my direction.