When
you woke you were out of bed. Standing up. You had never before been
so calm. It was not at all strange to you. Nor were you concerned
that it was dark. You were not scared. More intrigued. You had never
seen anything like this before. You have no visual memories. Your
eyes were missing then. But you got them back. And now you used those
eyes to look upon it. It looked so neat. So thin. It was taller than
you. Taller than 'Mummy'. Taller than 'Daddy'. You knew this because
they were there with it. 'Mummy' and 'Daddy' said nothing. You
assumed they were like you. No theory to how it was possible. The
small heart in your small chest beated slowly. No anxiety at all. You
wondered how anyone could be so tall. You had never saw anyone like
it before. You saw a suit and tie. Clad entirely in black. Impossibly
long legs. Impossibly long arms. You could not see its face. You
concluded it was something to do with his hat. You felt a spike of
jealousy. It had more arms than you. You should have more. It stood
watching you. It stretched out its left hand. It stood far away but
his arm was long enough to reach you. You touched its finger which
was more of a blade, long and sharp. A bit of blood came out. A
umbral manifestation and the flashbacks started.
It
seemed to be that it had followed you throughout the entirety of your
painfully short life. It was as if you were a observer to your own
eulogy. For as it were, you had assumed the guise of it. You were
present at your own birth, your blind eyes and scrabbling hands
reaching out to that same perpetual abyss. Like a unrepentant
futility-filled denizen of that same unrelenting vacuum.
A
little later now – you were in the family room. You watched
yourself sit by the fire, holding a book upside-down. What are you
doing? Asked 'Mummy'. I'm reading, you replied. With that a single
tear crawled down her face. 'Mummy' didn't realise the tear was
swiped before it hit the ground like some precious garnet.
Years.
Those people had given your eyes back to you. You would have thanked
them, but you had no idea of gratefulness, of sympathy, of love.
These things did not exist to you, in parallel to spirits refusing to
apparate before the living. But you did. With malicious intent... You
remember vividly the first thing you saw -not 'Mummy' or 'Daddy'- but
yourself as you were now, looking on a bygone self. It was as if you
knew – you did not register or fear your presence. You just knew,
and acknowledged it.
Thus
the tautology came to a close. Your form had not shifted. You looked
upon little you, so out of touch with the world. The two people who
had protected you, tried to issue you some kind of emotion were gone.
Their forms cast away like mere chaff. They begged you to give
yourself your eyes back. You had agreed but there was never a truly
pure covenant with you. It was delightfully ironic to think they did
not provide to you what their autistic child could never provide –
specifics, details, intricacies. That was their sin – and once last
life was to be stolen in penance. They let you in... and you will
take them out. You try to resist, but you can't stop yourself. The
process of self-elimination had never seen such an artistic method.
You extend your arm. Your small form seemed ever smaller by your
spectral size. Your small form, intrigued, also reached forward.
“NO!”
>-S->
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