Color in the dark

Darkness is a funny thing if you really think about it. It was the first to exist, and really, it will be the last. Since the beginning of time, a question that has puzzled the world is ‘Is darkness the absence of light, or is light the absence of darkness?’. It’s not that difficult if you really think about it; the light was the second to come into this big, wonderful world. So it will be the first to go. And what will happen then?

What will happen when all the stars burn out? When the sun fades away? When there is nothing left besides the eternal, judgemental darkness, where will we be? 

I like to think perhaps we pass on to another life, on another planet, in another universe. That would’ve been nice, wouldn’t it have been? To leave the black world where your pupils are forever dilated into a place where brilliant light shines through the sky, bringing hope and, finally, peace.

But the world doesn’t work like that.

<~_*_~>

“Mom, turn down the television, god, you aren’t deaf, and I’m trying to work on this essay; I can’t focus.”

“Then go to your room Ella, not that hard.”

Ella huffed and rolled her eyes in a spontaneous and familiar movement. It was almost like a knee-jerk reaction to her mother’s ridiculous antics. She was trying to finish an essay for a scholarship for the University of Tampa, and so far, it wasn’t doing so well.

“Yeah, but the fact is that I shouldn’t have to move rooms just because you are insistent on watching 12 o’clock news at FULL BLAST,” Ella said, slamming her laptop close and making her way to her room, ignoring the barrage of curses and insults that followed her. 

She usually wasn’t this difficult. After all, she knew that her mother was still grieving about her husband’s death. Ella would say her father, but she didn’t feel as if that was the correct statement. He may have been a good husband to Mary Stanville, but he was not a good father to Ella-kai Gray Stanville. 

The painful memory was quickly pushed away as Ella sat on the edge of her bed, opening her laptop to the mostly blank essay in front of her. It was increasingly hard to gain focus with her irritation towards her mother and the memories that seemed to force past her guards in her brain.

A dark room.

The smell of cologne.

The unscrewing of the only lightbulb in the room.

A tear slicked down her cheek, and her sullen thoughts were interrupted by her mother shrieking. Ella’s head snapped up towards her door, and she darted out of it without wiping the tear away.

“Mom? Mom, are you okay?” Ella said, running into the living room where her mother had been previously, and she was gone.

“Mom? Mom?!” Ella began to panic. She ran to the kitchen. Empty. The bathroom. Empty. Her mother’s room, the bathroom, the office. Empty, Empty, and Empty.

She hadn’t realized that tears were flowing freely down her cheeks. Her mother was gone. After hearing her frightened scream, almost sounding as if she was in pain, she had disappeared. Her mind raced, trying to figure out what would be the best thing to do. She should call the police, but what would they do? It had to be twenty-four hours before you could report someone missing. And was she missing? She heard her scream, and she wasn’t in the house, but she could be outside. Best not to jump to conclusions.

Get it together Ella, she’s okay; she just went outside.

With this false sense of confidence, she walked hurriedly to the front door. She swung it open, immediately yelling her mother’s name, hoping that if she was out there, she’d respond. No response came. She lived in a five-house cul de sac, perhaps 20 miles from downtown Cedar Key, Florida. She couldn’t have gone far in the amount of time she had apparently gone missing. There was a small fenced backyard, and she cursed herself for not checking there first. Obviously, if she was anywhere, it would be back there. Maybe she fell or something down the stairs of their back deck, and that’s why she screamed.

Yeah, yeah, she just fell. It’s all okay.

She turned and ran to the back door, continuing her shouting. She felt rather foolish yelling the same thing over and over again to no avail, but what else could she do? She slammed open the screen door that led to her backyard and stepped out onto the deck. She frantically looked around, ignoring the tears in her eyes. She ran down the steps, looking around with such speed that her neck began to hurt. 

“Mom?” 

There was no answer. There hadn’t been an answer for a while now, and Ella really began to panic. That is until she heard a panicked voice behind her.

“Ella-Kai?”

<~_*_~>

Mia was sitting on her ankles watching television when she heard the blood-curdling scream of her mother, followed by her father and two brothers. They were in the kitchen behind the living room where she had been moments before, and now they had suddenly disappeared. Mia couldn’t explain it. She had looked for twenty minutes before deciding to call the cops. What else could you do?

But the cops didn’t answer. 911 didn’t work either. So now she was sitting on the floor with her cell phone face up in her hand, still beeping from the failed call to anyone she thought might help, but time after time that she dialed a number, nothing happened. She was too confused to cry, too angry, too annoyed. So many emotions flowed through her at once; she didn’t know how to handle it, so she just sat there for a good long while.

She couldn’t figure out what she could do next. She had looked everywhere: Outside, inside, even in the basement. They weren’t here. It was like her parents and siblings vanished into thin air. She couldn’t explain it; she couldn’t even think about it. 

Minutes passed with Mia just sitting on the ground staring at the floor, ears becoming numb from the incessant tone emitted by her phone. Not many thoughts passed through her consciousness. This is what she did when she panicked. She shut down. Mia Martin shut down when things got tough. She couldn’t help it; it’s like her endorphins made the split decision to shut down all of her thoughts to prevent an anxiety attack, or was this an anxiety attack in itself? Who could really tell? All Mia knew was that her family was gone and no one was helping her.

She remembered her mother’s religious rambling about an end and a rapture. Was this the end? Was this Jesus coming down to earth and taking all of his children?

No, that’s absurd. That’s stupid. They’re around here somewhere. Before Mia could give another thought, her attention drifted up to the television. She was on the floor slightly beside the couch in front of the screen, and she could see part of the screen. The other part was obscured by the angle of the furniture. Mia squinted at the screen. It was dim, really dim like someone dropped lace in the front of the screen. She stood up and looked at it more clearly. The program that she was watching was still on, but the audio was quiet and warbled. The screen was flickering just slightly between two levels of dim light, almost as if it was struggling to get enough power to stay on. Mia walked over to the oak coffee table in front of the couch for the remote and shut it off. The experience was odd, and it left Mia with a bad feeling in her stomach. Well, it just worsened the already queasy feeling that overtook her the second she heard her family scream.

Mia sauntered to the front door and opened it slowly, allowing the noon sunlight to hit her floor and bring heat into the air-conditioned house. She walked to the first step of her front porch and sat down, leaving the door open behind her. Usually, her father would yell at her for letting out all the air conditioning, but under the circumstances, she heard nothing.  

What the hell is going on?

This was the first thought she had had in a while. She realized that she had wasted precious time by sulking in a corner and cursed herself silently, but then quickly forgave herself.

The cops aren’t there, no 911 operators, the T.V. is being weird. These aren’t normal circumstances. So it’s okay to freak out.

Before she could give it much more thought, she heard a girl’s voice call out for her mother. She just sat there, not really registering what she had just heard until she heard it again. And again. And again. Mia stood up and ran to the sound. 

Is it happening somewhere else? Maybe? Oh god.

She ran to the front of the house where she heard the yelling. It was the house of Ella-Kai, a pretty girl with brown hair and brown eyes. Mia had always found her attractive and cool. She was reckless, scarred by a mysterious past, often brooding in the high school hallways. Mia was attracted to her but too scared to say anything, frequently avoiding her so that they wouldn’t have to speak to each other. It was strange, standing on her front step, staring at the door. The situation almost left her mind, and she almost walked away in fear, but she shook her head, the memory of her family’s screams pushing her forward. 

She strolled into the house, feeling like she was doing something illegal. She glanced at pictures on the wall, seeing pictures of Ella’s mother and a man who Mia assumed was Ella’s father, except she had never seen him before. Mia’s eyebrows furrowed when she realized that not one contained Ella-Kai in the many pictures on the tables and walls. All were of her mother and the man. She heard Ella-Kai yell again and heard a door being slammed open. Mia followed the sound and saw Ella had gone outback. She followed silently, not sure what she was going to say.

Hey, is your mom gone too? Yeah, my parents and brother went poof. Poof Hah, funny, right?

Mia shook her head, disappointed in herself for thinking such crude things, and she walked out onto the back deck of the beautiful girl’s home. She saw that Ella-Kai was panicking, frantically looking around. She could only think of one thing to say.

“Ella-Kai?”

<~_*_~>

The world is a cruel place. Everyone knows that everyone is a human, yet, they categorize them, group them into cliques, some good but most bad. ‘This group is smart but weird,’ ‘This group are strong dumbasses,’ ‘This group are flamboyant outcasts that no one wants around.’ Flesh, blood, organs are all arranged into human beings but all so infinitely different. Yet, deep down, we are all the same, so why do we have to exist in groups? 

Maybe if someone could answer that question, we wouldn’t be in this situation right now, now would we.

<~_*_~>

“Oh my god, oh my god what the-” 

“Dude, dude, can you see?”

“No, no, I can’t. Bro, what is happening?”

“I don’t know, I don’t-” 

Adam tripped and fell on his face. A dull pain shooting across his face, something wet now running out of his nose.

“Ah! Damn! Don’t walk, don’t walk, you’ll fall.” Adam said to his friend Vinny.

“Wait, wait, I can see a little. Not much; it’s so dim. Dude, what is happening?” Vinny asked, reaching out his hands towards the dim wall a few feet away. He finally reached it and placed his hands on it, leaning on it to avoid falling like Adam. 

“Stop asking me that. I literally have no clue. I am totally blind like I can’t see anything.”

He held his hands up to his face and squinted but saw nothing. It was strange, and that’s all he could think of. Just strange. He should be freaked out, his vision just blacked out in a single instance, but for some reason, he wasn’t scared, as if his body had expected it somehow. Unlike Vinny, who had started hyperventilating, Adam was calm and reserved. He had always been this way, and he thought perhaps this was why he and Vinny had been such good friends. He was the level-headed thinker, whereas Vinny was the brute that didn’t think hard about anything other than his obsession with girls. 

“Okay, so you can see, right?” Adam said, now sitting up with his hand placed delicately on his nose. He didn’t think that it was broken, but it hurt like it. It was bleeding pretty bad, probably soiling his shirt pretty severely, but what did it matter? If this vision thing was permanent, it didn’t matter what his favorite shirt looked like.

“Just barely, like really, it’s so dim.” 

Adam heard Vinny shuffle slightly and suddenly felt hands on his shoulders.

“Let me help you up or something. Sit down; I’ll try to call your parents.” Vinny said, instantly helping Adam to stand. With a couple of stumbles and missteps, Adam had finally felt the couch hit the back of his knees, and he let them buckle. He hit the sofa and sighed with satisfaction, enjoying the plush rather than the concrete floor. 

“Hey man, don’t go too far,” Adam said, hoping Vinny hadn’t runoff. He may not have been scared at this particular moment, but he didn’t want to be left alone in blindness. 

“Don’t worry about that. I don’t even want to attempt to walk up the steps.” Adam heard Vinny say. He felt him sit on the couch. Vinny’s leg was pressed firmly against Adam’s, bringing an unwarranted feeling within his chest. 

It was stupid, his slight infatuation with Vinny. They had been friends for a while, and Adam didn’t know why he liked him. Maybe it was Vinny always protecting him or helping him. Or perhaps it was the fact that he seemed so unattainable, like a challenge, a puzzle. Adam liked puzzles. Or it could be his bulging muscles that always showed through his consistently too tight shirts.

Adam shook his head, trying to get these thoughts off of his head. He knew that Vinny was straight, way too straight, actually. His talk about girls always seemed off-putting. Besides, now was not the time to be thinking about this. He was blind, for heaven’s sakes. Why wasn’t he more worried about this?

“They’re not picking up; my parents aren’t answering either dude, something’s wrong,” Vinny said. Adam felt his breathing pick up beside him, and he fumbled around slightly to put his hand on Vinny’s leg. 

“It’s all okay, man. It’ll be fine.”

“No, it won’t, dude. You’re literally blind. One second you had twenty-twenty vision, and now you can’t see your hand millimeters from your face. And I can’t, I can’t-”

“Vinny, stop. You’re freaking yourself out. Look, there could be a logical explanation for this. Don’t freak out on me man, you’re my eyes right now.” Adam tried to be comforting, and he wasn’t sure if he was succeeding or not. After all, he had no vision to read Vinny’s body language. At some point, Adam realized that his hand was slowly drifting up Vinny’s leg, and he jerked it away, clearing his throat.

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry. It could just be a service issue. Maybe down here, I can’t get enough bars for the call to go through. Which means I’d need to leave this basement and go up those fifteen steps, three-quarters of the way blind.” Vinny began to breathe heavily again.

“Look, let’s just sit here for a minute, regain ourselves.” Adam hated to admit it to himself, but Vinny would have to walk up those steps, fumbling around. They were concrete steps, the floor was concrete. If he fell... 

“Yeah, yeah, okay. I’m sorry, man, I’m just scared.”

“I know, I know Vin, me too.”

Adam felt bad for lying, but what else could he say?

<~_*_~>

“Who the hell are you?” Ella said, tears streaming down her face, snot dangerously close to doing the same. She hurriedly wiped at her swollen eyes. She hadn’t realized how much she had been crying. A girl, a small and petite creature, perhaps 17, 18, was standing on her deck above the steps. She had long and wispy blonde hair and delicate silvery blue eyes. She looked familiar, but she could place her finger on it. The girl was wearing sweatpants and a loose green shirt. She looked so very spaced out but conscious enough to answer, which is why she got aggravated when she didn’t answer.

“Hey, I said who are you? Why are you here, leave?”

“Is your mom gone?” The girl said the voice was surprisingly louder than she thought. Ella was expecting a tiny, frail voice to match her frame.

“How did you know that,” Ella said grimly. 

“My parents are gone, so are my brothers. I’ve looked for them, but I couldn’t find them. They’re gone. I called the cops but-”

“But what.” Ella began up the steps. She must have looked menacing because the girl took a couple of steps back. She tried to give an apologetic look, but it probably looked more like a scowl.

“No one answered. Then I tried 911, but that didn’t work either.” The girl looked nervously down at Ella’s fists, which were now clenched into little balls of anger. She loosened them, surprised at her sudden show of aggression. 

“With your cell?”

The girl nodded.

“Did you try a landline?”

“We don’t have one.”

“All of the houses in the cul de sac should have one.”

“My parents had it removed.”

Ella stared at the girl suspiciously. Something was off. She couldn’t tell what, and she couldn’t say it was the girl specifically. The whole situation was fishy. Her mother, and the girl’s entire family, are gone. Disappeared. Vanished. Now the cell phones won’t work?

Ella reached into her pocket to retrieve her own cell and dialed ‘911’. She put it up to her ear and waited for an answer.

The dial tone rang.

And rang.

Ella bit her lip nervously, glancing up at the girl who was now looking away at the yard. Ella’s eyes glanced to where she was looking, but before she could see, someone answered.

“Hello? Yes, uh, my parents-” Ella started, squinting at the girl now looking at her wide-eyed.

“Oh good god, I’m not the only one.”

“What?” Ella turned away from the girl.

“Are you blind too?”

“Blind? What are you talking about?”

“Guys, she’s not blind, oh god, oh god.”

“What are you talking about?” Ella sat slowly down on the first step, eyebrows tightening, creasing her forehead in confusion. The man seemed panicked, really panicked. She heard other voices than the man, saying things like ‘How? The girl I’m on with is blind.’ and ‘Everyone here is blind; she has to be, right?’.

Ella hung up. She turned to the girl with tears in her eyes.

“What the hell is going on?”

<~_*_~>

I hate it when you walk into the room, and everyone spins and stares at you but tries to pretend as if they’re not. I get it, I look different, I dress differently, you don’t have to stare. But, I mean, at least if you’re going to stare, don’t try to hide it. 

Sometimes I stare back. I narrow my eyes deep into the souls of one person in the crowd. I can sense the fear within their eyes. I always wonder why they don’t look away, but I guess it’s the same reason I don’t look away.

I never lose.

<~_*_~>

Patrick hated his job. It was a two-hour drive to the plant just for an eight-hour shift to extend to ten, sometimes eleven of grinding. He worked at a factory that built car parts. No one really thinks about all of the things that go into the making of a vehicle. It’s incredible to look at. All of the tiny little pieces that he made were vital for the running of a car.

All of this, and he still despised it. He didn’t get paid enough for what he did. He was a simple little mold worker. He grabbed big sheets of fiberglass and locked them into a machine. He then walked over to a console and pushed a button that caused giant metal pieces to lower and heat them into a usable shape. It was then pushed down the line, and Patrick did it again.

And again.

And again.

It was the monotony that made him want to pull his hair out, well, what was left of his hair. It was the same thing over and over again; he just wanted something different. But he couldn’t.

All because of the stupid decision to not go to college. He thought, ‘Hey, I might as well take a break. I spent twelve years straight of school, I can afford a little break before four more years.’. Well, that break turned from months to years before Patrick even realized he was forty-three. He couldn’t afford college now, and even if he could, he wouldn’t pass. He was too dumb for that.

He wasn’t afraid to admit it. He wasn’t that smart. But damn, he used to be.

People used to ask him to do their homework. Teachers used to praise him; they used to ask him to tutor other kids. And now he had a beer gut and a rotting brain. 

He had wasted his life. 

He wiped his eyes quickly, surprised at the sudden show of emotion, and blinked, trying to change his train of thought.

Suddenly, his vision went black. 

He cursed and blinked again, but he still couldn’t see.

“What the-”

The sound of crunching metal and pressure against his chest stopped him before he could finish. 

His wasted life was over, and somehow, he was glad.

<~_*_~>

Vinny had gotten up after resolving that he would walk up the stairs. There were no handrails, something Adam thought was dumb. After all, they were concrete steps that led to a concrete floor. Regardless of Adam’s aversion to his parent’s decision to leave the stairs without a handrail, Vinny was about to walk up to them in hopes of finding a better signal and finding out what was happening. Or at least get some help.

Adam began to theorize about what was happening to their vision. He might have had a blood clot in a vein behind his eye. That could be causing blindness, and luckily it was temporary. However, it would be causing a headache, and aside from his nose throbbing, he was fine. That and if he didn’t get help soon, and it did turn out to be a blood clot, it could travel into his brain and cause an aneurysm. Instant death.

Papilledema? It was possible, swelling of the optic nerve caused temporary vision impairments. But it is usually just blurred or double-vision. That and it never lasted more than a couple of seconds. 

He suddenly thanked heaven that his father was an optometrist and then cursed himself for not paying more attention to his father’s ramblings about the inner workings of an eye. He was blessed, after all, with twenty-twenty vision; why would he need to know how an eye worked?

“I’m at the bottom of the steps,” Vinny said, snapping Adam back into the situation. His heart rate quickened.

“Please be careful. Get on your hands and knees, don’t try to show off and walk.”

“I may be dumb, Adam, but I’m not dumb enough to sign my own death certificate. I’m going to crawl like a little baby.”

Adam chuckled at Vinny’s circumstantial humor. He always had a way to lighten the mood, no matter what the situation was. 

A flicker of bright orange flashed in the top right corner of Adam’s vision, or blindness, whatever you want to call it. Adam’s head snapped to follow it and saw it again, this time on his left. His head snapped left, following this phantom light across the plane of darkness. 

And then it was gone.

<~_*_~>

Vinny was halfway up the stairs when he saw it. 

And then he heard it. Within his skull, inside of his body. This vibration, this ultrasonic pulse deep within his bones. It almost made him stand in fright, but he was close to the top, and he didn’t want to fall after coming this far.

He saw these minor wavelike hallucinations pulse across his vision. He placed his hand down, and they radiated from the impact like a pebble in a pond. He repeated that motion, again and again, in awe of what he was seeing.

Every time he took a breath, he felt an odd sensation. Something like sticking a vibrator against his chest.

He snickered at the image of sticking a bright pink vibrator against his muscular chest, and the vibration became an earthquake. It threw him back, causing him to tumble down the stairs. Each impact in the ground and earth-shattering noise rang in his head. His vision was now wholly consumed with the waves. It almost looked like he was underwater. 

Before he could think much more, his consciousness faded away with a cynical giggle.

<~_*_~>

While Ella-kai was talking on the phone, Mia’s vision tore from the beautiful girl in front of her to something more sinister. It brought bile dangerously close to escaping her mouth.

A dog had lept out from under the porch and started writhing, utterly silent in the yard. It didn’t even whimper, didn’t even bark. It simply seized on the ground for what seemed like an eternity now. Ella-kai had finished on the phone and was now looking at Mia. She said something to her, but Mia didn’t hear. She was too transfixed on the horrid sight that befell her. Her head turned back to the dog and gasped, seeing a flattened corpse. Something that looked like an empty bag but furry and now covered with blood.

“What are you even looking at?” Ella-kai looked to where Mia was, and she screamed, sprinting over to the now-dead dog.

Mia followed, silent still. She was in shock. No, no, she wasn’t. That was a lie.

Somehow, she was content.

She was horrified but not at sight before her. She was horrified at the fact that she thought that this was normal.

She finally reached the carcass and realized that that term was a stretch. What now lay on the grass was empty skin. The eyes were empty, the tongue was gone from the mouth, leaving a gaping, bloody hole. It looked like all of the bones and guts were ripped out of the back, leaving a slit. A bloody, perfect slit.

“Ah shit, Domino, Domino.” 

Ella-kai was in tears, sobbing uncontrollably. Mia eyed her curiously, not entirely understanding why she was crying.

“Ella-kai. This is normal. It’s okay; he has been reborn.” Mia was shocked at the words coming from her mouth. She had felt her tongue form the words, heard them in her head, and yet she knew they weren’t hers. Deep down inside, she wanted to scream and run away. But her body remained still, her eyes remained fixed on Ela-kai, now filled with rage.

“Normal? NORMAL?!” Ella-kai shoved Mia, and she fell on her back. She gasped but was unable to move when Ella-kai punched Mia in the face.

“My dog being, being- gutless and boneless isn’t normal. My mom disappearing isn’t normal. The 911 operators asking me if I was blind like everyone else is NOT NORMAL.” Ella-kai slumped to the ground, sobbing, Mia’s blood on her knuckles.

Mia touched lightly at her nose, dismissing the wound almost immediately. She stood, feeling the foreign thoughts and words fade from her. She felt herself coming back, and whatever was in her went away. Perhaps it was nerves, maybe it was just her shutting down again and her brain taking over. But whatever was in control of her body was now gone, and Mia was herself. She knelt beside Ella-kai and wrapped an arm around her. She was going to say something, but she felt all of Ella-kai’s weight fall into her chest. She knew that talking wouldn’t help. She just needed a hug right now, and Mia would do just that.

<~_*_~>

Adam heard the sickening sound of Vinny’s body hitting the concrete. His soul sank into his feet, standing up then promptly sitting back down. He could be no help to him blind. He hit the side of his head with his hands, desperate for any sort of reaction from his optic nerves. None came.

“Vinny? Vinny, are you okay?” Adam said, not sure what he could do. He couldn’t find his phone. It was likely somewhere on the ground where he had fallen earlier. And if that was the case, it was near impossible to find it. Besides, if he did manage to find his phone, there was no service.

The feeling of existential dread became infinitely worse when Vinny didn’t answer. Adam could guess that he was close to the top based on the amount of time that had passed, so he fell about 15 steps down, body hitting the concrete each time until he hit bottom. And with limited vision, god only knows what the damage was.

With a small moment of panic subsiding, Adam stood slowly, reaching out his hands in front of him, taking small shaky steps forward until he found the coffee table. 

“Vinny? Answer me, man.” 

He slowly turned around, waving his hands around still, not sure what he could do if he managed to get to Vinny. He could be bleeding out.

Tears came to Adam’s eyes as he imagined a sunken skull floating in a puddle of blood.

He shook his head, refusing to give his mind the benefit of the doubt. He was okay; he was just unconscious. A mild concussion at the worst.

In an instant, a blurry orange shape formed in front of him, maybe ten feet away from him. He squinted to no avail because the figure was just as blurry. It was strange, just a blob of color in the infinite blackness. Was it a hallucination? Was it a side effect of whatever was ailing him? Adam was unsure; he stood there, transfixed upon the mysterious orb when it flickered, going away for a second, then coming back, dimmer than before. 

And somehow, it clicked in his mind. 

The orb was Vinny, and he was fading fast.

<~_*_~>

Vinny found himself in a place he had never seen before. A vast, open field. The grass was waist length, but there was something off about it. It was somewhat iridescent. It seemed to shimmer with different colors as it waved in the wind. He reached his hand down to touch it, and it was softer than anything he had ever felt, yet, the pain that found his fingertips and ran up his arm into his heart caused him to jerk it away. Vinny found himself craving to touch it again, but the pain was too much. He looked up across the field of shiny grass and saw a giant pillar of light standing beside a post of blackness. They were twenty, thirty feet away and more significant than anything Vinny had ever seen. His eyes kept drifting to the white one, warm sticky joy filling his heart, He found it hard to breathe, but he wasn’t afraid. Before he knew it, he took steps towards the pillar, reaching out his hands, craving a touch.

Just a touch.

His eyes snapped to the black pillar, hearing some sort of sound radiating from it. The feeling of joy faded into torment. Tears filled his eyes, and he so desperately wanted to look away, but he couldn’t. He fell to his knees, near sobbing. The grass was touching his skin, bringing him mixed feelings of ecstasy and torture. He wanted to turn and run to the white pillar, the great, perfect white post. But then he heard his name.

And then he saw Adam’s face in the black pillar.

The pain subsided as Vinny walked into the column of eternal darkness, a scream of torment shouting at him from behind.

<~_*_~>

There are these lyrics that keep coming to my mind. It’s kind of cheesy, kind of ironic, but what else could the mind cleave unto when teetering towards madness?

Blackhole sun

Won’t you come

And wash away the rain?

Blackhole sun

Won’t you come

Won’t you come

Won’t you come...

Oh, death where is thy sting.

<~_*_~>

Adam had reached the orange blob, which he had recognized to be Vinny. He chose not to think about why he saw an orange blob but nothing else and instead focused on finding out what was wrong with Vinny.

He tapped his hands around Vinny’s body, trying to see if he could feel any blood. There was none around his torso or waist, and nearing Vinny’s head, he felt something warm and sticky.

“Oh no, oh no, Vinny, Vinny, Oh god-” Adam started to panic for the first time in this whole ordeal. He had felt calm this entire time, accepting the blindness with not much of another thought, but now that he felt blood around Vinny’s head, the severity of it all hit him like a brick. His hands fumbled towards his face. He felt his chin, and without a second thought, found the place on his neck where the carotid artery resided. His fingers pressed lightly against it, and there was no pulse. Then, almost as if the cosmos was reading his mind, the orange blob disappeared, leaving Adam in darkness once more. He started shaking the limp body before him, sobbing now. He was gone. He was really gone. 

“Vinny, Vinny no-” Adam was hysterical. He slumped over Vinny’s chest, burying his face, sobbing uncontrollably.

Memories came in, and out of his mind, he saw a smaller Vinny, five years old, celebrating his birthday. Then a slightly older Vinny, running towards Adam with a football, tripping just before he reached him, laughing on the way down. A middle school Vinny, arms around two girls, walking swaggered down the hallway. A shared smile in the darkness, bathed in starlight.

Adam wailed, gripping Vinny’s shirt in his fist, jerking it slightly in his anguish.

Before he knew it, he was asleep on his chest, eyes helplessly puffed from the hours of sobbing. And only then did he gain a moment of peace.

<~_*_~>

Ella had washed her hands of the girl’s blood. She had finally connected the dots and could remember going to school with her, yet, she could still not remember her name. She stopped crying, ashamed for showing that much weakness around a part stranger, but she couldn’t help it. With all that was happening...

She felt bad for hitting the girl, but she was being off. Ella couldn’t handle her snide remarks about her now-dead dog, which she couldn’t even begin to understand. Her mind drifted to the vision of her dog, lifeless, bloody...empty. 

She walked out of the bathroom, seeing the girl now seated on the couch in her living room. She had a rag held on her nose, just staring off in the distance. Ella decided that she should apologize and have a civil conversation with her. Maybe she knew what was going on; after all, she had shown up not ten minutes after her own mother had disappeared. That, and she said something about it being natural. She needed answers.

And this stranger would give them to her.

Ella walked up to the couch, looking at the girl who didn’t tear her eyes from whatever she was looking at. She sat down, still looking at the girl.

“Look, I’m sorry about-” 

“I know you didn’t mean it Ella-kai, I said something strange that needed a response. Your response was hitting me. I understand why you did it. But I don’t understand what is happening to me.” The girl looked at Ella, making eye contact with her. She squinted, seeing something odd in her eyes, but the girl looked away before she could get a better look.

“What do you mean? The parents’ thing? The blind thing? The dog thing? I mean, take your pick.”

“No, I mean. I don’t feel like myself.”

Ela almost giggled, “Again, I don’t think either of us feels like ourselves right now.”

“You don’t understand. There’s something...inside of me.”

Ella’s eyebrows furrowed, somewhat in confusion, but mostly of aggravation, “What in the world are you talking about?”

“What I said back there, I keep thinking about it. I keep hearing myself say what I said, remembering my steps and my motions, but I don’t remember doing them. Like, I don’t remember making the conscious decision to take steps, to say that. It’s like, something had control of my body.”

Ella Finally looked away from the girl, sinking further into the couch.

“Looks like you’ve got some baggage.”

“You do too.”

Ella’s head snapped over to meet the girl’s face.

“What?”

“A dark room. The smell of cologne. The unscrewing of the only lightbulb in the room.”

Ella stood up, “You better shut your mouth right now, or you’re going to have worse than a bloody nose.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I-, that wasn’t me, that wasn’t Mia, that was something else.”

Ella shook her head, turning her back to the stranger, “Let’s just take a breath, eat something, and stop talking for a while, okay?”

“Okay.”

<~_*_~>

Mia was surrounded by a light, blinding light. She shut her eyes tightly but it brought no relief, the light pierced right through. She blinked rapidly as she felt the liquid evaporate from her eyes, her tongue flipped around in her tongue becoming as sticky as cotton in honey, her skin began to tighten. The moisture from everywhere in her body was fading away. 

She gasped for air, realizing that the attempt failed. Her throat was sealed shut. He tried to open her eyes but they were stuck, her mouth began to swell, not unlike her hands.
All of this torment, and yet there was no pain. She could feel herself swelling like a balloon, she felt her lungs convulsing for air, and she knew that somewhere deep, she felt panic. But instead, she felt understanding.

<~_*_~>

Vinny woke up gasping for air. He coughed rather violently, feeling a weight on his chest. He looked down, and saw Adam, and also realized that his vision had been restored. 

Adam had a bright red substance on his hands, and they were placed delicately beneath his sleeping head. Vinny shook his head, the last bit of a headache fading away.

He looked down again at Adam, and slowly stood, placing him gently onto the floor without waking him. Vinny noticed a big spot of blood where he had been laying previously. He felt the back of his head and felt half-dried blood, yet there was no wound. He felt some more, thinking that he may have missed it, but there was nothing. 

Where did the blood come from?

Where was I?
Was that a dream?

Why is my vision back? Better yet, why did it disappear in the first place?

It was too much to think about. Too much had happened in too short of an amount of time. He walked over to the sofa, now fully visible, and he sat. 

And cried.

He couldn’t even begin to comprehend what was happening to him or Adam. Was it happening to other people? Perhaps, but why hadn’t anyone come by the house to check on them? There were several people that would have thought to check on them, but they hadn’t. That made Vinny believe that it was just Adam and himself. But then why weren’t the phones working? At first, he had convinced himself that it was just service. Not enough down here in the basement. 

But that had never been an issue in the past.

None of this scared him more than the mere fact that he was scared. Vinny had always been the formidable force that everyone sought refuge in. He knew that he wasn’t that smart books wise, but he always knew what to do in tough situations. 

My mom hit me last night, what should I do Vinny?

There’s this guy that keeps stalking me, how should I confront him, Vinny?

My teacher is hitting on me, the creep, what should I say Vinny?

Vinny, Vinny, Vinny-

He slammed his fist on the coffee table, tears streaming freely down his cheeks, slicing his confidence open and dead.

“Vinny, you- you were dead? Where- Where-”

Vinny sighed, wiping his face, “Just add it to the list of  ‘what the fuck’”

<~_*_~>

Ella had made pizza rolls. She was eating a big portion, sipping on a can of soda. Mia had stared at the portion that Ella had given her, once picking up a singular roll, staring at it for a moment before slipping it into her mouth. She was acting weird.

More than weird.

She had taken note of several things, her behavior was that of a young child discovering the world for the first time. But it comes and goes. Sometimes Mia would stare at her plate, confused, and then she would eat as if nothing was happening. She also seemed on edge, more so than she should be. Of course, some apprehension is expected, but she was constantly eyeing her surroundings, even gasping once. Something was scaring her, and Ella had no clue what it was. 

Ella just kept eating, chewing on the salty pizza pockets and eyeing Mia suspiciously. She said something about something being inside of her. At first, Ella thought that she was being metaphorical, but the more she analyzed the girl, the more she thought otherwise. Maybe she had that one thing where you had multiple personalities. She had seen it on social media and had always believed that it was fake, but maybe it wasn’t in this case. Mia had switched from confused and scared to cool and collected in mere moments. Without hesitation, she looked at the atrocity of Ella’s dead dog and said that it was normal and then claimed to have not said it. She didn’t seem to have been faking it, and under the circumstances, why would she fake that?

Then the thought hit her, what if there were clues at Mia’s house? Maybe if Ella could find something, anything at Mia’s house, then they could begin to understand what could happen. Deep down, Ella knew that this was absurd. How could she solve several missing person cases by just investigating a house? First of all, people don’t just vanish. There had to be a reason, and the reason had to either be scientific, or heaven forbid supernatural. Ella had never believed in such things before now but after today…

“I don’t want to.”

Ella’s eyes snapped up to Mia, mouth half-full with food. She gasped and almost choked on what was in her mouth. Mia was hovering several feet above the couch, legs still crossed, plate still in hand, as if nothing was happening. 

“But I want to stay here.”

Ella sat her plate down, stood up, and thought about moving towards Mia but just stood there. In awe? Fear? Ella couldn’t tell, she just froze in place. Mia looked down at her body and Ella noticed that her eyes were different. One eye was white, and the other was black. Ella didn’t know what to do, didn’t know how to react, didn’t know what to think. She was truly frozen, physically and mentally. She wanted to help, and she thought that she must do something but what?

“I said NO!” A pulse of orange radiated from Mia’s body, knocking Ella and all of the furniture back. Her head smacked the ground hard causing her to black out for a few seconds. She came to and raised up, stars invading her vision. She touched the back of her head, feeling a hot and sticky substance and knew that it was blood. She layed back down woozy, and weak. She’d just lay here for a while. 

<~_*_~>

“She’s strong.”

“They both are.”

“Subject 001 is refusing any sort of manipulation, astonishing.”

“Yes but notice Subject 002, she was partially taken over by the parasite, but somehow she refused it full access to her psyche.”

“How is that even possible? Is the parasite still there?”

“Yes, but it can only function at half of its ability. It’s like the subject has restricted full access but is unable to completely block it. Perhaps with time, she will falter and become a fully compliant vessel.

“Let’s hope so. We can’t have any more anomalies.”

<~_*_~>

“How are you alive? I felt the blood, I heard you fall, I-”

“Adam stop, please. I can’t explain it. Just as you can’t explain the vision disappearing. Just stop, let me breathe.”

A tear slicked down Adam’s cheek, partially from joy, but mostly from frustration. He had never been speechless or without solutions, but here he sat, completely powerless to the whims of the universe. What was happening should have been explained in some sort of way by now, their parents should already have been here, someone should have been here. Was this an isolated event though? Was it just Adam and Vinny?

All of these questions had already been asked with no answer given. More questions were added. Why did Adam see an orange apparition in place of Vinny’s body? And why can’t he see it now? Was it his imagination?

Too many questions. 

Just be in the moment. He’s alive, he’s alive.

Adam stood up from where he was sitting previously and stumbled slightly before he felt hands grab his arms. Before he knew it, he was pulled into a hug. 

“I’m, I’m sorry Adam, for snapping at you I mean. I’m just so scared, I can’t think straight. I-I was dead and I went somewhere I can’t explain, my vision is back and I can, I can see sound now and everything is so loud. My phone won’t work, no one is coming and I’m just I-”

Adam tightened the hug, tucking his face into Vinny’s chest, “Shh, I know Vinny, I know. Let’s just be silent. Let’s take a break.”

He felt Vinny shivering with anxiety, he wasn’t crying, just shaking. His breath was shuddering and he heard Vinny’s heartbeat speeding up. Adam just closed his blind eyes and tried to be as close to Vinny as possible. He felt Vinny’s head sink into his shoulder and only then did he start crying as if his face had to be hidden to do so. 

It surprised Adam, this situation used to always be the other way around. Adam used to be the one crying and shaking in Vinny’s arms, Vinny the one consoling him. Now it was Adam giving advice, instilling confidence. He wasn’t used to it, and the feeling that he felt was foreign, but he didn’t hate it. Adam felt selfish honestly, he had the man on which he had had a crush on for as long he could remember crying into his shoulder, no one else’s. He knew it wasn’t romantic, but deep down, the image of that summer night so many years ago flooded his mind.

“Thank you, Adam. Almost lost it there,” Vinny said, surprisingly sounding normal. Only the slightest tinge from swollen sinuses existed in his voice. 

“No problem man, now from what you said, it sounds like a lot happened to you.”

“It’s hard to explain like I think most of it was a dream.”

“Well, let’s sit and talk about it, shall we?”

“It’s not just something that you can just have a simple talk about it. I still feel the pain from the grass I-”

“Wait, grass?”

“See, this is why I can just tell you about it. It’s confusing, and I’m still not determined it wasn’t a dream. And about the sound waves thing. It’s like, I saw little waves radiate from my hands, and when I giggled it was like the sound was amplified. It made me jump and that’s why I fell.”

“Waves?”

Adam heard Vinny shift away from him and sit on the couch, “You just won’t understand. My vision’s back, and I need to go out and check some things. I can help you up the steps, it’s more comfortable up in the living room. That and I am starving, absolutely famished, and I’m sure that you are too. So let’s go eat and see what the hell is happening up there.”

<~_*_~>

Mia snapped awake. She was back in the blinding light, the painful, searing, brilliant light. She whimpered, not wanting to experience the odd feeling of ecstasy and torment again until suddenly, the light went away leaving a vision of a field. It was like a screen was dropped in front of her with the image on it, the surrounding scenery was blackness. She looked around her, her body seemingly materializing as she brought her hands close to her face. She felt drowsy, like she had just woken up, but at the same time she felt invigorated. It was an odd feeling, like she had two different energies within her. One wanted to sleep and fade away, the other struggled to stay alive. She knew that something was living within her, she had heard it’s voice in Ella’s living room.

“Come with me, into the light.”

Mia had said no. She didn’t like the way that the light seared and burned her skin.

“It’s ok, it hurts but only for a moment. You will be reborn.”

She had almost complied with that statement, as if she had not much of a choice, but then she saw a pair of eyes staring at her. It was Ella. She knew that if she had left into the light, Ella would have been left alone to find her mother. And then she thought of her family, what if they came back from wherever they went and Mia was gone? 

She told the voice no again.

The voice got angry.

Suddenly, Mia’s head started to ache, but not a terrible pain, just a dull ache that brought her out of her memories and back into the present. She pinched herself slightly to make sure she was awake, and she was. She had been transported somewhere, somehow. She tried not to think too hard about it because every time she did, the pain got worse. She looked around her and the pain got worse, she took a step back and it felt like a bat to the forehead. Her face snapped to the screen in front of her and realized that whatever the pain was, wherever it had come from, it was guiding her to watch the screen. She didn’t know why, or what it was, but she watched because she felt as if it was the right thing to do. 

Mia took a couple of steps towards the screen, the pain almost disappearing, and placed her fingers on it. It was warm, like a television screen. She studied the grass waving in the field, noting that it looked shiny, like the surface of a bubble. There was a slight path where it looked like someone had stamped and pushed the grass apart but it had tried to fix itself. It was almost difficult to see where it led, but not as soon as Mia saw what was deeper in the field. Two giant pillars, one black, one white. She somehow knew what they were, but at the same time she didn’t. Mia knew for certain that the place with blinding and burning light was the pillar of white, but she wasn’t sure what the darkness was. Was she in the darkness right now? She didn’t think so. Somehow she knew that you had to choose to end up in either of the pillars. It was impossible to just appear in one. 

So what was this?

Her thoughts were interrupted when a boy, maybe 18-19, appeared at the bottom of the screen. He squinted, not recognizing the boy. He looked around and touched the grass, jerking away at it, but touching it again, repeating the same movement from before. He noticed the pillars shortly after petting the grass, not taking much time before walking up to them. He first went to the light, looking into it with longing. Mia squinted, seeing something that the boy didn’t see. A small pinpoint of black in the light, but Mia soon realized that it wasn’t a pinpoint, it was a hand, reaching from the light towards the boy’s face. The boy stood there, unflinching, about to be grabbed and yanked in, but he looked at the black pillar. The hand jerked, making a fist. It reached a little further, but missed the boy by inches as he took a few steps towards the blackness and the hand became a torso hanging haphazardly out of the light. Mia gasped, slapping her hand across her mouth. The being was a grotesque humanoid creature with no eyes. It’s mouth took up much of the face with eerily normal looking teeth. It was shrieking, reaching desperately toward the boy. Its entire body was pitch black, once solid, it was now dripping slightly as if outside of the environment of the white was deadly. It’s shrieks filled Mia’s head, filling her eyes with tears. It was in pain. It needed the body of the boy to survive out of the light. It just wanted to live…

No, this wasn’t her thinking. This was something else, trying to gain pity from her. Was the being in the white the same being inside of her? Manipulating her thoughts and actions? 

Was it trying to get her to see why it was inside of her? But why? To get Mia to feel sorry for it so she would give up her consciousness? 

Her head started to hurt when she looked up just in time to see the boy step into the blackness, the creature now gone, in its place a small black puddle. Tears flowed steadily through her eyes, but she felt no emotion. Whatever that was inside of her had tried, and failed to gain pity, and now Mia was stronger than ever. These emotions weren’t hers, her own emotions were joy and jubilance, perhaps a bit of cheeky confidence. So there she stood, staring at the phantom screen, smiling, almost laughing, with tears pouring fervently out of her eyes. 

“You lost, asshole.”

<~_*_~>

Vinny was crying again. Twice in a row, a record for him. He guessed that coming upstairs and not seeing any adults sealed his fate in his head. There was no help coming, and he was alone. It was scary. At first he felt foolish for feeling such fear, but now, he just let it all out. Adam was in the living room munching away at a bologna sandwich and Vinny was in the kitchen bawling his eyes out. The whole experience was too much for his mind to handle. He died. He was dead. He’s back. How?

How is that possible? He went somewhere, with pillars, and pretty grass, but what did it mean? Where did he go? Was it heaven? If it was, why did it hurt so bad? Was it hell? If it was, why did it feel so good?

The conflicting emotions ended up bouncing around in his head, getting faster with each impact to the side of his skull, speeding up until all he could feel was an intense vibration that he called a migraine. The crying wasn’t helping much. At least he had his vision back, at least he could see Adam, the only person that he had right now. No one was answering their texts, no one was answering their calls, the television wasn’t working, the radio wasn’t either, calls sometimes would go through but sometimes wouldn't and when they did no one answered. They were completely and totally isolated. Vinny had decided to go outside and look around, try to see if there was someone in a house around the cul de sac, but he mentally couldn’t bring himself to go out. He couldn’t face the fact that they might be alone for real in this seemingly apocalyptic situation.

Was this the end of the world? It didn’t seem like it. Wasn’t there supposed to be like horses or something? He hadn’t seen anything. 

Couldn’t see anything.

Ironic.

He just wanted to go back to before this happened, where things were as simple as not turning in work and hanging out with Adam. He made an odd connection as he reminisced, Adam was the common denominator. It seemed out of place when he thought of it, seemed like an outlier to his previous emotions, but he started to feel warmer perhaps, safer. Adam had always been there. It didn’t matter what was happening, Adam was there, sometimes in the forefront, sometimes in the background. Nonetheless, he was there. Even when Vinny would grow distant and be more involved in football and the team, Adam was still there. He smiled softly, finding some sort of solace in the fact that if he did go out and indeed found no one around, he would still have Adam. 

This thought gave him the strength to finally step up to the door and walk outside into the now dim sky. It must have been 8 P.M. About 8 hours had passed since Adam and he had lost their sight. That was a crazy thought, 8 hours. It felt like a month, a year, a decade. He took a few shaky steps down the steps of the house and onto the front sidewalk. Heart drumming in his ears, he walked onto the pavement now in the middle of the five houses. Where would he even start? He knew that the two houses over was a girl named Bella or something like that, she had gone to his school and was mostly silent. He remembered thinking she was hot, but she was too broody for him. He figured that would be a good place to start searching so he started over, but before he got to the front steps, a girl opened the door and stepped onto the front porch. She had long blonde hair and piercing blue eyes, she was small but mature looking. Vinny guessed 17 years old. More noticeably was the blood on her hands and the pale look on her face.

“I need help.”

<~_*_~>

Adam heard the door open midway through a bite of his sandwich. It wasn’t a great sandwich, Vinny put mustard on it and nothing else and Adam hated mustard. But he was starving so he didn’t care. 

“Vinny?”

Adam realized that the sound didn’t carry very far so he swallowed before calling out again.

No reply.

Adam didn’t realize it, but his heart rate quickened. Vinny had been acting strange before, what if he snapped? Or what if someone broke in and hurt him? Adam couldn’t defend himself, he couldn’t see.
The thought of someone walking around his house without him knowing made him shudder. 

“Vinny, I swear to God, answer me.”

No answer. 

He sat his sandwich down on the paper plate and then on the couch beside him. Standing up, Adam squatted a bit, extending his arms, waving them around slightly as he tried to walk. He knew the layout of his house, but he wasn’t sure how well he would manage walking around blind. His knees hit the coffee table and he placed his hands on it. He imagined his living room. His head wandered up even though he knew he couldn’t see as if they would magically turn on, but as he did so he saw a distant orange blob.

This had happened before. In the basement before Vinny died, or whatever happened there. He knew it was Vinny, and the light was bright. It wasn’t dim like before. Maybe the intensity of the color portrayed health? Before he could think much further about it another blob appeared, a white one, except it, wasn’t just white. There was a black spot inside of it. It appeared to be a fetus, curled in a ball where the chest would be. He thought maybe he was seeing a pregnant woman, but the placement of the fetus was too high. 

Adam grabbed his chest, feeling it tighten. He dropped to the ground, legs numb. He tried to scream but his lungs stopped working. He felt like someone stuffed a balloon down his throat and blew it up. His body started to shake uncontrollably, garbled sounds of choking escaping raggedly out of his throat. Adam tried to move his arms but they seemed to be stuck to his chest, and they hurt. It was like his whole body was cramping up. He couldn’t think, couldn’t speak, couldn’t scream. He just lay there, seizing, helpless as the light faded from his eyes.

<~_*_~>

Ella awoke in a black room with a single beam of light shining from an unknown source about twenty feet away shining onto a black, shiny puddle. Her head hurt pretty badly, and she noticed blood on her fingertips where she had checked her head from falling back from whatever the hell happened to Mia.

“Hello?” Her voice croaked giving the sound of not speaking in years. She took a couple of steps towards the puddle, eyeing it curiously. Where was she? Was this a dream?

The liquid looked to be oil, shimmering in the light that came from nowhere. She looked around again before kneeling towards the liquid, looking at it closer. The light was flickering almost as if the power feeding the light was waning, it gave the liquid an eerie feeling when inspecting it. She could see nothing in the puddle, and now that she thought about it, she couldn’t see much of anything else. Or hear anything. It was oddly silent. 

She stood up, curiosity turning to panic, but she tried to stay calm. She opened her mouth to say something but as she did, the liquid quivered. She lept back, falling onto her behind, crawling backward as she witnessed a hand peak from the middle of the liquid. She couldn’t tell whether the hand was pitch black, or merely covered in the strange substance, but in any case, the hand was more black than Ella’s surroundings. 

Then it was gone.

She was sitting on the ground back in her living room, in front of Mia’s unconscious body.

<~_*_~>

“How are we to make sense of this? The study has only just begun, hell, we weren’t even supposed to have a study. Why isn’t this working? Do you have anything?”

“There have been more subjects added, it is no longer two. Subjects 001, 002, 003, and 004 are about to come into contact it seems. 003 is in the process of getting reborn, so they are not a problem. 002 is still an anomaly. They have completely refused for the parasite to take control, however, it has not died. The two are…coexisting.”

“How is that even possible.”

“There’s more sir. 001 has completely killed the parasite. We are still unsure how because this has never happened before. Frankly, sir, none of this has happened so we don’t know what to do.”

“Well, you had better figure it out quick, you-”

“Sir, I’m sorry but there’s one more thing. 004, th-they died. The parasite had taken over, but somehow, somehow they killed it. They survived. This is the first known case of success to failure. This, this is-”

“This could mean the extinction of our species.”

“Precisely.”

<~_*_~>

It was a tragedy…

<~_*_~>

He took a deep breath.

Invigorating.

This was a new sensation, breath. He felt a vibration in his chest, strange. His chest was rising and falling as he inhaled.

Strange.

He took a few wobbly steps, getting used to the foreign feel of the limbs of his host. He shook his head, feeling liquid fall from his face and head. He noticed that there was a thick substance covering his entire body. It usually happened, but not at this degree. This foreign substance was everywhere. His eyes drifted over to the host’s shell, the liquid pouring out of it. Slowly, knowledge and memories tied to the host’s consciousness began to flow into the forefront of his mind. He knew where he was, he knew who he was, and he knew what he was. Not completely. He just understood, but not all the way. He couldn’t yet grasp the intricate details of such things. He looked around, blinking, he hummed. His voice was mellow, deeper than he had expected. It was strange, most of the creatures he inhabited couldn’t grunt or make loud guttural noises, but this species had a language, and it was beautiful. He couldn’t wait for it to be fully functional. He looked down to his limbs, which he knew now to be called legs, and noticed a thin layer of tan forming over the once moist redness. Tan? Redness? These were new words. So much knowledge coming in at once. He knew, but he was confused. It was skin, forming over the flesh. Suddenly he felt.

Felt.

He felt his bare nerves touching the floor, the wind blowing on the open wound that was his entire body. He began to scream in pain. He had felt pain before, yes, but nothing like this. The pain was a part of the process of being reborn, but this was so much worse. Perhaps it was the astute awareness of the creature he had inhabited. Usually, creatures will feel pain but hardly recognize it. But this creature, human he knew now, recognized the pain. It was torture.

And it was over.

He knew his name now.

Adam.