1 Chapter 0: From Nothing

There's a certain feeling, indescribable. I know it well, really---it's not something you feel after the fact. Something, it's more like a thing you feel before the event. Like an overcoming anxiety, however, not quite. As if you've felt this feeling before, as if you've tried so hard to eliminate it, but it never ceases to come back. It is... a cycle so to speak. To go on in endless repetition; you could describe it as an eternal purgatory of purposeful damnation. It exists solely to prolong the illusion of feeling and stall for creation. 

It arises and falls, like the waves of an ocean. Like life until death---the curse of an endless limbo, to recycle onward to the next person, to the next family, to the next generation, to the next era, to the next world, and to the next in that succession, etc. It works in wonderous ways. This all encompassing idea surrounding the atmosphere of every complex and simple theory, for a list would take to long; it would be easier to just call it, "Rebirth."

This strange thing, like as if mocking the supposed limitless imagination of mankind. It continues to leech and writhe in the worst and best depths of our lives. I've come to make it a nice home. Here, spending time until the next thought dies, in which like a phoenix from the ashes, it begins to move and contort into something new and alive. It's a wonderful thing; some may even say that it doesn't make any sense. To that, I say it's reasonable. For what purpose is there... if there isn't one? 

Philosophy isn't really one of my strong suits though; philosophy is far from one of my specialties when there are many more better suited for such an ethereal thing. I rather keep it simple, wasting away, and recycling my words. It's my own little personal paradise, though the last time seems to have escaped me;

"Where was I again?"

For some reason it isn't cold, yet the forest is flowing with a bleak wind. There's the onset of winter in the ashes of the whitening mist. I look around, but only my eyes move. If I was asked, I couldn't tell. 

"Eyes?"

No, that wasn't quite right. I couldn't feel anything but the light shining from a needled crack in the sky setting aside the leaves and fogged wind. I noticed a leaf brush against my face as more silt slid onto the glassy texture that protected whatever sourced my vision. It felt like the crushing weight over my limbs was beginning to subside. As if something breathed into me, life. I began to count the vines and mosses that stretched from each bush and tree. I could only see a select few as the silt began to pile again. I noticed something pecking at me. The glass began to crack as I watched it shed from my visor. I realized it was this simple animal that had awoken me and the shatters were just compressed mounds of dirt.

A strange looking feathered creature. Pure black, but not like any crow or raven I'd ever seen. Fanciful feathers like a steely robe around its collar; it must've found me interesting by the reflection shed by the glass frame. It continued to peck and more solidified silt shed from the smooth surface. A root in my peripherals caught the attention of the curious bird. I saw it's sharp talons, as if made of pure darkened silver, crookedly skim across to nip the root. Suddenly a landslide of dirt and rocks displaced the bird, like being trampled by mother nature herself. In return I could now clearly see more of that what was around me. 

I never saw the bird afterward. It disappeared as fast as it came. The sun shone brighter than before and I felt a twitch in my right thumb. My strength was beginning to return from what it seemed. I started to feel a bit ticklish all over as if sparks were running throughout all my body. As the hours passed in complete serenity of the forest, I could finally move my head. I felt I could squeeze my palms fistful of aged dirt that felt more like condensed dust. Another day I might be able to stand, but as it stood, another night would have to end.

I began to think freely alone with my thoughts. What I'd remembered, how strange it was... I laid them to rest; the earth would provide a bed for tonight. The metallic clank as I rested my neck against the soil once more---I couldn't tell if it was a part of me. I decided to rest and see. 

I stared at the darkening trunks of the hazel trees. Little bugs I wasn't familiar with, talons mixed with fairy-like wings on the beaks of beetles. Blue ants with strangely grape-like bodies imitating a fruit I'd swore I've seen. Flocks of butterflies scattered in the wind, irradiating light from the sun and their silhouettes. The longer I looked, the more estranged I felt. My vision was so bright and clear; the longer I focused on the wrinkles in the leaves and petals of uniquely lit flowers, the more details I could see. 

Something unseen released from the forest I could sense with distinct distortions in the wind. The darkness eventually revealed the nighttime parade. Shooting stars floating in the wind and crashing often into the ground under the stark shine of the moonlight. The wildlife looked in awe just as much as I had, wavering only to their instincts as they began their battles amongst the grass. The struggle for survival would always outpace such beauty. Only then, new creatures exited from unknown crevices: familiar birds blanketed by the night, to worms with seemingly artificial divots in their scaled bodies searching for the edges of leaves. 

My eyes wouldn't---couldn't, shut. I wasn't allowed to enjoy rest under this beautiful scenery; the paralysis would eventually begin to take over. No longer could I move my head. My fingers felt cold once again. The rest of my body was absent of the ticklish shocks that revived my movement before. My vision began to fade as I lost focus with the night. Everything was so unclear, blurry as if I'd just woken up. However, there was a single thought that crossed me several times. A hopeful answer to the chains that bound me. That... maybe... this was one of the many heights of misfortune. That maybe---I had been born onto this planet with a body that was already dead.