3 - so... what am I?

Did you ever count so high, that you didn't knew what the next number was called? So many nines that you could get dizzy but you don't know what comes next so you couldn't turn them all into zeros and create a new number one at the front so it could lead the charge on an adventure for more, higher numbers?

Well… I reached that point.

I reached it quite often to be honest.

So I started counting how many times I could reach the highest number I knew.

...I counted slowly.

Giving every number a colour, creating it in three dimensions in my non-existent head and letting it bounce through my mind before I got to the next one…

I am a master of wasting time without doing anything physical!

But what now?

I reached my highest number in counting how often I could reach my highest number…

The method I used to get here should have wasted quite some days, if not weeks.

Should I now count how many times I could get to this point?

No, wait a minute!

Reacting to my own thoughts I silently counted the sixty seconds and only after that I realized, that there was no reason to literally wait for a full minute just to listen to my own thoughts.

Am I insane?

Not quite, I would assume, but even if I am; who cares?

There is just me here anyway… So where was I?

Oh yes.

A year has 365 days, right?

And there are 24 hours a day, each counting 3600 seconds, right?

So shouldn't a common year only have 31.536.000 seconds? Even a leap year just has 31.622.400 seconds.

I have far surpassed that number way to many times and I count far slower than seconds.

...

So; how many years have I spent in this dark nothingness already?

My now seemingly number obsessed brain told me that immediately...

This is sad.

I groaned as loud as I could, fully aware that there was no sound.

What now?

A part of my brain started counting again just to keep itself distracted but this time I created some rules for myself like "I am not allowed to count numbers like this" or "every time I get to a number like that I have to divide it with the last forbidden number I passed" and similar stuff and then resumed counting from there.

But that didn't help much.

After some time my brain got way to used to this and so another part of my mind always was free.

This was when things started to get bad.

Whenever I wasn't distracted my thoughts automatically got back to my memories and that hurt a lot.

Of course I still am just a formless bundle of thoughts without a body, so I shouldn't be able to get hurt but being like this made emotional pain even worse than the physical pain I remember.

This is gross!

Every time I remember my past life, I start to feel pain.

Then the pain reminds me of my past and it gets even more painful! What a vicious circle.

Why don't the numbers help?

Well they actually do. But if one burns their whole arm really bad and only has a small puddle of water where they can just cool their fingers, maybe maybe even a hand, then that actually helps but it is far from being enough.

This sucks!

Then this is really hell?

A place where there is either no concept of time or time just doesn't matter and that hits you with the exact thing that hurts most, only to increase the intensity?

That's why distracting myself will slowly get less effective as the time passes too, right?

Then this place really deserves to be called hell – this is the most gruesome thing I could think of.

But do I deserve to be here?

What?

I had to ask myself again.

"Do I really deserve to be here?"

This question surprised me enough to ban away my memories and the tremendous pain for a moment.

There is no reason for me to be in hell!

Sure; there are some religions that say suicide is the greatest sin and sinners belong in hell.

But I was never religious!

So does that mean one of those religions is right and I deserve this situation even though I don't believe in it? Maybe especially because I didn't believe in it?!

No.

If one of those religions where right then there is no way I would have suffered so much in my time on earth.

Building up with the last string of thoughts a massive wave of confusion crashed into my mind.

Forceful enough to stop the calculating in the back of my head but this didn't intensified the pain. More like the complete opposite; the confusion sealed away the dark memories deep in my mind and erased the pain with them. At least for now.

But I was way to distracted to realize this because the confusion brought a question into my mind.

Why am I able to remember my life?

Well that should be obvious:

If you are unable to do anything except thinking over a long time in a place where there is literally nothing, then you would most likely start to relive moments of your past that are burned into your mind.

But that would not work for me.

Why?

Because even when I was alive I couldn't remember nearly anything.

Sure, this was most likely an emotional shield that I created myself so I wont break completely.

Now I am just a bundle of thoughts somewhere in the nowhere without a body that could get hurt. So how is it possible that the only thing I achieved in my life – a shield of resignation and denial that protects my mind – isn't working here?

I wanted to get a conclusion for this but something else catches my full attention and lets me forget anything else for the moment.

There was a sound!

Well not really a sound but something similar.

Like an Information that gets directly send into my brain which imitates a sound.

I's hard to grasp, okay!

And who cares anyway – there was some reaction like information that was not created by me.

So;

I'M NOT ALONE!

I got really excited for a moment but only a second later this feeling dropped back to zero.

A mix of anxiety and fear began to claw its way into my thoughts, devouring the little stability my mind had left.

This was just the thing I called the silly me, right?

No I am here.

Thinking that, I fought against the fear that threatens to swallow me again.

But if I am the silly me, then it must have been the other, rational me…

No, that would also be me.

And I am here.

The [sound] on the other hand was over there.

…

Or there..?

Well there are neither distances nor directions in this nothingness but I am pretty sure that I am here and the [sound] was in a place that is NOT here.

Fighting back and suppressing the fear and anxiety got harder with every moment so I tried to concentrate as hard as I could.

I have no ears, so I couldn't hear but I tried to remember how it felt to hear stuff.

This is hard…

How do you imagine something that normally should be completely natural?

It took me some time but I think I somehow got it.

…

...or not...

There was no [sound].

Nothing.

Seconds became Minutes and those even got swallowed by Hours without any change in the not here place.

I started to get more and more panicked with any passing second. If I had lungs I would be hyperventilating right now.

Had I only imagined it?

Please no.

I started to cry without any tears and only the smallest part of my consciousness realized that, apart from the last seconds of my life, I never had cried before.

I was sure that there really was something else beside me here but was that a lie?

No, not a lie. It was probably just hope.

So I really could still feel hope?

I tried to comfort myself like this so that the soon following fear wouldn't hurt as much but then something startled me.

There was another [sound]!

Another information from the place that is not here, that reached me.

Clearer than before. This couldn't be my imagination.

Whatever created this [sound] meant that I really wasn't alone!

Some kind of warm pressure flooded my mind – way to much for me so it made me feel dizzy and somewhat sick but not in a bad way.

Wait.

I vaguely remember this feeling – this was [happy], right?

It must be.

I am happy!

This feeling is awesome!

I really like it and I want to keep it!

And I know exactly how I can do that – at least for the moment.

Encouraged by the feeling I started to listen again.

The happiness burned my panic like an almighty sun and made it really easy to concentrate.

Yes;

there it was again.

Not just a single [sound] but a chain of if Information that constantly floods to me now.

Like a soft mumbling but I couldn't understand what was said.

Slowly hearing the [sound] clearer, I realize that it had not just one origin but two – no – at least three.

So there are three creators of [sound] who talked to each other in the place that is not here? Or are they talking to me?

As long as it is only this mumbling I would never know who these other existences are talking to but how can I hear them more clearly?

Are they locked away behind something that acts like a heavy door?

Hmm…

How do I even hear them if they are not here?

Well, it's hard to describe.

It's like we are reading the same book but they are on another page than me.

So, do they want to spoiler me on Information that I haven't read yet? Please don't do that.

If you want to tell me some spoilers then I have to cover my ears and hide where you can't reach me!

Oh.

Its not them – its me!

I am the one who is locked away!

As soon as I realize this, something inside of my bundle of thought cracked.

Uugh~ this is a new form of pain.

Like crashing trough the frozen surface of a lake from below and not realizing how cold it was down there. It was way to hot in the new here.

Well, not that there is something like temperature here either.

Actually nothing had changed and even the burning hot feeling vanished as soon as it came.

There was just the same old nothing I experienced for so long now, but the happiness still didn't decrease the tiniest bit?

Why?

Even though its the same black nothingness as before, this one is completely different because now there is someone here besides me.

Three of these someones!

"Yo, took you long enough."

One of them greeted me and the feeling of crying overcame me again.

Am I sad again? No.

Is it pain? Yes, kind of.

The feeling of being happy got so much more the moment I wasn't alone any more and even got greeted, that it made my nonexistent brain hurt. But I didn't care.

I didn't know that they had waited for me and had no idea why someone would even do that but I felt sorry for making them wait so I nodded and tried to apologize.

Of course; as before no sound came from me.

Oh no.

How do I talk?!

Please don't get angry at me for not apologizing, I really am trying to do it.

Even if you get angry, please don't leave me.

Talk dammit!

I shouted to myself but it didn't change anything.

Then there was a new [sound] that stopped my thinking for a moment from one of the two that hadn't spoken yet.

A soft and beautiful [sound] that left me perplexed. This is what I imagined wind chimes to sound like.

It was laughing, right?

"Relax a bit." the one who greeted me said. "You are safe here."

Safe?

Hmm…

What a beautiful word.