My Summons Is A Summoner

Cold. The feeling of a blissful cold overwhelmed my senses. The feeling of loneliness set in, even before I had opened my eyes. I could feel it. Alone. I was alone.

My eyes had not once parted ways since my consciousness came to me in droves. Police by piece my mind builds itself over again. Again?

Was I alive before? How could I tell? Was this normal?

A number of questions roared in my mind and ears. The fear came as quickly as it disappeared from my senses. What replaced it was the cold. Cold, and more cold. I felt nothing beneath me. Nothing around me, but neither suspending me. I was afloat in the air, with no way to explain how.

But still I could question.

How?

***

Minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades, and before my mind could comprehend my unfortunate circumstances, eons had passed. Yet, there I floated, waiting and waiting for something to come. What it was I did not know. However, I could feel it.

A gut feeling within me told me that there was something coming, something waiting, something watching me.

Why?

Why was I here? What was my purpose? The eons I've spent in this cold taught me only one thing. I'm truly alone.

Perhaps this was my purpose for the years I would spend alive. A fate worse than death. Solitude. To be a master of such a thing would be a master of the unimaginable. I knew there was no one out there. I knew no one would come. But I knew that there was something else out there besides me. I was alone, but I knew the feeling of comfort with others.

Perhaps that's what made my existence in this empty expanse so much more painful.

I wished, for the first time since the day I woke up, and my consciousness began its building of itself, I wished for death.

But I knew it would never come. I had existed far beyond the average span of life. Far beyond any creation or being that existed out there. Soon, like all life, it will eventually grow to its own death. And then I would truly be alone.

Oh well. I was used to it by now.

***

The first sign of change came quickly to my senses, then vanished just as quickly. Almost as if it was a crack in the darkness, showing me just the small glimmer of light, before someone covered it up, realizing their mistake.

Did that mean there was someone else out there? I scoffed at the idea.

If anyone was out there, I would know. In reality, it was most likely whatever created me. Though I doubted there was any being out there with such power, the idea wasn't too far fetched. After all, nothing existed here other than darkness, and cold, and me.

To form that darkness and create me. To birth life from the shadows is to birth a living shadow. The idea that I was simply a compacted form of intelligent darkness didn't surprise me. In fact, it comforted me. Knowing I was nothing more than darkness and cold, made me realize that I might never have been destined for life.

It came as a way of peace to my mind. A peace I desperately longed for. Knowing I was meant for this, this darkness kept me from hoping. Hope, I had come to realize, was a fool's belief in the unbelievable.

When the second crack in the darkness came, I knew it was something other than an accident. Test me. It was testing me. It was showing me the outside world, possibly to gauge my reaction. If so, I would not show anything. The darkness and cold had already set in. I've come to terms with the fact that I may never leave this place. That I will always be alone.

No crack or change in my world will change me.

I am alone, and it will never change.

***

I awoke to the sound of a blizzard roaring in my ear. The cold I had once felt and known for so long was still there, but it was…different.

No longer did the cold envelope me or corrupt me. The feeling of cold did not come from within me, but rather, came from all around me. Like a chill that made me shiver. The feeling of warmth within me was somehow foreign, though I knew it was normal. Normal for others, but not for me.

The sight of my breath as it flowed before me channeled all doubts from my mind to near absence. I carefully lifted my hand to see it red from the cold snow.

I sat up, as the wind continued to roar, and for the first time in a long lifetime, I finally was able to see something other than darkness.

I stood and looked around. As far as the eyes could see there was only snow and tundra. I rested atop a mountain, nestled near the edge of the tundra. Farther away, I could see the beginnings of a forest, and past that, where the snow dissipated, I could see a roof. Smoke, and a fire.

The first signs of life.

My heart fluttered and my soul pounded against the walls of my body. For so long I had been alone, always alone, but knowing what it was like to be with others. A painful experience of knowing. Now, I am free.

Before I knew it, I was soaring through the air, towards the signs of life in the distance. Suspension in the air was so normal for me, I had almost forgotten that gravity existed. But it didn't matter to me. I kept flying and flying, passing forests, and jungles, tundra, mountains, until the plains came into view, and civilization was so close. I could almost touch it.

But deep in the back, farthest reaches in my mind, a worm dug into my happiness, my excitement, and my joy. Inside it told me one thought. One thought, that would soon destroy my happiness.

'You are alone. Nothing will change.'