Finite

Chapter 1. Restart

The shadow hovered over me, cupping my face with hands that placated the burning I felt.

Who am I? What am I doing here?

Self-awareness. These two words nagged at me, insisting that I give it the answer it needs. The all-black figure felt melancholic, almost pitiful as it carried me downwards. Down, down, down, I watched as the infinite galaxy of a sky passed by my eyelids like an ocean.

What is an ocean again?

I opened my mouth to speak, but I wasn't familiar with any appropriate language other than the words that drifted about my head.

What can I tell you?

"Why?"

I wondered whether that word was safe, I knew that it was a coin, I was on a spectrum of doubt. Any word that slipped from my mouth could propel me into a land I didn't want.

Again, I was aware of all of these things and I had no idea how to control the agony or fear or hostility.

I felt these emotions but they were humane, beckoning that I give it more attention than the way I nurtured the serenity that lodged into my bones like the plates of the Earth colliding again, and again, and again.

The shadow was mute, only carrying me in arms that were lead and cold as snow. The more she cradled me, the more my breathing slowed but I wasn't afraid.

I didn't ask to be here, my arrival was spontaneous, uncalled for. Still, she didn't expect anything else from me.

There were floating orbs around me, if I stretched my fingers out enough, I could touch them. Something told me that I shouldn't, but they gave me this overwhelming feeling, like I belonged with them rather than how I was drifting away from the bright sun that was miles from the shadow.

Rather, I wasn't certain if it was a sun, but it was bright and warm and insistent. The shadow almost seemed annoyed that my eyes were glued to the opaque bursting flame that called my name over and over and over.

What was my name?

I pondered that for an infinite moment, my fingers curled into the hazy and muddled skin of the shadow.

What was my name?

I tried to speak something else, I wanted to know what my name was, why the Sun kept calling it  and I had no clue what it meant.

"Why?"

Now, I wasn't supposed to ask that question, it was forbidden and the shadow couldn't answer, she knew better than to unravel the ancient secrets of the universe.

Still, I wasn't special, I wasn't anything at all.

She must've pitied me because she defied all laws of nature and spoke.

"You're getting another chance."

I don't care, what's my name?

"Ichiji!"

I opened my eyes.

Now, who am I?

Why?

I feel so old and so new, like my body was replenished but my mind lived for centuries beyond this small frame I'm in.

"Ichiji, are you okay?" A person's hands held mine, they were soft and warm. On the very second this person held me, my skin felt electrocuted.

"Huh? Where am I?" I could've asked anything else in the world, anything that might've given me more reasoning, more control on the way I felt confused.