Darkness.
That is the only word that could be used to describe the situation, though it feels less like a lack of light and more like the deletion of space. It was as if my senses had filed for bankruptcy and shut down operations. I still had my consciousness so that probably meant I wasn't dead?
Then again, the state of my body before I blacked-ribs cracked open like a cheap crate, blood pooling in my lungs-didn't exactly fill me with confidence. It didn't help that I knew for a fact that no one would be willing to fork out the deposit to call me an ambulance.
So if I'm dead, what is this? Some sort of budget afterlife? A purgatory waiting room where they forgot to hand me a magazine?
Man, I need a drink.
Just as the thought formed, something changed.
It started as a ripple in the nothingness. Then, lights appeared out of thin air. But calling them "lights" was like calling a hurricane a "breeze". They radiated a majesty and power that filled me with a terrified awr. They were colors I'd seen before-gold, crimson, deep violet- but they were so bright, so saturated, so saturated, that I felt them rather than saw them.
I couldn't touch any of them but how I wished I could. They were so far, yet intimate. Like the smell of a bakery when you haven't eaten in three days.
Their numbers slowly increased. As time dragged on-was it minutes? Years?- I began to understand them. Not with logic. But with instict.
Hot. Cold. Freezing. Scorching.
Rough like sandpaper. Smooth like glass. Sticky like spilled syrup.
Then came the abstract concepts, hitting my mind like heavy stones. Hunger. Life? Death?
As I continued my attempts to interpret this psychedelic light show, I started getting weird vibes from some of them. Things I shouldn't be able to feel? How would a star radiate malice? How could a cloud of blue dust feel like sorrow? I hesitated, wondering if my brain had finally snapped under the pressure of sobriety, but what was the alternative?
So I went on.
The lights were all over the place now. They sparkled and possessed a gravity that kept my consciousness focused away from the darkness and on them. As I 'looked' around, Curious began to overtake the fear. I wanted to cross the barrier. I wanted to actually understand what they were and why they-
BOOOOM
The sound wasn't a noise; it was a shockwave.
I'm not sure how but I heard an explosion of some kind. A light I hadn't even noticed started speeding up and racing towards me.
It was a dull, lifeless grey. In contrast to all the sparkly, vibrance around me, this thing looked like a piece of chewed gum. A dull pebble speeding through space, racing towards me like a speeding missle.
I would be panicking about a shooting 'star' racing towards me, but at this point, I'd take any change over the void.
It struck into whatever I currently was. The collision wasn't painful; it was heavy. The sound it made wasn't really sound as it was pressure. In that instant it felt as though everything made sense. All the colors, their meaning, it all rushed at me at once.
That was when I lost consciousness for the second time.
***
When I regained thought, it wasn't a slow awakening. It was like flipping a switch.
Instead of darkness, there was confusion. Instead of silence, there was a wet noise and the feeling of cold air biting into skin I didn't know I had.
I blinked. Slow, wet blinks. That's when I realized something.
I could move.
Not just think. I actually had a body! That alone should have been a small miracle. The second, more urgent realization though was that the body belonged to a newborn.
I was a baby.
Panic enveloped me like water through an opening. The sort of panic you get the morning after a night out when you remember all those bottles you got at the club.
Only this panic was sharper and a lot less regretful but more shame.
I was still attempting to process the horror of my situation when my bladder decided to process it for me.
I pooped.
Properly. There was no ceremony, no bathroom stall. Just a wet, humiliated heat that crept up my back and stained my very soul. Of course human biology doesn't care much for your soul.
I tried to scramble away, to stand up and apologize, but tiny limb do what tiny limb do: they flail and ultimately fail.
My head beat like a drum, each throb driving the memories of my old life deeper into my pea-sized brain. A particular memory of an Astra Vodka-her cool glass neck, her burning embrace- beat even harder.
Man, I miss her.
The thought of her made me raise my hands in attempt to fondle her smooth, round self but again, human biology doesn't care much for our souls.
Hands found me then. Not the clumsy, gloved hands I expected from a paramedic in an alley. These were patient and warm. I could feel the small scars along their knuckles and even smelt the faint woodsmoke coming out of their skin.
Can newborns even smell this well?
One thumb rubbed circles along my my back while the other hand cupped the based of my skull and lifted me up as gently as an egg.
I didn't want to be lifted. Whatever dignity I had left after the 'incident' begged me to refuse. I wanted to swear at those hands, complain at their handling of a grown man and demand a bottle as compensation but the voice that should have said those things was trapped in a mouth that could only hiccup.
They dragged and humiliated me-fancy words for cradled and carried me- away from the damp hole I appeared from. The world rushed in all at once. Not through sight but through everything else.
Every sound hit sharper. The crackle of a fire nearby, the soft shuffle of robes, the uneven rhythm of someone's breath sounded like bellows. Even the air felt different depending on where I faced. Warmer in the direction of the crackle of fire. Thick with the scent of herbs and something metallic.
It was overwhelming and strangely... vivid.
Then came the lights.
Not normal lights but drifting white particles. They floated everywhere- soft, weightless like the stars I'd seen in the darkness. As I looked around the room, the particles shifted around them, gathering into a loose outline of a body.
No details, no face, just a silhouette carved by swirling light. When the person moved, the particles flowed like water, trailing behind them. It was eerie and mesmerizing and, honestly, quite literally the most beautiful thing I'd ever "seen."
Not that the bar was high.
The fireplace was impossible to miss. Not because I saw flames, but because the magic there glowed a deep, throbbing red. The heat radiating from the particles more vibrant, more aggressive than the white mist that made up the people.
"He's quiet," a voice rumbled.
The outline holding me shifted. I was lifted by a leg.
Excuse me?
Before I could protest, a hand swung right at my bottom.
Smack!
The slap stole the breath out of me more effectively than the mugging had. It wasn't the pain. It was the insult. Someone had the nerve to strike me, not to say my sh*t-ridden bottom, and my adult brain reacted like an offended aristocrat.
How DARE you?! I wanted to spit.
I raged with my whole chest, full of words sharp enough to cut and very little else. My fists were worthless. My mouth could only let out a war cry of sorts that sounded way too cute for my liking.
"Waaaaaaah!"
The indignity settled on me like another layer of filth.
The crazed woman who'd slapped me laughed, bright and relieved. "It's a boy!" she crowed, voice ringing with something like pride. The particles around her flared as if mimicking her joy.
Someone else- deeper, broader- chuckled from behind her. A man's laugh, easy and seemingly full of teeth.
"He'll make a fine bandit!" the voice said.
The manner in which he said it casual, affectionate; the meaning behind it hit me like a slap on the bum.
Bandit.
My stomach- whatever passed for one in that tiny body- dropped. The world had a horrible sense of humor.
I was handed to a woman that seemed to be laying on something just above the ground. Mother, I supposed by the way she drew me close. Her arms smelled like fresh dirt and bread. Her hands were gentler than the ones that'd dragged me from my own filth. Her voice soft as cotton hummed a tune that made the white particles around her glow warmer.
For a wild second I almost felt comforted. Almost.
But then I tried to look at her face.
I wanted to glare at her in a properly indignant manner that portrayed my anger and realized something I should have realized the first time.
I couldn't actually see any features.
The particles outline her like a halo, creating the shape of a head, shoulders, and arms. But inside that shape? Nothing. No eyes to meet mine. No mouth to smile. No nose. Just a swirling, empty void of white particles.
I blinked hard. I blinked until my little lids hurt.
Nothing. The world was all texture, temperature, scent and that impossible constellation that filled everything.
I looked towards the man's voice. "Fine bandit," he repeated, chuckling.
I could smell him from a distance I shouldn't be able to. Smoke, ale, the sweet smell of cheap beer. It made my heart ache with longing. But when I reached with my mind for a face to match- for eyes that would tell me if he meant kindness or cruelty- I saw only a jagged, vibrating cloud of static.
Something cold and true settled into my center. It wasn't immediate like falling; it was clinical.
I was effectively blind.