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Description
"Nobody ever asks to be different, not like this. It kind of just happens to them--to us. Trust me, I know that better than most--though, I imagine you have a few ideas about it yourself." The voice was low, as though its speaker was sharing the deepest secret in all the world. The boy struggled to find the source of the voice, but couldn't. Everything was dark, and the voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once--it was all around him, inside him. "But whether you ask to be or not, whether you want this life or you're thinking of gnawing through your leg to escape it like a bear trap, it doesn't really matter. You can call it fate, God, or even blind luck, but whatever it is that's chosen me, chosen everyone, it can't be undone. We are what we are.

"That's what I was told, when I first began understanding what I was. In truth, I still don't know whether it's true or not, whether we are shackled to this destiny or we can overcome it. All I know is that understanding this possibility is the first step in understanding oneself."

Finally, something stepped out of the darkness--a man. At least, it looked like a man. But there was something strange about him, and when the boy looked closer, he could almost see something else, something more and something less, like another presence, both inside and out. A smile crooked the corner of the man's mouth. When he spoke again--and somehow the boy did know it was him--his lips didn't move, didn't make a sound. The voice was all around, inside, everywhere.

"Now that I have your attention, I suppose you'll want to know how all this began, and I'm sorry to say I can't tell you. There are a lot of things I've come to learn in the past few years, but a lot of things are still a mystery. I can see no beginnings, no endings, anywhere--the world plays out in spirals that never taper, only transition from old to new and back again. I can, however, tell you how it started for me; when the thread of my life was first stitched into the tapestry of this other life.

"It may sound familiar or even a bit cliché, but for me, it all started with a dream. I couldn't hold on to my dreams then like I do now, but parts of it have stuck with me nonetheless. I remember the strength of the fire that burned all around me, fire with no source, fire so strong that it fed on itself, so strong that even the rain, as fierce as it was, couldn't put it out. And yes, there was rain--righteous, torrential rain. Fire and water, just like earth and air. Nothing can exist without its counterbalance."

The boy nodded as though he understood, but in truth, he had never been as lost. Every time he thought something was coming together, the clues vanished back into the darkness that surrounded him--him and this man, who spoke without sound, whose lips moved without speaking.

"There was a house, I remember. It was tall and proud, like something out of an old photograph, except it was being torn into ruin by the flame. For a moment, everything focused on the house--it was the center of the flame and the target of the rain, like some cosmic battleground where good and evil were so entrenched in the struggle that both ceased to exist. And it stood in the front doorway, somehow massive and frail, stong and tiny, all at the same time, like someone wearing a mask too small for their face and you can see both people at the same time.

"And it spoke. There was no voice, not then, but there were words. They filled my head to bursting with their power and flooded me with things I couldn't understand--images, feelings, people and places I didn't know, entire lives played out through my mind's eye, everything at once. And just as they brought this flood in, the words also banished it: 'It is time.'

"I tried to talk, to ask a question, any question, but I found my throat was so dry I couldn't speak. I turned my head to the rain to drink, to ease the pain, but it evaporated before it fell to me, devoured by the flames. 'Your time has finally come, and this is your first challenge,' it said. 'We shall play a game.'"

A game? What game? And why did it sound so familiar? But when the boy opened his mouth to ask, he discovered that no sound would come--and that it didn't need to.

"I tried to ask, but I still couldn't speak. It began to feel as though I wasn't being allowed to. As though it read my mind, it said, 'Don't worry, you'll know it when you find it.' It looked at me then, and in its eyes I saw things--my own reflection, distorted, and all the things in life that one shouldn't know. And then the fire overtook it, overtook me, and everything was as one, just a swirling mass of fire and rain."

Slowly, the boy felt his eyelids growing heavy, and knew that whatever this was, it would soon be over. Soundlessly, the strange man fell back into the blackness, fading from the boy's view until there was nothing again, only the dark and the sound of his own heartbeat. And just as he felt himself slipping, the man's voice came again, booming through the boy's mind, inescapable.

"Its voice rang through my head one last time, before the darkness took me. 'For now, it is enough that you awaken,' it said. 'And now it's time to wake up.'"

Description
"Nobody ever asks to be different, not like this. It kind of just happens to them--to us. Trust me, I know that better than most--though, I imagine you have a few ideas about it yourself." The voice was low, as though its speaker was sharing the deepest secret in all the world. The boy struggled to find the source of the voice, but couldn't. Everything was dark, and the voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once--it was all around him, inside him. "But whether you ask to be or not, whether you want this life or you're thinking of gnawing through your leg to escape it like a bear trap, it doesn't really matter. You can call it fate, God, or even blind luck, but whatever it is that's chosen me, chosen everyone, it can't be undone. We are what we are.

"That's what I was told, when I first began understanding what I was. In truth, I still don't know whether it's true or not, whether we are shackled to this destiny or we can overcome it. All I know is that understanding this possibility is the first step in understanding oneself."

Finally, something stepped out of the darkness--a man. At least, it looked like a man. But there was something strange about him, and when the boy looked closer, he could almost see something else, something more and something less, like another presence, both inside and out. A smile crooked the corner of the man's mouth. When he spoke again--and somehow the boy did know it was him--his lips didn't move, didn't make a sound. The voice was all around, inside, everywhere.

"Now that I have your attention, I suppose you'll want to know how all this began, and I'm sorry to say I can't tell you. There are a lot of things I've come to learn in the past few years, but a lot of things are still a mystery. I can see no beginnings, no endings, anywhere--the world plays out in spirals that never taper, only transition from old to new and back again. I can, however, tell you how it started for me; when the thread of my life was first stitched into the tapestry of this other life.

"It may sound familiar or even a bit cliché, but for me, it all started with a dream. I couldn't hold on to my dreams then like I do now, but parts of it have stuck with me nonetheless. I remember the strength of the fire that burned all around me, fire with no source, fire so strong that it fed on itself, so strong that even the rain, as fierce as it was, couldn't put it out. And yes, there was rain--righteous, torrential rain. Fire and water, just like earth and air. Nothing can exist without its counterbalance."

The boy nodded as though he understood, but in truth, he had never been as lost. Every time he thought something was coming together, the clues vanished back into the darkness that surrounded him--him and this man, who spoke without sound, whose lips moved without speaking.

"There was a house, I remember. It was tall and proud, like something out of an old photograph, except it was being torn into ruin by the flame. For a moment, everything focused on the house--it was the center of the flame and the target of the rain, like some cosmic battleground where good and evil were so entrenched in the struggle that both ceased to exist. And it stood in the front doorway, somehow massive and frail, stong and tiny, all at the same time, like someone wearing a mask too small for their face and you can see both people at the same time.

"And it spoke. There was no voice, not then, but there were words. They filled my head to bursting with their power and flooded me with things I couldn't understand--images, feelings, people and places I didn't know, entire lives played out through my mind's eye, everything at once. And just as they brought this flood in, the words also banished it: 'It is time.'

"I tried to talk, to ask a question, any question, but I found my throat was so dry I couldn't speak. I turned my head to the rain to drink, to ease the pain, but it evaporated before it fell to me, devoured by the flames. 'Your time has finally come, and this is your first challenge,' it said. 'We shall play a game.'"

A game? What game? And why did it sound so familiar? But when the boy opened his mouth to ask, he discovered that no sound would come--and that it didn't need to.

"I tried to ask, but I still couldn't speak. It began to feel as though I wasn't being allowed to. As though it read my mind, it said, 'Don't worry, you'll know it when you find it.' It looked at me then, and in its eyes I saw things--my own reflection, distorted, and all the things in life that one shouldn't know. And then the fire overtook it, overtook me, and everything was as one, just a swirling mass of fire and rain."

Slowly, the boy felt his eyelids growing heavy, and knew that whatever this was, it would soon be over. Soundlessly, the strange man fell back into the blackness, fading from the boy's view until there was nothing again, only the dark and the sound of his own heartbeat. And just as he felt himself slipping, the man's voice came again, booming through the boy's mind, inescapable.

"Its voice rang through my head one last time, before the darkness took me. 'For now, it is enough that you awaken,' it said. 'And now it's time to wake up.'"