Darkness and serenity.
If I had known what it felt like to be submerged head-to-toe in cold water, I would have compared my present sensations to just that. But darkness was all that I had known.
Darkness, a definite certainty. Before a consciousness was birthed within me, I knew with equal certainty its coldness, the viscosity of nothingness that engulfed me.
No. Beyond that, I was one with the nothingness. Equal to the absence.
Time did not pass. The density seemed a cyclical current pressing equally back upon me. I could have easily lived these moments for eons.
Where did order exist amidst this primal chaos? Distant stars chimed and whiffed across the skies like an arrow launched from a bow. The sensations are quite impossible to describe.
Moments before this, though I could hardly distinguish the past from the present, a vague idea surfaced within my mind that I have now come into existence, for I did not exist before. Nor had I known before. But by some distinct turning point self-consciousness had been implanted within me.
And slowly I feel my senses emerging, returning as if I had been familiar with them, though I know I had never felt before.
It began with the soles of my feet, iron-casted with layers of cold density slowly stacking atop layers, crawling up a mould which I soon recognized to be my calves, then knees, then thighs.
Puppetlike my arms began to awaken, too. A sensation of soft tugging brought life to the nerves running through my limbs, then torso, all throughout the spine. An arm lifted against my own volition, then dropped limply to my side.
Within the total darkness I believed, momentarily, that I could feel hints of warmth, like the tip of a finger, brushing against my skin.
Immediately I felt the interior of my hollow shell being filled, like liquid being poured into a cup:
Curiosity, so that I was content even when my questions remained unanswered;
Empathy, so I may resemble human beings a little longer;
and Wonder, the solid gold within children's hearts, so that I would resist the erosion that came with aging into an adult.
It bubbled and approached the verge of my vessel, brimming and threatening to spill over. And just then, I felt the formation of something complex beyond my imagination, a mass of flesh that rests above my soul, floating above the liquid qualities.
With it I made my first executive judgement: the universe is sufficient.
A delicate piece of metal was brought to carved out my face.
I felt warmth brush along the sides of my head, and suddenly I could sense, with all vividity, the coldness that had been beating against me — the howling of wind.
I shuddered, and faintly I heard the laugh of a woman.
Gentle grasps carved out refined fingers at the end of my limbs. The tendons between my muscles and bones strengthened, and I clenched my hands around the hands of my creator.
A breath rushed within me, and I smelled the intensity of the ocean air circulating within my lungs.
And finally the creator rendered her creation complete. I felt myself being anointed with the honeyed liquid of satisfaction.
"Look," I heard her voice again, and alongside felt her hands reaching to loosen the veil tied around my head, which had obscured my vision, "Gaze upon the world I had created for you."
The veil fell, and the vast seas of stars plummeted choir-like.
Before me was light, boundless and unending. Light blinked of every color, turquoise marbles and violet hearts, and crystal wind chimed in my ears.
This is good. I made a judgement at what lied before me. It was beautiful.
A sea of stars and constellation hung high above me, beckoning with each gleam against the dim backdrop of the night.
Below me the crystalline floor took up the sky's appearance, and looking down I caught my first glimpse of my reflection:
The figure was strange.
I blinked, and with it located my eyes, of which were so pale I could hardly identify an iris.
I brought a hand up to my face, both of which were unbearably cold to the touch, so much so that I withdrew my hand immediately. The skin, though smooth, felt like porcelain under my fingertips, and I feared that I would shatter myself with too hard of a press.
I was clothed roughly, in brown tunics and leggings that fit poorly around me.
"Couldn't she have given me something smaller?—"
Only then did I think to look around for my creator. But as I spun around aimlessly, all I could see were the vast, empty plains of sea and stars and light.
As far as the universe stretched, nothing else existed.
ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ
I slipped onto the ground, brushing my hand against the shallow liquid floor. Pearlescent beads were infrequently scattered across the seas, and I picked one up and placed it into my palm.
It was a small, perfectly round thing, gleaming with all the delicate strength of a mighty star. And, unidentified as it was, I felt a rising urge to place the substance into my mouth.
And that I did.
"It's bitter…!"
The bead that remained perfectly solid in the sea water dissolved quickly within my mouth, coating my tongue like chalk. I grimaced, pressing brows together in a frown.
But having consumed the bitter, herb-like substance, I instantaneously felt its medicinal effects kick in:
My vision brightened for a moment, as if fresh water had pressed against my eyes to cleanse them of unclarity.
I blinked once, twice, and slowly, like cotton cloud dissolving into the oceans below and skies above, the fog surrounding me (which I had not even noticed before this) melted away into the endless blue and glitter. And with the dissipation of fog came with sheer revelation.
I gasped involuntarily, and clasped my hands feebly before my chest. In the far distance there were mighty structures, taller than I could see or ever imagine, and filled with unspeakable might: mountains stretched above clouds, green pastures extending up toward the heavens were anchored homes of alpine and sheep and flower assortments.
Their details were carved into my vision vividly, so that despite their distance from me I could make out in miniscule exactness their composition, out of raw stones and dirt and grass and wild daisies, tall trees and tiny shrubs and multicolored plains mounting and towering towards snowy peaks that merged with pearlescent white clouds.
They seemed alive, I judged, through I cannot say for certain, because despite their delicate breaths and strength they remained still, entirely immobile, as if cast in transparent ember.
Before me, a mighty mountain was erected. I then looked to my left, and felt momentarily blinded by the golden mounds of sand and endless specks of light that appeared and dissolved against the ocean like tiny, round islands.
I leapt, eager footsteps splashing salt water on my oversized trousers, towards their direction.
As I arrived I spotted their inhabitants of blue and pink pearls, and lounging orange starfish, and small multicolored dories, and iridescent shells and clams. With caution I slowed my pace, slowly treading forward and planting my feet into vacant piles of sand as to leave the critters undisturbed. The golden dunes warmed my soles softly.
Small crabs dug holes into and out of the sand piles, speeding impressively from island to island and frequently avoiding my footsteps.
They carried with them small offerings of pearl and seaweed and ebi shrimps, sometimes halting curiously before my steps and extending their midget claws upwards towards the heavens, as if handing something to me.
"For me…?" A foreign echoing song emerged from my mouth. I later learned this chime to be what humans call laughter.
I bent down, hands gracing the icy surface of the shallow waters. They rippled around my fingertips like they did not exist at all.
I felt the coldness, the wetness, the soft clasps of water adhesion against my skin, but something in my mind alarmed me. Pixelated waves and soft sand, eels and gift-bearing crabs.
In a brief moment of clarity, it all seemed fictitious.
And as briefly as the feeling came, it dissipated like a retreating wave just as soon. I bent down, and accepted the small purple-blue gem offered by a king crab, shining and embedded on a plate of copper.
I touched it for a moment. It formed briefly like a solid as I laid my hand on it, but in that half second it disappeared just as soon. The gem, the field of crabs, the golden sand and all sorts of creatures. Every act of wonder that emerged before me dissipated in small blinks, like pixels being purged out of existence one by one.
I rubbed my eyes, and sensed an aching, burning sensation as my tears graced my hands like a gentle acid. I remember now, with greater objectivity, that the pain had been a light, gentle feeling. A mercy. But in that moment I felt like bursting into great floods of tears.
Then on, I now recollect, though I hadn't then realized it, I held a very small seed of doubt within my heart as I treaded on. Whatever friendly creatures came my way afterwards, I kindly declined their gifts.