It used to be a thought, or…a question?

  Possession?

  It did not belong to itself, something of neurons connected in a web of flawed biology…yet it is so beautiful, like the imperfections add to what it is rather than subtract. It is something so miniscule compared to its origin, the final whimper of a dying mind.

  It…was born from electricity, a series of signals woven into a pattern to create a thought.

  A thought is just an expression of the soul, translated and brought to physicality through grey matter and will. Throughout this entire process the thought is given nothing resembling agency, it lives for a brief moment and then is either relegated to memory or forgotten.

  Thoughts don’t think.

  So it cannot be a thought, not anymore, but then…what is it?

  It floats in a space that is both infinity and nothing, a personal microcosm for the thing that was once a thought to contemplate what it has become. A wish perhaps? But…no, that doesn’t make sense, not with its origin, maybe it could ask? There are other spaces, and it knows instinctively that each is filled with things like it has become, like neighbors except not really because direction is an abstract concept in this strange place, all resting beneath a riverbed of something that is not water.

  It tries to reach out to them with a hand that does not exist, grabbing at one of the infinities and…does nothing.

  How does it communicate?

  Hmmm, it didn’t think that far ahead.

  It takes its non-existent hand and squeezes a little, trying to grab the attention of a thing it does not understand but is like it, hoping for answers on the concept of being. At first there is no answer, but it can feel something…not writhing, more like ripples?

  What Am I?

  It does not know how the ripples form these words but…it does, and they are more than just words, but it can’t parse the letters forming the words to understand what it is. Like knowing a language without understanding its alphabet, it is a strange experience, but it feels right.

  Almost communal.

  The thing…tries to mimic the ripples, and surprisingly finds some measure of success.

  I Don’t Know.

  This new…friend? Sends back what it can only describe as disappointment, but also…a strange kind of hope.

  What?

  Why?

  The friend asks, and the thing does the equivalent of metaphysically tilting its head, the amorphous thing that it is. It’s more a strange gesture than anything signaling confusion and…wait, it can move?

  It is so stunned by this revelation that it forgets to answer.

  Friend?

  The other ripples through to its nonexistent arm, breaking it from its reverie.

  I Can Move!

  It says elated, sending a rush of excitement to the other.

  You Can?

  Yes!

  It gets the distinct feeling of curiosity as the other starts to…writhe, it’s small little vibrations at first, that eventually grow into tremors. Then it tilts.

  Huh, the other says, So Can…what…what is that?

  The thing sends a note of confusion but all it gets is a direction, like a mental compass, and so it is made a witness to something horrific.

  It should not be capable of sight, it does not have eyes, and there is no light.

  Yet it sees things that drink from the river that is not water.

  They are not natural, they cannot be natural, they are formed of concepts that scream in discordance with reality’s tune. Like…like a wound given shape, each motion is deafening in its vision as they drink so greedily. Like…like a rejection of reality, they are their own creatures made of an amalgam of concepts that cannot exist and…and…they are in so much pain.

  How can it know this?

  How can it know any of this?

  It is not a thing that should experience pain, let alone to be capable of experiencing the pain of others, yet it’s so sharp. Like a needle, piercing nerves that scream for absolution and wail for succor.

  It should not be capable of recognizing a river, shouldn’t know that water is its normal medium, and that whatever it is the wrong things drink is laced with so much emotion. How does it communicate with no mouth? How does it hear with no ears? How can it comprehend without a mind?

  There are so many concepts swirling around like a slurry of divinity and none of them belong to it. Like it were a donation from the greatest and the least, to this small being that was once a thought but is now a thing that produces what it was.

  It can do so much more than think.

  But the memory lingers, and isn’t that a beautiful thing? To remember is to be, a solidification of being and knowing into a continuum that grows and grows until…until it stops. Like a candle flame whose wax melted away, going out as though it were never there, only a thing of memory.

  What is it?

  Where is it?

  Finality, that’s what it was, that’s what it is.

  The realization comes like a gust of wind during a blizzard.

  It is the last thought of a dying man digging at his entrails, trying to place them back into his vessel. An act of futility, and he knew as much, knew that the anchor that defines him would be washed away and the man of so many years stacked atop one another like a tower would topple, returned and recycled into something new.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Finality,

  It does not have a name, names are for things that require identification, anything here that can look into who it is will understand its identity, and it is the last note in a somber ballad. The foundation of what it is and what it is becoming, it’s almost sad, how could it be the end? How could it represent something so…absolute?

  Finality,

  It’s so…simple, everything ends, even things that should not eventually corrode and die under the weight of so much history. It can see the history of the man that it was born from, of friends and family and hopes and dreams and-

  And it ends, so abruptly, like the scribe ran out of ink, and instead of getting another jar they just…stopped, now there is the finality of a man whose name it does not know.

  It belonged to him, was born of him, yet it does not know his name.

  For the first time since coming into being, Finality feels an emotion fully formed.

  It feels sadness.

  Sadness?

  Yes…sadness, for the man it was born of and never truly knew, for his identity which will forever be lost to memory and then…eventually…forgotten. It mourns the friends and family left behind in such pointless a tragedy as an end. Mourns the desires that’ll never be fulfilled because the hands of the man that desired them belong to a corpse.

  It mourns its meaning, and in this concept it feels so alone.

  What is a being separate from its creator? Is it a lost child, meant to wander with no direction through the empty space of so many things that are like it but are not because none of them represents Finality? It knows now what it is, and it weeps and weeps, tears from eyes that are not there floating in this microcosm that is both its home and its cage.

  Not even the one it reached to is like it, representing something so much more bright than the end. It cannot parse what it is, but now that it feels its own purpose it can feel the others, and none resonate with the concept central to its being.

  But…none match one another either.

  They are all alone,

  Together.

  What does it do now? Does it move above the riverbed and into the flowing liquid of intertwined emotion and concept? Does it commune with the things that are not like it until, eventually, it becomes nothing? It will end, it has to end, because otherwise it would mean nothing.

  It does not have hands to clasp, but it prays.

  It prays for itself, and for its creator.

  -

  He’s stuck in a wheel.

  It’s a simple thing, made from the dying dreams of fragmented souls, coalescing together at the call of something unnatural to trap him in this cycle. Every turn of the wheel someone dies, and their pieces are added to his cage, solidifying his servitude but growing…bigger. Almost like the thing that’s brought him to the corner of his soul wants him to be comfortable.

  Huh.

  Isn’t that a thought?

  It’s not like it needs him, he can feel this fundamentally, it can execute it’s purpose on its own if it were so inclined. It could add him to the voices, but it doesn’t, instead it leaves him to watch, as though wanting him to understand something.

  His eye is a window that displays atrocities, it shows a city and so much violence, and with every turn of the wheel, someone dies. His body does not listen to him, skin writhing under the command of a thing he does not understand that whispers in too many voices through too many mouths.

  It’s told him so many stories.

  He can’t recall a single one of them.

  He’s drowned in the voices, a constant victim to their incessant chattering, yet as soon as the words leave his consciousness he can’t remember. Like a stone turned to dust in the palm of his hand, left to the mercy of the wind, but that’s okay. It isn’t some profound truth he’s missing, he knows this because he can see the frame of what was said, just not the painting. It feels almost mundane even, perhaps the idle musings of a peasant girl, the recollections of a tax collector, or the boasting of a man who’s never seen battle.

  All empty, just words that float in his mind and then leave, he thinks it’s their lives they’re trying to communicate, but he’s incapable of keeping grip on the words, and as they speak he loses parts of himself, or…they become obscured? He isn’t sure, his name is there, somewhere, but he can’t grasp it. There is something he should be doing, but he doesn’t know what it is.

  All he knows is what is, and what is not.

  He knows that there is violence here, and that he is not innocent, and that with every turn of the wheel, someone dies.

  He stands in the middle of a cobblestone field, the wreckage of buildings covering old corpses as the new presents themselves as fertilizer, with the flowing blood as a nourishing rain. There are so many of the robes here, groaning and crying as the wheel turns, so much fear laced through the air, taken in like a bitter medicine. It knows where the living are, and systematically moves to them with a precision that is not human, stabbing them through hearts and brains with a spear that is his, with hands that are his, but with the intention of something alien.

  Eventually it walks to a moving body and it…stops.

  A woman of forest green robes drags herself on the cobble, leaving a trail of blood in the haze that guides her. It doesn’t move, just staring at her with a kind of confusion he doesn’t understand, standing still as a statue as it looks into her soul.

  It just stands staring at her as she struggles.

  Butt of his spear firm on the ground, maintaining an eerie vigil over the trail of blood.

  It is…curious.

  Curious?

  Yes, this woman…she isn’t afraid.

  So it watches, reading her soul as she lets out pained groans from the fresh wounds scraping against stone, trying to parse why the miniscule thing in front of him doesn’t feel fear. Despite himself, he finds the curiosity infectious, and wants to know how, after everything, she still feels nothing of terror.

  The people of robes are arrogant, he’s killed enough to understand this universal truth, but all of them flinch in the face of death. That’s the common denominator really, between the strong and weak, everyone feels emotion.

  And when death calls with its siren song, everyone feels fear.

  So it looks deep into her soul and finds…determination?

  The whispers hush, for just a moment, and regards the woman with holy reverence.

  Then the wheel starts to turn, and legs that are definitively his begin to move without his input, walking towards the woman. It’s slow, languid, almost like a test. In the silence he can hear so clearly the scuffing of robes against stone and the steps that slowly approach.

  She does not panic, does not become frantic, she simply keeps crawling.

  Despite the implicit understanding of what’s about to happen.

  The thing feels something for the woman, something almost resembling respect. but…twisted, like one might give in a moment of worship. He…he doesn’t understand, what is special about this woman, when so many others died with little more than a thought? For the first time since the thing he isn’t being whispered to, and is instead whispering his own question.

  Why?

  The thing blinks, and hesitates for a moment as it continues to watch, almost confused by his confusion it sends a thought. Pure communication between souls, unfiltered by the need for physicality, and incapable of a lie.

  She is not afraid, it says, is that not beautiful?

  -

  She looks down at the city of violence and is…intrigued?

  It doesn’t nearly qualify for the worst she’s seen, but it has piqued her curiosity nonetheless. She doesn’t always look for bloodshed to qualify a song, there are other measures, and this one…hmmm, it could work for a proper ballad.

  She hasn’t had the pleasure of a performance in so long, but this place…it has all the potential of a well put together stage, such a rarity, too often wars have no spice. There should be a story to every battle, not banal bloodshed.

  It wouldn’t do for her not to interfere, not when so many screams and tears sing a chorus that needs a slight correction, luckily for them she’s a master musician, and her soul is abundant with generosity

  Her pupils dilate as she brings three of her many eyes to focus on this one fragment of reality. A harp constructs from nothing and lands in the grasp of eight porcelain hands, she plucks a string with slender fingers, beginning to compose a sonata as a tribute to the dead and the dying.

  Reality trembles and something in the city of violence begins to shift.