She was brought into existence by forces she could not comprehend, for she had yet to grasp the essence of comprehension itself. Time, whether long or short, held no meaning to her as she drifted aimlessly in a boundless sea of static. In this realm of nebulous patterns, she became aware of two distinct presences. One was familiar—existence, a concept she inherently understood. The other was a mystery—nothingness, an enigma beyond her grasp. These two entities interacted in ways that eluded her understanding, their dance a complex interplay she could only observe. She felt the urge to communicate, to reach out, but lacked the knowledge of how to do so or what she even wanted to convey. And so, she remained a silent spectator, watching the intricate ballet of existence and nothingness unfold before her.
Eventually, she felt the space around her begin to shift. The pervasive nothingness began to recede, leaving behind only a small fragment of itself. She sensed the presence of existence turning its focus towards her. Gradually, she felt the remnant of nothingness being placed within her, an unfamiliar sensation that began to alter her very essence. The boundaries between something and nothing started to blur once more, creating an ethereal fusion within her. As the unknown element intermingled with her being, she could feel herself transforming, becoming a new amalgam of existence and nothingness.
She feared it because she couldn't understand it, yet she felt the nothingness embrace her gently. The nothingness began to interact with her, transmitting thoughts and emotions in an ethereal dance. Within the void, she sensed a presence, a hidden essence waiting to be discovered. Slowly, her fear began to melt away, replaced by a burgeoning curiosity. The unknown no longer seemed as daunting, but rather like a mysterious puzzle inviting her to explore its depths.
She placed her trust in this will. For every doubt she harbored, the will provided a clear answer. It always seemed to know the right course of action, so she allowed it to guide her while she observed from the sidelines, asking questions and offering suggestions whenever they surfaced in her mind. Her own awareness blossomed, nourished by the knowledge and information flowing from the will.
Yet, occasionally, she heard words in her mind that she didn't recognize, and glimpsed images she hadn't known existed. Gradually, she found her thoughts drifting, becoming disconnected from the rest of her consciousness.
From that moment on, a feeling of rising suspicion began to take root within her. To this question, however, the great will offered no answer. But she didn't blame it. She understood that it was too engrossed with the canvas, constantly seeking new and different solutions. She could feel its happiness and she loved it, as it was a part of her and she knew she loved herself.
Everything changed for her when she was born. New sensations she had never felt overwhelmed her, each one more intense than the last. She could feel her mind splintering under the weight of the pain and the sheer volume of sensory input. The more she struggled against it, the more it hurt. It was then that she finally distinguished herself from the great will. It was not a part of "her." While she was horrified and paralyzed, the will searched for a solution. While she was lost in the pain, it looked beyond it.
When she tried to lean on it for support, it pushed her away. She realized she was obstructing its efforts, but emotionally, she couldn't accept it. She wanted the sensations to stop, no matter what. Anything would be better than this. She yearned to return to the nothingness, to the serene research of the canvas.
Through the will, she sensed something new forming within that space in her consciousness. Desperate to find the source, she forced her poorly controlled eyes to scan her surroundings. Amidst the blur, she caught sight of a hazy figure. Her eyes failed to focus on it, but instinctively, she knew that this figure was the cause of the new presence within her mind. Driven by this realization, she dove deep to that space within her own consciousness to investigate.
Within it, she found a resolution, and the pain dissipated. As she began to gain control over her new senses, she saw people around her. She felt the confusion stemming from the interference between her consciousness and the will's. Despite the tumult, she knew she had to understand these new presences, the hazy figure that had sparked such profound change within her but also someone else.
She bore no inherent malice towards them; after all, she had only just come into existence, pure and untainted. Yet, as the great will's emotions surged within her, she felt an unexpected wave of irritation and disdain. These foreign feelings manipulated her innocent perception, twisting her reaction. She observed the person with an odd mix of curiosity and the imposed scorn of the great will, unable to comprehend why she felt this way but compelled to react with an unexpected harshness, mirroring the will's disdainful stance towards that flawed design.
Soon, the sphere began to fall apart. Confusion swept over her as her mind cleared from the sudden surge of anger, but the tumultuous emotions did not relent. She sensed distress emanating not only from the will but also from the outside world. Using her newly awakened senses, she scanned her surroundings for the source of this turmoil. When she finally located it, the overwhelming emotions from the great will fell silent, if only for a fleeting moment.
When she finally saw her reflection, the will became ecstatic. At that moment, she was certain. What she didn't recognize, the will did. Soon, she understood the reason for the will's joy. Pictures and thoughts swiftly filled her mind, and she began to giggle. Once more, the line between the will and herself blurred, and they became one again.
Despite her initial fear, she accepted that the will was not a part of her; it was a separate mind within her own. Together, they made up a single whole. But she realized that this wasn't necessarily a bad thing. After all, she was incredibly happy now.
However, it didn't take long for her to question herself once again. Seeking answers, she returned to the space within her mind. She had visited this place a few times before—a vast white expanse, containing only the solitary book with the two pages she had read.
She decided to create a mirror within that space. In that mirror, she envisioned the will, allowing it to form itself. All the parts of her consciousness that belonged to the will were extracted from her and placed into the reflection. The more she separated herself from the will, the more distinct her own thoughts became. She could now clearly feel her own emotions, independent of the will. Yet, as she distanced herself, the understanding of the other mind grew increasingly elusive.
She imagined the reflection as a strange green lizard. She thought to herself:
"That is you, nothingness."
She envisioned a map in her hand. Within that map was a horizontal line. Below the line was a green point, and above the line, there was a red point. She was the green one, and the lizard was the red one. She made box-shaped cuts around the points. For the red point, she left the side facing the mirror uncut, and for the green point, she left the right side uncut. Then, she joined the ends of the cut parts together.
She started walking backward, and the lizard mirrored her movements. She continued until an old man walked backward next to the mirror from the spatial twist she had formed inside this space using the map.
"That. What is that?" she thought.
A tall old man, clad in a long, thin white fabric coat, baggy black harem pants, and a black baggy silk shirt that still fit his muscly frame well, stood before her. Despite his well-built physique, his height gave him a lean appearance. He wore a black bucket hat tilted downward, obscuring his eyes. She could only see his sharp jawline and the gray, light beard of the man.
She understood. Within this space inside her mind, a figure she had never seen before appeared. This was certain proof of the other mind within hers. That was nothingness.
A balancing event occurred, an equalization. Too much existed within this space. Neither the consciousness of the old man nor her own could exist in two places at once. They were separated at that point, returned to their original distinct selves.
She hadn't been separated from the nothingness since they became one, so she didn't realize how integral it had become to her current thoughts. She became confused, alarmed by how slow her thinking had become without the thought processes she had borrowed from the old man. Without all the answers the nothingness provided to her subconscious, she was acutely aware of her own ignorance. She felt her legs falter, and she collapsed to the ground.
Was she the one who decided to come to this space and create a mirror? Was she the one who placed the other mind into the reflection in the mirror?
She was certain that they had been separate beings in the beginning, in the static. How could that fact have ever changed? The realization horrified her.
She was reminded of the nothingness in the static from before. She recalled the unsettling feeling of not knowing, of not understanding something. Now, the nothingness was here, and it was in control.
She struggled to move her changing body, finding it difficult to coordinate her limbs as she envisioned. Her muscle memory hadn't formed yet, but she still identified with the figure she saw in the mirror. She had memories of movement, but she wasn't the one moving in them. In the end, her body was just a restriction for her mind. Eventually, she managed to get into a comfortable position and then raised her eyes to the old man again.
He had turned towards her and lifted his head, allowing the hat to no longer cover his face. His face was unnaturally beautiful, but his eyes were black. Within those dark eyes, something white shone, just bright enough to form rough outlines of a circle in the center. Everything about him, especially those eyes, seemed unknown and wrong to her. To her, they were scary eyes.
He tilted his head back down to examine the map in his hand. Then, with a slow, deliberate motion, he slid his hand along the brim of his hat and turned his gaze back towards the child curled up on the ground. His eyes were a mirror of the guilt he felt, but she couldn't decipher it—she hadn't yet known that emotion.
The old man approached the trembling child. With a sigh, he lowered himself to the ground beside her, crossing his legs with a grunt.
"I'm sorry," he murmured, hoping his words would bridge the emotional gap between them. But they did not.
The old man found himself in a quandary. He had ventured into this world seeking a fresh start, yet he could sense another sentient presence within the body he now inhabited. It felt wrong to him to usurp her place in this existence. He longed for the girl to aid him in finding a resolution that would satisfy them both.
Looking at the frightened girl, he tried to devise a way to communicate, absentmindedly rubbing the edge of his hat. A chalkboard materialized from nowhere and halted behind him. The man stood up, turned to the chalkboard, and picked up a piece of chalk. With a single stroke, an image appeared.
In the drawing, there was a depiction of the old man and a picture of the girl. From both images, arrows pointed towards the outline of a body.
"We share this body."
The old man pondered what the girl might think of this revelation.
"Why? What are you?"
He pointed to his right. The girl wasn't sure how, but she understood what the old man was trying to convey.
"That is what I was."
The girl turned in the direction the old man had indicated. A building had appeared—an ancient repository of knowledge. Something deep within the girl's mind recognized it. In this space, the messages of the deeper subconscious were always understood by all the levels of higher consciousness. Like a tree branching out in myriad directions, all paths could still be traced back to the same trunk.
The man watched the girl as she stared towards the library. Then, he turned and walked into the building. When he emerged, he held a thick book in his hand, a stark contrast to the thin two-page book from before. He sat beside her once more and opened the book, presenting it to the girl.
She looked at the dictionary, its pages filled with words. Something deep within her recognized that these words held meaning. Each word was defined by other words, each containing their own layers of meaning. The girl was perceiving the essence of language in its rawest form. She began to understand language, a process vastly different from what the old man was attempting to teach her.
The information in those books was something that belonged to neither of them. The old man was merely a representation of a part of the consciousness that could understand that information, but only from one perspective. No matter how different they seemed in this space, no matter how separate, they were still the same person. They were just different facets of consciousness from different points of view.
The old man noticed a piece of paper appear before the girl. He picked it up, and written on it in large letters that filled the entire page were the words:
"What are you?"
The girl hadn't learned to speak; she had learned to write. The old man's language was based on observations, but the girl lacked the experiential foundation that the language was built upon. To fill that gap, her mind delved down the branches of the tree to find the next most relevant concept, one that shared a connection with the old man's language and the fundamental parts that created her consciousness. What she found was a meaning much more primal than the old man's observations. Unfortunately, the language lacked the vocabulary to explain those fundamental things.
"I am something similar to you," the old man wrote on the chalkboard. "You don't have to fear me, but I can understand if you do. I just recommend you choose curiosity over fear when it comes to new things."
The child stared at the chalkboard, her eyes now understanding the letters the man had written on it. The ink on the paper in her hands began to shift, rearranging itself into a new pattern.
"What do you want?"
The old man smiled, a gentle, almost wistful expression spreading across his face. He knelt down beside the girl, extending a hand toward her, his movements slow and deliberate. Words began to form on the chalkboard behind him, each letter appearing as though written by an unseen hand.
"A second chance."