Everything fades except the Imp and I.
Born only moments ago, the fragments of a previous life decay and crumble at the touch of my recollection. There was warmth, a buzzing under my skin. I was…something, somewhere. The specifics evade me, but the taste lingers.
There is nothing. Then, from nothing, something forms. A Spiral pulls me closer; the white swirl in an endless black, just out of reach.
I stretch toward the Spiral.
It’s involuntary—not based on any prior knowledge. I’m drawn to it and the cause is less important than the urge. The Spiral promises me what I desire, though I don’t know what that is.
The Imp—the thing that speaks to me—asks why I don’t know.
I retract my reach, displeased with the interruption. The Imp does this far more often than I’d like—always asking, never answering. I tell him I don’t know why I don’t know, nor does he, otherwise he wouldn’t ask.
The Spiral is the one with the answers. At least, I think so. I say it with confidence but all I have to go off are my impulses.
It occurs to me now that I’m not devoid of memory entirely, and my impulses are the proof. Though I don’t know anything from before, I do remember what still remains true—what is intrinsic to me. Language, desire, my body and senses. The shape of my words, the color of my feelings.
I also remember the Imp, that he and I are intertwined, and the consequences of our actions affect us both.
The Imp is less defined than the other truths. He is…distant, but also close; hidden behind the shape of darkness, forever at the edge of my vision. Certainly a conundrum, I can’t define him more specifically than that. I feel I know him better than myself, but for the life of me, I can’t see him, feel him—perceive him beyond his voice.
At the very least, I remember him. That can’t be said for what’s beyond me. The Spiral, this chasm of nothingness…
And you.
The pair of infallible eyes, ceaseless in their stare, enthralled by my unfolding thoughts. I feel the weight of your judgments and assumptions, though I cannot decipher them.
Do you remember this place? Or are you unaware, the same as me?
You don’t respond, or even react. I can’t discern the cause. Fear, apathy, or a sense of superiority? Nevertheless, you didn’t disappear with everything else, which suggests a significance—
My thoughts shrink and diverge as I realize I’ve lost track of the Spiral. It’s forsaken this place, just as everything else once did.
Panic seeps in at the corners. I move forward, shuffling along the solid darkness, searching without sight nor a way to trace my direction. The nothingness is not empty. The darkness within it is tangible and ever-changing; it moves kaleidoscopically.
At the sheer scale of the thought, I feel Instinct, the part of me I can’t control, swell with unease. It thumps around my ears and temples, begging to be heard. I don’t give it the satisfaction. I ask the Imp for his help, instead he offers doubt. He asks why I search for the Spiral when I know nothing of the dangers.
The Spiral offers something new—unknown experience and sensation. It promises me what I desire, and I must know what it is.
The Imp says must is a strong word, but I say strong words are all I have. In my current form, I’m destined for oblivion.
A distant hum seizes the darkness. Instinct and I fall silent, entranced, coaxed forward through the thick forest, but the hum does nothing for the Imp. He spews more reasons to stall my approach, as if he knows the hum is of the Spiral.
The hum grows louder, as if to conflict with the Imp. There’s an impatience to it now, rid of its serenity and more of an urgent groan. It resuscitates the vibration under my skin, and suppresses the Imp’s voice.
Then, in the periphery, I see white.
The Spiral expands the longer I stare, as if it consumes the surrounding dark to feed its growth. Its tendril edges stretch out and slither across me, lifting me up to its eye. A crackling current coats my tongue. The eye of the Spiral speaks not with words, but through its tendrils.
The tendrils enlighten me, and supply me with a motive: to escape from this limbo through a uniting of our realities.
The Spiral, too, wants to unite. To collide into one, cleanly severing from our past forms. But there’s a condition.
Our collision must be of equal exchange—each offering our full, undivided acceptance of the other, so we may leave limbo to its peace. We mustn’t fragment ourselves, nor leave behind evidence of our presence here. This is the deeper want we must share.
I sense a sudden disappointment in the Spiral as it discovers we are not aligned on this deeper want.
My deeper want, deeper than my urge to escape limbo, is an obsessive need to fracture myself, so the Spiral says.
It takes an effort to decrypt these words as they flow through me rather than at me. I’m not afforded the time to interpret their meaning.
The tendrils release, retract, and push me away. I’m ripped from the womb. I try to speak, but my open throat chokes on the void.
Floating away from the shrinking Spiral, I feel an absence. The ripples of darkness that once filled nothingness, now hollow. All at once, my body’s weight hooks into my heart and pulls.
I’m falling.
Instinct flares in panic. It controls me with invisible strings, flailing me. We fight for control, trying to push the other out of our shared skin. Ultimately it’s a hopeless fight, but only I know that. Which does that make the greater fool, as we continue to fight, Instinct or myself?
Finally, the Imp speaks. His voice pierces my mind as he makes sense of Instinct’s cries, then demands from me a steady breath to calm its terror. I do as he says, though it seems to make little difference. As long as I fall, Instinct can’t help itself. My existence is tethered to this mysterious beast. It speaks a language only the Imp can understand.
The Imp asks: if there is nothing I fall from, nor fall towards, am I truly falling?
It’s the first question of his that I haven’t an answer for. My heart, inflated with fear, now shrivels. The weight of my body disperses evenly, returning feeling to my fingers and toes. The transition from plummeting to floating sends Instinct back into slumber, and I sharply remember why I tolerate the Imp’s incessant inquiries.
The Imp is the peacemaker. Without him, I would be swallowed—reduced to nothing more than a thoughtless creature.
I have been in stasis—not falling, but not motionless—for a duration I can only describe as longer than a moment, but shorter than eternity. It’s given me time enough to think, and to realize what’s truly going on.
There is a memory of mine I haven’t yet told you about, regarding the Imp. Nothing he does is without intent. He knows, as I know, of our joint existence. We share a single fate, one he’d prefer to have complete control over, which is why I know this was all his doing.
It was he who sent me on a tangent of contemplation, letting the Spiral slip from sight. It was he who drained the darkness from the void, carving the hollow eternity I’d go on to fall through. He did this to trap me here, in stasis. To strip me of my adventurous ways, and sever from me the pursuit of desire.
If there is nothing in relation to me, then I am no different than the void itself. I’ve become obsolete, a floating speck in the expanse.
He masked it well. For a while I’d been convinced the ceasing of my fall was truly, and only, to calm Instinct. For once, I was grateful for him. For once, I valued his existence. Now, as I realize he won’t let me go, I understand what a fool I’ve been.
I am trapped in this loop. Do you see? The Imp solves problems he creates, playing peacemaker between myself and the beast he constantly provokes. My existence, guided by his unseen hand.
And yet I tell you, the all-seeing eyes I barely understand. Do you wonder why I trust you? I hope so, as it would mean we’re aligned in our thinking. Truthfully, you are the only one left to tell. The Spiral is no more, Instinct remains dormant, and the Imp goes without saying.
I waited to tell you this until I was certain the Imp wouldn’t hear. I fear what would happen should he know that I’m aware of his nature.
You see, a revelation was revealed to me through the success of the Imp’s ruse: the Imp is not aware of you. Keep in mind, if he believes something to be true, then it is true for both of us until I can disprove it. Thus, if he could perceive you as I perceive you, the truth of stasis would fall apart. You would be a reference point—something to fall to or from.
But he can’t perceive you, so here I remain.
It begs the question: what are you? I still believe there is a significance in your presence, but it’s proving a challenge to determine.
If I’m to be freed, it’s not the truths I remember that will do it. It’s what I don’t remember, the truths yet to be uncovered—the Spiral, and you—that I place my faith in.
Another truth I’ve discovered in stasis: the Spiral, at some point, will return. If nothing is happening, then anything can happen, therefore it must happen. I must reach it if I’m to find out what it meant about my need to fracture. However, I suspect something has to change before it returns to me, which is why I turn to you. It seems in the moments I speak to you that things further, whether it’s my own thoughts or something exterior.
I need to break out of stasis, and there’s only one way to dismantle the Imp’s creations: the unknown. Things he cannot explain; things that make him doubt his logic. You, of course, would be the perfect candidate. But I have no idea how to explain you to him, let alone convince him you are real. I must find another way—a way that doesn’t require the Imp’s involvement, if such a way exists.
The Imp has stopped speaking altogether since Instinct settled. His silence is a note of pleasure at the purgatory of stasis, the lack of need to theorize, laced with a grievance towards my continued existence, and the fact he can never be rid of me. He fears the small chance that I may yet defy him. Again, if nothing is happening, then anything can happen.
I decide there’s no harm in simply asking why he doesn’t like the Spiral. The question doesn’t reveal my greater knowledge; at worst, he remains silent.
To my surprise, he responds. Perhaps it was the directness, the fact that for once I asked him a question, or perhaps it was your presence. What’s unsurprising is his answering my question with a question, and the reversal of my own reasoning onto me.
Why do I not like the eternal quiet of stasis? The Imp asks.
We come to an impasse, neither one of us wanting to answer the other. So, wordlessly, we agree to move on.
The Imp, instead, elects to answer his own question. He says nothingness is the only pure truth there is. The truth of nothingness makes more sense than anything ever has. It doesn’t require reason. When nothing is happening, nothing can go wrong.
By that logic, I say, nothing can go right either.
The Imp considers for a moment, and in that moment I resign myself to another indefinite silence. Instead, he agrees with me.
Yes, nothing can go right, he says. But nothing going wrong is more important.
You, I’ve discovered, are not aware of all my thoughts. You only know as much as I tell you. You never heard Instinct’s screams, for instance, only my relaying of the incident.
It hasn’t left my mind since I thought it, the chance you are not as significant as I hoped.
You are nothing more than an observer. Your inability to perceive or affect this place beyond what I detail—you’re not actually here. No other explanation makes sense. You are somewhere else in this void—or someplace else entirely, if such a place exists—and I am your vessel.
I can’t help but feel…disappointed to find no greater purpose for you than this.
It has been a long time since I spoke to you. Again I’m unsure precisely how long, but on the scale of moment to eternity, I believe it’s been closer to eternity.
Still, I am unable to convince the Imp to let me go, nor free myself by disproving him.
At some point, out of sheer desperation, I told him about you. Nothing came of it. I never expected him to believe me, but I didn’t think that’d matter. My belief in your existence was supposed to be enough, yet it wasn't. I’m still in stasis, bound to an immutable fate. The Imp never even responded, and it was the dismissive kind of silence rather than the second-guessing kind of silence. Perhaps it has something to do with you not really being here. Perhaps it means not even I truly believe in your existence.
I do apologize for taking so long to overcome my disappointment. It was grueling to stir in my own failure, forever, with nothing to distract me. I thought you were essential, all-knowing, and it’s my own fault. It’s not as if you told me so, I placed that burden on you.
But somewhere along the way, I started to accept rather than dwell. Expectations are a dangerous thing. To envision something before it happens—to attempt to define the unknown—is the way of the Imp, and I refuse to think like him.
Eternity’s greatest value is its ability to change anything except its outcome. It has shifted my focus, not to define the unknown, but to accept it. Stasis has stripped me of many things, but not this choice. It’s why I return to you, because I still believe you have a greater purpose, even though I may never discover it.
If the Spiral is convinced I wish to fracture myself, denial will not change the belief, and attempts to define its meaning are a waste of time. I must explore what it takes for the Spiral to accept me. I need to make it see I am at its behest—that there’s nothing I won’t do.
When I recall the memory, I look to the unknown, fracture, and not the subject of the fracturing—me. Why is the fracturing happening to me?
I’ve been concerning myself with the wrong things. The things out of my control, the ambiguity of the external. It’s time I try what I have yet to try, in order to find the Spiral’s meaning. I must turn my focus inwards.
Deep inside me there is a small bead of Dread. It spreads and trickles as I pry myself open in hopes to distinguish my existence. The Dread delivers a horrible feeling. The possibility that all this time, I’ve assumed what I am; interpreting my existence in the way of the Imp, envisioning before it’s ever confirmed to be so.
The Imp and I, we believe ourselves intertwined—kindred spirits, of sorts. What if we’re both wrong? Who is left to disprove us? What happens to the truth?
What I remember and what is true, could I have confused the two?
The Dread appears to know the path of my existence better than I. It’s easy to lose myself in my own web of memory as I attempt to track what’s real and what isn’t. I follow the Dread’s stream instead, as it flows with purpose and direction.
The Dread coils down further and further until I arrive at the basis of my being. Hidden beneath the web—the foundation of my existence—lies the truth. It’s dormant, until the Dread pools atop it, triggering it like a long-forgotten memory.
The Imp and I are not a pair of kindred spirits, but a single one.
The Dread soaks into the web, dispersing the truth with it, leaving me alone with the horrifying epiphany.
I don’t remember the last time the Imp spoke. I scarcely remember the sound of his voice—or Instinct’s screams, for that matter. I’ve been alone for so long, attempting to reveal either of them. I’ve induced panic to trigger Instinct, shouted endlessly to provoke the Imp.
It’s hopeless. They’re gone.
The truth prevents me from identifying them as I once had. Their names separated them, creating an external presence. It’s not something I wish to process alone—that I have, in fact, been alone this entire time—but what other choice do I have?
It occurs to me, given the truth, that this state of stasis is of my own design. I’m trapped because I believe I’m trapped. The Spiral doesn’t show because I believe it should not show.
I’ve confiscated my own control. The control that extends as far as nothingness takes me, which is to say, however far I’d like.
The simple acknowledgement of this fact erodes the numbness in my body, and I take the form that I wish to take…
Which is to fall towards a small glint of white at the bottom of the void,
The Spiral.
As I fall, I face you, finally with a suspicion of what you are. It was whenever I spoke to you that I advanced past the present.
You create furtherance, even now, as I unravel your purpose. You are the catalyst. Your presence allowed me to exist beyond a single moment.
Are you really there? Or are you, too, of my own construction?
Of course, you don’t respond, and I’m okay with never knowing. I can’t be sure of anything that’s happened to me, which leaves no choice but to accept it all.
The Spiral latches onto me, and this time it has no words to give. I stretch, compress, warp into its coiled shape before it swallows me whole.
As we collide, there persists a lingering thought. Could this be another of the Imp’s deceptions, to trick me into breaking our binding ties? Until these final moments, I’ve never considered where my urge for the Spiral originated.
There’s always the chance there’s more to the truth—a truth hidden within the truth—but I won’t let it dictate me as I once had. Every thought has the same chance to evolve into truth. It isn’t the thought itself, but the weight it's given. The desire for truth limits my control, for after truth comes the death of discovery.
Alas, I must leave you now, as I wish to leave one facet of truth forever unknown:
Its end.
Image Credit: Nowbelov from Unsplash+