Part 1 of 3
Chapter 1. A Strange Beginning
It's been a while now since he has eaten anything. A fragility beyond comprehension clouds the entire place where he resides. Sometimes, a strange, overwhelming fear visits him. He feels it in his bones. And yet, he makes no movement of the muscles, no scream escapes from his throat. He sits silently and quietly. He breathes slowly and steadily. For him, time is but a frozen object.
Where is he? He is far away from home. He left it long ago.
Who was he?
Back then, he was showered in riches. Life inside the cocoon made sure that he knew nothing of the outside world. So it was. He was made a blind man, not in his eyes, but in his soul. During his teenage years, he knew nothing of death nor suffering. Such concepts were foreign to him, so much so that he was unaware even of aging. They were kept hidden from him by his loved ones. To make sure that he stayed healthy in the mind, to be free of suffering was to be ignorant. So it was thought. To be blind in the soul is to be introduced to a reality far from the truth. A product of human construction, created to relieve pain from the harsh truth of the grand universe.
Everything dies.
He didn't love that life, nor did he find comfort in it. A blindness eventually found its way toward the light. In time, the truth was discovered. The reality he had once been given was a fake. A false sense of comfort meant to keep him far from his own tears. The discovery came at a great cost. He was shocked to learn everything that the true world presented. For the first time in a very long while, disease and death stood before him. He was unable to find his footing.
He wasn't scared, because no one had ever taught him how to be scared. How can you fear something when that something has never been presented to you. However, the fear arrived later, much later, when he began to contemplate the life that had existed before that pivotal moment. He thought about his own life. He thought about his own youth, and about the false sense of reality that had been constructed for him. For a moment, he felt safe. But safety isn't a medicine for the abyss. And so, a strange beginning.