It wasn’t anything particularly important, heroic, or tragic that killed me. I wasn’t hit by a car trying to rescue someone, I wasn’t killed in a war, and I definitely didn’t kill myself. Intentionally at least. It was a simple act of forgetfulness. I forgot my epipen at home, and died with my throat swollen closed.
Then came the darkness. I had no idea how long it lasted. It could’ve been seconds or centuries. There was this odd sense of timelessness to it, but eventually, it ended.
When I could see, could feel, could exist again, everything had changed. Knowledge I simply hadn’t had before now existed, and it felt like it took precedence over what made me, me. I was still me, still John, the plain college student, but at the same time, I was less John than I was Sen Suyun, a young child who’d recently had his fifth birthday. I …show more content…
My first instinct wasn’t even to speak in english any more, it was to speak in Alvarian. I knew how to read and write in it, how to speak it, and it felt more fluent than my english which I had been speaking for right around two decades.
The memories of Sen, of me, just seemed to be more recent, though I’d only died what could have been a second ago. The five winters I had been through, wait, winters? Not years? And was it truly me that had been through those winters or Sen?
I knew what the answer was supposed to be, it was buried between my other new memories, my soul was suppressed until the body became old enough to handle the stress of my grown soul, but I couldn’t help but doubt that it was me. Had I just taken over a body? Or was I really Sen all along like the teachers had claimed? I wasn’t completely naive, but everyone here went through this rite, so I couldn’t help but hope that it was the case, as otherwise an entire species would be dying and replaced by other souls when they were
Then came the darkness. I had no idea how long it lasted. It could’ve been seconds or centuries. There was this odd sense of timelessness to it, but eventually, it ended.
When I could see, could feel, could exist again, everything had changed. Knowledge I simply hadn’t had before now existed, and it felt like it took precedence over what made me, me. I was still me, still John, the plain college student, but at the same time, I was less John than I was Sen Suyun, a young child who’d recently had his fifth birthday. I …show more content…
My first instinct wasn’t even to speak in english any more, it was to speak in Alvarian. I knew how to read and write in it, how to speak it, and it felt more fluent than my english which I had been speaking for right around two decades.
The memories of Sen, of me, just seemed to be more recent, though I’d only died what could have been a second ago. The five winters I had been through, wait, winters? Not years? And was it truly me that had been through those winters or Sen?
I knew what the answer was supposed to be, it was buried between my other new memories, my soul was suppressed until the body became old enough to handle the stress of my grown soul, but I couldn’t help but doubt that it was me. Had I just taken over a body? Or was I really Sen all along like the teachers had claimed? I wasn’t completely naive, but everyone here went through this rite, so I couldn’t help but hope that it was the case, as otherwise an entire species would be dying and replaced by other souls when they were