2.5 #IdentityCrisis #GetMeOutOfHere #WhoRU
He continued to drift as being of no form, no shape, no expression save self-contemplation, and even that was growing dim. He almost felt as if he were a part of the atmosphere, an element of the essence of soft faded blue and glowing white lights that made up reality, such as it was in this place.
He tried to focus on his identity, on his memories, clinging to them with a growing desperation, but even those were starting to merge with dreams and fancies, making the reality of his past difficult to discern.
My name is Tye... Tye Samp... Samp....
Had he really married a vampire? Or led an army of giant spiders into battle? Those memories didn't mesh with his childhood recollections. His youth had been spent in a simple farming village. No magic, no marvels, just good people and hard work tending to the land to win their daily bread.
Which life was real? Could they both be true?
He wished he could shake his head, or rub his eyes, or even scream; anything to express the frustration he felt. But he had no voice, no eyes, and no head. He was just a bundle of collected memories that were growing less certain, less real.
Then, as if in answer to his thought, a voice broke the great endless silence. It wasn't as loud as a scream or a shout, but it was harsh and stern. A female’s voice, one he almost thought he recognized, but before he could collect his memories, the words crashed through him. Their weight was compounded by the contrast of the constant emptiness he had been floating in, and they hit his fragile being like a truck smashing through loose bricks.
"You are pathetic."
He scrambled without moving, trying to hold the connections of his personality together. It was difficult. Beyond difficult. The attack had scattered his thoughts and sent his memories spiraling. With no central core to rally them to, he could feel the elements of his essence drifting away... fading... The sweet bliss of emptiness.... the hazy headiness of the white and blue.
No!
My. Name. Is. Tye. Sampson.
He thought the words, one at a time, feeling himself grow firmer with each one, somehow more solid, though he was still little more than a string of consciousness. Just as he felt himself whole again, another crash of angry syllables ushered from the unseen woman.
"That's not even your real name."
This time the blow was worse, but at least he knew what to expect. Even as he felt the tattered particles of his soul scattering, he was already reaching out with unseen arms, clasping with nonexistent hands; pulling himself, by force of will alone, back together.
"You were never a leader. You were always just a delusional fuck up."
The tirade came faster this time, and lasted longer. As the words assaulted him he could almost see them, spidery lines of a handwritten script running past him in the wavering, hazy blue light. All he could do was cling, holding tight, clutching at whatever he could of himself.
He felt memories, traits, and feelings flying off into the emptiness, but that just made him cling even tighter to the remnant that remained. Grasping desperately at the threads of his personality, he strained, forcing them to forge a new core, a new center of being around which ancillary intentions and recollections could orbit.
"You'd be doing us all a favor if you just let go and die."
The insults came and again. He saw them, while simultaneously feeling them crash into him. The elements of his consciousness scattered, but the core remained firm. Many of the pieces that were lost, eventually returned. But some did not, and somehow he knew they never would. There were people he had forgotten, characteristics that were missing. He could feel them like holes in his heart, gaps in time, wounds to his soul.
"It would be so easy to give up... to give in," the voice whispered enticingly, a sibilant hiss that ripped at the fragile threads he wove to hold himself together. Picking, breaking, tearing.
Still, he held. He wasn't sure why he held. Some of what the voice said rang true. It would be easier to just let go, fade away. But here, clutching at the core elements of his being, he was starting to recognize something about himself. He wasn't somebody who could just let go. Tenacity was part of who he was, and he clung to that, even as circumstance forced him to.
"You worthless, cock sucking little shit faced bastard! You've failed, and you're being punished as you deserve."
This was a new voice. A man's deep baritone, even more familiar than the woman's, but with his memories splintering into oblivion at the insults he couldn't put the clues together to figure out who it was. All he could do was hold on, and with two voices the doubled assault made that even harder.
"You are pathetic and should never have been born."
"You deserve everything that you get and worse you filthy spittle stain."
"Just give up already, this is pointless. You were always pointless and pathetic."
"You don't even exist, shithead. Do you remember your real name? Do you remember anything anymore, you little bastard?"
The male voice was more vulgar and demeaning, but the woman's cut to his soul, wounding his pride and scattering his confidence.
He did have a few faint memories left. They were just fragments, but in the absence of something more substantial, he clung to them all the tighter, holding on to the shards of his self for as long as he could against the ferocious barrage. It wouldn’t be long now, he knew, but that didn’t matter.
Identity Illusions: A RolePages Novella Page 5
