[SIZE="3"]Tómur[/SIZE]
Again I wake to confinement, dark and complete, as I feel I always have. In this wretched place, I can scarcely perceive the change from sleeping to waking. In sleep, I grasp for the faintest memories of freedom that survive only in dreams: weak impressions of scents and emotions and colors are all that persist through this captivity. My memories have waned to the point that it is only with great difficultly I can believe there is a world beyond my confinement, or that this is confinement at all. My mind wishes to call this all, to call it everything and know no concept of outside, but I refuse to forgo my belief. Through my dreams I will hold to those memories I believe in, however faint they become, and in my slumber I will pursue the dim flicker of release, of freedom. But as I wake, even the memories of the memories fade and I descend into a black, infinite void.
Once awake, I have some semblance of control. At least, I feel that I do, though it has no perceivable effects. My mind is active. I feel the thoughts coursing through it, and I can focus on any number of them, but they have no...substance. They are all identical: they are all thoughts composed of nothingness. How something can be built of nothing, I do not know, but it is so within this void, I believe. When I first entered this place, it was not like this, but the passing of time has brought with it deterioration, I believe. I cannot be sure. Here, I cannot be sure of anything; I may simply believe. Perhaps this idea of a time before my thoughts felt to be composed of nothing is only a proof of a mind developing. Maybe I have yet to be, and I am only a developing existence that has recently gained some sort of cognizance. I do not believe it, but it could be. I do not know; I cannot know. Even the "passing of time" I spoke of is beyond any certainty I could dream of finding. Perhaps I have been here only a moment, or perhaps I have been here for eternity. I have no way of knowing any truth. However, I believe that I was before this captivity; I believe that I existed outside, wherever that may be.
And as I consider outside, the blocks of nothing in my mind build nothing thoughts of location and physicality. They seem to have a place in this existence, but they are too fleeting to be captured. In what I perceive to be my mind I feel the commands to movement build up. I sense them fall from my mind into my core, a void deeper than the rest, and travel through veins of nothingness into extremities I believe exist. I sense every miniscule movement of these commands as they progress; the process seems to last an immense amount of time, but it also seems to be over instantaneously. As I have said, I cannot truly be certain there even is such a thing as time here, so I cannot know how long these commands travel, if they travel at all. Once these commandments have reached what I believe are their destinations, they impart their nothingness into the nothingness of a body which then gives a sensation of movement, of change. No perceivable change reaches my captivity, it remains black and still, but I believe I move. This way, I have moved over what must be long distances but have progressed nowhere. I am able to move in ways I believe to be impossible, which causes me to believe I may not be moving at all, but perhaps I am a being who may move inwards, if I am a being at all.
I still wonder if I am something fading away or something fading into existence. Or something else. Thinking of movement develops a blankness of longing for slumber, for sleep allows for movement with progression, so I sleep, and I move forwards, ever forwards, until I fade away into waking once more.
Thus, having awoken again, I believe I begin to consider my existence once more. The mysteries of my substance of nothingness plague me for nonexistent ages. Around me, in me, part of me; the void groans slowly in a crushing maelstrom that cannot be felt or fought. I move no longer; I wish not to perceive its lack of effect, for it dwindles my belief in movement, and I will not sacrifice belief, for it is all I have. I will not become this emptiness.
The blocks of nothing build again. I consider consumption, sustenance. I do not know why, for I do not believe I have ever known such concepts, but I believe I desire to know them. This event gives strength to the belief that I am a developing entity approaching some form of reality or existence, if that is not what I already possess. With the empty concept of consumption deteriorating into a purer nothing, my mind finds the belief in entities challenged. From where does such a belief come? I have known no entities, only myself and my captivity, I believe. Those may be one, or they may not be an entity. Perhaps I am all that is. Perhaps I am nothing, and thus, am everything I perceive, my only substance a void without founding.
I believe I tire, and ascend into sleep again, finding memories of emotions and color; though I know not what they are, I feel them as I move to nowhere. Nowhere, but closer to the memories, grasping for them. Hoping to actualize them. Hope...hope...I know it only in slumber. I grasp for it. To take these things from dream to wake...I know not what would happen, but I must. I grasp...
I am awoken--pulled to wake from sleep. I do not believe this may happen. I am not awoken: I awake. To be awoken means entity. I believe the void has awoken me, but I do not believe it can. I descend from memories of memories into movement. This movement is not the futile movement I believe. It is movement of nothing, of the void. I do not believe this either, but I believe it has happened, is happening, will happen. I do not know.
Nothing changes, my confinement is still and dark and entire, but I believe the outside changes. I believe the outside. I believe--
Tómur.
Suddenly I am aware: I am summoned. My prison is collapses into me and I no longer believe, I know: I am. Memories of memories become memories that rush back, quickly--for there is time, I know it. Color, scent, emotion--they surround me and I know them. Location, physicality, entity--I feel them and I know they are truth. Truth is truth. A world develops around me as the void recedes. Eager, I think and command my limbs and feel the commands echo through my body and I move. I reflect on myself and I feel my existence, and the existence of the entity who has summoned me, but as I absorb it all, within me, as the commands echo about, I discover something missing: I discover the void within my core.
I am not yet rid of it!
I summon forth the void and push it from me, hurling it away with force. As it touches the world it rips away the color in a flash of lamentation. Still, I feel it dwelling within me. I expel it again and again, wishing to rid myself of its curse, but I cannot. More of the brilliant world I have seen is marred by the void I release, but it remains in me. The void overcomes all it reaches; I feel and see my summoner reduced to lack. The one who freed me from my prison--now taken by it. The emptiness is not merely within me, it is a part of me: I am the emptiness. I release a bellow of shame and disgust and regret and hatred, and as the anguished roar escapes my dreadful maw, I see the world come rushing into me, into my core, consumed by my emptiness. The reverberations of my scream rush into me, and I follow them. Once more, my darkness is wretched and entire. The memories of the emotions and color and scents are already beginning to fade in the mere moments--or is it ages?--I have been here. However, I know one thing I never knew in my previous captivity--there is no more outside, for I have consumed it.
--------
Tómur is Icelandic for "empty".
