I died a forgotten death.
My body drifted in the boundless, black sea. It was neither warm nor cold, neither liquid nor air, neither dream nor waking. The only truth was the endless horizonless dark, where waves moved like the heavy sighs of forgotten gods.
I was in neither heaven nor hell.
This must be the fate of people like me—those who die pointless deaths. We are simply meant to roam, nameless, for all eternity. A fitting end for someone like me.
The silence pressed in on me, but beneath it I heard whispers. They weren't voices in the way humans spoke, but fragments of memory dissolving into sound. A child laughing. A mother calling her son to dinner. A whistle blowing at a soccer field. My life, unraveling into threads of sound before the black sea devoured them whole.
I tried to call out—tried to move—but I had no body. Only thought. Only regret.
Why didn't I try harder? Why did I let the days pass me by?
I remembered myself at twelve, sitting on the cracked concrete field behind school, watching others kick a ball. I'd wanted to be out there, wanted to join, wanted to feel the joy of a goal scored. I had even dreamed of becoming a soccer player once—before the weight of my own failures taught me that dreaming was dangerous.
Later, in the school library, I'd read about coral reefs, the vibrant cities of fish and color beneath the waves. A marine biologist, I thought then. To explore the oceans, to find a purpose hidden in blue depths. But dreams were fragile things, and mine had been shattered by my own apathy.
And then came the years where friends drifted away, where Valentine's passed with a note in my pocket I never delivered. She had smiled at me once—just once—and I told myself it wasn't enough, that she deserved better than a disappointment like me.
A pointless death was all I could expect.
But then—
"My, look who has stumbled upon my waters."
A gentle voice came from all directions at once.
The silence broke. The black sea stirred.
I tried to twist toward the voice, to look upon its source, but I had no arms, no legs, no eyes. Only awareness.
"It appears my influence has reached your world," the voice mused. With every word, its tone changed—first the deep resonance of a man, then the lilting cadence of a woman, then the fragile timbre of a child. "But why you… I wonder."
The black sea rippled violently. That was when I realized my form was dissolving. My body—my essence—melted into the water like paint mixing into ink. Panic seized me, but there was no breath to cry out, no body to thrash.
Something descended from above.
A golden being, radiant yet terrifying, draped in a robe white as untouched snow. Three heads spun in a slow orbit around its shoulders, each with closed eyes and shifting expressions—one smiling, one weeping, one unreadable. In its hand it held not a weapon, but a paintbrush, its bristles dripping with colors that should not exist—colors that sang when they moved.
The deity dipped the brush into the black sea. My melted form clung to its strokes.
"No worries," it said, voice blending all tones at once. "I believe there is purpose for your life in my forgotten canvas."
"What… do you mean?" I tried to ask, but the sound came as a ripple in the water.
The deity tilted its heads, as though amused by my feeble attempt.
"This sea is the graveyard of abandoned lives, of stories cut short. I weave from it. Each soul is pigment. Each regret is shade. Each lost dream, a texture." The brush swirled, and I felt myself spread thin across the void, pulled into colors I could not comprehend. "You shall not wander here. You shall be reborn, Simon."
Simon.
Who's Simon?
Before I could ask, light exploded, brilliant and searing. My awareness folded in on itself, dragged into a spiral of color.
Then—darkness.
---
Softness.
Warmth.
A pressure against my skin—skin I should not have had.
"What… is this?" I thought, dazed.
A muffled voice reached me. At first it was nothing but static, like whispers underwater. Then, slowly, the sounds sharpened.
"… *** …"
"We're safe."
I tried to open my eyes. At first, only blackness. Then, shapes. Then, light. My vision cleared second by second until the world took form.
I saw a woman.
She was young, no older than twenty, with short red hair that clung damply to her cheeks. Her green eyes glimmered with exhaustion and fear, yet in them I saw a fierce tenderness as she held me tightly against her chest. Her arms trembled, streaked with scratches. Her breath came ragged, but her grip never loosened.
My body felt strange—small, fragile, helpless. Tiny hands. Weak legs. I couldn't even lift my head.
Am I… a baby?
The thought sent a chill through me.
Before I could process it, her expression shifted. Fear flashed in her eyes. She turned her body, shielding me, as the crunch of footsteps broke the stillness of the woods.
"I found you, Priestess."
The voice was sharp, mocking. My head, angled just enough, allowed me to see him.
A tall, skinny man emerged from the shadows. His torso was bare, ribs visible beneath pale skin. A cracked clown mask covered his face, and over his shoulder he carried a long knife, its edge glinting silver beneath the moonlight.
"Your circumstances are both a blessing and your undoing," he said.
The red-haired woman's breath hitched. Tears welled in her eyes. "Please… you can kill me, but leave Simon. Just don't hurt him. I—I will go back to them."
The masked man tilted his head. A low chuckle rumbled in his throat as he lifted his knife. "Our contract is bound by blood and name. You betrayed us, and now you beg? How pitiful."
His words sent a chill through me. Us? Contract?
The woman's arms tightened around me. Her tears fell on my forehead. "Please," she whispered again, desperate.
The masked man lowered his head, staring at me through the slits of his mask. I met his gaze, though my infant body remained frozen.
"This boy," he muttered, "is his son. A child who will destroy our family, born of selfish parents. Simon—the burden."
Simon. Again that name. Was that my new name.
I felt nothing in that moment. No anger, no fear. Just emptiness. Maybe because I couldn't move, couldn't scream, couldn't even wipe the tears dripping onto my face.
The man crouched. His knife gleamed inches away. Slowly, he removed his mask.
My breath—if I had any—would have caught.
His skin was dry and cracked, stretched tight across sharp bones. His lips were fissured, eyes sunken and yellowed. He looked like a corpse that refused to rot.
He leaned closer, whispering, "Your punishment will be passed onto him. I will return when he is ready to bear your sins."
With that, he slid the mask back on and straightened. Without another word, he turned and melted back into the trees. The forest swallowed him.
Silence returned, heavy and suffocating.
The woman's body shook with sobs. She clutched me tighter, burying her face in my hair. "Simon," she whispered, voice breaking. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry you have to endure my punishment. But I promise… I will keep you safe. I will keep you away from them. That is my will as your mother."
Her tears soaked into my blanket, warm against my skin.
I lay still in her arms, mind racing in the prison of a newborn's body.