I’m wrapped in silence and darkness---thick, sticky, black darkness. I don’t remember who I am or where I am---my head is emptied of memories. And think. It’s like I was born out of the sigh of nowhere and dumped at the bottom of a monstrous well, and maybe it’s a prison or a grave... I don’t know if I exist at all. My senses are amputated. Unnecessary. I’m dreaming about myself. I am the creation of darkness, its embodiment of thought... I lie somewhere---on some hard-stone surface, and the silence painfully vibrates in the air. I can’t move, no matter how hard I’m pushing. It’s like being chained with invisible chains. Where am I? Who am I?! I don’t know. I don’t even remember my name. I wish I could scream with all my might, pour out the questions that tear me inside, but there’s not a sound coming out of my throat. The darkness, weighing around me, strikes me with an eerie silence, as if it’s making fun of me. The fear that I won’t be able to remember is creeping into me, shaking me and suddenly turning into horror. God, what have you done to me?! My thoughts wander helplessly into the labyrinths of consciousness---like the beasts lost in the night. What was it before, what is it now? I don’t remember. I must be dead... But I still think I exist. Unknown where. In the kingdom of shadows, in which I am the only... I have to do something, anything, or I’m going to go crazy. I try to move again---move my hand or leg, so I don’t feel so terrifyingly uneasy, but it’s all in vain. Time is frozen at some point beyond the world---as if on the edge of a height. I can’t feel anything but the cold, smooth but hard beneath me. Mentally, I’m starting to scan myself from top to bottom and back. I don’t have a body, no pulse, no limbs, no senses. Nothing has dissolved me without residue. Nevertheless, I know---with an unwavering, incomprehensible confidence for me---that there has been before, but memories are swamped so deep among the layers of my mind that any attempt to get to them is doomed to fail. The door to the past is locked, and the key is thrown out. I know, I feel it, I know---it’s in the name, in my lost name. In a few meaningless letters... I’d like to believe I can rediscover them. But before that, I have to deal with the darkness that relentlessly dismembers me into pieces. And with this unbearable silence, she pinned me down like a barren field. The fear of obscurity continues to come upon me in furious waves, gurgling out the last remnants of consciousness in me. It’s probably coming to an end soon... But I’m not going to give up easily! ---I declare it to the dark. Not until I know what’s buried inside me. God, help me! I have to remember what it used to be! At all costs, I have to know... Despair erupts in me and turns into anger. I’ll remember! As pointless as it may be now... I gather my thoughts, and with lens of powers, I start over. From the head down---to the tips of the legs (where they should be), then back up. And, again and again... No success. I don’t even feel a fraction of myself. As if he understood my helplessness, the darkness squeezes me into my suffocating black embrace---so strong that I am unsmiling, and death passes me by. After a long moment, I pluck myself out of nowhere and start swearing without a voice until I calm down. I rest for a while, then focus my attention on my hands. More precisely, at an imaginary point a meter from me, where my left hand should be. It seems so far away and so alien... I’m straining my will---I’m putting my all in, but it’s like trying to move an invisible mountain in whose existence I’m not even sure about. I’m not giving up, even though I know my efforts are doomed. I’m struggling with all the rage and despair I’m capable of---one minute, two, ten... time is a fictional magnitude, there are only two of us here---me and the darkness waiting patiently for their hour... and then all of a sudden, I’m picking up something. In a second, I’m able to determine it. Flickering... Some muscle wakes up in my bodiless nature---I feel it as a slight prick, which fills me with wild joy. Damn it, I’m alive!... In response, the darkness silently retreats with a step, albeit still impenetrable. I continue my persistent attempts, concentrating thought at that same point, and the feeling becomes more palpable. Yes, it’s a finger! Fingertip---thumb or index finger. I scribble with it slightly on the stone-slabs and my touch brings back a sense of identity. It fills me with hope. I’ll probably be able to feel my body---or at least dig up my name from the dusty corners of the dungeon where I’m dumped. I rest briefly because the effort has exhausted me altogether, then I focus again on the fingers of the hand. For now, I can only feel my index finger, I can move it---barely, but this is the beginning... The cold hardness of the stone I dig at makes no sound. I’m not stopping. I dig with a claw the plate, gathered itself in a single movement. I have to, because otherwise I’m dead... I make memories of the darkness, still dense and suffocating. There’s been an eternity of time in front of me---all the way to the end of the world. Or maybe that’s already happened, and I didn’t understand... Gradually, I begin to feel two more of my fingers---the thumb and the middle. This little victory almost intoxicates me, but not for long---fatigue strains me suddenly and the forces leave me. The next minute, I’m going somewhere into nowhere. Obscure, distant saturation of silence---strange, decent voices and steps noises, ingesting through the abyss beside me, I am found and I fall asleep. After another moment, I’m gone...
