The snow bunting moves like a piece of debris, its white belly feathers inconspicuous against the snow, its faded brown plumage easily mistaken for nothing more than a piece of bark, a withered leaf. He watches it move in the early morning light. The doors have unlocked and it's time for another day of slogging meaninglessly through the snow and he wonders: Is that what it takes to survive here?
Blend in, become one?
The thought is an ache somewhere deep inside. A hollow, ringing sensation of dread. To give in again, to let his sense of self drift, is the last thing he wants now that he finally has agency again.
But drift it does. The more defiance he shows in the face of Norfinbury's endless suffocating whiteness, the more often he finds himself waking up lost and empty in the depths of a church or a mortuary; adrift like he was when he was first created. Empty of memories, empty of feeling. The numbness is a temptation. And the grander the temptation becomes the more he suspects he's losing himself.
He's never lost that part before, that central kernel that burns bright and defines him as himself no matter what games have been played within his consciousness. The boy from Twilight Town and the nobody from a city of whispering shadows, they were both him, even if they felt separated by a wall of glass within his thoughts.
Both of them had struggled against the universe's unending demands that he just cease to be.
That must be something. That must be something of his, and though the dark safety of the cabin is inviting, it is time to go into the white blanket of the world and fight as it tries to leech all color from him. The snow bunting jumps when he forces open the door, heaving his shoulder against the wood to push the night's snow back. He watches it fly away with tired eyes, trying to keep his certainty of survival aflame as the first horrible gust of wind bites into his face.
He wonders, if perhaps, the bunting has not been subsumed. Merely adapted: to be clever, be efficacious, be quick.
He steels himself against the cold and begins to tread through the snow, looking for footprints but finding none... the night's snowfall has always obscured them from sight. Every morning is a struggle to find a sense of progression, to push from one cold cabin to the next, rummaging with numb fingers for stores of food, over and over again.
Talking to the others on the tablet device was almost like talking to a day dream if they lost track of one another in the sea of disorienting white. After a few days alone, the tablet is an aloof substitute. Its texture in his hands smooth and meaningless--(It reminds him of the company of the lesser Nobodies, the empty blackness beneath their features, their sleek silver forms.)
But he thinks back on the lone snow bunting.
One bird, one mouth to feed. Were they more likely to survive separately? Able to cover more ground, able to find more supplies so that more of them might make it until morning? But of course... there's always someone who doesn't make it, whose luck turns sour, who pushes too far.
Was the survival of so many more worth the lonely deaths of the others?
He's made that sacrifice before: himself for the multiverse. How does one question a virtue they've already given their life for, but the questions ring in the back of his thoughts all the same. Should he be more selfish, this time? Was it selfish, the first time, to ignore the look of pain on Axel's face and push on as he felt he must. Despite the empty state of his heart, it pains him to hear the despairing and the angry and the weakening on that tablet, and it reminds him of those hopeless days when he had tried so hard to save himself.
He tires in the afternoon.
He's been to many worlds, been pushed far too hard, but there was always time for rest, there was never lack of food. The pervasiveness of the exhaustion here is almost a death sentence in and of itself. Your limbs became heavy, disobedient. He sits beneath a barren tree, basking in a cold moment's sunlight and munching slowly on a little bag of granola he had found. It seemed to keep well, didn't moulder, didn't freeze and burn. It tastes like nothing, dry and unpleasant in his mouth.
Nothing much that's pleasant, here.
He let's his head fall back, eyes closed, drowsing in the freezing open, even though he's heard others tell stories of dying that way, never waking up and the heart--the blood pumper--just slowly, softly, turning off. He thinks about the warm array of colors that had been Twilight Town, traces the sloping streets down the hill with his thoughts, imagines the warmth of the late afternoon sun baked into the streets and the rooftops.
He can't decide if the memories are a comfort for their beauty or a torment for their distance.
Norfinbury pulls for his despair and he retaliates, clinging to some strange inner certainty of his defiance, and then the brutal winter punishes him, strips off a piece of him.
Who will he be when the winter breaks?
Has he ever know himself truly.
Is this just another tragedy in which he fades away, or is it a chance--as pitiless as it is--to finally find out what his mettle is.
3rd Person Sample
The snow bunting moves like a piece of debris, its white belly feathers inconspicuous against the snow, its faded brown plumage easily mistaken for nothing more than a piece of bark, a withered leaf. He watches it move in the early morning light. The doors have unlocked and it's time for another day of slogging meaninglessly through the snow and he wonders: Is that what it takes to survive here?
Blend in, become one?
The thought is an ache somewhere deep inside. A hollow, ringing sensation of dread. To give in again, to let his sense of self drift, is the last thing he wants now that he finally has agency again.
But drift it does. The more defiance he shows in the face of Norfinbury's endless suffocating whiteness, the more often he finds himself waking up lost and empty in the depths of a church or a mortuary; adrift like he was when he was first created. Empty of memories, empty of feeling. The numbness is a temptation. And the grander the temptation becomes the more he suspects he's losing himself.
He's never lost that part before, that central kernel that burns bright and defines him as himself no matter what games have been played within his consciousness. The boy from Twilight Town and the nobody from a city of whispering shadows, they were both him, even if they felt separated by a wall of glass within his thoughts.
Both of them had struggled against the universe's unending demands that he just cease to be.
That must be something. That must be something of his, and though the dark safety of the cabin is inviting, it is time to go into the white blanket of the world and fight as it tries to leech all color from him. The snow bunting jumps when he forces open the door, heaving his shoulder against the wood to push the night's snow back. He watches it fly away with tired eyes, trying to keep his certainty of survival aflame as the first horrible gust of wind bites into his face.
He wonders, if perhaps, the bunting has not been subsumed. Merely adapted: to be clever, be efficacious, be quick.
He steels himself against the cold and begins to tread through the snow, looking for footprints but finding none... the night's snowfall has always obscured them from sight. Every morning is a struggle to find a sense of progression, to push from one cold cabin to the next, rummaging with numb fingers for stores of food, over and over again.
Talking to the others on the tablet device was almost like talking to a day dream if they lost track of one another in the sea of disorienting white. After a few days alone, the tablet is an aloof substitute. Its texture in his hands smooth and meaningless--(It reminds him of the company of the lesser Nobodies, the empty blackness beneath their features, their sleek silver forms.)
But he thinks back on the lone snow bunting.
One bird, one mouth to feed. Were they more likely to survive separately? Able to cover more ground, able to find more supplies so that more of them might make it until morning? But of course... there's always someone who doesn't make it, whose luck turns sour, who pushes too far.
Was the survival of so many more worth the lonely deaths of the others?
He's made that sacrifice before: himself for the multiverse. How does one question a virtue they've already given their life for, but the questions ring in the back of his thoughts all the same. Should he be more selfish, this time? Was it selfish, the first time, to ignore the look of pain on Axel's face and push on as he felt he must. Despite the empty state of his heart, it pains him to hear the despairing and the angry and the weakening on that tablet, and it reminds him of those hopeless days when he had tried so hard to save himself.
He tires in the afternoon.
He's been to many worlds, been pushed far too hard, but there was always time for rest, there was never lack of food. The pervasiveness of the exhaustion here is almost a death sentence in and of itself. Your limbs became heavy, disobedient. He sits beneath a barren tree, basking in a cold moment's sunlight and munching slowly on a little bag of granola he had found. It seemed to keep well, didn't moulder, didn't freeze and burn. It tastes like nothing, dry and unpleasant in his mouth.
Nothing much that's pleasant, here.
He let's his head fall back, eyes closed, drowsing in the freezing open, even though he's heard others tell stories of dying that way, never waking up and the heart--the blood pumper--just slowly, softly, turning off. He thinks about the warm array of colors that had been Twilight Town, traces the sloping streets down the hill with his thoughts, imagines the warmth of the late afternoon sun baked into the streets and the rooftops.
He can't decide if the memories are a comfort for their beauty or a torment for their distance.
Norfinbury pulls for his despair and he retaliates, clinging to some strange inner certainty of his defiance, and then the brutal winter punishes him, strips off a piece of him.
Who will he be when the winter breaks?
Has he ever know himself truly.
Is this just another tragedy in which he fades away, or is it a chance--as pitiless as it is--to finally find out what his mettle is.