The darkness couldn’t be described as peaceful, nor was it suffocating. It wasn’t heavy or weightless. It just was. There was nothing. It was nothing. Thought and emotions didn’t exist and it didn’t matter that they didn’t exist. There was no time and no place. Just…nothing.

Until suddenly…there was something. A pressure, a tug, a gentle nudge that said, pay attention. How there could be attention when there was barely consciousness It didn’t know. It didn’t even know enough to understand It didn’t know.

For a while or maybe for no time at all, It ignored the sensation. The pressure was everywhere because It was everywhere and nowhere and nothing. There was no body to feel sensation with, and yet It felt it all the same.

The tugging came in waves, stronger and then weaker again. Fading to almost nothing, but never gone. Just enough that it was there, a niggle in the back of a brain that didn’t even exist. At some point in meaningless time, the pressure, the tugging…became so intense It couldn’t ignore it anymore. Whatever consciousness was left turned in the nothing darkness and followed the tug.

There was no direction in a directionless void but somehow there was a direction to follow as the pull increased.

Nothing around It changed, the darkness and nothing stayed the same as It followed the sensation. The sensation itself didn’t increase so much as shortened. Instinctively, It knew It was going toward its unknowable origin. Between one meaningless empty moment and the next the darkness around It disappeared.

It was no longer surrounded by empty nothing black. It was no longer an empty void of nothing. It didn’t know what It was as It seemed to hover near the ceiling of a room.
It had been a long time since It was…something. Anything more than a brief blip of consciousness in that nothing of a void. Enough that It took many long minutes before It could understand little more than ‘room’ and ‘something’ instead of empty and nothing.

It’s gaze traveled the room. The space appeared to be a kitchen, living room, and bedroom all in one. Small. While it looked old and run down, it also appeared clean and uncluttered. No artwork hung on the walls and there was only one small bookshelf crammed with books and a few trinkets. It was a bland and unoriginal space, no personality to tell It who lived there or what they were like.

A sound from the bed drew It’s gaze. During It’s first pass over the area, It assumed the space was empty. The lump of blankets and pillows piled in the corner nothing more than linens shoved to the side in a morning haste perhaps. But then the pile shifted and moved. The face of a man appeared as he turned over to face the room instead of the wall. His body swathed in blankets and pillows, all that was visible was his face, a bit of his curly brown hair poking out of a blanket and a hand holding a piece of paper.

Not being aware of attempting to move or even having a body to move, the consciousness suddenly found itself inches from the man in the bed. Close enough to smell the leftover coffee and toothpaste on his breath, the slight sour tang of someone who hadn’t washed the sleep off themselves yet. The muskiness of a mature man, the bitterness of lingering sweat. But it wasn’t the smells It focused on. No it was the glisten on the man’s face. The tears that flowed down his soft cheeks and into the barely there fuzz of a beard so light you could scarcely see it at all.

The man’s eyes were squeezed shut, his eyebrow wrinkled as he chewed on his lower lip. It seemed he was holding something in, holding back some emotion the consciousness couldn’t define but desperately wanted to erase from the man’s existence.

A gasp of harsh breath and a loud sob tore from the young man and suddenly his eyes were open and the consciousness was sure he was looking at It. His startling blue eyes were staring right at the nothingness of a form and actually seeing It.

But no.

He couldn’t. There is nothing to see is there? The man was gazing at the paper in his hand, rubbing his thumb along the middle as more wetness seeped from his eyes.
“Theo, why did you have to leave me?” The man uttered, his voice hoarse from his tears and emotion.

The words…the name…made the consciousness vibrate. What was happening to It?

To…him?

Why was he here? What was that pull that dragged him to this place? And who was the man before him?

He was gazing at the paper in the man’s hand. It was a photograph. Worn from over handling but still clear. Two boys, one a teenager and the other a pre-teen. Laughing together next to a makeshift fire pit. Gaze darting back and forth between the two people, he felt himself shaking, trembling, vibrating.

He knew those people. He knew that place and that fire-pit. He knew that photo.

“Theo.” the crying man whispered again, pulling the photograph to his chest and holding it there while he curled around himself tighter, sobs wracking his body.

Blog About Ch1: Nothingness

This chapter is fairly short but I think it works with what’s occurring right now. This Section 1 “Before the First Possession” is meant to be very…out of place, abstract, weird.

Does the “nothingness” need more description or less? Do you get the sense of abstraction and confusion?