A journey alone, together.
I was a young boy when my parents relinquished their lives to the elements. I can remember it not being their choice but they did it to save us all. It's been so long that I barely remember them, even if I tried to think of their faces no memories come back to me.
The things I do remember from my childhood are limited. I remember running in open fields always with an adult tugging at my arm to keep me from running too far off. I remember that my people moved often, you would call us a tribe.
Wanderlust is the word I would use when describing my people. Always moving, always a new home. Though we moved around a lot I wouldn't call us explorers.
My heart-keepers what you would call adopted parents kept me safe during our travels. I was too young to remember how many of us were traveling together. They taught me to forage for plants as we moved and hunt when we rested.
Before I knew it I was in my teens and whenever I could I would explore. Large fields, tall trees, lakes, streams, and most of all, I loved exploring caves. Whenever I thought we had to of been the first people to explore an area I found the remnants of other people.
I've always loved to explore by myself. A lone wolf my heart-keepers called me.
Caves were my favorite place to explore because of the human remnants left behind. It connected to me to the people who had died.
I remember the last time I explored a cave. It was darker than most of the caves I've been in and deeper. A particularly large chamber in the cavernous maw was nearly impossible to see in even with a torch in hand.
I could hear water dripping into what looked like a small underground lake. Drips of water cascaded down into it causing the small lake to look like it was moving. I spied a path of rocks that lead to the center of the lake.
I walked across the stones keeping my balance along the way when I found myself in the center of the lake. An enormous rock spread out before me, a small pool of glowing water entrenched at its center.
I would say that my people including myself are a suspicious people but our curiosity out weights our suspicion by literal leaps and bounds.
I dipped my finger into the pool of liquid and my finger came out glowing. There was no pain it was just as if I dipped my finger into water. I had a sudden urge to drink it and drink it I did. I don't know what came over me that day but I drank every bit of that glowing substance I could find. I'm sure not one drop was left.
By the time I was out of the cave, my stomach started cramping and I started heaving as if I was going to throw up. My body was rejecting the fluid yet it would not come out. I heaved in pain for what seemed like forever. Darkness eventually came and saved me from the pain.
That was the last day I saw my heart-keepers.
I woke up, unable to move, trapped. I could feel a warmth all around me. I was still alive!
I couldn't move, I couldn't see, all I could do was wait. After a while, I fell asleep. and then awoke again. This repeated for a long time. I swam in and outside of consciousness.
I felt a stirring of something odd as if I was not alone.
One day something changed. A huge pressure was building up around me. I began to panic when the pressure got so intense it started to hurt. I was being pushed awkwardly and pressure began to build around my head. One last building of pressure on my head and I was suddenly able to see light again. The rest of my body went through the same pressure and release sequence.
I was literally born again. It was different this time around, I was not in charge of my own body. I could feel the other presence growing stronger every day.
Everything felt different but the same. One of the weirdest experiences in the world is not being able to control your own body.
As the new baby me grew up the stirrings of the other consciousness grew even stronger. It was beginning to have needs, wants, and felt hunger and pain.
The world didn't look so different. This tribe didn't move around, we had huts and lived near a small what must be a freshwater stream. We were often bathed in it and that's when I found out that I was no longer male.
I was still unable to control my body but I was starting to think that this really wasn't my body at all.
As the years passed the other consciousness began to become a full-fledged person. I tried talking to the little one but she was still very young and language didn't really sink into her little brain.
Her people and her parents didn't speak the same language as I did, so I was confused at first. But having literally all the time in the world on my hands we learned it together.
As we got older we spoke to each other quite often and I began to enjoy the company of this young girl. I was able to pick up her language first and began sharing it with her on a daily basis. I could tell she was smart because she picked up the language rather quickly.
As we began to hit puberty things changed for both of us. I could feel the effects of her hormones change us. We both became more emotional, crying at rejection, and our monthly periods were pretty painful. With puberty, I was able to move one of her hands. I don't think she realized this but it felt good to have some semblance of control.
Our tribe was a simple tribe and we began to fall in love with a boy. It was confusing at first but even I was attracted to him.
We were connected her and I. We were more of a single person rather than two separate people, but still we are able to remember separate things and chat with each other.
In this village roles were more distinct, men hunted and women foraged. I taught her-us all about what I learned while traveling. She seemed caught up in my stories and we both dreamed of romance.
When we found a man it was odd as neither of us had ever had sex. We learned about it together and explored ourselves together.
I was able to fully take over our body and I would run just for old times sake.
We had children and began to grow old and one day we died together. It was not a swift death but one night our heart stopped working. We would miss our children.
I woke up again and was in the warm place again. The she-us was with me this time. We had talked about this process before and she understood what was going on but she felt a little disoriented.
We lived a 3rd life, a 4th and 5th. We began wondering if we would ever truly die. Eventually, after many many lives, we had several hundred of us all in our head. We had to enact rules on when someone could speak.
One day we found that we could share our knowledge without having to speak. We became one again but shared the experience of many lives.
We had all decided that the water that I choose to drink, that glowing water was probably what brought us all together.
Someone once said that you would never want to be immortal because you would have to watch everyone that you love die and you would be lonely. This is true that we saw our loved ones die but we have never truly been lonely, we have all lived satisfying lives.
I don't know when or if we will ever well and truly die, but if we do we will have lived the greatest lives possible.
Thank you for reading!
I hope you enjoyed this story. I hope to make many more.
Be Excellent to Eachother!