Slowly becoming aware of ones own existence, in a realm that could perhaps, at some point, be deemed ‘physical’. Warm, but not too warm, and so soft. So soft. Floating. Is this water?
Attempting to open eyes, finding that one cannot; heavy with a gravity never felt before, the gravity of self.
A sensation in what is suddenly known to be the concept of hand. Pins and needles, but not pins and needles; like stars captured in grasp internal, pure cosmic energy. A word comes to the thinking mind, unbidden. Wield.
The silence surrounding is unlike any ever heard, the sound of silence deafening, crushingly weightless in the odd duality this one has come to experience the world in.
Floating. Is this water? Is it sky? Hiding in the clouds after death would be a convenient continuity to the life lived. So fitting.
Forcing one eye open a fraction of an inch, all that can be seen is red. So much red.
Blood. So much blood.
And the thoughts come pouring back, a life, a million lifetimes instantaneously, a million deaths, some kind, some cruel… yet none painful?

“Not blood”, comes a voice through the field of hearing, and it takes a moment to recognize, this is real, a real voice, not an internal, no inex, not the AI, not a microorganism or a sunspot or anything else that could have possibly been conceived in the Liminal Reality. Voice like silk, wrapping the body like gentle breeze, the caress of caring evident.
“Not blood,” the voice repeats, though all that can be seen in a 360* field of vision is red, so much red, endless endless red. “Light, my dear. Is it so hard to recognize yourself?”

“All you need is a little bit of time. Time, there’s a human concept. The passage of existence from moment to moment. This is a moment. Again just now is another. And another. And another. Breathe. You need to remember what it is to be human. Lungs, fill with oxygen, connect to the heart electrical, connect nerves electrical,
connect to the brain electrical to make the whole process go. First breath is the hardest. First breath is remembering what it is to be human. The second is remembering what it is to let go of that.”