Chapters:

Chapter 0

My moon lights up my ocean as I stand before it. My clothes are as gone as my memory. The ground burns. Am I drunk? No...I don’t touch the stuff. Can’t touch the stuff. My nakedness is my freedom. It is my beauty and my restitution. And while skin clings to my skeleton, I feel my existence fading.

I walk slowly toward the reservoir. The water rises. Rises. Rises. I am no longer sure I am a man at all. Am I drunk? No...I don’t touch the stuff. Can’t touch the stuff. I’m on fire. Was...on fire.

The reservoir is red.

The sky spins.

My eyes shake and tumble.

Am—am I dead? No...no, I can feel my heart beat. Beat. Beat. My hair is slick, my face is smooth, my senses are heightened, my legs are numb. I am wholesome. I am clean. But I debate my lucidity... Memories tug at my nerves. Nothing is for certain. But a feeling brings me warmth, it softens the fever. Yes, certainly...I no longer seek the overtures of peace I once sought. I no longer bask in apathy. What would Mother think of me?

I retreat onto the beach. The sand is white, a brilliant white. Am I drunk? No...the sand is always white, always brilliant. But it feels as fake as I do. No...I am real. I am real. I am real. I chant it aloud. I pray softly and deeply to no one but myself to bring some reconciliation into this body in which I quake.

I try to draw myself in the sand, but I can’t remember who I am. Am I as old as I feel? I must be real. Have to be. Have to be. I try and draw myself again. No...I look wrong. I look a monster. I ruin it with my hand.

Wait—water...it will show me. But the reservoir...far too red for reflections. I am as murky as the next thing. The sky spins too fast to concentrate.

My hands are covered in black. Am I hurt? Where is my pain? Too numb to tell. I wash my body off. Redness soaks my skin. The sky begins to slow. Slow. Slow.

This isn’t me. Can’t be. Isn’t. A face stares back at me as the redness dissipates. Who is this? The face is twisted and contorted. I touch it. It leaves, but only for a moment. This face...it is mine. I am broken. I am abhorrent.

Goodbye tears. Float on.

I am sober. I am mad. My hands burn.

The wind hurts. My legs are still numb. I look out at the reservoir. Back at the beach. There in the distance, I see it.

I pick it up. A flag. I wrap it around my body. Warmer. I sit down and watch the water. Am I drunk? Or is this a rare and true sobriety?

No. No...I remember now. The fire...the glowing forest...the party. The reds and Blues. It returns.

My hands are purple and rotten.

I hurt someone tonight. But the bastard deserved it. I am not evil. I am just. I am wholesome. I am beautiful. I am real. I am no monster.

I am sober.

The sadness I used to be is dead. But I can recollect. I can remember who he was. I can enter his mind once more. I am him. Was him.

I have died many deaths but am no phoenix. Far too naked.

Where is my red water? My sky no longer spins. I no longer spin. I no longer sigh. I no longer feel.

I shed the flag, embrace the cold and hold out my arms, a gladiator, a lion. But the flag...it lies so lonely. I pick it up. Tie it around my eyes. I see nothing but beauty. I can see more than ever before. And so I walk into the reservoir and submerge my manhood, submerge my spirit.

I need to make sense of all this. Need to go back to the beginning. As far back as I can remember. Have to. Need to. It wasn’t for nothing. Something had to...had to have brought me here.

Water on my back, arms outstretched, I shut my eyes. Cold back. Wet ears. Who did I used to be? It must...it must have been fifteen years ago. 2084. Los Angeles. The darkest winter…the darkest winter. There was something brewing. There was a stir of echoes.

Next Chapter: Chapter 1