The wind was howling past my ears, shrieking deafeningly.

Strangely, I felt weightless, like I was floating…or falling. I had no idea what was going on, and while pondering the question. I manage to pry my eyes open--it was then that the answer to that question was revealed to me.

I was falling--at a very high speed, from an incredible height.

While this epiphany answered my first question perfectly…It raised many others -- questions which weren’t quite so easy to find the answer to.

Why am I falling?

I don’t know.

But I also don’t know where I came from, or where I am going; okay, I know where I am going: down…and very quickly too.

But there was another question which popped into my head, a question which was much more important than those others: Who am I?

I remember -- nothing.

Maybe there are clues around me?

So, I looked straight up and into the clear sky.

There were numerous stars shining brilliantly.

It was a really beautiful sight, the clear, aqua-blue night sky, full of sparkling stars. There wasn’t a single cloud in sight.

Both of the moons were full, illuminating the darkness below me.

Wait?

Both moons?

Something about that.

--Something about there being two brilliant white moons, seemed somehow…wrong.

Hmm, that was a strange thought.

But I did the only thing I could in this situation, I shook my head --trying to rattle out any hidden clues.

Twisting myself around in the air, I looked down.

I understand now why there were no clouds above me, they were all between me and the ground; through this puffy white blanket,  I could see mountain tops, barely visible. They looked like white spikes, covered in snow.

My exposed skin was freezing in the icy wind.

Luckily, most of my body was covered by clothing.

Tilting my head down, I inspected what I was wearing -- which was a long-sleeved shirt, loose, long pants, and boots.

My shirt and pants looked like they were a simple cloth, possibly cotton. But, my boots seemed to be made from some kind of leather, they seemed to be a much better quality than the rest of what I was wearing.

It seems that while I don’t have any memories, I do seem to have knowledge.

Opening my arms, and wriggling my body, I managed to turn around and I looked up to where I fell from -- which was above me but quite a distance to the side, I seem to have drifted in the breeze.

There was a hole drilled into the sky, a deep black abyss -- the edges of which crackled with a violet lightning; The hole was perfectly circular, and easily four or five times my height in diameter. The darkness was so deep that even the lightning couldn’t illuminate its depths.

Staring at the gaping maw in the sky, I felt something shifting inside my head.

My surroundings suddenly became fuzzy, and my head went white; without warning a memory emerged from the blankness in my head:

My eyes were shut.

A freezing cold enveloped my whole body. It feels like I am bathing in an icy fire, burning and freezing at the same time. Without my direct intervention, my closed eyes opened themselves -- I could see that I was in a pure white room, there were shadows move hurriedly around me, and one of the silhouettes rapidly approached. They leaned in towards me, their obscured face was close and they started talking.

I could understand their words at the time.

But in the recollection, the words became fuzzy sounds that elicited a feeling of warmth in my chest and heaviness in my head. Their speech was strangely distorted and buzzed in my ears.

The last thing that I felt before the memory faded was a deep sorrow as I looked at the fuzzy silhouette, who began to shimmer and distort, everything flashed with a brilliant violet light.

Once the immersive memory faded, my mind returned to the present--I was now back in control of my body.

Concentrating, I realized that my memories seemed to be completely gone, not like there was a fog obscuring them, but instead, there was a void -- the void seemed to flicker with violet lightning.

Strangely though, I knew words and meanings, concepts and knowledge -- which also seemed to apply to instincts and my subconscious, which could be why I felt discomfort on seeing two moons.

There was something tickling at the edge of my consciousness, something that felt vitally important, but I couldn’t remember it -- I felt a strange, heartbreaking, sadness. It was almost as though I wanted to rip my chest open.

-- there was a feeling of loss…and oddly enough, hope.

 

Shaking my head, forcing my mind back to the present, I sighed. Deep down, I knew that it was better not to dwell on questions and emotions without answers.

Flailing my body, like a fish out of water, I twisted around again and faced the rapidly approaching ground; the dark dirt was barely visible through the thinnest sections of the clouds.

My surroundings were getting more and more foggy, the clouds thickening around me, and I could see some of the tops of the mountains passing me by at a ridiculous speed.

The mountains were sharp, with stone crags and sheer ridges; they stretched as far as my eyes could see. Huge, towering, bare mountains piercing the sky.

From what I could see of the dark and broken ground, there weren’t any signs of civilization, or sentient life at all; there were no artificial lights, no buildings -- not even any unnaturally shaped masses. The ground was barren, brown dirt and dotted with stones of varying sized. Something was wrong: there weren’t any signs of plants. There didn’t even seem to be any rivers or sources of water

--The land looked dead.

There was a powerful instinct dwelling deep in me: If I were to survive the fall, I knew had to find civilization. There was a strange urgency in my head; but I knew that I needed to find living people. Maybe they could help me to recover my memory, my purpose.

But the urgency suddenly vanished, without any warning. It was as though it was all an illusion; I don’t know if I felt it so strongly because I just fell through the hole in the sky and my subconscious hadn’t had a chance to hide it yet -- but for some reason, I remember it.

I knew that it was important, so I will act on it.

The stony ground was getting closer and closer, and I could tell that it wouldn’t be long before impacted it. I followed a strange instinct and spread my limbs, as though I was trying to slow my fall -- I couldn’t slow myself much, and I knew that it wouldn’t be enough.

I had only been alive -- that I could remember -- for a few minutes, and it looked like it wouldn’t be many more minutes until that brief existence ended.

But, I felt no fear.

As the ground came closer and closer, I slowly shut my eyes.

Suddenly, an enormous pressure seemed to engulf my entire body and I heard a loud boom, and numerous cracks.

I also could swear I heard a sickening ‘squish’.

But I felt no pain.

***

I was in a pitch-black void, feeling as though both an eternity and a millisecond had passed. Slowly, I began to feel my consciousness combining, I could feel -- myself; my strength, my ego, was beginning to rise.

My consciousness began to feel less foggy, and more whole; I could start forming thoughts again--instead of the blankness--the loss of self.

It felt as though I was floating in an infinitely deep water, pressure engulfing me and I couldn’t feel a sense of direction, let alone where a surface may be, let alone if one even existed.

I have no idea what this feeling was, where this place was, if it was a place at all. But, I felt a sense of recognition.

My outside senses were completely cut off: I couldn’t see, hear, smell, touch, or taste anything; But I could feel sensations that were vaguely like that here, senses that seemed to be pale imitations. I had an instinctive knowledge that this was somehow ‘inside’ not the outside world.

Then, without any warning, the darkness seemed to ripple.

There was a sudden flash that seemed to blind my non-existent eyes, for an unknown and unknowable eternity, for an instant millisecond, then a blue dot appeared floating in the nothing.

The dot didn’t emanate heat, it made no noise, and it didn’t even seem to have any mass; yet it glowed. The strange dot hovered right in front of me for an indeterminate time. Then, it started darting left and right, its speed increased rapidly.

Without any warning, the dot seemed to multiply and become numerous blue lines.

Spinning and dancing, the blue lines formed a seemingly infinite number of symbols, none of which I could recognize -- however, they did give me a feeling that was similar to the words, the language, that had appeared for an instant in that strange memory.

The symbols slowly moved and rotated, gradually drifting in odd patterns, before combining into a single -- yet infinite-seeming meta-symbol. The single, infinite symbol which now seemed infinitesimally small, yet filled the entirety of my vision, made my head ache -- a pain which came in rhythmic pulses.

My eyes started to burn as I stared deeply into the symbol, I knew deep down that I had seen this before, maybe many times.

Slowly pulsing, the symbol hung in the Stygian void -- emanating light, yet illuminating nothing.

The pulsing of the symbols sped up, and began matching the rhythmic beating and aching in my head -- before rapidly surpassing it; when the pulses reached a peak, both in luminosity and speed, I began to float in a recognizably upwards direction.

Then I woke up.