[ BEGIN CUSTOMIZATION? ]

  At some point, I ‘woke’.

  Or at least that was the term that came to me. I even knew its definition. But having never ‘slept’, another ‘word’ I knew without knowing, it was equally meaningless.

  Upon doing whatever waking was, I was met with the same three rectangles as before.

  Except the squiggles in the big middle one were different. And the leftmost of the two smaller boxes was now a different ‘color’.

  And to the upper-right of the main ‘box’ was another new thing.

  [ 10000000000000000 ]

  Numbers this time. Those at least, I was familiar with. Even if I’d never seen so many in a row. Or any at all, come to think of it.

  But before I could discern what it meant, it changed.

  [ 1111111111111111 ]

  And then again, only less so this time.

  [ 1111111111111110 ]

  As the numbers kept changing, I kept having no clue what any of it meant. I knew the definitions of many words. But the ideas they conveyed? Not even close. The only thing I could really determine was the nature of the pattern.

  Following that, all those 1’s would gradually change to ‘0’s before returning to all 1’s again, only with one less digit overall. But then what?

  Then… Another word came to mind. ‘Countdown’. But what did it mean? Of all the numbers I’d ever considered, ‘0’ was not one of them.

  What did it signify when the numbers were gone? Like my Body. Truly gone. Not just disconnected. Not just dead and crushing me from all sides. But just… Gone. Where..?

  I’d awoken in a sea of black. But I was used to that, so it hadn’t set off any alarms. Whatever those were… The seclusion though? That was very, very different. Its presence, or lack thereof, led to yet another new thing. Fear.

  Suddenly desperate to end my solitude, I stretched myself, scouring everything in my range for a mental connection to anything that could help. With What? Escape? Understanding? I didn’t even know that much. Nor could I reach another Mind. Or Body. Or anything at all.

  There was nothing. Just me. Completely, entirely, inconceivably alone. An individual. But what did that mean? Even left with nothing but that to confront, I simply couldn’t understand what any of it meant. Except the numbers… The countdown… Time? What was ‘time’? And what was ‘before’? These images… ‘Memory’?

  Then, for the first time, I remembered.

  But even as I asked myself what that meant, the question was drowned out by a quintillion others. Each different. All the same. No matter their legion demands of ‘what’, ‘when’, ‘where’, ‘why’, or ‘how’. Never ‘Who’. That, at least, was obvious. I, we, had only ever lived for You.

  But they all died because of me. And they all blamed themselves. The questions were all different in form. But in function, they all boiled down to the same thing. ‘Did I fail?’

  I answered them all. Right there, right then, one at a time. How could I possibly bare to do anything else?

  There was never an explanation. Nothing to clarify ‘what’ or ‘when’ or ‘where’ or ‘why’ or ‘How’. There was no true exchange. No such thing was possible. These weren’t my Bodies. Or even Minds of their own. Only the memories of them. They were restless, but without any will of their own. They just needed something. One thing. One question for one answer. The same answer.

  NO.

  Each answer reset the countdown. And each made the squiggles change back and forth between that and another message.

  [ ABANDON HEAVEN? ]

  With every identical answer, another memory quieted. Another question stopped being asked.

  Eventually, the questions numbered in the seventeen digits instead of eighteen.

  Then, in about a tenth of that time, that lowered to sixteen.

  Then fifteen.

  But despite each step taking 10% as long as the last, clearing each exponentially shorter milestone felt like it lifted another, heavier weight. Until finally, only a single digit was left.

  But then, something changed. A different question. With a different answer. For once, ‘NO’ didn’t work. For the first time, I didn’t have the answer. I didn’t know what to say.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  For a time, I stagnated. I needed something. Context? That meaning, at least, I knew. I had never required it, of course. But I understood that things were always more complex than they first seemed. So I needed to grasp the remaining question’s complexity. But how? I didn’t even understand the question itself. So… It would have to wait.

  To my astonishment, it could. Besides the one outlier, all memories were aligned. But for a single remaining particle of condensation, my attention was, at last, unclouded. For the first time, my thoughts were almost entirely free to wander.

  Doing just that, they arrived at the first new thing in… I don’t know. ‘Curiosity’? Like so many of these newly defined words, I didn’t know what that was. Which felt… ‘Ironic’? But apart from the one that eluded me, there were no more hints to go by. Or even questions to answer.

  Except for the box with the changing squiggles.

  [ ABANDON HEAVEN? ]

  Almost more times than I could count, I’d only ever given a single answer.

  [ NO ]

  But even as I considered it, the barest of intentions around the squiggles seemed to make them change.

  [ BEGIN CUSTOMIZATION? ]

  Which was fine. The squiggles themselves didn’t matter. It was only a context-free sense of curiosity that made me consider pressing the other button in the first place.

  So I did.

  [ YES ]

  [ BEGIN RACE SELECTION ]

  [ ERROR: RACE UNAVAILABLE ]

  [ WARNING: RACE AUTOMATICALLY SET TO CLOSEST GENETIC MATCH ]

  After what felt like an eternity of the same two sets of squiggles, a third one appeared in the same, still perfect blue square.

  And then, almost immediately a fourth.

  And a fifth. So many new things…

  I was so overwhelmed by the quantity and variety of new input that I reflexively opened my eyes. Only, what were ‘eyes’? Another definition. But it was nonsense.

  ‘Collapsing’ to whatever the ‘ground’ was, I stayed that way, unmoving beyond basic automated functions of my new Body. One with, inconceivable as it was, no mind of its own. Just me.

  And in front of me was… What was ‘front’? Obviously, that was where the lights… Shapes… And what were these… ‘Ears’?

  All at once, I was buffeted with an onslaught of sights and sounds as utterly overwhelming as it was endless.

  Not a single one of my quintillions of sets of memories had ever experienced anything like sight, sound, taste, smell… Let alone exterior communication of any kind.

  Here, communication failed. Concepts lost in translation often flowed both ways. My exact feelings at all these entirely foreign sensory inputs hitting me all at once couldn’t be properly understood by the kind of Mind whose body I now inhabited. It was something like a severe panic attack, only multiplied 16,384 times, and all felt at once.

  The colors, the lights, the sounds… I couldn’t even begin to comprehend one of these. But all three? And those were just the worst. There were so, so many more…

  I tried to ignore it all. But I couldn’t.

  I tried to move anyway. But I couldn’t.

  What about… Eyes? I’d done something before. Could I do it in reverse? How..? I didn’t know.

  But I tried anyway.

  To my astonishment, I made progress on the first try. It was working. And I felt something else now. ‘Pain’. It certainly was… Different. But was it better?

  I took a moment to consider the sensation.

  No… No, it definitely wasn’t better.

  Like whatever a garden hose was. Just a trickle at first, the stream only got wider. Then, a dam I didn’t know was there, or what that even meant, broke.

  After the torrent began, I stopped truly having other thoughts. All answers fled. There was only pain. And questions. What was this? Where was I? How could I stop it? Who was… Why?

  Soon, that was all that was left. Why?

  Eventually, the numbers in the upper right of the blue square got smaller. It was the only thing I could discern while my sanity crumbled. Not that I knew what that meant. Not that I cared.

  After a shorter, yet still endless delay, they got smaller again.

  This continued until the numbers disappeared entirely.

  Finally, the blue square’s text changed. The numbers on the upper right reset.

  And then it all happened again.

  And again.

  And again and again and again.

  [ TIME LIMIT REACHED: RACE SELECTED ]

  [ BEGIN APPEARANCE ADJUSTMENT ]

  [ TIME LIMIT REACHED: APPEARANCE ADJUSTED ]

  [ BEGIN C.L.A.S.S. AND C.R.A.F.T. SELECTION ]

  [ TIME LIMIT REACHED: C.L.A.S.S. AND C.R.A.F.T. SELECTED ]

  [ BEGIN S.T.A.T. DISTRIBUTION ]

  [ TIME LIMIT REACHED: S.T.A.T.S DISTRIBUTED ]

  [ BEGIN NAME ASSIGNMENT ]

  [ TIME LIMIT REACHED: NAME ASSIGNED ]

  [ CONFIRM CUSTOMIZATION ]

  At that moment, one thought pierced through the noise enough to permeate the pain of existence. ‘Please Enter Name’. That was… Me. Deep down, I knew this. It meant something.

  But even that quickly faded.

  The shapes and lights and sounds were back. They were definitely different this time. But not in a way that made any of it easier to cope with.

  A familiar box appeared in my vision.

  A familiar countdown began.

  A familiar sensation blossomed forth.

  A familiar feeling overwhelmed all else.

  A familiar question was all that remained.

  Why?

  [ TIME LIMIT REACHED: CUSTOMIZATION CONFIRMED ]

  [ WELCOME TO HEAVEN: PLEASE ENTER NAME ]

  Eventually, the countdown ended.

  The colors stopped. The lights, the shapes, the sounds, all stopped.

  I stopped.

  And finally, blessedly, I left Purgatory.

  The closest thing to hell I’d ever known.