APEX PREDATOR
“When did you first realise you were special?”
The odd question floats around inside my head, sharing the blackness with me. Why can I remember that? Perhaps it was the last thing somebody said to me. Bewildering last words, but I cling to them, having clawed my way out of a darkness so deep I didn’t think I’d ever come back. So here I float, sans light, sans self.
“When did you first realise you were special?”
The words circle me, imprinted against the dark. In the distance I imagine flares of light, and as they flash I feel pain. I remember pain. It’s worth clinging to. For the longest time I was suffocating, reaching for the surface. The pain is crisp and clean and means life hasn’t yet left me, even if my memories have.
I float there for a while, grasping at sensation even as I’m suspended. I feel like the first animal to pull itself out of the sea – flopping and gasping on the shore – too exhausted to go further.
Much later, I decide I should open my eyes. First I have to remember I have eyes, and that eventually they need to open. Baby steps. From there it’s a small, agonising task to blink and let in the light.