CH 17

The darkness grew blue deep as deep as the sea. Swaying in between the 'I' that I am aware of floats. It sways side to side, round to nothingness and erupts again.

"Where do I belong?"

"The 'I' that is me and not the many 'me' that I encountered in the course of formation of the '' I's '' identity. My body evaporates, but my consciousness is present. I feel my body, my body it's surroundings yet I am not the body. It changed before it may change again or cease to. A mere shell at best.

" Is this 'I' the true me?"

My body changed, and so did my reality. The reality that encircled the lives that surrounded me. The surroundings that made the countless me. It shaped, molded, and cut off of the 'I' that is me.

"I exist! I do exist."

My body convulsed as I questioned the possibility of my existence. An agonizing pain coursed through me as I found myself incapable of defending against it. As if something deep within me awakened. It told me, Spoke to me to console but only to vanish as the pain made me realize my body was having a seizure. I could feel the murky iron taste in my mouth as my body had dropped in the seat of the carriage. My arms flailing, legs that I couldn't feel felt something that shook it in pain, in shock, in despair. Before it sank in me that I just lost something that was an important part of the 'I' that is me, it was gone. Gone not far but somewhere in me. I searched for it zoning in and out of consciousness. I don't know what time? What day? Or where I was ? I questioned things small and big and answered them as the answer didn't seem far it was near, it was there ever so nuanced that meaning and language seemed like a cheap tool and yet that very tool held the very ground of what I as a human am.

"I am a human."

If not, then the body that the 'I' possesses surely is. But why is this humanoid form and not something different? Humanity in this form did exist at times and was lost too at times by choice or not only the individual could tell. The tale of 'I' is growing, it has enlarged itself so high that the me in it can't touch it. It seemed fragile and yet not docile. Why did it shake me? Why do I cry? Was I still human after all this time? The time that defined the 'I', the me. As the chapters added was too heavy that it weighed tons and yet was taken away as another got heavier. New body one at a time. New me was it or an addition?

Xu Nian was confused and his search for answers led him nowhere. He was stuck in a loop. A Neverending loop that started from his body to his reality to his fate and finally consuming his idea of who he truly was. Xu Nian was more perplexed as the system which acted generous at the start of this life was nowhere. It was unsettling for Xu Nian as he had grown used to it popping up as it had become the last straw that connected it to his past ; him. It reminded him that he was more than the shell of the body something beyond it that had stretched it's tenure of existence far too wide. Xu Nian was lost without it. He grew mad by the time. Anger devoured his reason he wanted to end it all as he grew bitter. He was unconscious yet aware of it.

His body reacted on its own protecting itself from its master's self destruction. Channeling his energy across his meridians, driving it, pushing it furthur, unclogging the dead veins and arteries. His leg grew redder, it puffed like a balloon and scrunched back to shape. His hands did the same unlocking the twists and locking it in the correct position. From his shoulders to his elbows, his palms knuckles, fingers and nails. He looked like a healthy boy in his early teenage.

But something was wrong. Xu Nian remained still from the aftershock, didn't move an inch, laying awkwardly in the carriage. A foul smell wafted from him of rotten blood, sweat, tears, vomit and spit. He had been through a lot since the start of the journey. It had been a month. He was disconnected from the outside as he was trapped in the carriage. His hair grew longer reaching his waist. His nails grew out like a savage beast long and pointy. A black liquid dropped each second bit by bit from the tip of his forefinger, from both of his hand. His face had grown pale while blood trickled from his nose. The little boy who was twelve now had a look of apathy in his eyes. He was awake for awhile then slept again and the woke up the same. He kept doing it as when he tried to sleep he couldn't for more than half an hour but when he tried to remain awake his eyes got drowsy. He heard a commotion, swords striking each other, people quarreling, strange noises and someone shouting his name.

"Xu Nian" ..... "XU NIAAANN"

He wanted to respond but he couldn't. He tried to call out but couldn't. His voice failed him, no sound came. He was in constant doubt if he was really awake. He tried to channel the energy in his body after it's rampage had cooled. A brilliant red gold color circulated in his abdomen. Somehow he felt no hunger as if his stomach was never famished. The energy that coursed through him fed him. His lips that looked anemic was chapped, all the remains of the struggle he went through was stuck on his cheeks, his chin and his bosom. He looked like a beggar and yet not.