CIPHER

I'm lost. I don't know where I am or how I got here. All I know is I'm heading straightway through the unthinkable with someone or something I can't even prove is real. I look out, but do not see them. I listen closely, yet cannot hear them. It's as though they don't exist and yet somehow, in some way, they are ever before me, counting down to my inevitable end. I must find a way to break free of this fate that I know full well no one ever returns from. But how? How to change the future when it's clear it's already been decided? Everywhere I turn results in death and any decision I make would seem to never change that. There seems to be no way out of this story line, confirming my worst fear that this life I've been living may all be a trap.

I can hardly breathe. I can't even move. Frozen in fear that I am nothing but a passive observer of a former life I don't remember a thing about. Unbearable questions fill my restless mind. Is life nothing more than the experience of death? Was I born into this world with a gravestone already in place from a life and identity I have long since forgotten? Am I actually lying on my back in my coffin, amidst a sea of stones, desperately trying to find a way to avoid the second death?

I look down at my now cold, frail hands and question if they're even real. And sadly, at this point, I don't really know. It seems all I am, is all I know which appears to be absolutely nothing. I look out at the vast, infinite, nothingness of space that surrounds this lonely planet of ours, only to find no sign of life or answers anywhere. All that comes to me is the sad realization that we are all that's left of a war that has been going on since the dawn of time between the forces of good and evil or light and darkness. And this leads me to the unimaginable place I find myself now. Utterly alone, staring into these words of despair and wondering where their taking me. One by one, word for word, they lead me down a path of no return where my story will come to an abrupt and sudden end.

I close my eyes in disbelief only to come face to face with something completely unexpected. Where are these thoughts even coming from if not from me? It appears as though I did not form these thoughts but are merely acting or not acting on them when they pass through my mind, leaving me a bit suspicious that someone or something is orchestrating events in my life that are not of my choosing.

I can feel my heart racing as another perplexing question comes to mind. Who controls my vitals in this world? Who makes my heart beat or tells it when it should beat no more? I know I don't. Is there no rest from these unceasing questions of which there appears to be no answers? I feel so out of control as I get up to walk it off. But as I look down at my feet all I notice is that my feet as well as my entire body are simply immersed into this flat digital world I live in. It appears I move from one place to another when all that is really happening is the scene around my body changes. I know the truth is I never move anywhere.

But is that true? If I am nothing or dead for that matter, then what within me still lives? Whatever it is I must take hold of it at all costs before it's too late and I am no more. But how?