Insulator

2.4 - Sleeper Awakens

/Sleeper/

What is a soul?

What is a spirit?

Are they made out of something? Is there a kind of material that exists as this life force?

When the body dies, why does the soul and spirit remain? What is it?

There are probably many people who specialise in reincarnation or spirits, trying to learn more about it. Perhaps they believe in a path to create this energy, to bring it back into being or to use it to bring a person back to life...

But why focus on all of that stuff?

One's soul is who we are... Instead of trying to copy it or create it, why not focus on our own soul and spirit...

After all, you never know what's possible in a world like this...

My body was ripped to shreds. I felt my entire physical core be destroyed in that moment. They used every method imaginable, piercing me with arrows, slashing me with blades, burning me, drowning me...

Without the blood that covered the ground, one may not have even known a body to be there, as there was so little of me left.

I thought it was the end of me. I had little reason not to. Perhaps we pushed our luck too far, thinking ourselves invincible as we casually involved ourselves with shady people, destroying the world around us...

But I didn't wake up. There was no spirit version of me to wake up and acknowledge what happened to me. I couldn't think, nor see, but where one would expect a world of darkness, instead my world was burning with that of fire and life...

My consciousness was in a deep slumber, my old body still lacking in life, but a part of me still remained, still lived on...

It was as if I became fire itself...

I could have been gone for a moment or for many years and I wouldn't have noticed the difference. A time came when my consciousness returned to me, but I still saw and understood nothing of what occurred, what I was or where I existed. When I awoke, my body was red and naked, but somehow, in one piece, the body of a man alive.

I was in the middle of the road, atop wooden branches and twigs, a fire burning around me. My skin was new and weak, the flame burning me slightly, though less than it would that of another. I sat up and looked around, before eventually standing and walking out of the fire. There was no one to be seen, just a small girl who stared at me.

"Are you the spirit of the fire?" she asked. I didn't reply, examining the surrounding area and hiding my privates from the young child. "They say that fire was leftover by a demon, his last way of cursing this world with more destruction. It had burnt in our streets for more than a year...

"What were you doing in the flame? Why were you sleeping there for so long?"

I turned to the girl. "Do you believe the legends they say?"

The girl shook her head. "This flame gave our town warmth and light. Fire is no different to humans, not only capable of killing, but also able to help those in need."

"It's very life itself..."

"Do you live here? I've never seen you in this town before?" the girl asked.

"I'm just a passer-by" I replied, "not from here, not from anywhere."

The girl looked at me with eyes of wonder. I was an anomaly to her, and she likely came up to her own strange conclusions for what I was...

On the ground nearby were worn-out rags someone tossed away. I put them on and walked over to the girl. I wasn't going to stay, but I wanted to leave the girl with a present, which I also needed to do to confirm something.

I patted the girl on the head.

It was a real, physical, body, I somehow existed in, once more...