While looking through my old files I came across the animation you see here, which
gave me an idea. After that, the story only took a few hours to come together. It could be
seen as a very sad story, but at least the narrator is able to be philosophical about things.
I’m walking. I walk slowly, steadily, my arms swinging, my hips gyrating and my naked breasts swaying gently from side to side. My gait never varies in the slightest. Every step, every sway, every gyration, is identical to the last, and the next. I’m walking. That’s all I do.
I’m walking. Walking and walking and walking through this featureless void, from nowhere to nowhere. There’s nothing to see. There’s nothing to hear. There’s nothing to feel.
I’m walking. That’s all I can ever do. I can’t stop. I can’t slow down. I can’t speed up. I can’t turn around. I can’t do anything except keep walking. I’m not in control of my own body. I don’t know who, or what, is in control of it.
I can’t weep, or scream, or cry for help. I can’t even open my mouth. Even if I could, There’s no one to hear. I am alone in this nothingness. I’m naked, but I don’t feel air on my skin. I only feel the endless, repetitive movements of my remotely-controlled muscles.
I never feel hot, or cold, or hungry, or thirsty, or tired, or cramped. I never sleep. I can’t escape even temporarily into dreams. I am always fully conscious, fully aware of my helplessness. I thought for a while that I might go mad, but as far as I can tell I’m still reasonably sane.
How did this happen to me? A temporal anomaly? A witch’s spell? An alien weapon? A malfunctioning experiment? A vengeful god’s curse? I can’t remember. No matter how I try - and oh, how I have tried! - I can’t remember what brought me here, or any details of my life before that.
I know that I had a past life. I was young, smart and attractive. I lived in a city. I had friends and lovers. I had dreams and ambitions. But I can’t remember what the city was called, or what it looked like. I can’t remember my friends’ names, or their faces. I can’t even remember my own name. Whatever trapped me in this state must have erased my memory as well.
Perhaps that’s just as well. I can’t dwell on all the things I’ve lost if I don’t know what they were. At the same time, though, it means that I can’t lose myself in memories either. My consciousness is locked in the present and the keys have been thrown away.
I can’t do anything. I can’t go anywhere. I can’t even escape into my own mind. How long have I endured this fate? The question is meaningless. Time as I knew it doesn’t exist here. Every step is the same as the last, and every step that came before that. Every step is the same as the next, and every step that will come after that. I’ve tried counting footsteps, but it’s pointless, and sooner or later I always lose count.
My hair never grows. My nails never grow. And I... never grow older. I can’t age or die.
I might have been trapped like this for a day, a year, a century, or for a million years. I will be trapped like this forever. Not for a mere million years, or a billion, or a trillion, but forever. Truly forever, beyond all human conception of time.
This formless nothingness is my home for all eternity. I don’t remember how this began, but I know that it will never end. I will never again hear a bird. I will never again see a sunset. I will never again feel a lover’s caress... or even the caress of my own hands...
There’s nothing I can do except try to resign myself to my fate. Let me count my blessings, as few as they are. I’m not in pain, and even though I’m trapped and helpless I can’t get depressed about it. That means I will never suffer pain or depression, and for that at least I am grateful to whoever or whatever trapped me.
There’s something almost comforting about the familiar, unchanging movements of my legs, my arms and my hips, the unvarying, rhythmic swaying of my breasts, the way that my hair caresses my shoulders and back. So I will try to take consolation, even pleasure, in those sensations, as I stride helplessly ever onward from nowhere to nowhere via nowhere.
I’m walking. I walk slowly, steadily, my arms swinging, my hips gyrating and my naked breasts swaying gently from side to side. My gait never varies in the slightest. Every step, every sway, every gyration, is identical to the last, and the next. I’m walking. That’s all I do. |  |
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