The world is blue.

And sort of grey, he notes when he can stand up.

Thin arms, thin legs, black hair that he can grasp when he reaches for his ears, he does not know what he looks like.

These are hardly enough to tell him what he looks like.

Then he shakes slightly because there is a wind moving through.

He does not know anything, and everything around him looks the same.

He loses his balance from looking at what looks like a completely calm smooth continuous surface.

And steps onto something that is not quite solid.

He looks down, and someone looks up at him.

"Can you see me?" he thinks, and he can hear someone saying the same words.

He does not know that it is his own voice he is hearing.

He bends down, falling ungracefully to the ground with what his brain registers as a splash.

He wants to touch that other person, because he needs to know.

His fingers touch something cool, and he is inexplicably confused and unsatisfied.

Why? Why should he be?

He is alone, he notes. There is no one else around.

Should there be?

He sits down, stares around him.

Nothing happens.

It grows uncomfortable and he lies back on the cool surface which is growing ever colder.

Nothing changes.

He does not fall asleep. He cannot.

It is too cold.

Something is falling from the sky.

It is cold, much like the cold beneath his feet and all around him as far as he can see, as far as he can walk, as far as he has gone.

He has gone so far away, but nothing changes.

Nothing ever changes.

He does not like it.

There is one thing with cold that stays where it should stay, and another thing when the cold drips down onto his head in large pieces, sticks there and then drips further down.

And there are many, many, many of these large pieces.

It is not just cold, but there is now the same clear substance on his body that there is falling from the sky.

So this is what cold looks like.

He decides that he does not like it. It makes him shiver and want to feel like himself again, not cold and like the cold falling down from the sky.

He decides that he really does not like it.

He learns later that it is called rain.

He opens his eyes.

When were they closed?

And he jumps backwards, falling back onto the cold surface.

Except that it isn't quite so cold anymore.

There is something where his hand used to be. There is something there that was not there before.

He does not know if he does not like it or not.

He clenches his fist, and the thing clenches with him.

He moves his arm, and the thing moves with him.

He looks down, and something similar is on his feet.

He shuffles slightly and the thing moves.

He wiggles his toes and the bumps move around.

He comes to the conclusion that there is something covering him now.

He is right.

This is a very different feeling, and he is not sure if he dislikes it.

He does not try to take it off.

After all, he feels less cold with it on.

He screams, for the first time since he has been able to remember.

He screams.

His body is falling apart.

It is peeling off, all the different parts of him, they are peeling off, and he cannot feel them anymore.

It does not hurt.

But he screams anyway.

There is this upwelling of something that makes him afraid, something that makes him want to sit down, close his eyes, and pretend that nothing is happening.

But he cannot, because when he tries, even before he tries, he is gone.

He cannot feel a thing.

He cannot see a thing.

And the world has changed around him.

It is a very different feeling.

His body feels funny. Almost ticklish, but with a tinge of slight pain to it.

He does not understand why it would feel that way when nothing has changed.

He looks down.

And he sees nothing.

His body is gone.

There is nothing but a bright splash of color next to him, rolling around and around and around.

He raises his hands towards him and the wall comes closer.

He bites back a shriek, instead moving his hands away, because if moving them nearer meant that the wall came nearer, then surely moving them away would move the wall away.

It moved away.

A hole appears in the wall, and outside, the world is different.

It is warm, and he is happy.

He thinks he might be.

Except that he does not know what happy is.

This world is very colorful.

And it is not nearly as cold.

There is a layer of green on the ground, a thin short layer of green, but it pricks at his fingers just slightly until it bends away and he can touch further down that the tops of the prickly things.

It is oddly comfortable.

He lies down, as he is wont to do.

Up is blue, he notices, just much bluer and less grey than the surroundings around him.

He quite likes this new color, he thinks.

And the invisible caresses of his hair and his face are gentler and less biting as the wind in the other world.

There is a different sensation.

It is not unpleasant, he just cannot tell where it is coming from, he cannot see it, feel it, or hear it.

He does not know what it is, but somehow, it feels good.

He learns later that it is scent.

There is nothing but this green stubby thing around him, much like his other world where there is nothing but the cool cool thing all around.

Then the world around him turns a little darker, and he turns around.

There is something much higher, that he has not seen before. There is something that is higher than he is.

He learns later that it is a tree.

He touches it and he cannot see.

He cannot see.

And he is back.

There are tears in his eyes.

He wants to go to that place.

He feels truly complete there.

It is cold here, there is nothing, and nothing ever happens.

He blinks the tears back, looking around and taking in the all-too-familiar sights of the endless blue-grey.

What is the use of showing him that place?

Why was he shown it?

He would have been content to stay here, to never know that such marvelous places existed out there, to never know that there was such a place, and that he would, could not go back.

There is a word ringing loudly in his head, but he ignores it.

It matters not. It matters not. All he can remember, all he can think of, is that other place, the one where there is more than just endless blankness.

Then the tree comes back to him, and he looks at himself.

He is normal again, he has on his purple clothes.

His name is Senbonzakura.

And he is colder than he ever was before.