A/N: Written for the Mega Prompts Challenge, word prompts 012 – alive.
To Me: I'm Still Alive
I'm alive. I'm still alive.
I wonder why I think that. Why I consciously remind myself of that, waking up every morning and looking at my all too familiar face in the mirror. I wonder what I gain from it, except perhaps a slight reassurance that, yes, I am still alive and not ash and bones like I should rightfully have been.
I wonder whether I'd just been lucky or granted a second chance. My memories of that time are clouded: I only remember being on a journey…and of what kind, I can't say. Just that I was on a journey, and that I got…somewhere. And along the line I made a few friends as well. I found my place in the world.
Maybe it was the journey to find something meaningful to live for in this world.
But I'm alive now, and life is going on like it's been for a while. No-one brings up that time any more, and it seems often like a chapter of the past I can just put away. There's just that painting in full sight: the black horse and the shapeless figure I called an angel on a whim. The painting I'd started before, but finished after, that time. Maybe, in a way, it was the painting that told of that time, better than words or lost memories could ever do.
But there is just that, and the need for me to confirm myself before moving on with my day.
I smile at my reflection in the mirror. He smiles back at me: cheeks fuller and rosier than they'd been in my school photo, and I'm glad. I prefer this look of mine. The Makoto that looks like he's happy. And alive.
'I'm alive,' I tell him. He mouths the words back to me, in real time.
I'm alive. I'm still alive.