Prelude: Repeat

The room was dark. If it was a room, anyway; the uniform blackness made any features it may or may not have had indistinguishable. As far as one could tell, there were no walls or windows-there might not have been a floor. The room might not have even been a room-perhaps it was merely a place, an indefinable space that just was. A place where there was nothing, where nothing ever was, and where nothing would ever would be.

If not for the door.

It looked small from her position, but that could mean either that the door was small and she was close to it, or that it was huge and she was far away from it. She thought it was the latter. Even if it was close to her, she felt as if it were miles from her. She needed to reach the door, but she was so tired. It was the room that did it to her; it made her lethargic, perhaps even a bit apathetic. She wanted to close her eyes. To sleep and no longer be troubled by that door, by the room, by the feeling that if she didn't get out soon the darkness would swallow her whole, skin and bone. She knew what came next-

(You have to move)

-because she had had this dream for three weeks straight, every single night. And she knew it was a dream, in the same distant way that one knows one will eventually die. Always, just before she closed her eyes, the voice told her to move. That she had to move. Outside of the dream, she'd never heard that voice before, but it seemed familiar, which made it all the stranger.

(Take my hand, I'll help you)

"When did I ever ask for your help?"

(It doesn't look like you're getting up on your own)

She heard the smile in that voice. "What're you insinuating?"

(Please, you have to move)

Their dialogue never changed. It was as static as everything else. She knew what she would do, or was supposed to do, next: keep her eyes open and try, in vain, to reach the door. She tried to propel herself through the dark room-which now seemed to be filled or made of a thick, dark, liquid mass-but she couldn't move. Immediately, she was worried. Usually she was rendered immobile only when she was inches from the door. It's different now, she thought. I don't know why, but it's different now. So I have to be different too.

"What are you?"

No answer.

"Who are you?"

Nothing.

"What is this place? Where am I?" She was annoyed now. Her annoyance quickly morphed into anger, and unconsciously, she was surprised. She was many things, but quick-tempered wasn't one of them.

(You know who I am)

She flinched slightly. The voice had startled her after its silence. Then she frowned. The voice had answered her question-if not in the vaguest way possible. It was a start, at least. "Can't you give me a name? Or a face?"

(If I gave you a name you wouldn't like what comes next-)

'What comes next'?

(-and if I gave you a face you'd like it even less)

She smiled and almost laughed. She would've, too, if she had been anywhere else.

"Please."

The voice paused. (My name)

"Your name...?"

(My name is)

The voice stopped, but she knew it was still there. Either it was trying to remember its name or it had decided not to tell her. The latter thought might have annoyed her, but she was more concerned about what was happening to the room.

Slowly, from the bottom up, walls were appearing-being drawn, actually. They were being outlined and then filled in with a pure, bright white, but they weren't plain; patterns and moldings were being etched into the walls as well. She looked down and saw that the same was happening to the floor-it was being drawn and colored with the same pure white. She looked at her hands and saw that she was an outline, and that she, too, was being filled in slowly, starting from her fingertips and going inward to spread out like a blossom to the rest of her body.

She stood in place, enthralled by the invisible hands that had redone the room, and heard soft footsteps coming toward her. She looked up and saw the outline of another person: what seemed to be a boy with spiky hair, swept up on one side. His hair was the only detailed thing about him. He had outlines for ears, no eyes or nose, and only a black line for a mouth. There were no lines to separate and define him from his clothes; he was a doll cut out from a piece of paper. He smiled at looked at her.

She looked at him, eyes wide and almost awesome. "Why aren't you like me?" she asked, her voice soft and whispery, her hands out in a slightly beckoning gesture. He tilted his head down, and she waited.

Slowly and deliberately, he lifted his head. Slowly and deliberately, he walked towards her. She was frozen, but not in the way she'd been in the darkness. She stood still because he seemed like a deer to her-make any sudden movements and he'd bound off, and you'd likely never see him again.

He was close enough now to smell her breath (if he had had a nose.) He took her hands in his, interlocking their fingers, and color flowed into him. Lines were being drawn. His body was becoming distinguished; she was defining him. This thought gladdened her more than anything. She stared at him, watching his face fill in, lips, nose, ears, and finally, eyes. His eyes were the kind of blue you only see in paintings, incredibly rich and deep. She no longer wanted to close her eyes. She was afraid to. She didn't want to stop seeing him, to stop seeing those eyes made of ocean. Those eyes were the only thing keeping her there. They were the only thing she had to live and breathe for, and if she so much as blinked, the room would shatter. The color would drain from him, and he would dissolve into nothing, and she'd be back in that pitch black room. The world was in his eyes.

"Why aren't you like me?" she asked again, although she had wanted to ask him why she wasn't like him. Why she was here with him and he was here with her. Why she felt like she had always known him, and always would.

He cast his eyes to the floor and said something that would lead her out of her own world and into countless others, and intertwine her destiny with his-and, by extension, many others.

"Because I'm nobody."