Prologue

Imagine being dead. Not as in the aftermath of death meaning an afterlife, or being incarnated into a whole other being, but imagine just not being alive. A deep sleep or quietly floating in the middle of an ocean. Aimlessly wondering the plane of nowhere, aware of nothing. A body while it is decomposing is often known to bloat and cause gasses to escape through crevices. Comparatively, you could possibly envision that as your soul leaving your body. The essence of what kept you alive leaving your body to evaporate into the air to become nothingness. A string finally snapping in two while there is nothing left in between. Death is what it's called when something or someone ceases to exist. When life comes to pass and whatever life force was there is no longer able to keep your existence going. Someone who was once talking, laughing, breathing, singing, living… their life lost and their memory slowly starts to fade. Forgotten, a person will stop existing permanently. It was once said that a man experiences two deaths. One where the body physically dies, and one where their name is uttered for a last time. I suppose you could say, that the fear of all mankind is death but not as in where they expire, but as in when they are forgotten. Because, when you're forgotten, then your place in the world is cemented: you never mattered enough to be remembered in the first place.

Now all of a sudden, imagine breathing again. A sharp ice pick piercing through your lungs each time you inhale, while every breath feels like glass you're struggling to continue this painful and laboring process. Blood is pumping now and your eyes open to face the world once more. You are not dead, you exist, and it's time to keep breathing no matter the pain you feel. Life is exactly that, and who would want to pass the opportunity to become alive again? Despite the pain, and despite the struggle there is meaning in existing; to become something once more while simultaneously failing and succeeding over and over again. The taste of air on your tongue for the first time after so long of not tasting anything at all. You're experiencing birth for a second time, after being a nonexistent string of unconscious and meaningless thought for a long, long time. No wonder when babies are born, they cry. But then that begs the question of: how am I alive? It's not so easy putting an answer together for that.

So that's probably why he ended up stuttering when I asked…

"Pardon me?" His voice sounded like he had been talking for too long, floating around the room and hitting my ears in a gentle echo. I took another breath. It felt like blades were dancing in my lungs, reopening old wounds and making it hard for me to manage out more words. This is what it's like breathing again, though I don't remember this simple thing being so hard to do. "D-don't speak, miss, don't… y-you've been through much trauma to the head-"

"How am I alive?" I demanded this time despite the man's requests for me to stop. He only sat there with his mouth hanging open and his eyes narrowed into slits, looking dumbfounded and amazed at the same time. I couldn't quite read if that was a good or bad reaction, but it was a reaction and I was unsure of whether I should question it or not. I suppose it's pointless to question why someone is surprised and best to question the thing they are surprised at. But I'm unsure of the questions I should be asking myself…

"I'm… not sure." The man sighed deeply through pursed lips. It was at this time I noticed he was touching my hand, and that he was sitting close to me when I glanced down. A thin sheet over my legs while I was set up on a small bed with my body in a large gown. I felt warm all of a sudden. My head felt like a balloon. Full of air, and floating in this current space. I must have fallen back, because the man who was with me was suddenly holding my head in his hands. "Whoa, whoa, you must be lightheaded, yes? Water? Some water will help- oh, you must also be dehydrated. Yes, you should definitely drink…" and it wasn't seconds long before I felt something cool touch my lips. Instinctively, I opened my mouth and cool, crisp water filled it. I swallowed, and it felt like ice was spreading through my throat, into my heart, and through my brain. "To properly answer your question, I'm not sure why you are alive Lettie."

Oh, that's peculiar.

"Lettie?" I felt myself frown. Why was I frowning? It felt as if my body was doing that on it's own. "My name isn't Lettie."

"It isn't?" Looking astonished at my statement, he reached into the crisp white coat he was wearing, "What's your name then? That's what it says here in your forms." He somehow pulled out a clipboard, leafing through the papers. "Hm, yes, it says Lettie Silverman…" he tilted his head towards me. "You don't think that Lettie is your name?"

"I know that it's not my name." My tone with him was pointed, like a sharp edge my voice cut through any doubts he could've had, and he closed his mouth giving a dry swallow. I watched as his adam's apple bobbed over a straight collar.

"Well then… miss, what's your name?"

It took some time for me to figure what that was, but I did eventually figure it out. It came to me while I was served dinner by the nurses at the hospital, I had apparently been kept in for a long time. I'm not well enough to handle heavy foods yet as I had been told, so light soups are the only thing I am allowed to consume, and various liquids were what I was surviving off while I was unconscious. The nurse spooned the broth to my lips, and as I tasted the salty broth the thought occurred to me...

Lettie is a nickname. Scarlette is my name.

This is a draft that is open to change, criticism and compliments welcomed.

- Icarus