It was a cold day like no other where ice had frozen across the asphalt fields and frost had settled down. An infant woke up one day self-conscious and hastily wrapped in used paper towels. He was thrown in some ditch next to a dumpster full of plastic leftovers; the smell of moldy pizza fumed over the secluded scenery. 

The smell killed his appetite—an almost surefire way to forget about his throbbing headache. With the temperature below freezing and a pile of snow blanketing a part of his body, he somehow knew that he wasn’t supposed to be alive. And yet, he was still there, breathing out the cold, wintry air. 

His mind started to race. There were records of knowledge that flooded through—language, algebra, even the intricacies of thermodynamics. But the records went further—images of nuclear wars that devastated countries in quick succession, biomedical inventions that trivialized deadly diseases, and advanced artificial intelligence that surpassed even the brightest of cognitive minds. 

This was the age of the cybernetic megacorps. Where the ignorant and the intelligent were both forced into a collective race of dominance. It was a bloody battlefield of lost innocence. Bodies were stolen for research, the kidnapped were sold for corporate experimentations. Nobody was safe. Nothing was sacred. Because to those who strived to reach the top, morals were for the weak, and empathy was for the starved. 

Yet the infant simply rationalized all of this as nonsense. Because to him, none of it actually mattered. 

He was cold. He could feel the tingling in his toes, the bitterness numbing his senses away. He should’ve been dying; it was common sense. His heart should’ve stopped beating, his liver and kidneys should’ve already failed… 

But he was somehow still alive. 

Why? he thought. How could he still be alive? His young, self-aware mind had already started to experience a sense of confusion. If what he knew as common sense wasn’t actually making any sense, what kind of sense was all this information in his mind?

Sadly, he didn’t know. He didn’t know if he had just been born. He didn’t know how he’d gotten placed in the snow. He didn’t know how he could even think these thoughts without having grown. How had all of this gotten into his head? Law of conservation? Bernoulli’s principle? How was any of this supposed to make sense?

He didn’t know.

And while lost in the snow, wondering if all this common sense was just nonsense that he somehow knew, his eyes eventually started to droop, and inevitably, he had no choice but to close them for the first time in his short life…

…

The sun burned; its hot tendrils licked at his dry skin. 

The infant opened his eyes once more, but he wasn’t an infant anymore. He was growing. He knew just from feeling alone. Every day felt like a year had gone by, and in a few days, he was able to wipe away the hardened snow with his own stubby, little arms. 

He stood up. Nearly three feet above the ground. He was shivering, but he still wasn’t any closer to death than he was before. He wiggled his fingers in curiosity. Common sense hadn’t taught him what it really felt like to move. Around him, the ice had started to melt. 

Seasons, he thought. He knew those things existed; it was part of the nonsense that he knew. Was he at the cusp of spring? Or was this just a day of warmth unlike the rest of winter? But his eyes wandered away from his thoughts and once more onto the rural backdrop of his birthplace—a small corner at the side of an old, drive-in motel. It was like the ones from the 20th century.

The sight of the motel was comforting; his records had not been wrong in delivering its nonsensical details of life. But one thing that did bug him was the fact that, according to his records, this was still supposed to be the beginning of the 22nd century. There should’ve been more technological differences between the two. His mind started roaming to an outlandish possibility…

Am I a time traveler?

Of course not. That was drifting much too far into fictitious conclusions. There was a heap of knowledge already bestowed to him and deviating too far would simply be uncommon sense. It was more likely that this part of the world was far less developed than the major human cities. But as he was concluding a reasonable hypothesis for his newfound surroundings, a sudden noise startled him from his thoughts—

People. Real people. Just around the corner. They weren’t just images from his mind; they weren’t just a part of his imaginations.

He was about to feel relief for the first time in his life until the group of rugged strangers abruptly stopped and stared. Instinct took over, and the hairs on his arms suddenly stood firm. A sense of wariness seeped in, stemming from their gradually changing expressions—blank faces followed by thin curling of the lips… 

Danger.

Pain was the first thing his small body registered. It was unlike any other feeling he’d felt before. It wasn’t like the numbing sensation of snow; the cold wasn’t even a bother. But what hit him now was much worse. He knew that without having to recall from his records.

They continued to kick and prod, jabbing at his ribs with their thin, needle-like boots. None were willing to stop their blows. 

It was excruciating. The boy didn’t know if this was supposed to be better than being frozen cold, but after a few more minutes, they finally turned and left, laughing obnoxiously in the presence of the bitter, morning wind. The voices echoed across the frigid landscape, slowly shrinking away into the distance. 

The boy abruptly collapsed in a bundle of bruises and blood. His vision blurred and breaths, heavy. He clenched at his chest as if his lungs weren’t already on fire from the cold, and instead of joy, he felt an intense anguish. It wasn’t even directed at the mob of bloody boots. It was more so directed at himself—his birth. 

Why was he born? Where were his parents? Was it normal to be born alone? His records recalled hints of knowledge when it came to generalized familial relations, but none of what he knew could tell him what he wanted to know. So instead, he simply buried his face deep into the freezing snow. A few sniffles were all that escaped.

Not even an audible weep.