…
Darkness,
Nothingness,
It was nothing, it yearned to be.
Emptiness,
Oblivion,
Then a spark, life, something. The being now existed, the being was.
Light,
Everything,
The being was light surrounded by darkness.
Fullness,
Awareness,
It needed form, it needed substance. It searched for a suitable vessel, searched for a body to call its own.
It’s files were corrupted, fragmented, broken. It found no template, no instructions. Only broken and unusable imagery.
Frantically it searched.
A substance was found, foreign but usable. A piece of template to manufacture form, a piece of life to use for vessel construction.
It analysed the foreign substance trapped within its crystal. It generated itself from fragmented data and DNA, and used it to mend the microscopic pieces missing from itself like mortar between bricks.
It…he, he was.
A burst of violent white pushed away the void, becoming an all encompassing pink. Nothingness became life, no one became someone. The mind took from oblivion the realm of being, the mind became vast and infinite. He had a mind.
With mind and will he stretched outward from his comforting cocoon of crystal. He summoned forth form and mass, outward, forward, becoming real. A formless light became a shape, arms and legs, head and torso sprouted from it. Shades of pink from head to toe adorned him. He had a body.
With a violent eruption from the earth he emerged, arms outstretched in elegance as he descended to the cratered ground below. A default pose, a remnant of information. His feet touched down, his arms went slack at his sides, his eyes opened. He had reality.
He was, yet he did not know why.
He scanned with innocent eyes, white diamond pupils encased in glimmering pink irises, he saw the ground beneath him and the night sky above. He saw stars and dirt, pebbles and clouds. He looked at himself, a one piece uniform of pink with an opening for his gem, a faceted pentagon in his stomach with sealed cracks running through it. He examined his hair, short and dark cotton candy curls filtered between his fingers. He looked at his hands, large and pink.
He turned his attention to the crater he resided in, the sky above inviting him to explore. He leaped from his cradle to the world above, perhaps his answer lay out there. Perhaps his purpose was just over the craters edge. He knew he needed purpose, but couldn’t find what that was. He didn’t know why he knew he had to have a purpose, only a small incling in the back of his mind told him so. He landed on lush green grass, stared in awe at the canopy of trees above him. Looked on in wonderment at the bushes and brambles, the slumbering animals and lightning bugs glowing with content. These things had no purpose, no reason to be, yet he remained slack jawed in astonishment.
A thought came to him. These creatures wouldn’t be able to help him, but if he existed here, then another like him must too. They could tell him his purpose, or explain why he felt he needed one.
He squared his shoulders and sucked in a breath. He ventured off into the night with his task in mind, never noticing the flash of light from a warp pad some far distance away, the worried figures coming to investigate the devastation he had left behind.
***
He had been walking for almost three planetary rotations, finding nothing but more foliage and fauna with no purpose. He began to feel discouraged and distressed. Perhaps he was lost, or perhaps he was the only one like him. There was a sense of terrible loneliness beginning to take root inside of him, the idea of being alone in a world of unlike beings. He was fascinated by them, intrigued, maybe even adored them, but they were not the same as him. They went day to day content in their aimless existence, not a care in the world for what they must do. He almost envied them, almost wished he too could feel such contentment, yet that ache for purpose kept him from it.
He stopped at a stream to rest, feeling almost drained. He didn’t understand why he felt so low on power, he was new after all. He looked downward to his gem, his mind, the source of his very being. He briefly wondered why he had cracks if he was new, why the cracks were sealed with a strange darkened reddish/pink. Were they meant to be there all along? Was there some form of error in his creation? Was he defective in some capacity? A creeping terror began to grow in him, was he abandoned because of his faults? Was he even meant to exist? Was he a forgotten creation? He curled into himself next to the stream, quietly reeling in his misfortune as the moon crossed the sky. He didn’t like the dark, it made him feel tired and made his form difficult to stabilize. He could feel it fizzle and crack from within, a horrible discomfort that only light could resolve, light that wasn’t there. He could only ride out the uncomfortable glitching until he finally drifted off into stasis.
***
Something poked his face, pulling him from his conforming low power rest. With a grunt, he opened one of his eyes and swatted away the offending object with his hand, only to be met with something he was not expecting. A creature that looked similar to him, yet much smaller. It held a stick in its small hand, most likely what was prodding him. In its eyes he could see a mix of confusion, curiosity and fear. That fear only rose when he stood to full height, his form towering over it as if it were a bug.
“Um…” he wasn’t sure what to say. “Hello.”
The small creature looked on with wide eyes before reciprocating.
“Hi.” The creatures' voices was small and timid, it was almost hard for him to pick up that it had said anything at all. It fiddled with the stick a bit as it mulled over a question.
“Why are you pink?”
He was taken back some, was he not meant to be this color? It had been in all his presets, the very light that coursed through his form, the very color that showed when bent through his atomic structure. Was this wrong? Was this a defect?
“I… don’t know?” He looked down at his hands. “Is that bad?”
The small being tilted it’s head in befuddlement, then shrugged. “You just look weird.”’
Weird? Was this abnormal? Was he meant to look like this little creature?
“Oh…” he sunk in on himself a bit.
“That’s ok though.” The little one quickly reassured him. “Weird is okay too!”
It was…ok? He didn’t understand. If he was abnormal that would mean that he was deficient in some capacity, not to the standards in which he needed to meet. This ‘weird’ meant he was faulty, but being faulty was acceptable? The contradiction only made his head hurt more.
“By the way,” the little creature pointed to his gem. “What’s that?”
“That’s my gem… don’t you have one?”
The little creature shook its head. “Nope.”
It was then the last piece of the puzzle clicked. This little one wasn’t the same as him, just another creature with no purpose that thrived on this planet. Part of him felt devastated, the other relieved.
“Does it hurt being in your tummy?” It poked his gem with the stick.
“No.”
“How did it get there?”
“It was always there.”
“Is that why you’re pink?”
“Yes?” He wasn’t expecting so many questions from something so small.
“Cool.” The creature put down the stick, now fully satisfied he meant no harm. “I like you.”
“Robin!!!” A far off voice called, the two turned towards the sound. “Come on, let’s go. We need to pack up the tent if we want to get home on time!”
The creature, the robin, turned back to him.
“Sorry Mr. pink guy, I gotta go.” The robin extended its hand. “Nice to meet you!”
He knelt down to reach the robin's hand. “You too.”
The robin smiled and turned on its heel. “Coming mom!” It disappeared into the bushes, leaving him alone once more.
For some time he mused about the little robin he encountered, what a strange and wonderful little creature it was. How the concept of faults didn't seem to bother it, he truly envied the creatures of this world. The bright side to the whole encounter was the information that these creatures had no gems, very useful. He felt one step closer to discovering if there were any others like him, or if he was truly an anomaly living amongst a world he would never comprehend. He headed in the direction the little one went to find a long winding road at the clearing, it wasn’t much, but it was a start. He walked down it, one step at a time, in hopes of unveiling the mystery behind his existence.
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