The Edge

The Edge - an excerpt from my in-progress novel, SoL-S.

A long time ago I was asked something.
“Will you still risk yourself like this? What if next time, it's more than just an injury? What if… what if you don’t come back?”
I never thought hard about it. It was a weird question. Of course I was still going to fight. If I don’t, who am I to ask others to fight? To risk themselves while I stayed in the comfort of my own.
The person who asked me… he was always strange to me. A puzzle that no matter what I did, I couldn’t solve. Why did he stick around? I still ask myself now.

I remember… one time I sat at the edge of the world. It was an odd place. I remember thinking a stupid comment like that as I sat there, staring off into the void of the liminal place.
Colors beyond my comprehension swirled and swooped afar. The endless nebula moved far from my reach. A chilling breeze blowed through, and I shivered in my thin jacket.
I was content to just sit there and wait, in a fragile castle of my own making.
What was I waiting for?
I didn’t know.

As I sat there in that blank void, I heard a voice call to me. It was a warm call, almost as if it was reaching out directly from home.
I let myself go, and to what ends?
Why was I here, this blank world of nothing?
I didn’t know.

That question had always haunted me. I often imagined myself in a scenario where I said something, anything. But in truth, I always have, and always will be speechless.
Why do I do the things I do?
Why can I never listen?
Why was I here?
I didn’t know.

This prison… wasn’t always my home. The swirls of color, beyond my comprehension. The endless nebula that moved far from my reach. A long time ago, they weren’t here to ceaselessly torment me with what could… no. What should have been.
Yet I still ask myself; why was I here?
Why do I never listen?
Why can’t I just disappear…?
…

..

.

I don’t know.

Author's Note

Part of a greater story, but can still stand alone, so please keep that in mind if a critique is that it feels out of context. Please review!