Unmade Chapter 2: chapter 2: my name?

Read chapter 2 of Unmade by churro on NovelPedia.

The boy found himself within darkness once again. The last thing he could remember before losing consciousness was that dark wall on the ocean floor, moving, impossibly, as though it were alive. It was an immense structure, yet it moved with such grace and deliberation that the boy couldn’t help but admire it, even for a brief moment. That thought lingered for only an instant before slipping away once more. “Am I... really going to die?” he wondered, his voice quiet within his mind, strangely indifferent to the idea. He tried to look around, but all he could see was a veil of impenetrable black. “I... i am?” he thought. Even with death closing in, his calm refusal to fear it was remarkable. After a while, the boy closed his eyes, preparing for the inevitable. He knew it would come, and he knew he couldn’t prevent it. So what use was there in struggling? No, he decided, he would rather die peacefully, without fear, without pain, with quiet acceptance. Yet as he waited, death never came. He kept telling himself it would only be a little while longer, that he would soon be gone from the world. But with each passing thought, another followed. Time stretched. After some time, he felt his lips begin to dry. “What’s this?” he thought, still surrounded by the darkness of his mind. He licked them, they tasted salty, like the sea he had been drowning in. “Did I really…?” The thought trailed off as he tried to move, to feel the surface beneath him. It was soft and comforting. 'A bed?' He tried to move again, but his body refused to obey, still heavy with exhaustion. And yet, what he could feel was unmistakable. Everything pointed to one conclusion. “I... I survived,” he realized, bewildered. A faint smile appeared on his face. He had never cared much for death, but somehow, he was glad to be alive. After some time recovering within his thoughts, the boy slowly tried to open his eyes. He tried hard, but how does one open their eyes while still unconscious? He didn’t know. He tried various ways, Yet none of them seemed to work. The boy had tried almost everything he could think of. Almost. His last idea was far simpler than any of the others, so simple that no sane man would have believed it could work. All he did was wish. “I want to wake up. I want to see.” And soon enough, it worked. Outside, the boy’s eyelids began to flicker, trembling with irritation as if they too desired to open, just as he wished. They resisted at first, but slowly, they parted, a sliver, then wider, and wider still, until at last his eyes were fully open. His vision was blurry, but he could see. While his eyes struggled to open, he heard a voice, quick, hurried, trembling with panic. It was the voice of a young woman. Though her words reached his ears, he couldn’t make out what she was saying; his mind was still too dazed, too heavy to understand. The boy looked ahead through his blurred vision. Above him stretched a white ceiling, crossed with thin grey stripes between each panel. Then a thought struck him, his arm. His right arm. The last thing he remembered was seeing it transformed into something mechanical, an imitation of flesh and bone. He tried to focus, to move it beneath the white blanket that covered him. Slowly, it responded. His arm moved. What startled him even more was that he could feel it, every motion, every small sensation, every shift of fabric against his skin. “Maybe I didn’t lose it…?” he thought, staring down in disbelief. He sank back against the bed, now more visible in the dim light that surrounded him. With the darkness gone, his features revealed themselves: eyes pale and luminous, as though they devoured every bit of light around him, hair of wavy jet black, spilling across the pillow like a flower just beginning to bloom. His face was sharp, each feature defined with delicate precision, surprisingly handsome for someone so young. Still, the boy decided to rest a little longer. He closed his eyes, letting himself drift, waiting until