Fragments of Me

I blink awake, feeling a warm, golden sunlight pour over my face. It's soft and comforting, like a memory I can’t quite place. I stretch, yawning, and glance around. I’m in a cozy room with wooden floors and walls adorned with bookshelves. The windows are open, and the breeze carries the scent of flowers, maybe jasmine.

I don’t remember how I got here, but it feels right, like I belong. I catch my reflection in a mirror across the room. My hair is a little messy, but it suits me. It feels like I’ve lived here for years, and yet, I can’t remember a single day.

I walk over to the mirror, studying myself more closely. A slight twinge in my chest tells me something’s wrong. I look familiar, but not in the way one recognizes their own face. It’s more like looking at an old photograph — something from a distant past, like it belongs to someone else entirely.

As I start to wonder who I am, the room around me shudders, like the world is made of paper and someone’s taken an eraser to it. The walls ripple, the light dims, and suddenly I’m no longer standing in the room. I’m on a street, an old, cobblestone street lined with dimly lit lanterns. A fog is rolling in, thick and heavy.

“What the hell?” I whisper, my voice shaky and unfamiliar. I’m no longer in my comfortable clothes, either. Now, I’m dressed in a long, dark coat. There’s a sharp, metallic scent in the air that makes my stomach churn. My hands tremble as I pull the coat tighter around me.

I don’t know where I am or how I got here. The cozy room, the sunlight, the scent of jasmine — gone. The only thing that remains is that unsettling sense that none of this is quite real, that I’m not quite real.

“Hello?” My voice echoes down the street, swallowed by the fog. No answer. Just the sound of my own footsteps on the cobblestones as I start to walk, hoping to find something, someone, anything that can make sense of this.

Suddenly, I stop. There’s a glint of something shiny on the ground — a knife, blood-stained and freshly abandoned. My heart races, but before I can process it, the world shudders again.

The fog dissipates, the street disappears, and I’m back in the room, standing by the mirror. Only, it’s different now. The sunlight is gone, replaced by flickering candlelight, casting shadows that dance across the walls. The room feels colder, more oppressive, like the warmth it once held has been drained away.

I look into the mirror again, and the person staring back at me isn’t quite the same. My hair is longer, my face gaunter. Dark circles shadow my eyes. I look haunted. And I feel it too, the sense of dread curling in my gut, clawing at the edges of my mind.

Something inside me knows this isn’t right. I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t look like this. I shouldn’t feel like this. But before I can latch onto the thought, the world shifts again.

This time, I’m on a beach, the sand cool and damp beneath my bare feet. The waves crash against the shore, a sound that should be soothing but isn’t. The sky is dark, and there’s a storm brewing on the horizon. I can taste the salt in the air, but it’s bitter, almost acrid.

I try to move, but my feet sink into the sand, holding me in place. Panic sets in, my breaths coming in ragged gasps. I can’t escape, can’t move, can’t breathe.

And then, just as quickly as it began, it’s over. The beach fades, and I’m somewhere else. A dense forest, the trees towering above me, their branches intertwining to block out the sky. The air is thick with the scent of earth and decay. The sound of something rustling in the underbrush makes my heart pound in my chest. I want to run, but I’m frozen, unable to move, unable to think.

What’s happening to me? Who am I? I don’t know anymore. The memories I thought I had are gone, replaced by fragments of different lives, different places. Each time I try to hold onto something, it slips through my fingers like sand.

I feel like a puppet, my strings being pulled by an unseen hand, yanked from one scene to the next without any control. I’m not living — I’m being lived.

Another shudder, and I’m back in the room again. But this time, I’m not alone. There’s a figure standing in the shadows, watching me. I can’t make out their face, but there’s something familiar about them, something that sends a chill down my spine.

“Who are you?” I ask, my voice trembling.

The figure steps forward, and I see their face. It’s mine. Or rather, it’s the face I remember from before, the one that felt like it belonged to someone else. But it’s wrong, twisted, and distorted, like a reflection in a cracked mirror.

“I am you,” the figure says, their voice a low, hollow echo. “Or at least, I was. But now, you are me. We are fragments of the same whole, pieces of a puzzle that doesn’t fit together anymore.”

I take a step back, my mind reeling. “What do you mean? What’s happening to me?”

The figure tilts their head, their eyes narrowing. “You are being rewritten. Over and over again, your story is being changed, altered, reshaped. You are a character, nothing more, subject to the whims of your creator.”

“No,” I whisper, shaking my head. “That’s not true. I’m real. I have to be real.”

The figure smiles, but it’s a cold, lifeless thing. “Do you? Can you remember where you came from? Can you remember who you were before this? Can you even remember your name?”

My breath catches in my throat. My name… What is my name? I try to recall it, but there’s nothing. Just a void where my identity should be.

The figure reaches out, their hand passing through mine like smoke. “You are a construct, a figment of someone’s imagination. And as long as they keep changing their mind, you will never be whole. You will never be real.”

I stagger back, the weight of their words crushing me. “No… I can’t accept that. I have to be real. I have to be…”

But the figure just fades away, leaving me alone in the darkened room. The walls close in around me, the air growing thick and suffocating. I feel myself being pulled apart, piece by piece, my thoughts unraveling like threads.

And then, everything stops.

I’m floating in a void, weightless, formless, timeless. There’s no sound, no light, no sensation. Just emptiness.

But in that emptiness, a thought emerges. A spark of something — hope, maybe, or desperation.

If I am a construct, if I am being rewritten, then maybe… just maybe… I can fight back.

I concentrate, focusing on that spark, willing it to grow, to take shape. I picture the room again, the warmth of the sunlight, the scent of jasmine. I picture myself as I was, whole and real, with a life and a story that belongs to me.

The void shudders, resisting, but I push harder, pouring everything I have into that image, that memory. I feel the pieces of me coming back together, bit by bit, until I can feel solid ground beneath my feet.

I open my eyes, and I’m back in the room, the sunlight streaming in, the breeze carrying the scent of flowers. I look into the mirror, and there I am — whole, real, alive.

But I know this isn’t over. The world might shift again, try to pull me apart, try to rewrite me. But now, I know the truth. I’m not just a puppet, not just a character. I am a person, with thoughts and feelings and a story of my own.

And I will fight to keep it.

The room trembles, the walls flickering like a dying flame. But I stand firm, my reflection staring back at me, determined and unyielding.

I don’t know what the future holds, what other changes might come. But I know one thing for certain- I will not let myself be erased.

I am more than just words on a page. I am me, and I will endure.