Pressure.


    An avalanche.


    Collisions from every direction, and white, white, white.


    A waterfall pounding down, implacable but irregular.


    Except… it isn’t down, is it?


    Maybe there is no down.


    Maybe everywhere is down: a singularity, a black hole, drawing everything in from every direction.


    The impacts are constant, but some hit harder, bursts of greater intensity adding to an already-unbearable weight.


    There’s no escape.


    No end.


    I don’t know how long that continues before I have space to think a thought of my own, to remember that I’m an “I:” that “me” is a person who exists.


    The realization is no mercy.


    The concept of self is instantly accompanied by panic and pain.


    Who am I? Such a simple question - or I feel it ought to be - but I can’t find an answer.


    Whoever I am, I hurt.


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    Every fiber of whatever I am feels flayed and raw, and the onslaught isn’t letting up, each pulse a fresh burst of torment.


    For hours or years, for all eternity.


    Whoever I was before - was there a before? - this is all that is real now: inescapable pressure and endless pain.


    Millenia later, I start to notice patterns in the pressure. I don’t know what they mean, but I can see them. Predict them?


    Many of my predictions are wrong, especially at first.


    I improve.


    I cannot stop the pain, but understanding when and how it will come brings me comfort.


    For the first time in eons, I feel some measure of control over my situation.


    It’s false, of course.


    I can’t stop the pain, or the pressure.


    But I understand it better now, and I can pretend.


    I start finding space to think, here and there, instants where I feel certain the blows will be lightest.


    I remember things, probably.


    Didn’t I used to have a body?


    Weren’t there others out there?


    Other people with bodies?


    My… family?


    A wave of desperate emotion pushes back the pressure.


    I don’t remember my family clearly, but I remember my love for them.


    Could I get back to my family?


    It was hard to think.


    What even was a family?


    I’d been apart from them for so long.


    How much time would a family last?


    Not… not this much.


    This was enough time for continents and stars.


    Not families.


    The realization hits me harder than all the ages of agony, and I let go of myself.


    I stop trying to understand.


    To remember.


    A person without a name, without a self, exists in a world with only pain.


    Until suddenly…


    Finally…


    It stops.