Tattoos and Memories (open RP, join in!)

It was dark.

Too dark.

He could feel himself moving in some direction, though in the darkness there was no compass to judge up from down. He certainly couldn’t see himself moving however, and that made the sensation rather strange indeed. There was no sense of time—he could have been falling for minutes or years—but he definitely knew he was falling. And it was all so dark. Why was it so dark? He didn’t remember being anywhere particularly dark, but then again, he didn’t really seem to be remembering anything. It wasn’t like there was a blank spot amidst a myriad of images, or that everything was blurred; there was just nothing.

But he was definitely falling. And it was definitely dark.

Then it was bright.

So, so bright. Intensely bright. Unimaginably bright. He tried to close his eyes, but wherever it was that he was, he was unable to block out the source of this unbearable white light. And he wasn’t falling anymore. In fact, he seemed to be rising, distinctly upward, and with what seemed to be a greater speed than he had previously falling. He noted with interest that despite the fact he still had no bearings, landmarks, or otherwise any distinctive change in scenery—other than that it was now ridiculously bright, rather than crushingly dark—he somehow understood just what up was. Yes, he was definitely moving up.

Mycio.

Was that a voice? He wasn’t sure, because he wasn’t exactly capable of deciphering the difference between what a voice was, and wasn’t. How could one know if he had heard something, when he didn’t know if silence was the opposite of noise? But he had felt something, and that must certainly be better than feeling nothing, though he wasn’t quite sure whether this was true or not. But it sounded right, he decided, so he went with it. At the edges of what seemed a mental revelation, he tried furtively to grasp a hold of the sound, the feeling, anything that might give him a sense of a place to start.

Mycio.

There it was again! That word, Mycio, what did it mean? Was it a thing, or an action? Maybe a place, or a time? He wasn’t exactly certain, but was relieved with the simple fact that he was capable of contemplating such thoughts, which meant that his understanding had increased tenfold from just moments ago. Continuing along this path of what must be known as deductive reasoning, he considered that perhaps it was a name; maybe, it was even his name.

With nothing else to call himself he clung to it like a beggar to his wine-skin, defining himself in sips by the thoughts that came nearly unbidden to his mind. He was finally starting to get a grasp on the situation, if not the where’s, when’s and how’s, at least the what’s. Up was up, down was down, light was light and dark was dark. And he was Mycio.

Mycio, wake up.

And then the world opened up.

In the blink, or rather the opening, of an eye, he was very acutely aware that he was in a place that had a definite what to it. Almost thrown back into mental oblivion by the sheer amount of information that assailed his senses, he struggled to hold on to the one thing that made sense to him in this new world of color and sensation; his name. He was Mycio. He WAS Mycio. After moments of laying still and breathing through lungs that felt filled with ages of dirt and dust, he was once again able to open his eyes and survey his surroundings.

Dark, cold granite surrounded him on all four sides, provided light only by the meager torches that burned in brass wall-sconces placed sparingly around the room. The light was dim, allowing him to barely see a world that was filled with shadows cast by the dwindling flames, and still it was far more color than had existed in the world of light and dark. He could feel the solid slab of stone that lay beneath his naked body, smooth to the touch and worn as if many others had been placed here before him. A dry, crusty substance covered the rock, making his movements stiff at first until he was able to break away from its surface.

With a grunt and the flexing of long-unused muscles, Mycio pushed himself up into a seated position; his legs still sprawled out before him. This allowed him a better view of the room than simply the ceiling and walls he had previously been staring at, but also forced his gaze onto what seemed to be multiple piles of dark cloth, crumpled and abandoned on the floor around him. He counted them slowly, having to pause twice to consider the next number in the sequence before he finished at nine. He didn’t understand their purpose or what they were, but he didn’t particularly seem to care either. In fact, he didn’t seem to really feel any emotion at all, just a vague awareness of his surroundings that was becoming more and more informed with each passing moment. Sliding his legs over the edge of the slab he pushed himself unsteadily to his feet, reaching backwards while he tried to gain his balance. He failed, quickly, and dropped to a knee as the blood rushed from his head and left him a dizzying world of convoluting spins. Had his stomach contained anything, it would have been retched from his body to join the rust-colored stains that marred the perfectly cut stone floor.

After the sensation had ceased, he brought his hand up to push the long, unkempt hair away from his sweat-drenched forehead, but the limb made it no further than his eyes. With a startled wonderment, Mycio followed intricate lines that were inked into his skin, each raised slightly higher than the surrounding area as if something had been placed beneath it in the membrane. From the backs of his hands, up around his shoulders and down over his chest, the runic scripts covered nearly all of the human’s tan skin, flowing in an endless and eerily beautiful display. At multiple spots the lines curled themselves around some unknown figure or another before continuing on upon their path. Mycio, unable to remember anything before what he had come to consider as the LightDark, wasn’t exactly certain whether this was naturally how he was supposed to look or something designed upon him while he had been in his induced “slumber.” His horrified gaze followed the lines over and over, almost as if he were caught in an enchantment and forced to render his sight upon the display until he must surely die of starvation, for his body was becoming completely aware of the lack of sustenance that had been provided to it in its recent past. A loud grumble from his stomach shook him from his reverie, and he spared a moment to clutch at his firm waist before raising his head and peering about himself with an air of determination. Regardless of where he was or how he had gotten here, one thing for certain. He needed a way to leave.

Standing from where he had fallen, allowed himself a moment to search the room he was in, looking for anything of value that may help him. There was little to be found however, for the room was mostly bare and bleak, with the torches almost all having burned out and no other furniture or storage to speak of. Pausing at one of the crumpled lumps upon the floor, Mycio reached down and picked up what seemed to be a long, heavy robe, made of coarse linen. As he lifted it up for inspection, a gray, dust-like substance drifted through the air, carrying with it the smell of fire. Ash. Mycio was confused; his newly accessible thoughts unable to quite comprehend why there would be multiple robes filled with ash lying in a circle around what could only be considered an altar of some sort. Much to his consternation, each of the robes carried the same substance and nothing else save for one. The last robe he stopped at, the only one on the inside of the indistinct circle, betrayed a sparkle of light, glinting in the dying torch’s glare. Bending slowly, Mycio drew a small blade from the folds of the cloth. Upon closer inspection he determined that the runic sigils lining the steel of the weapon were of similar origin to those that covered his body. With no other suitable means of defending himself, he place one of the robes about his shoulders and tucked the knife into the belt once it was tied around his waist.

Looking around, he wasn’t aware of any break in the stone of the walls that looked like an entry or exit. He could see no doors or windows, no cracks or chips—nothing. It was simply solid stone. He looked up and saw the same thing, a low roof of gray granite. Searching every line where wall met wall and corner met corner, he came up with no conclusion of a way to get out of this room. Had he been born here, just so that he would die of starvation in the hours that followed? Surely there must be some way of escape! As he continued his search, he could feel the budding sensation of panic beginning to form in his mind, clouding his other thoughts and sensibiiities. He strode purposefully to the closest wall and began striking it with his fists, hammering away until red dribbled down the stone, discoloring it.

“Voice! Why am I here just to die! Voice! Do something!” He yelled as loud as his lungs allowed him, cringing as he heard his own words repeated back to him in the echoes of the small room. He stopped his assault on the stone and breathed deeply, his chest heaving with the exertion. Mycio dropped to the floor and leaned back against hate, holding his knees to his chest as he sobbed into coarse linen of the robe. He would not die here. He would not go back to the LightDark and experience that complete loss of self. He was someone. He was Mycio.

Mycio.

There! The voice said his name again! He looked around alarmed, trying to discern where it had come from. He couldn’t have just imagined it, could he? Another torch sputtered to nothing, leaving only two still burning, and low at that. He knew that if he didn’t find some exit before he was plunged into all darkness again he would never be able to keep a hold on his sanity.

The Essence Mycio. Find the Essence.

He stood quickly, all but leaping to his feet. The essence! But what in the nine hells was the essence? What good was a clue if he had absolutely no idea what it meant? The essence of what? Of life? Of time? Of himself? Why couldn’t that damn voice just be more straightforward! He repeated the words over and over in his mind, trying to figure out just what they implied. He paced the room, hoping that some distinguishing factor there within would give him a clue as to what to do. He could come up with nothing, for there was little enough in the way of visual aids in his stone prison. Finally seating himself once more upon the altar from hence he had come, Mycio lay his head in his hands, eyes peering down through his fingers at the cold floor below.

What am I going to do, he thought, self-pity overwhelming in his mind, I’m stuck. Doomed. It’s completely hopeless and there’s nothing I can do about it. I’m going to sit here, and starve, or die of thirst, and never have had the chance to expe--. His words dropped off abruptly as his eyes fell once again on the dark lines that covered most of his body. Slowly he began to trace them with his eyes, placing his hands on either side of his seated form. He studied the lines as they curled themselves up and over his skin, around sigils and siglia at his wrists, forearms, elbows, shoulders and chest. He examined the scripts that seemed to be etched into his stomach in some type of black, permanent ink. He could feel the air brush against these lines with his movements, could sense the life running through each of them. How had he missed this before, he wondered. The essence, he considered, must be the barest essentials of what it is. What I am. What everything is. So the essence of the stone would be the smallest pieces of the stone. The things that make up the stone. Like, tiny little crystals, and even smaller minerals. But what’s smaller than that? Are their things that make up the min— Mycio’s musings were abruptly cut off as the stone slab beneath him simply vanished into a puff of almost invisible dust, and he once again found himself falling into a long, black hole.