You are (Short story)

    You did not need a story.
    You were happy farming, pulling at the vegetables you planted that did not have a name. You guessed when the time was right to pluck them, “four moons pass must be good” but you never thought those words, for you
    never gave them words, you never needed them.
    You were happy hunting. You didn’t mind the empty gaze of the oxen after you shot them, you never minded it, for you didn’t know what it was, it was foreign to you why the eyes of those animals were so empty, why
    they stopped moving.
    But that didn’t matter.
    All that mattered was what to do today.
    All that mattered was what to do tomorrow.
    All that mattered was you.
    But then you found that notebook under the tree, buried slightly, a little damp from the rain, but not too damp, for it was shielded by the tree’s leaves.
    You didn’t recognize the object.
    How do you describe something that you have never seen before? Something not in nature.
    Something that, all things considered, should not exist.
    That thing shouldn’t have been there.
    That thing couldn’t have been there.
    You have never seen it before.
    That is impossible.
    But yet there it was.
    You picked up the object, turned it around in your hand, and tilted your head.
    There was something on the front,
    Something you have never seen before.
    How does one describe language to someone who has never spoken?
    How does one describe language to someone who has never needed to?
    Yet you understood it immediately.
    You were never meant to understand it.
    You couldn’t have understood it.
    Yet you did.
    You are a miracle, an oddity, a mistake.
    And you made that mistake of reading it.
    You could have lived in bliss, in ignorance,
    Yet you opened your eyes.
    “Wyatt,” it said.
    And you opened the notebook.
    The pages were the color of sand.
    They displayed text, but you didn’t know it was text.
    Because there was no one else who could have written it.
    “Finally made the book, this took way too long to make. I don’t know what it’s for, I don’t know why I wrote this. I don’t know who I am.
    I chose the name Wyatt because it is a pretty collection of noises. Echoes in the cave when I shout it out.
    I love the sound it makes, like a forest.
    Sorry my words are bad.
    No one is reading this.
    This is just for me.
    Why am I apologizing?
    No one will find me.
    No one will find me here.
    Except the one above.
    I am not alone.
    But without someone else, It gets pretty damn lonely.”
    You didn’t understand what that last word meant, for you never needed to.
    You should have discarded that object, it was very weird that you decided to pursue it.
    You never explore the area beyond your home, you never fight anything you don’t need to.
    This was very unlike you.
    What was it that made you want to continue reading? Did you want to prove something; That you had free will? You never did that before.
    You are a cypher.
    Whatever the reason,
    You kept reading.
    “I don’t know why I write this, maybe to find people or that anyone else can read it? I don't know I am alone after all no one will read this
    No one will find me
    No one will find me
    No one will find me
    Why did you do this to me
    Why did you do this to me?”
    It was not made for you.
    It was not supposed to exist.
    Not with you.
    You found the house a few nights from that day. You have never seen a house like yours before, yet so…different. The wood was rotting like food you didn’t keep cold. There were webs sprouting out of every crevice of the stone that made
    it up like your basement, yet the house still stood, like a tree. You wondered what it has seen, has it seen what you’ve seen? You don’t understand why you feel like it is like you. You’ve never acted like anything else is like you.
    You are the only you there is, everything else is different from you. Everything else is not like you, or at least you never thought about it.
    You were never supposed to think about it.
    You are.
    And that is all there is.
    But yet this house stood.
    A creeping feeling infected you then. You started feeling a little weird. You did not like that house.
    ‘It’s not supposed to be there’ you thought.
    Nothing else could have made it.
    It started to sink in.
    You stepped closer, and creaked open the door.
    You step inside the house.
    There is a chest in the house, like the one you learned to keep your stuff in all those moons ago.
    The house is quite similar to yours.
    There is a carpet, there are a few blown out torches on the wall, there is a table, a chair, and a furnace.
    There is something else in that house, sitting on the carpet.
    It has the head of a chicken, with eyes as brown as wood, yet its body looks like what you see when you look down.
    Two legs.
    Two arms.
    You think it looks like you.
    And there it sits.
    A strange collection of noises comes out of its beak, something you have never heard before. But you understand. You link it to the symbols in the book.
    “Hello, I’m Wyatt. What’s your name?”
    You hesitate, yet words form, and escape your throat like they are something alive, crawling out of your mouth like a spider, the letters like the spider’s fuzzy legs, touching your tongue.
    It’s an odd feeling.
    “Adam.”
    “Hello Adam, I’m Wyatt.”
    “Hello Wyatt, I’m Adam.”
    “Hello.”
    “No one will find me?”
    “Find me.”
    Wyatt ran past Adam through the door, and out to the world.
    There was an item that they left behind.
    The same item you saw before.
    As I said before, it’s a notebook.
    You opened it.
    “I am so lonely I think I don’t know I miss my family but Ive been alone for so long I dont know anymore
    Help
    I am remembering again
    My memory is fading
    I miss my friends
    I miss my family
    I miss myself
    God help me
    What did you do to me”
    A horrible set of words set in your mind then, ones that I made sure you wouldn’t think, yet you did.
    “Who am I?”
    You looked around the house, yet the word house has only now been perceived. You were not you for you don’t exist only I does, what have I been killing for food? Who is Wyatt? Who am I? What am I?
    And river water dripped down your face, hitting that of the carpet.
    You knew how the carpet came to be, by shearing the wool of a sheep and dying it, ‘but how did I know to shear the sheep? How did I know to dye the wool? How do I know this is a carpet? How do I know anything?’
    I assure you that you had complete control of your body, you were not controlled although you would not understand that.
    You have never had been controlled and you are throwing that away, yelling at me, echoing that of Wyatt.
    “Why?
    Why?
    Why? Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?Why?WHAT AM I?”
    you started to scream, you screamed until the night came, you screamed until your voice became hoarse.
    You do not understand how lucky you have it.
    You do not understand.
    You will never understand.
    Through the cracked window you saw Wyatt. His strange yet normal head turned away from you as he began to run. You chased after him and I followed. You ran, and ran, and ran, until you were out of breath, gasping for
    air, but Wyatt didn’t seem phased. There was one final notebook on top of that cliff you climbed. You could see your house from here, you could see Wyatt’s house from here.
    It was nice.
    It was beautiful.
    “I am beginning to lose myself.
    God has abandoned me.
    There is no happy ending for me.
    There is no going home.
    I do not remember who I was anymore.”
    “I am lonely.”
    You say,
    You look back, and I am gone.