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.