Chapter one Finding yourself Just another day at school. The bus driver was late to both the bus stop and school. Again. The smell of cigarets and blunts filled the bus. As always. Justin failed to get up the nerve to ask Jessica out. Same as it had been for weeks. Everything was exactly the same as any other day, disgusting lunch, boring class, malicious teachers, and a wide array of students. The same day repeating itself, as far as Justin was concerned. And then it happened. Everything went black. All of his senses ceased to function. He had just been walking down the hall, and no measurable amount of time later, lost all of his senses and simply was. Or was he? He couldn't think very well, and that simple question took up all of his consciousness, leaving no room to look for an answer. He could remember nothing. Eventually his brain came to function better and he remembered the concept of IS and WAS and AM. Along with the concept of present and past. He gained more thinking power, and it occurred to him to answer the question of whether he was or not. The concept of future came to him, though it didn't help answer his question. Justin was, for quite some time, an entity without personality, who's sole purpose was to figure out whether or not it existed. Language jumped into Justin's mind. It happened all at once, all the english words he had known beforehand, though few words could be understood. Everything referring to material objects baffled Justin. All words explaining emotion, physical actions, and anything else that did not exist with him in his little world confused him quite a bit, and he abandoned them. Left them in the back of his mind for future reference. The few words he could understand however, he used. He put his question of existence into words. "Am I? Or am I not?" Something started nagging at Justin's mind, telling it that it did in fact, exist. This was enough for Justin. He accepted that he was and left the question at that. Soon Justin grasped the concept of sequence. Before his mind classified events and understandings to be in the past, or occurring at the time. Now he could be much more specific, ordering events; I came to be, I wondered if I really had come to be, I realized I should seek to answer that question, and so on and so forth. Next he grasped time. How far apart were the events? Eventually Justin realized he was eagerly looking forward to each new revelation. A thirst for knowledge grew inside of him. He started looking for something he could do to gain knowledge, instead of just being fed bit by bit. He started trying to figure out the words that had baffled him earlier. He couldn't and gave up, but hd knew he would come back again later to try again to understand them. He suddenly realized that he could be wrong about being. A hunch wasn't enough proof. Not anymore, he needed to make it clear to himself that he was in existence. He toiled over a proof of his own existence tirelessly. For longer than he remembered being he tried and tried. He tried until ideas and concepts ceased coming to him as jumbles of information. They now came as the words he received earlier. Phrases, most of which he didn't understand, but one stood out. The answer to his question. I think therefore I am. I think therefore I am. I think therefore I am. I think therefore I am. Phrases kept coming to him, but he ignored them. There were so many new questions he was longing to find answers to. How had he come to be? Did anything else exist? Were there more than one 'existences' that you could be in? But before Justin could even decide which question he wanted to start on, he experienced memories. Brief glimpses, feelings, smells, the sensation of sound and taste. More memories and Justin started to match objects with words. Bike. French fries. Trees. Water. Pickle. He learned to associate the sight of cheeseburgers to their smell, and their smell to their taste. This taught him joy. Objects, emotions, and actions were revealed to Justin, but still he knew nothing of himself. What am I? He asked himself. He knew all about a strange world, but where did he fit into the world. He could not figure out where the memories were coming from, or who he was. What am I? He repeated to himself. Having nothing to give him a start, he decided to pick something he knew existed. Am I an egg? There was nothing he experienced to suggest that he wasn't, so he accepted that he was. He was not comfortable living knowing he was an egg, because he had no proof. Oh well, to exist he needed to be something. It might as well be an egg. More memories came. This time of himself. His name was Justin. He was a human. He slowly came to remember his family, and his life. His Life flashed before his eyes, like he was dying, only somehow in reverse. Justin suddenly remembered who he was. His personality, his opinions on both important and trivial matters. Everything that made him Justin Andrews, the cute nerd in the back of the classroom, conforming to whatever society would accept him as. With his past and present firmly locked in his brain, Justin opened his eyes to face his future. How do you all like it? This is the first time I've ever even thought about writing something long outside of school, and I'd like as much criticism and advise as possible. Character descriptions, setting, and intro will come in chapter two. There is no separate feedback thread for this, this is the feedback thread. If enough people like it I will post the final draft at another time.