1 Memory

1 Memory

Memory is a tricky thing. Most people have very little actual control over it. They forget. They remember ugly things at inconvenient moments. They can't remember. They forget.
               I don't remember much from my past life. It's too far gone and there's nothing to remind me of it. It's like a dream, a distant, unreachable world, hidden behind a curtain. Little pieces that don't make sense, utterances without meaning. Places that don't exist anymore. Faces I can't recognize. Feelings I can't connect to. Things that don't matter anymore. And fear, I think.
               I used to think memory matters. That it has a meaning, a purpose. Value. That the past can teach us something, help us have a better future. If only we could learn from our mistakes. From everyone's mistakes. If only we weren't doomed to repeat them over and over again. If only we were not doomed.

               I used to think that remembering would help me. Help me understand. Understand to make a difference. A difference big enough to change the world. But I know now my world might be young, but it's build solid. And what has been done, cannot be undone. We are doomed.
               What is still frustrating though, I don't actually know what happened. But I don't think memory would help me with that. I have heard many stories, most of them contradicting. It was back then, when people were still mostly people. When they were used to talk. When there was still hope. When some still believed that all of it will make sense one day.

               The fascination with one's origin is a very human thing. To be rooted, to belong somewhere, to someone. To have a place to come back to. It gives them a sense of security, I think. Heritage, maybe. Legacy, even. It's gone now, all of it. Well, at least all that could have been destroyed. But there is something humanity left after themselves. The destruction, that is their true legacy. Complete destruction. Not death, though. The world is a little short on that.
               And it doesn't matter if we came to this by accident or plan, good intention or bad, government or terrorist, one person or a group. The result is the same. The old world has been forgotten, left behind. The past matters little when your life is measured by minutes. The days are the same, an endless routine of fight, survive, rest. This new world is strong and fierce. Humanity is facing extinction. And I'm here to watch it, a cold, distant observer.

*     *     *

My name is Alice... and this is my world.

Alice, Resident Evil: Retribution, 2012

NOTE: This story is a tribute to the art of Luis Royo, 

especially his Malefic Time: Apocalypse series