Who Am I?

“Ehh, what?” The maid looks at me in surprise, even Brother looks confused.

I kneel down on my knee, and speak from the very bottom of my heart.

“You did so much to keep me alive last night, I owe you my life and I don’t even know your name. From the very depths of my soul, I want to apologize for all the things I’ve done to you and how I treated you.”

“Um! This is just all so very sudden…”

“Please, at least tell me your name. I’ll commit it to my memory, I swear.”

“It’s… Leah.”

“Leah. OK Leah, thank you for everything you’ve done for me, even though I’ve only either been rude or indifferent towards you.”

“Er. Yes, you’re welcome Lady Lilith. I am happy you’ve recovered.”

“Thank you. I promise to be nicer to you from now on. If there is anything you need me for, please ask me.”

“Um… yes, thank you, I will. Now do you need anything?”

“No, I do not. What about you Leah? Is there anything I can repay you with?”

“Lady Lilith, I am very happy about this change in attitude of yours but I’m not sure how to respond to it. As long as I am serving the Amber family, I am happy. I am not sure what I could possibly ask from you.”

I stand up. “OK, I understand. I have no intention of changing how I act towards you for now on. I owe you my greatest gratitude, Leah. If you want to get on with your work now, I won’t stop you, but please tell me if I’ve done anything to bug you for now on, OK?”

“OK Lady Lilith. I do have to get to work now, so I’ll be leaving.”

“Alright, I hope your work goes smoothly.”

“Thank you, Lady Lilith.” Leah says before walking away.

“Alright, is that all you wanted to do?” Brother asks me, who had been standing beside me the whole time.

“No, I’d like to thank all the doctors as well. I owe all of them my life, it would be wrong not to thank them.”

“Eh? Lilith, I’m sorry I’m asking this, but are you sure you’re OK?”

“I am better than ever Brother. It’s just that… well, coming so close to the end really changes a person. I think that it really humbled me. At any given time, I could die without so much as a goodbye, and if that’s the case, well… I don’t want to cause conflict like I used to, and I want to make sure that everyone in my life knows just how much they mean to me.”

Brother stares at me, in a mixture of proudness and sadness. Proud of my mindset probably. Sad that I’m only 8 and already have a mindset that involves impending sudden death. I can’t blame him.

“Alright, I’ll take you to go thank all the doctors.”

“Oh, and Brother? Can I make one more unreasonable request?”

“Yes, ask for anything Lilith.”

“After I thank all I need to thank, may I be left in my room for a bit? I just want to… collect my thoughts and see just how many of my day to day tasks my eye will be affecting. I promise to train with my Gift later, it’s something I want to do a lot as well, but… but I think I need this.”

Brother headpats me. “Of course, take as long as you need.”

***

I close my bedroom door behind me. Ughh, I finally got away from Brother, and am by myself. Finally. It took forever, but I really did thank every last doctor that was involved in my treatment last night. None of that was Rain, all of that was something Lilith legitimately wanted- no, needed to do.

However, now I need to answer a very important question. Who am I? Am I Rain Sharrow, or am I Lilith Amber? Am I both? I need to figure out the answer to that question immediately, or else it will tear my mind apart.

Let’s review the facts, up until last night I was undoubtedly Lilith Amber. However during that night I suddenly received the memories of Rain Sharrow, and I interpreted them as my own, so the question remains: Just where did those memories come from?

I know from her memories that she’s definitely dead, and due to my emotions towards her memories I feel as though they’re my own. How do I know that though? Rain’s memories were put into my head, does that mean I have her consciousness as well? Was her consciousness taken out of her body before death, and put into Lilith’s head, or was it just her memories after death, and I think I’m her because of those memories?

It clearly isn’t just information in my head though, I know for a fact that my emotions towards Bliss are real. How do I know that Rain's consciousness is causing these feelings, and not just my brain making connections based off of those memories?

I guess that the question I’m trying to ask here is, has the continuity of Rain’s existence been conserved? The same question can be asked during sleep. You’re completely unconscious, all that makes you you is just gone, nowhere. So, how can you know for sure that the you from one morning is the same, and not just an entirely different consciousness operating under the same memories?

This is essentially the same question, except much worse. Rain most definitely died there, so where has her consciousness been in the meantime? Is the Rain I think I am the same Rain that Bliss was talking to just the other day?

I have to ask the same question for Lilith, too. Is she still the same, am I still Lilith? Rain wasn’t exactly an adult, but she was still much older and experienced than Lilith. Even now, thinking about concepts like this isn’t something that would have ever crossed her mind.

Something about Lilith’s brain has fundamentally changed. So is her continuity still maintained? Is the Lilith I am now the same Lilith as this time yesterday? My thought process suggests otherwise.

I’m operating under a schema that Lilith would never operate under. Like when I first woke up, I suppressed my emotions to think about those visions the Gift of Knowledge gave me. When that happened too, I rationalized it as Rain’s actions, and my feelings towards Brother as Lilith’s.

So there are definitely still some elements of Lilith that remain, but I’ve unintentionally rationalized her as being a different person from me. I’ve done the same with Rain. I don’t think I’m entirely wrong there. Some of Lilith remains, but as for the core of her consciousness… I think Rain’s influenced that a bit too much to really be considered the same.

So how do I think of this then? No, it’s easy. Rain most definitely died, but Lilith was also practically on her deathbed last night. Given my thought process, the Lilith everybody knew died there. In other words, I’m both Rain and Lilith, while neither of them at the same time.

I am someone else, with the memories of two very dead people floating around in my brain.

I am still in Lilith’s body though, and Lilith is only 8 years old. That means my brain is only 8 years old. My brain still isn’t fully developed, so I still have… damn it, I’m sure Rain knows about how the brain develops but I don’t have that memory yet. All I can remember is puberty, and that isn’t for a while…

So who am I now? I’d like to have a name, just for myself that no one else needs to know. I’m going to be tapping into both Rain’s and Lilith’s memories, so I want to have a name I can refer to myself as. Lilith’s memories probably wouldn’t be good for this, so what does Rain know?

Let’s see… Rain knows a lot of psychological stuff, but her memories are still fuzzy and I don’t have all of them yet so… Ego? No. Id? No. Um… Witness? Observer? Well… I’m not getting very far, so I’ll refer to myself as “Witness” for now. 

So I am Witness. I’m not even a day old yet, but that’s my name. Alright, now I need to process how much of Rain’s and Lilith’s experiences make me up.

So Lilith’s 8, and Rain was a rather analytical person so I think that all of the more mature and logical decisions I’ve been making have been Rain. My feelings towards my family though, and the need to thank and apologize to everybody has been Lilith. Rain’s cold, while Lilith’s warm, if that makes sense.

Still though, I have to remember that Rain isn’t entirely emotionless. She legitimately cared about Bliss, for one. Man, just thinking about her… oh. Oh no… Rain was in love with Bliss. She just never admitted it to herself. Ah… I miss her so much, that’s all Rain, to Lilith Bliss is just a stranger. It’s like with my fa-

Arrrrgh! Bliss loved me too! Damn it, she kept coming on to me again, and again, and again, but I never noticed! Rain! How did Lilith notice that, but you didn’t?! Lilith’s 8! You read so much about how the human mind worked but you can’t tell when someone genuinely loves you?! How are you so stupid?!

Ah, OK, OK… so Rain’s just book smart. I should rely on Lilith for when something doesn’t call for tha- I’m crying… because I legitimately didn’t notice? This isn’t Lilith feeling bad for Rain, this is all Rain… it feels like I’m being punched right in the heart. I’ve never felt like this before…

Think about something else! Think about anything else! I don’t want to feel like this, there are more important things to be thinking about anyway. That take my mind off my problems by working thought process is definitely Rain’s. Maybe it would be healthier if I just came to terms with it? No, shut up Lilith, we have work we need to be doing.

Think about those visions that the Gift of Knowledge gave me. Those weren’t memories Lilith has, and they couldn’t possibly be Rain’s since I was in Lilith’s body for all of them… what could they possibly be then? I should clarify them first.

Fourth year at Uxak Academy, and I was in a uniform? Was I a student there during that vision? I also was talking with many people I don’t recognize, but clearly recognized me given the context. Then the crowning of the next Queen of Nymet… The current king of Nymet is a bit old, but as far as I’m aware there’s no glaring health issues…

Most importantly though, being told if I were to go through with a plan and were discovered, I’d be executed immediately. Then right after that, I saw a woman demanding I be killed, losing in a fight to armed guards, and slowly bleeding out. Could that be a coincidence?

I saw everything when I focused my Gift’s power around my eyes and tried to make my life start flashing. I pull my Gift out of my pockets, and hold it in front of my face.

“What was it that you showed me?” I ask as if I was expecting it to answer back. That irrationality is definitely Lilith’s. She is a child, after all.

Perhaps I could try to replicate the spell? No, this is a Gift, there’s no telling what could possibly go wrong. It would be much safer if I did it under Brother’s supervision. How would I even tell him what I saw though? Actually, what would he think if I told him that?

Hey Brother, I used my Gift to try and make all my memories flash before my eyes, when I did that though I saw my own death. What do you think about that? Yeah, I’m not telling him. He just experienced his kid sister nearly dying, I don’t want to saddle him with that as well. That decision is also mainly Rain’s, I think.

So figure out what went wrong. Lilith is going to be far more useful here, since Rain’s thought process isn’t built around a world with magic. Lilith knows infinitely more about Gifts than Rain anyway. So what would Lilith think?

This is the Gift of Knowledge, its abilities all revolve around granting the user knowledge and making things easier to figure out. What I did with it was attempt to make memories flash before my eyes in order to avoid my death. What if what I did with it caused it to flash future memories in my head in order to avoid a death that happens in the future.

I find it hard to believe that I’m a fortune teller, but… given Rain’s memories I think I know what death feels like, and that vision of bleeding out definitely felt like it. Also, according to Lilith’s knowledge, there are no rules regarding what can and can’t be done with Gifts. Some things may be difficult to do, but never impossible.

If anything is possible with them, and I do possess the Gift of Knowledge… according to Lilith at least, it’s entirely possible I did see the future. Rain’s analytical mind can’t help but recoil at this though. A few people came up in the visions twice though and their personalities did remain consistent, so it’s unlikely they truly meant nothing.

OK, I think I have a plan in mind for how to handle this. I’ll remain skeptical, but I’ll act as if I did foresee my own death and start training in magic, and sword skill. I’m definitely going into the military whether I like it or not, so that will be beneficial for me either way.

As for believing that is actually what happened… I’ll wait until a few of my predictions become reality. Like getting invited to Uxak Elite Academy, a girl like that one being made queen of Nymet, or a few of the people I saw turning out to be real people I end up interacting with. Yeah that should be good.

Now, I need to meet back up with Brother. The sooner I start mastering this Gift, the better. Rain and Lilith both took a vow to prolong our lives no matter what, so I’ll act on that vow.