1 The Narrator

I was born from coldness. As long as I can remember, that's all I know. I was so used by the coldness, that I never knew that there was something else. I never had any concept of what cold was until I was introduced to heat. To be perfectly honest with you, that was uncomfortable at first. I was struggling with it, tried to fight the heat away, but eventually, I came to terms with it. This eventuality is warmth. How can I know all this, while completely forgetting what happened to me before this moment? I don't—I don't know. You might think that I was speaking non-sense, and you are probably right. However, for now, I can't explain to you more, because to tell you the truth, I also don't know what in Aster's name am I talking about. I thought this must be important for our further adventure, and yet again, I can't tell you why.

Hello, reader. I'm your narrator. I apologize for my inability to disclose my name for now. It is not that I'm keeping it secret from you, but I — I forgot. The reason I write this story is that I'm trying to find out about my past. How did I come into this situation: forgetting what happened, forgetting my name, and talking nonsense about temperature. Speaking of temperature, I'm cold now. That is probably a sign that there is something wrong with me. How I can forget almost everything and can tell what is wrong with me through my temperature, is something that I don't understand either. One thing for sure, I can do this what people call 'head-hopping'. I can also see some situations that are happening, including what the people in the situation like this think or feel. I guess I'm an all-knowing, 'omnipotent', if you will, but only in certain situations and characters. I don't get to choose too, that's unfortunate. I also don't know the future. Although the latter is not enticing. It's nice to keep myself on my toes, despite I can't even wiggle them.

I tried to 'read' other people, or see other situations, but something doesn't let me. For some reason, I keep bringing back the same people, and their situations in the order it happened. So much so I have my suspicions that these people, these—proceedings if you like, have bearings on my current condition. Experiencing these also makes it possible to feel what they feel, in temperature sense (warmth, heat, and cold). I think they're important, well, for me at least. I believe that I also have a very strong memory, you know. But I can't just keep all those memories in my head. It will drive me crazy, along with this coldness which I was familiar with and grew tired of. Now for that reason, dear reader, is where you come in. You are locked in this plight of having to read my story as I write it down for you, as I'm venturing it and try to break it down. Hopefully, this will reopen my memory bit by bit. Will you help me out? Or not? Is this question necessary? Haha. I don't know. I can't read your minds, as much as I want to.

I need to set the stage then if you're ready. The story I'm about to tell you happened in a city. A huge city, come to think of it. There are many tall buildings, less vegetation. The roads are wide, almost always busy by vehicles on days, and people at night. White and black fumes come from all over: the sewers, the series of metal pipes on the top and/or side of buildings, the vehicles. Everything is metal, with all the rust that comes with it. Some areas are dominated by makeshift metal plates and pipes, while others by dirty stones. Well-off citizens seem to frequent places with predominantly stones, while the less fortunates populate the more metallic parts of the city. There are no clear separations though since the stones and metal intertwined wildly throughout the city. That's the general idea about the city of Angkara: wild. There is no order or design in the city's whole architecture. People build things on top of other things, clashing shapes and colors superimposing by newer shapes and colors, light rail tracks, and above the ground train tracks run inharmoniously to meet in hundreds of terminals that seemed to be built wherever. The only certain thing is just the city blocks, which are dissected by strict roads into fixed sizes. If you see Angkara straight from the sky, you will see a series of boxes, with roads in between. You get the sense that at first the city was built according to some kind of design, although it all went to hell in the last a hundred years, or maybe less.

At night, Angkara is an entirely different thing. It is brilliant. Colors from neon light hit everything that was just dull, rusty, grey-brown, and smoggy. It changes the city into a spectacle. The roads become thinner with night markets, entertainment establishments, prostitution, and miscellaneous crimes. It is nefarious, but the flashy lights make it all enticing. It was a dream of the underage children to hit their 21st birthday and the night streets one day. It is full of life, despite people getting killed every night. It got so bad that the Angkara Police Station issued a warning that the crimes which happened at the streets of Angkara at night will not be processed accordingly. They will only investigate if the case happened indoors, and when the sun is up. So despite its glimmery nights, you have to be careful when running around in Angkara's streets, enchanted by its brilliant lights.

We will start our story here. The first time I was able to see, hear, and feel happened on this particular night of Angkara, and I write them down now.