You die. Slowly but surely, you die.

     You stare up at the sky, wishing for just one more moment alive. And then it all stops. You try to move, but your efforts are in vain.

     "Tsk, tsk," something says, a voice echoing around you. "Do not struggle, my child, you will be freed soon enough." You cry out, unable to form words. You hear yourself begin to laugh. First a giggle, then a melodic chime, and finally into that of a raving lunatic. You feel like you can't stop. You don't want to. But why are you laughing? "Let it out, dear, you've concealed it for far too long." After a few more minutes of insane outbursts, you stop, wheezing.

     "Who are you?" You manage, straining your throat to talk. Why does it hurt? In response, the voice laughs. Its voice is like that of both a woman and a man, its laughter like the twinkle of a little girl's and the playfulness of a little boy's.

      "Ah, young one, I am you. You are me. I am them. We are everyone." You try with no evail to comprehend the statements of nonsense.

     "Show yourself," you demand, wincing at the weakness of your own voice.

     "Very well." A figure emerges from the thin air ahead of you. You cannot distinguish this being to be anything. It is neither male nor female, young nor old, skinny nor fat, but is all of those things at once.

     "What are you?" you ask amazed, forgetting the pain caused by forming words. "Are you... Are you God?" It smiles at your reaction.

     "Not in the slightest. I am merely you. I thought we'd been over this already," it chuckles.

     "But, but how...?" you stammer.

     "Walk with me and I promise I will explain." It raises its hand, lifting you off of the ground, allowing you to walk. It begins moving forward, its pace steady. As you walk, you notice that you only hear one set of footsteps: yours. You look down, only to discover that the strange being is floating. After moments of silence pass, your curiosity and confusion continues to grow and form until blossoming into a number of questions.

     "Who are you? Where did you come from? How am I not dead? How are you me? What-"

     "One question at a time, child," it says, "Let me introduce myself. I am the Inhaulice. I am everything, along with nothing. I am both man and woman, elder and child, yet I remain to be none of these things. As to how I came to exist, I was formed in the depths of your own mine." Confused, you look at the Inhaulice questioningly. "Dear one," it begins, "you are special. You  could not die, you see, because with your death would come mine, the Universe's. Everything would disappear."

     "All of the people?" you ask.

     "Why, of course."

     "How?" You cannot make sense of anything the Inhaulice says.

     "Because you created it. All of it. Everyone you've ever met, anything you've ever seen or heard about, any event that has taken place. Even you and I would cease to exist."

     "That isn't possible," you begin, denying everything.

     "Oh, but it is! You've lived in a delusion. Everything that has ever been was imagined by you. Do you recall how you began?"

     "Of course not. I don't belive that's possible. You cannot remember your own creation. You usually cannot even remember the first two years of your own life."

     "Or so you think. You created your past and your future, as well as your fogetfulness of very distant occurances in your life and obliviousness to future events. You created yourself."

     "Ah, but if I created it, how do you know the things I do not?" You beam as you say this, thinking you found a flaw in the Inhaulice's story.

     "That is percisely the reason you created me: to know all of the answers. You wanted to have a normal life as a 'human', as you call them. You had to remove your knowledge of anything else, but store it safely so it could come back to you."

     "So, if I haven't always been human, what was I?"

     "You were an Inhaulice as well. You looked like me and knew everything I do now."

     "So there are others like you- er, us?"

     "Ah, there were plenty! But they're gone now. You destroyed them all, erasing them from existence."

     "That's terrible!" you cry, horrified at the thought. "I would never do that!"

      "And yet you did. Filled with the selfish need for a place created by you that met your idea of a utopia. But you can see how that turned out: your world is now filled with poverty, war, hatred, and death. All of these things were fueled by the evil within you. The darkness that hides in your very core and lurks around the corners of your soul."

     "Well, where do I go now?"

     "Nowhere. Within your maniacally genious ways, you had a touch of ignorance, believing you would never die in your own world. You forgot to create an afterlife."

     "Is there any way I can retrieve my memories?"

     "Yes. Come here." The Inhaulice outstretches its arm, touching your forehead. A warmth fills your body, engulfing your brain in heat. Memories flood beck one-by-one like a movie playing in your head until you finally reach the moment you are currently in.

     "Thank you, Inhaulice, you have done your duty well," you say. "You are dismissed."

     "Dismissed? What do you mean?"

     "Be gone, Inhaulice," you say, waving your hand. The Inhaulice begins to fade away, dissolving into the air around you.

     "No! You cannot do this!" it screams. You smile, basking in the newfound lonliness, your previous wickedness swallowing you once again, claiming you as its own.

     You are unstoppable.