oooooThere were several points in the past when I thought about revealing myself to him as he stood on the roof of the school, but every time I thought I would approach, he would give up and leave. Every day after school ended and the staff had gone home, he would sneak onto the grounds and find some way to reach the empty area on top of the tallest building on the campus. There, he would lean on the rails and look up into the sky, waiting for something; I never did figure out what it was he was looking for. Most of the time, I just sat in the sky behind him and watched, always too far in the darkness and too high in the air for him to notice me. I would have been lying if I said that I that didn't want him to turn around and see me one day; that was actually my entire reason for being there. We knew each other, but he knew me by a different identity; he knew me by my human guise before I had died that lifetime and returned home to my world. I never expected to come back to Earth in time to see him still alive. In past experiences, new generations had passed between each return. The time between my current and last visit to this world had only been a few years.
oooooHe was a strange child. Docile. Fierce-looking, but weak-willed. Many of his peers picked on him because they feared him, and he never fought back. I had a feeling that he had the capability to defend himself, but he never took action against them. It was as if he didn't want to give them more of a reason to be afraid of him. And, because of this mindset, he endured his abuse. These children, however, were cruel beings. Time only intensified the brutality. On the last few days of my previous visit to this world, I found him bleeding profusely in an empty part of the school. I'd have though he was dead if I didn't know how secretly resilient he was. I brought him to the school infirmary and did my best to clean and patch his wounds -- where the nurse had gone, I didn't know, but there was no time to waste. When I had become so compassionate? He was the first individual I assisted without reward, and I was questioning my actions by the time I left him. Why did I step in? What good did that do me?
He always wore a scarf (personal taste, I supposed), but the one he wore was thoroughly soiled by dirt and his own blood; I had to throw it out, and I left my own as a gift. Again, why I did so was beyond my own understanding. Perhaps it was out of what humans called "the goodness of one's heart."
oooooI perished within the next few days. It seemed like those who dehumanized that boy did not take kindly to my selflessness. As I said before, they were cruel. The last thing I remembered seeing as I fell to my death was that strange child looking into the sky from the same roof I observe him on in today.
oooooI do not deny wondering whether or not he would recognize me for who I am now. My existence in his world is a new discovery. Though I do not know how I did it yet, I managed to return without being influenced by the world's ideas. I returned to Earth in the purity of myself, as my own race within my own body. Because I am what I am though, those who cannot understand my foreignness cannot see me. Those who can see me and claim to see me are called crazy or inasne. Out of their minds. I pity them, but I also pity myself. To be deemed a hallucination is suffering. To speak, but not be heard, to be seen, but not be believed in. That is true torture.
oooooIf I stepped forth, would he see me? If he could see me, would he believe in me? Would he believe my words and be able to connect me to who I was in the past?
ooooo"Reincarnation" is what it is called, I believe.
oooooSame individual. Another life.
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