The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere 085: Split Body (

"You're back," Ran said as she stepped towards us, while Anna seed not to acknowledge our renewed presence at all. I noticed that she was holding the scouting golem she'd been using to assist us in her arms. "I was half expecting you to get rushed by a golem and have your faces clawed off in the last few minutes."

"We're a little tougher to kill then that," Seth said, the last word slurring a bit.

"You look like shit," Ran said, frowning at him.

"I feel like shit," Seth replied. He glanced around the area.

I did too, and now that we were a little closer, noticed that a few more people seed to have made their way to the downstairs portion of the security center. It made sense, since this was where most of the anities for its secondary role as a bunker were located - the food, the beds - and even with the current commitnt to stay firmly within each other's lines of sight, it wasn't like we needed to stay huddled in a little circle.

Ezekiel was brooding on one of the few chairs in the corner, while Ophelia was resting in one of the little bunk-beds, seemingly asleep. Finally, Ptolema was sitting on the steps, but quickly stood and began approaching us as well.

One thing I noted was that hit, and the bodies of Yantho and Sacnicte brought down here earlier, were now absent. Ran had said the forr had woken up, so...

"Oh. Oh god," Ptolema said, her eyes wide as she looked at Seth.

"Hey, Ema," he said weakly.

She walked over to him, her pace picking up as she went. At first I thought she was going to hug him, and judging by her posture that might've been her original intent. But instead, she stopped just in front of him, stared with a complicated, frustrated expression, then cautiously reached up a hand and slid the mask from his face. She looked at him like that for a mont, her expression shocked, then scowled suddenly, flinging her arm over his shoulder in a pseudo-affectionate gesture before thumping him in the chest.

"You--" Her voice cracked. "You fucking idiot!"

"U-uh, easy," he said, wincing a bit with an awkward smile. "I'm pretty fragile right now, y'know?"

"How the hell did you let this happen?" she demanded, looking up at him. "You had a million barriers! The whole thing was supposed to be safe! Did you run off and do sothing stupid?!"

"Actuuuually, it was sorta Zeno's fault?" Fang said. "She split the group up so Seth could gather up all the records the machine's been spitting out, and so of the original docuntation. But then we found Hamilcar and he started throwing out so really crazy arcana, and the whole place kinda blew up, and things got kinda nuts, and--"

This didn't seem to soothe Ptolema, and she interrupted gritting her teeth at Seth. "You almost died for so parchnt?"

"Important parchnt," Kamrusepa interjected, raising a finger. She set the crate on the ground, along with Zeno's scepter. "Significant on a civilizational scale."

Ptolema turned to her, her face twisted in anger and distress. "Who cares!? That's sick!"

"Hey, calm down, okay?" Seth told her, putting his hand on her shoulder in turn. "Almost or not-almost, the important part is that I didn't die. And this--" he gestured over himself, "--might look bad, but it's mostly superficial shit."

"'Bad' doesn't co close to covering it! Half of your face looks like you jamd it in a grill!" she half-shouted.

Seth glanced towards us, his brow lowered. "Is it really that bad?"

"It's... rough," I said, glancing to the side awkwardly.

He sighed. "Great. And my good looks were the one thing I had going for , too." He looked to Ptolema. "Well, it doesn't matter. Anything surface-level can be fixed by Biomancy nowadays. And the point is I stopped the internal damage before anything serious could happen."

"You're barely even standing up straight," she said, stepping back a little.

"Yeah, well, getting cooked by radiation takes a lot out of you," he said, along with an awkward laugh. "But I just need to lie down and maybe patch myself up a little bit more with Biomancy. I'll be okay. And we got the guy!" He made a stiff smile. "We won."

Ptolema averted her eyes. "That's... I..." She shook her head. "Gods, you're such an moron."

She turned, looking flustered, and stord off. Though this was less of a dramatic gesture than she might've hoped, since the furthest she could go was the other side of the room.

Still, Seth went after her regardless. "Ema, wait," he said, his tone a little agitated.

They stepped away from our group. Fang looked amused, but Kam was still wearing a strangely serious expression.

"Wooh," Fang said, Fang said, after they were gone. "Those two are really straightforward, huh?"

"Not quite the term I would use, personally," Kam comnted.

Ran looked to us. "Zeno gave us a summary of what happened."

I frowned. "She is here, then? Zeno?"

"Yeah. Well, I'm pretty sure, at least. A little happened that I apparently missed, but it's not hard to read between the lines-- You'll see when you go upstairs." She looked over the three of us who remained once again, then stepped forward. "So. Want to give the full story?"

Over the next few minutes, we gave a full accounting of what had happened since we'd set out, filling in the gaps from when she hadn't been listening to or observing us: Our initial detours to the eris tanks and the Order's induction chamber, our descent to the Apega and confrontation with Hamilcar, and finally our escape and discovery of the strange hidden chamber. She nodded along, listening closely.

"Weird," she said, as we approached the conclusion. "Well. Can you show the books you found in this room?"

Kam offered hers up first, and Ran flipped through it, her brow quickly furrowing. Occasionally she paused, peering at so specific page or image.

"So," Kam asked, her brow quirked curiously. "You're about the closest our class has to a linguist, Ran. Do you recognize the text?"

"No," she said, shaking her head. "...but it doesn't seem to be nonsense, either. There are clear patterns assembled in ways that are obviously consistent words and phrases. Like-- Look here." She turned the textbook over, showing a segnt that seed to be explaining the concept of gravity, with the classic image of a falling apple. "This part under the illustration uses the sa text twice. And then it appears here as a subheading."

"Oh yeah," Fang said, squinting at it. "Good eye. Good eye."

"There's more than that too-- I'm pretty sure I can make out what might be the pronoun frawork," Ran continued, passing it back to Kam. "...but you'd probably need an actual professional to actually get any actual information out of it, and probably weeks of work."

"The one I found was a picture book," I said, holding it up. "Maybe it'll be easier to make so sense of?"

"I doubt it," she said. "But I'll take a look."

I passed it to her, and she paused for a mont, her eyes fixed on the front cover with an understandably uneasy expression. After a little while, though, she folded it open and began to slowly make her way through, taking her ti to examine the illustrations. anwhile, Kam seed to be taking another look at her 'own' book, probably trying to identify the patterns Ran had noted herself.

"This is kinda creepy," Ran said, after a few monts.

"Mm," I said, nodding. "I wasn't really sure what to make of the, uh. Imagery."

She squinted. "I'm pretty sure it's a mythological reference. Doesn't really seem appropriate for a kids book, though."

I blinked. "It's from mythology?"

"Yeah," she replied. "Or at least, it's the only place I've seen sothing like this depicted before - a person with double limbs and two heads, I an." She continued flipping through it as she spoke to . "It's an Inotian story from late in the Old Kingdoms Era. It goes that originally, there weren't n and won, but just one unified type of human being that were immortal and didn't need to to reproduce. The specifics of it are kinda a mix. Sotis they were shapeshifters, sotis-- Well, more like it's depicted here." She gestured to the illustration. "In this version, the king of the gods was afraid of this version of humanity, so he used lightning to split them down the middle. And so everyone spends their life in search of their other half, so they can be complete again."

"Huh," I said. "That's... Conceptually romantic, I guess."

I didn't actually think it was romantic. It just seed weird.

"Rather lends to so grotesque implications," Kamrusepa chid in. "Even putting aside the regressive historical applications of the concept of pre-ordained love, it would imply quite literally that every successful relationship is a case of-- Well, let's say autosexual behavior."

"I knew you'd take it in so weird way, Kam," Fang said.

She gave a flat look in response.

"Like I said, it's a really old myth, and not even a popular one," Ran said. "I have less than no idea why soone would think to use it as the basis for a kids book. Though that's not even close to the biggest question here."

"You said we ought to ask Anna about this, didn't you?" I asked.

"Mm," she humd, nodding, and turned. "Grandmaster, do you know anything about a hidden library in the underground near here?"

"No," she replied bluntly, even by her standards. "It's as I told your friend earlier; this sanctuary is filled with spaces belonging to specific mbers of our Order from over the decades. I am long past trying to keep an accounting of all of them."

I couldn't see her face as she spoke the words. She seed intensely at work.

"How is progress coming along, your ladyship?" Kamrusepa took the chance to ask Anna. "We're close to when we'll be in danger. Since we failed to glean any aningful information from Hamilcar, our best outstanding defense is haste."

"Slightly behind schedule, but almost finished," Anna stated. "It should be done a little prior to four, as planned."

Well, I thought. At least there's that.

It was hard to believe this would all be over so soon. ...or maybe it already was over, and this was nothing more than an epilogue to a strange and unsatisfying story.

Ran exhaled softly. "...we can revisit this later." She looked back in our direction. "Now that you're back, you should all co upstairs. So stuff has happened since you were gone, and Linos made so plans about what we might do next."

"What sort of plans?" I asked.

"It's to do with this thing," she said, holding up the small golem. "Since the concept's been proven, he was thinking of using it to try and scout out what happened to Samium."

I shifted uncomfortably.

"Since you told that you couldn't get any information from Hamilcar, there was also talk of maybe gathering up everyone's weapons in one place," Ran continued.

"I'm not giving up my scepter," Kam said, strangely defensively.

Ran blinked, seeming a little taken aback by this. "I don't know if it includes scepters. He was only talking about rifles before-- Anyway, you should talk to him about it. It's not even my idea." She hesitated. "There's also... Another developnt you should probably see, too."

"Is this like, a mandatory thing?" Fang asked. "I was kinda wanting to sit and look over so things, now that we're back. If that's not gonna be, well. A problem."

Ran shrugged. "I an, Seth is already kinda preoccupied and is probably going to end up resting anyway, so... It probably doesn't matter if you just stay down here and hear about what we're doing later."

"Great." They gave a thumbs up. "I'll catch you guys in a bit, then."

Kam and I turned to follow Ran up to the upper part of the security center. However, just as we approached the steps, a voice suddenly stopped us.

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

"Tell ," Anna spoke, not turning to look towards us. "Did Hamilcar say anything? Before you fought?"

I was too slow to process this, so Kamrusepa answered first. "Not anything of substance, exalted mistress. rely so errata concerning his personal life, and a few vagaries about how he had co to realize the pursuit of eternal life was pointless. And his confession, of course."

She grunted, seeming dissatisfied with this response. "...and you, girl? Do you recall anything else?" she asked, obviously directing the question towards . "I seem to recall that you are supposed to have sothing of a good mory."

I hesitated. "He, um... I rember he asked Zeno if he really wanted to 'continue this farce', even though we were being 'judged'."

Anna was silent for a mont. "...I see," she eventually said. "And you confird his death?"

"Well, Zeno did," I said. "...but I thought you heard about that already."

"Mm," she humd furtively. "Get back to what you're doing."

With none of us really sure what to make of that, we continued up the stairs.

Linos and Theo were sitting by the logic bridge as I'd expected, with the forr smiling warmly upon our arrival. But there was another sight in the room that took a little more off guard.

hit, who true to Ran's description had woken up, was unexpectedly sitting next to her daughter, who was still in the sa position as earlier, curled up against the wall. But this was the lesser of two surprises. More shocking was the fact that they were talking and, from what I could tell, seed to be having a completely normal conversation. hit was holding a sketchbook in front of her daughter, a complicated smile upon her face.

She was still visibly drained looking, with a little blood still showing on the bandages around her stomach.

"I don't like that one," Lilith said, looking at "It's bad."

"I think it's very pretty," hit said, her tone soothing.

"The color is bad. It's bad, it's all wrong," Lilith insisted. "A daffodil's yellow is supposed to be strongest and purest in any flower. It ca out too orange, like a sunflower. I used-- I used too much white in the paint. And the color is too universal. It looks fake."

"It's striking," hit said. "I think you did a very good job with the shift in color towards the middle of the flower--"

"Stigma," Lilith interrupted.

"--and the details of the folds on the petals are incredible. I can't even begin to get my head around how you visualize it all."

"The proportions don't. They don't work at all. Look at the way the shadows on the right petals ca out It's amateur art. Ugly." She grimaced. "I want to burn it."

They're having... A casual conversation?

Kamrusepa looked a little bemused by this too, her lips twisting in incredulity. However, we were quickly both distracted.

"Ah, Utsu, Kam!" Linos called out with relief as we appeared from up the stairs. "I'm so glad to see you all back safely."

Theo smiled weakly at us from where he was sitting, but seed in a subdued mood again.

"It was a little more touch and go than I might've liked, but yes," Kam said, "though it's a rather macabre affair. I dare say we do not deserve a hero's welco for the death of a man, regardless of how grave a business he was party to."

Sadness crept into Linos's expression. "Yes. It truly is a terrible sha, and deeply strange." He looked towards the ground, his eyes troubled. "I can't say I was particularly close to Hamilcar, even professionally - we worked on very different projects - but still, I only ever knew him as a gentle, rationally-minded man... The opposite of the sort you'd expect to pass judgent on others, even in a casual context."

"It's always a shock, to realize soone you know is not as they seed," Kam mused dourly, stepping further into the room and taking a seat. "The human mind is as a vault of stone. None of us may ever truly know what's going on in soone else's head."

I glanced at Ran briefly.

"I suppose that's true," Linos said, folding his hands in his lap idly. "Still, people have hidden sides and then they have hidden sides. Thinking about it, there were signs that Hamilcar might've been becoming disillusioned with our cause, but I never would have imagined in a thousand years that he'd be the mastermind behind sothing like this, especially when considering the level of preditation that must have occurred." He shook his head. "Outside of family, I'm not sure I'll trust soone the sa way ever again."

"You think that's what he was?" Rank asked, her eyes narrow. "The mastermind?"

"Well... Yes." Linos sighed, looking at her with a heavy frown. "Not to be overly blunt about it, but my alibi during miss Ic'Nal's vicious murder is probably the closest to foolproof, and Anna's directly helping in our escape. If there is another accomplice, then the only remaining candidates are from your class, and... Truthfully, I can't imagine anyone so young spearheading a plan such as this, let alone bringing Hamilcar on board."

"That's just an assumption," Ran said, her tone serious. "Without any clue to his fundantal motive, we can't consider anything out of the question."

"I agree," Kamrusepa said, with a severe nod. "Our priority should be absolute vigilance from this point forward. We shouldn't assu the guilty party was a re helper for Hamilcar, and will simply resign just because we're all locked in a standoff here." She narrowed her eyes. "Were I them, I'd be too invested to drop the matter now, and would certainly try sothing. Perhaps sothing foolish, but sothing."

Absolute vigilance. What did that an, exactly?

Obviously, the most straightforwardly 'logical' course of action would be for us to just sit in the circle and watch each other until it was ti to leave. That would theoretically give the remaining culprit the least opportunity to potentially act. ...However, if you thought it for more than a few monts, then it clearly wasn't that simple. With the whole sanctuary turned against us, we still couldn't rule out an attack by sothing external, and any such event under those circumstances would be devastating, since we'd all be together in one place. There was also the question of where we would even sit. As things stood, it was possible to use the Power on the lower floor of the security center, and impossible on the upper floor. Both had their own advantages and disadvantages.

On the other hand, it we carefully guarded both entrances, we could offset that possibility - but would also give accomplice more opportunity to potentially try sothing in return. Not much opportunity, but...

Sothing I'd never really thought about until tonight was that being 'safe' as a concept had diminishing returns. Even in a dangerous situation, it wasn't hard to use a little thought and beco more safe. But trying beco completely safe felt increasingly impossible, especially when there was another human intellect actively working against you.

Linos nodded. "We've taken all due precautions. Anna has the lower floor warded, and I've set the defenses in here," he pointed to the refractor rifles mounted on the ceiling which I noted the previous day, "to fire disabling shots should anyone draw a weapon."

Kam frowned. "That seems like it could just as easily be used against us, if they play it right."

"Nothing we can do is foolproof," he admitted, echoing my thoughts. "But the more we discourage any potential accomplice to act, the more likely they'll be inclined to see the plan as a lost cause and abandon it. Though only so long as we're in here." He furrowed his brow. "We're I them, I'd bide my ti and wait for when we have to make for the entrance. That'll be when we're most vulnerable."

Kam nodded furtively, her eyes wandering back towards the stairs.

For my part, my gaze kept turning back to Lilith and hit, who were happily (well, so much as any interaction with Lilith could be characterized as 'happy') chatting along about art. I squinted at the scene anxiously.

"Um," I said, lowering my voice as I took a step towards Linos, ushering Ran forward with at the sa ti. "Sorry to ask, but... What happened with those two?" I tried to gesture subtly, in a way the two of them wouldn't pick up on. "Why is hit talking to Lilith like nothing happened?" "Mm, I was rather wondering that myself," Kam said, her voice lowered slightly. Linos hesitated, glancing at the pair. "To be honest with you, I'm not entirely sure either. Mrs Eshkalon awoke a few minutes before your return, and we tried to... Tell her about the situation, in case her mory was fuzzy." His lips tightened uncomfortably. "But she just kept asking to see her daughter. Then when she did..." He hesitated. "She asked if she was alright, then when she didn't respond, went through her things and took out the sketchbook. They've just been... Talking like this, since then." I glanced towards them again, trying to be subtle.

"I love how you drew the little details on the balcony here," hit was continuing, apparently having moved on to another picture. "The little vines and the pattern on the stonework. It's almost like looking at a photograph."

"The sketch for that, that one-- It ca out okay," Lilith said, mumbling the final part of the sentence. "But the coloring is off. The stone looks green."

"I don't think it looks green," hit objected.

"You're old," Lilith told her. "You don't look at things properly anymore."

My brow slowly wrinkled, and I turned back to the others.

"Perhaps the trauma of the event has led to hit being unable to process its ramifications," Kamrusepa suggested. "Or she is actively suppressing them to engage in so fantasy or normalcy. I've read about such things."

I suppressed the urge to roll my eyes.

"I think you're overcomplicating it," Ran said.

"What do you an, 'overcomplicating it'?" Kamrusepa asked skeptically. "She tried to murder her. How can a wholeso scene like this--" she gestured with her hand, "--be anything but fantasy?

"Lili's still her kid," Ran said. "Try to think about it from her perspective. She's just found out her daughter's been indoctrinated into so creepy plot over her head, to the point she's willing to kill for it. She's not going to treat her like a monster, she's going to treat her like a victim. Try to work their way back to so comfortable common ground."

Kam lowered her voice to be even quieter. "But she's not her daughter. You heard the response that she gave. That 'Lilith' is nothing but a role."

"It's not that simple, even if she said so." Ran narrowed her eyes. "You're an arcanist, Kam. You should know this shit."

She clicked her tongue. "People always say as much, but I dare say it's rather presumptive. I don't personally know anyone who suffers from the condition. It's not exactly common."

The main way I'd beco excellent at lying in a limited sense was via compartntalization. I was terrible at keeping things off my face when I consciously thought of myself as being deceitful, but I'd learned to shift my mind into an alternative reality where so things simply were not true when they were inconvenient. "Well, you know Lilith," I pointed out.

Kam gave an irritated look. "Don't be a pedant, Su. I obviously an outside of the present situation, where the truth only ca out a few hours ago."

"You're practically the biggest socialite in the university, Kam," Ran stated. "You probably know a ton of cases, and just haven't realized it."

She scoffed. "What makes you so certain? Are you a witch, Ran?"

"No," Ran replied flatly. "I was clean awake through my Induction."

Kam raised her eyebrows. "We're of a piece, then. I suppose you do co across as having a rather strong will." She shook her head lightly. "Regardless, my point is that, despite your assumption, I haven't the faintest what you're trying to get at. Lilith isn't Lilith. I know this affair is a spectrum disorder, but she told us that in the bluntest terms possible, and even forsook her usual affect." She leaned back in her chair a little. "I don't know about you, but I hold to the old saying: If soone tells you who they really are, believe them."

"I'm, uh, not sure that's the way that's supposed to be used..." I said.

"The truth, unpleasant as it may be to swallow," Kamrusepa continued, "is that 'Lilith', in every sense by which we can quantify personhood and personal identity, died years ago during her initiation ceremony. The person she's speaking to now isn't her daughter. As Zeno tastefully pointed out, she's probably not even a child."

Where was Zeno, anyway? I glanced over at the pile of boxes, and didn't notice any change from earlier other than the fact that it'd been moved a bit to sit closer to the console. How exactly had they been in contact?

Ran made an irritated grunt, rubbing her eyes. "Again, even if she said so, it's not that simple." She glanced - briefly - at the two of them herself, before snapping her gaze back towards Kam. "Listen to the way she's talking to her mom."

"I want to redo it later," Lilith was continuing, off to the side. "It was too bright and the streets were too busy and filled with noisy people. I couldn't think or look at things properly. It was very, very annoying."

"We could visit Irenca again, soti," hit replied hopefully. "Your aunt's moved back to khi now, but we could find a boarding house and go by ourselves in the sumr. If that wouldn't bore you, and you could find ti away from your studies."

"Visit again..." Lilith echoed, as if parsing the concept. "Maybe. I don't want to go in the sumr, though. It was too damp. Everything too cramped together."

hit nodded. "I'd have to see about sorting it out with work, but maybe we could manage a holiday in the winter. That would be nice, wouldn't it?"

Lilith never really smiled, but she made a strange sort of anticipatory look that I'd co to understand as her way of showing approval.

Kam exhaled. "It's obviously an act," she said.

"Why?" Ran asked bluntly.

"She's trying to get her to lower her guard," she asserted. "I can see it now. They talk for a long while, then hit gets in another of her states and says sothing like, 'you can't keep my poor daughter tied up like this! Let her stand and visit the lavatory, at least!' And then before we know it, she's back to trying to fulfill her uncle's plans." She hesitated, glancing at Linos. "...co to think of it, is there a lavatory in here?"

He nodded. "A rather cramped one on the lower floor. People, uh, mistake it for a closet."

"Small blessings," Kam said dryly.

"Why would she do that when she already told us everything?" Ran asked her. "If she was capable of plotting this kind of shit, wouldn't she have tried sothing earlier?"

"Well, I'm sure she's in so manner of unstable state," Kamrusepa stated matter-of-factly. "She's probably not driven by entirely consistent and logical imperatives."

I sotis wondered why Kam talked in the hyper-eloquent and overwrought way that she did, since she was from a small town in Rhunbard and it definitely wasn't a product of her upbringing. But then, Kamrusepa's relationship to social class and her own self-conception in general was probably a rabbit hole better not delved.

I wondered if I was thinking about this to disassociate from the current conversation.

"If you're willing to accept that much, then maybe you should take that idea and apply it to other parts of her state of mind," Ran said. "Maybe there's more going on then just a binary of 'she's lying' or 'she's telling the truth'. Maybe people can say stuff with aning it, or maybe they can both an it and not an it at the sa ti. Maybe even outside of insane situations like this, who a person is and who people see each other as isn't as simple as boiling down juices into stock." She looked a little annoyed by the course of the conversation. "Obviously I don't know what's going on in her head, but the fact that Hamilcar managed to fuck with Lilith so much to begin with is proof enough she wasn't so clear-cut case of one person erasing another." She mumbled. "If 'clear-cut' is even possible."

What defined a person?

It was sothing I'd thought about so many tis, I couldn't even begin to count the instances.

Of course, it was one of the oldest questions in philosophy, literally predating the dostication of the horse. There was no right answer, only what felt personally satisfying or comfortable. For so people, that led to religious or pseudo-religious concepts; a definition of the self that transcended the mundanely comprehensible, though in many traditions this did boil down to prescriptions grounded in the physical as well. Ancient khian beliefs held that the essence of life was held in the heart, while the Principist tradition, being sowhat less ancient, associated it with the core of the human brain. Newer faith's tended to abstract the answer; that it was 'sowhere' in a taphysical sense, but not tied to any particular quality beyond what 'vibed right' to the average person.

I'd never really accepted the concept of the soul; as Utsushiko, I'd had so vague belief in an immortal or spiritual selfhood, but grew out of it by my early teens. And my true self had been a cynic for as long as I rembered. So even before what had happened, I'd only been able to look at the issue from a scientific perspective.

If you broke it down, there were basically four components that determined who soone was: The body, the physical nature of the brain - encompassing both mories and characteristics of thought - the continuity of their minds, and finally identity. That is to say, the self-recognition of those three forr components and the forging of them into a declaration of the self. 'This is my body. These are my experiences. This is the life I have lived. I am this person.'

When you thought about it enough, you realized that the first three were all essentially mutable. The body could be so easily changed by dicine or circumstance that arguably didn't even qualify for the list at all. The brain was less malleable without being destroyed outright, but still, people could suffer damage to it or choose to alter it chemically or surgically, losing mories and changing their characteristics; Induction also fell into this category. And depending on where your opinion landed in the complicated debate on what exactly defined 'unconsciousness', strict continuity of the self was broken either every night when you went to sleep, or when placed under anesthesia for surgery.

But people could go through any of those and still et the fourth criteria. Like serpents, human beings are creatures that constantly shed parts of themselves; form, mory, traits. But still, they continue to shout 'I am' to the cosmos in spite of it all.

But if you can't do that much, even if you possess all of the other criteria, what are you? If there is no selfhood you can declare with sincerity?

What are you?