Diary or the Dead

He looked at the water before him. Wide. Far. He couldn't see an end to what either was a lake or an entire ocean. The surface lay still, not a single wave disrupted the mirroring of the surrounding. If there was any surrounding. When he looked up he saw nothing but a blue-ish gray which had no end nor a beginning. When he looked down he could barely make out where what could be called "land" ended and where the water body began.
If he were to bow forward from his curled up sitting position he could see his own reflection but he knew that it wouldn't be what he was expecting. A blurry, dark gray figure with no recognizable facial features was all it showed, yet he knew how he was supposed to look like and it wasn't this. At least he had a vague idea. The time alone, were it years or decades?, of sitting here, on this exact spot, in this exact position, had had its effect on him. Whenever he was thinking of himself a wave of images and sounds flooded his mind and warped into an overwhelming mass of distorted screams, cries and grimaces that made it impossible to differentiate real memories from the illusions that plagued him from time to time.

It had not always been this way, he knew that deep down. He had once been in a colorful and lively environment, filled with fantastical sounds instead of the everlasting silence he now experienced. There were people he had known. They had hurt him, or did they really? They had left him to die, or was it just a fear that had gotten the chance to take visual form and overcome him in his state of confusion?

The silence was disrupted by the muffled sound of something hitting the ground. He bowed his head down even though he knew it wouldn't help against whatever his head would want to see him next. What could it be this time? A metal object slicing through his gray exterior? The corpse of someone he might have known and loved slamming onto the ground next to him? The mad giggle of his own fainting sanity which manifested separated from his own body?

There were no shadows in this place of never ending nothingness so he didn't immediately notice as the source of the noise had reached him. Even though he didn't bother to turn around he could make out the glowing silhouette of a person next to him. He used to glow like that as well. But that must have been a long time ago. That time when he used to have a defined body and-
Another wave of chaos overtook his mind for a moment before everything quieted down again.

Time passed, he assumed. Nothing happened. The creature next to him didn't move, nor did it speak. Neither did he. Every moment this illusion would take a turn and it would be another sensation to fill his mind with horrors. It had happened so many times before the experiences threatened to merge into one another but with every time the replay of false and true memories lost shape just like he did. He guessed the glowing figure would be a new stage after the people had turned into shadows. Now they were here to blind him.
But nothing happened.

He couldn't bear the tension building up inside himself anymore. "Who is it this time?" he whispered. His voice echoed through the void until it lost itself. Then it was quiet again. The person slightly leaned their head to the side, glowing fog looking like hair falling into his sight. "An old acquaintance," they replied. Their voice was so clear, he wanted to cover the place where he could perceive sound but he didn't have ears. Then they added: "We used to care a lot about each other when we were still alive." "And what will you do?" he questioned the appearance even though he knew the answer. To hurt him once again. Nothing good came from this place. It was a never ending fever dream merging into the structure of a nightmare to suck out the little sanity he had left. And he couldn't leave or ignore or persuade the appearances.
"I'm here to look for you and-" He cut them off: "Just do your thing. There is no need for you to play the caring role, stabbing me in this state will hurt just as much." A quick glance to the side revealed that the person had backed off a little and the rare feeling of dull anger awakened from a deep slumber. "You think I'm not real?" they then said. It was more of a statement than a question. He curled up tighter, swallowed down his anger and exclaimed: "Don't do this to me. I know that you aren't. Please don't make me think I can get out of here." His arms blocked his view, only through a small gap he could see the still surface of the water.
Usually he would try to guess what would happen to him next but not now. He was so tired. So incredibly tired and all he wished for was a moment of silence. No, not the absence of noise, he wanted himself to shut down. At least once. At least for a second.

After a while, which could have been seconds or hours, he looked up again and was alone. Alone in this void, alone at the side of the lake, alone with his thoughts.

His gaze wandered across the eternal gray before him. Here and there a shadowy silhouette flickered in the corner of his eyes, a hallucination of what had appeared in his illusions so often and what he expected to appear again, but every time he tried to focus on it, there was nothing. Just the same old view. Forever. And ever. And...

He turned around as he heard the same noise from before behind him. And there they were again, now standing a couple of meters away from him. Now he could finally see their appearance. A human with long flowing hair which looked more like condensed fog forced to hold its shape. There was no clear difference between their body and cloak which hid most of them. Just like him they had no recognizable facial features except two orb structures which resembled eyes.
"Why are you here again?" The figure didn't answer until they were seated beside him in the exact same spot as last time. "I wanted to give you some more time." "For what?" he wanted to spit out but it sounded more like a desperate cry. "To have you recover. I can't imagine what you had to go through in your time here." He wondered what it was he could hear in their voice. Maybe it was pity. "Who even are you supposed to be? What are you to me and why are you here to torment me?" Their voice was still as clear as before but had a shaken undertone when they spoke: "I guessed you can't remember... no... can't sort me into a place in your mind," their glowing hand reached out under the cloak and pulled it back out with something square in its grasp, "so I brought you this." They placed the object in between them. It was as gray as everything else but it had defined edges. Already he knew it didn't belong. As he looked closer he could make it out to be a book as thick as two or three finger.
He turned his head upwards to look at the person. "It's your diary" the explanation came immediately before they added: "I did not touch it once. I'm hoping your own words might help you to... sort things out I guess."
He didn't reply, nor did he look at them anymore. Why would he read this book? It would only crush his mind once again, refresh memories he might have had and what would that get him? More nightmares, probably. Maybe it wasn't his even if he had really written a diary during his time when he was alive. It could have been warped to fit this place's purpose. It most likely was.

But why was the object so clear?

The next time he looked to his side, he was alone again but the book was still next to him. What if it was really filled with lies? What was its purpose? More questions bombed his mind, the knowledge of not knowing the content of this book became more painful of a reality than imagining to ignore it for eternity.

At last, he picked up the book. It felt familiar in his hands. Automatically he unwrapped the strap that held it closed and put it around his own wrist. Then he opened the roughly textured cover and read the first few lines describing the owner of this diary:

This book belongs to Dew. I am a merling, or I used to be one, probably the last one of my kind. People hunted us for so long because we are like fish with high resemblance to humans but without the consciousness to see ourselves as a person.
But I do. I'm a person.
I work in a kitchen which supplies the higher ups of the kingdom. This book was given to me by a friend to practice writing and memorizing my every day life.

As he turned from the first text to the next page, he sank into a daze of what happened to this merling that wrote a diary.