Weird story idea

 At first, he was aware only of existing.

He thought it the strangest thing to imagine not existing. Where would he be? Or, more accurately, where wouldn't he be? What is it like to not think, feel, smell, touch, know, see, or want anything? It gave him a headache to try to conceive not existing. He relaxed somewhat and sat down, massaging his temples. The headache didn't seem to go away.

Why not? Shouldn't it go away? But then it occurred to him that he couldn't recall having had a headache before. How should he know how long a headache ought to last? Or that massaging his temples might make it better? He groaned and massaged with greater furor. The floorboards were hard and uncomfortable to sit on, and so he stood again, which admittedly did little to alleviate the pain in his head.

Where was he, anyhow? Inside, presumably. Floorboards don't just lay around in forests or deserts, or anywhere but inside places. Or do they? It didn't seem right to him that they would, so he supposed they must not. Whatever forests and deserts are. He had an inkling, though he couldn't recall having ever seen one. The thought then began to form that he had better open his eyes if he wished to learn where he was.

He opened his eyes to find everything terribly dark. That wasn't very helpful. More helpful to him, actually, was a scent he started to realize he had actually been smelling since, well, since he had become aware of himself. However long ago that had been. It was a smell that could perhaps be called sweet, and made him think of thoughts he couldn't quite place. People, places, and feelings that seemed like they ought to be familiar to him. Oh, please, why was the headache necessary?

The smell was definitely a lead, though. It tickled his memory, and the more he dwelt on it, a feeling seemed to spread within him, starting just below his sternum, a sweet, excited feeling. Interesting. A person, he thought – the smell definitely brought his mind to a person.

The more he blinked in the murkiness, the more he was able to make out. First he could see a rectangle only slightly more orange than black. He stared at this rectangle until he realized that he was looking at a window. He was inside a room of some kind. A kind that had floorboards.

With time, his eyes adjusted more and more to the light, and he was able to see a form close to the window. Just an outline at first, a blacker black inside a less black black. Black was quickly becoming his least-favorite color. Perhaps it always had been. How long had he existed, he wondered. Had he always existed and just not been aware? He knew it couldn't have been more than a few moments since he could remember anything, but those few moments seemed like an eternity. After all, it was the only life he could remember living.

The form became more defined. He realized over time that he was looking at someone asleep in a bed. His heart leapt. Somehow he knew this person. This was the person the smell made him think of. The feeling that had spread continued to ripple through him, growing more exciting and causing him more happiness than he had ever known, for what it was worth. He walked over to the bed and knelt by it, looking into the face of the person. It was a girl – the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.

His mind was split between recognizing her and trying to remember who she was. He had seen her before, he was sure, except for the fact that he couldn't remember anything up till a few minutes ago. Had he seen anyone before, though, he was sure it would have been her.

“Alice,” the name escaped his lips and shattered the silence in the room, giving him quite a start. Though he hadn't spoken in much above a whisper, it was the first sound he was cognizant of hearing, and was therefore the loudest thing he had heard before.

He watched, his body frozen and his heart racing, afraid of whatever it was that happened when girls awoke up to find people in their rooms. The girl stirred in her sleep, but didn't wake. All good and well, then. He tried to relax, but found he couldn't. For some reason, a part of him wanted her to wake up. He wanted to talk to her again. Or for the first time. Whichever it was, he wanted to talk to her. Something about her seem to hold him captive, and his heart was still pounding.

“You love her,” came a voice from above his shoulder. He really did jump this time, and spun around with a yell. The voice that addressed him came from a person, apparently of the female persuasion. It wasn't immediately apparent, as her face was shrouded by a white mask over a black veil. This would have perhaps been alarming, if he had known that masked and veiled people opt on the alarming side in today's society, but instead her odd apparel came off as an interesting contrast from Alice, who was the only other person he had met. Apart from the odd head-wear, she wore a thick-looking covering, checkered diagonally, which was fastened shut by a long row of double-breasted buttons from the collar down to the floor.

“You startled me,” he said off-hand, and then remembered in horror that Alice was supposed to be sleeping. He turned to find her undisturbed.

“Oh, she won't wake up,” said the woman-person, “But anyway, you love her.”

“I guess I do,” he said, thinking. “I don't know if I've ever loved anyone before, so it's hard to say.”

“Well, you see,” she replied, “You, as you know yourself, are new to this world. You came into existence some hours ago.” He frowned. This was most disconcerting news. The whole concept of oblivion came flooding back, and with it his headache, which seemed to have come back with a nasty vengeance, rather put off at having been forgotten about.

“What does that even mean?” was all he was able to ask, sitting down on the floor again and massaging his temples harder than ever. He wasn't sure it would actually help, but it felt better to be doing something about the pain rather than taking it like a war hero.

“Let me show you,” she said, and she walked over to where the girl lay sleeping. In an instant, he was back on his feet – the woman-person was too close to Alice for his comfort. He instantly determined that no one was to come that close to her except for himself. This rule was to come into effect immediately. He opened his mouth to tell the woman-person so, but she was already away from the bed, now with a piece of paper in her gloved hand, which protruded from a slit in the cape she wore. She gave the piece of paper to him, and said,

“Read this.”

He looked at it, and though the room was dark, he could see letters on the paper, as if they were on fire, burning red and, if it could be said of letters, passionately.

The first letters spelled out DRAKE.

The rest of it seemed wholly unrelated to these five letters. They spoke of strong features, first and foremost, and handsome ones at that. They spoke of kindness, politeness, cleanliness, of handsomeness again, and then of perfection. They then took a weaker stance on the perfection aspect, admitting a few human faults that were most likely present (although the letters took care to explain that their writer hadn't yet observed these), but then they spoke of a willingness to overlook said faults due to intelligence, respect for women, and a hard work ethic. They ended with a suggestion that perhaps the subject of the writing might perhaps become romantically entwined with the author, and that they might pursue a future together. Finally, the fire in the letters died, and they were no longer visible in the darkness. He stood aghast.

“What's this?” he asked.

“That's a love poem,” she said.

“What does that have to do with the letters DRAKE?”

“That's your name.”

It was like a slap to the face, only pleasant. It was now so clear, he felt stupid for having not made the connection before.

“She wrote this poem about me!” He said excitedly. “That means she loves me back, then, doesn't it?”

“After a fashion,” said the woman-person, “She loves a boy named Drake. She wrote a poem about him. Around the time she finished writing is when you came into existence. You are her poem.”

There was a very awkward pause.

“I am her poem,” he repeated.

“Yes.”

He contemplated this new information for a moment. In his vague understanding of the world, he didn't really think too much of poems as living, breathing things like himself. He held up the paper.

“Isn't this her poem?” he asked.

“No,” said the woman/person, “That is a piece of paper with ink sloppily arranged on it. You are what that piece of paper represents.”

“I don't quite follow,” he said.

“I don't expect you to,” came the reply, “Alice described you as smart, but not a metaphysicist.”

“That's not even a word,” he retorted.

“Is so, and don't you dare contradict me.”

They sat in another awkward silence for a moment while he tried to consider what to say next. Finally, he said,

“Okay.”

Another awkward silence.

“So,” he continued, “If I am her poem, then who are you? How do you know so much about it?”

“Knowledge is power,” she said, “and the tome that represents me is hidden away somewhere safe. No one person should have that much power.”

“You're that powerful?” he asked, out of curiosity rather than cheekiness, though her mask seemed to regard him coolly at this. Something flickered in the darkness behind the eye-holes in her mask, but as quickly as he had seen it, it was gone. She reached across the room.

Her arms were far too long. One stretched from where she stood over to the window, which shattered at her touch. The other stretched toward the door of the room, which her gloved hand opened, and continued stretching indefinitely, her masked gaze never faltering a nanometer. After a moment, her arms retracted to back within her cape, and the shattered window reassembled itself.

“I'm quite fond of you, Drake,” she said, which, though kind of her to say, did little to settle his now upset nerves, “And as such I just gave this entire house a great big hug. You were inside the house at the time, so consider it an impersonal expression of affection. But don't test my limits. I have few.”

“I'll keep that in mind,” he said.

“Humility aside, however,” she said in a light tone, “you are the newest addition to my realm. I just thought I'd welcome you personally before I left you to your own devices.”