What is your first memory?
     
     The very moment you become fully aware of the world, the images flashing before your eyes.  Many people experience their first memory only in bits and pieces.  Single images or sensations that they later struggle to piece together. 
     
Not me.

     
     But as I became older, I became afraid of losing my precious memory.  I was told that every time you relive a memory it becomes tainted by your imagination, until it becomes something other than the truth.  I was afraid that I would no longer be able to tell what was real and what was an illusion created by my mind.
     
     So I locked it away, deep in the very darkest parts of my consciousness.  I locked it away for years and threw away the key.  I swore to myself that I would never corrupt that memory even if that meant losing it forever.
     
So why am I seeing it now?

      I am in a room so white that it hurts my eyes.  My eyes struggle to focus on something, anything colorful in this bleached world.  My eyes fall on my shoes.  They are an almost obnoxious shade of red, and stand out against the endless expanse of white.  I associate these shoes with memories of my childhood, snuggled in blankets that were never the right softness and playing with toys I did not have any interest in.  I spent my childhood locked behind the bars of a gilded cage.
     
     My gaze is pulled away from my shoes as I feel something squeeze my hand.  I look up to see a large hand grasping my own tiny one.  There is a ring on one of the fingers and I recognize the insignia, it is my family crest.  This ring and this hand, belong to my father.  His hand looks strange to me now.  I can’t remember the last time I held or even looked at my own father’s hands.  Almost 10 years ago maybe, but they looked nothing like they do now; here they are strong and young, nothing like the last time I saw them, where they shook with fatigue from the simple task of reaching out to try and strike me.  These strong hands seemed to carry the weight of the world, and he often laid them on my tiny shoulders, crushing me under the pressure.
     
      Just like his hands, his body is strong and he holds himself upright and proud, as someone of his status should.  We lock eyes as my gaze travels up to his face.  He’s a lot younger here, handsome even.  My father in his prime is a sight to behold. 
    
      I think I smile up at him, he does not return my smile.  I look away. 
     
     Suddenly a flock of birds, doves I think, moves across my vision.  They fly across the courtyard in a flurry and up toward the vaulted ceiling.  I notice that the ceiling is made from stained glass.  Although the beams of light from above should shine colorful light down on us, like everything else in this world it’s colorless and bleak.  I think the design is beautiful, but I’m not sure.  I don’t think I ever stopped to look.
     
     That’s because something else has drawn my focus.  There are two people standing across from us in the courtyard. The taller figure is a woman with a slender frame that exudes both beauty and pride.  Her long hair flows in elegant waves past her shoulders and frames her perfect face.  Her eyes glint with hate as she stares down at me.
     
     Fear settles within me as I shift my gaze to the child beside her.  She does not hold the child’s hand like my father does with me; in fact she does not seem to want to touch it at all.  I sense a feeling of coldness radiating from her.  As my eyes lock with the child’s own, time seems to stop.  

     It’s a boy.
     
     I stare at him and he stares back at me.  He is so different from anyone I had ever seen before.  So different and strange and yet, so beautiful.  
     
     His face is angular, more than a child’s face should be, yet I find no similarities between his features and those of the woman next to him.  Although he looks no older than me, the hard angles and set of his jaw tell me that he has gone through a pain that I had yet to experience.  Whether that pain is emotional or physical I am not sure.  I see it not only in his face, but also in his eyes. 
     
     Black pools so deep that I feel myself getting in.  I watch them scan my own features, and while there is a small light of curiosity in them, it is almost drowned out by the sorrow I detect within. 
     
     His straight nose leads down to his thin lips, which are pressed firmly into a line.  On top of his head is a bed of messy, auburn hair, the only other thing with color in this otherwise colorless world.  I find his hair odd, everything else about him seems so orderly and yet this one singular aspect of him has been subjected to chaos.   
     
     We stare into each other’s eyes, his black ones into my brown ones.  I feel like I could stare into his eyes for an eternity, getting lost in them.
    
      Just then Father kneels down to whisper to me.  His words like that of a snake, slither into my ears.  

“Remember this boy.  Memorize each and every one of his features.” 

“One day, when you are older, you will meet this boy again.  He will mean a lot to you so you need to be able to recognize him.” 

I inhale once, deeply.

“There will be many others before him.” 

I don’t know why but this upsets me.

“But he will be the only one that will matter, so you can consider him your one and only.”

     As the reaches of my memory being to fade, the courtyard is swallowed up by a dark shadow.  The shadow contracts, soon the only thing that remains is the boy and his eyes.  Those orbs as black as night, still locked with mine.
     
My fathers words reach out to me in the darkness.

“The only boy you’ll ever kill.”