Deep Within

As Paul pulled his last remaining nuggets of self, he realized that the nuggets we still being actively deleted. He couldn't save them all. He was forced to look at the memories contained within each nugget and instantly choosing whether that memory was better or worse to save than the next he could not yet see. Each "non-selection" felt like ripping away a child from its mother' arms. It tore at his conscious to release the memories in optimism that he had better memories still ahead. The problem becomes obvious, how much of his decision making system get influenced by the memories that he is just now retrieving? In other words, how much of his decision is based on a child-like decision tree since most of the only memories left in his retreat away from the "thing" running away with his body.
Paul did not have that concern at the moment since he was trying to make smart gambles on his memories. As the entity pushed against Paul he selfishly pulled all that he collected into a hard ball. Tal'shen could feel the host shrink finally at some point it just became too small to bother with. She pushed the tiny hard ball to the side and continued her rampage through the host taking over all that she found.
Paul felt despair as he examined the memories, which would now define who he is and what he stands for. The pathetic collection looked like a TV montage of someone's life no real depth in them, and yet there was a consistency.
Paul's first kiss, his drivers license, his first date, his graduation…all the memories were happy memories, or at least they were the memories of his being happy.
Paul thought that, as he had collected these memories to save, they influenced his next selection, thus providing a bias to his selection process. He wondered in horrified fascination, what was he really like? Would he be a different person if he had chosen different memories? Who was he and what did he stand for? Going forward, if that was possible, Paul would not be able to know whether he was who he was before being attacked.
All that is academic, if he can't figure out how to do more than be a rock in this things shoe. Paul stared at himself through his memories and let out a sigh. Now what?