The world of the mindscape lay empty and quiet. Nothing moved, nothing breathed, and everything was silent. Then the rumbling started. The earth cracked and the sky darkened, as a beast opened its eyes.
Hunger. Pain. Curiosity.
For the first time in its life, it had gained sentience. It was still dominated by its base desires but now it could truly think! With a rumble, the beast’s hunger made itself known. It couldn’t remember the last time it ate but that would change. In the distance, it could make out a castle - a castle that radiated essence. Hunger. Oh, how delicious that essence tasted.
The world trembled as the beast started to move. Suddenly, purple chains materialised around it, binding it to the ground. It growled in frustration and tried to tear itself free but failed. How annoying. However, the beast wasn’t feared for its physical strength.
With a howl, it raised its claws into the air and commanded reality to obey its whim. Nothing. It thrashed and tore but no matter what it did, the chains wouldn’t budge. The beast couldn’t comprehend why its abilities had failed. Sentience hadn’t given it the capacity to realise that it was in a world where reality didn’t matter. Its ears twitched as it sensed the essence of the world move. An emotionless voice rang out across the world.
"Disturbance of local essence detected. Unknown entity detected. Countermeasures have been implemented."
The beast didn’t know who that voice belongs to but it also didn’t care. The only thoughts on its mind were how to get free and how to satiate its hunger. It strained again and this time, one of the links in the chain broke. The voice spoke again.
“Countermeasures have been deemed insufficient. Activating stronger containment measures.”
For a while, the only sounds that could be heard were of the beast struggling.
“Error. User permission required. Seeking permission from User… no User detected. Probational User and Former User do not meet criteria.”
Another link broke and the beast howled in triumph. It didn’t know what the voice was saying but soon it wouldn’t matter. Soon it would break free and finally feed.
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Sitting at the edge of the crater, I observed the last crack in the air close and breathed a sigh of relief. It had taken some time and a lot of effort to climb out of the pit but it looked like I was safe. Probably. I knew too little about the dangers of this world but for now, it would be best if I stayed optimistic.
After taking a while to recover I finally managed to stand up and gaze at my surroundings. A land of vibrant yellow colours stretched as far as the eye could see. It looked like the ground was a living being, moving with the wind and creating small hills and valleys that existed for only a moment before another gust took them away. The only sound that could be heard was the whispering of the wind that came and went as it pleased. My enthusiasm for living had taken a bit of a hit but this was enough to bring it back in force. Everything looked so vibrant and beautiful.
I went to my knees and grabbed a handful of sand, which promptly trickled through my fingers. There were thousands, no, millions of small pieces that created this living landscape. With the laugh of a madman, I threw the sand into the air and let it rain down on me. A move that I would come to regret, as pieces of it got into my eyes. It burned and only feverish scratching managed to remove it. Then I repeated my action but this time kept my eyes closed. The feeling of the sand trickling down my face was very pleasant.
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Still laughing at my stupidity, I stood up and looked around myself for the second time. Despite the beauty of the landscape, I still had to think about what I was going to do next. The first thing I wanted to do was get away from this crater. There was no need to risk the monster coming back. But that left the question of where to go.
No landmarks, no buildings, no living beings. Nothing that could help me orient myself. “Guess I’ll let chance decide,” I muttered.Pointing my claw in a random direction, I spun until I got dizzy and stopped. My claw was pointing towards the crater. After several more failed attempts, I gave up and just chose a direction at random. “Stupid chance,” I grumbled. Getting the same result five times was, on some level, impressive but right now it felt like some sort of joke. Still, this wouldn’t get my mood down. Not when I had a whole world to explore.
I started slow, as I was fairly new to moving. But over time I began to go faster and faster until I started running. My feet dug into the ground with every step and sprayed bits of sand into the air, while the barren landscape flashed by me. It was exhilarating and I could feel myself grinning.
I continued in this manner for a while until me breathing started to hurt and I was forced to slow down. My stamina was good but not endless. I took a look behind me and saw that I had traveled quite a distance, with the crater barely visible on the horizon. The rest of my view was still filled with sand. Wiping off some sweat, I walked at a leisures pace until I recovered.
From then on I traveled in this cycle of running and walking. During my running phase, I managed to cover a lot of distance, while the walking phase let me appreciate the beauty of the landscape. The movement of the sand was mesmerising, even if a bit monotone. Still, I was sure that this was only a small part of this world’s wonder. How did I know? Intuition and optimism. Other than continuing my journey there really wasn’t a lot to do, which left plenty of time to think.
The oddness of my situation wasn’t lost on me. There were so many unanswered questions. Why was I suddenly alive? What is this place? Are there other living beings? And most importantly, what was my plan? A lot of questions with no answers. The shock of living had partly worn off, which let the questions flood in. Flood… like water. Huh. Frowning, I stopped running. Wait, how did I know what water was? Suddenly everything shifted.
An empty white room. I tried to move but couldn’t. My head shifted to the right where I noticed the presence of a strange device. I hadn’t moved my head. It felt like I was watching events unfold as an outside observer, not in control of what was to happen. A voice reverberated from the machine.
“Test number 3.9 commencing. Goal of test: measuring the subject's ability to work under stress.”
Two holes opened up in the ceiling and water started to fill the chamber. My body sprung up and hectically moved around the room, seemingly looking for something. The water was already at knee height and steadily rising. Before I could see what would happen, my perspective switched again.
I found myself back in my body, standing there like nothing had happened. Rapidly blinking I tried to process what had just occurred. Did- what did I just witness? It took a lot of willpower to not break down right then and there. I had just seen something that I had no knowledge of ever witnessing. My life had begun mere moments ago, so from where was this vision? Did I see the world through someone else’s eyes? Yes, that had to be it.
This realisation made me calm down. It was still extremely weird and created many questions but at least it didn’t mean that I had somehow forgotten parts of my life. The thought of doing something and then forgetting it was very disturbing for me. But whose memory had I just seen and how? There was no explanation I could think of. Taking a deep breath I decided to try optimism. Maybe this was a one-time thing and I would have no further visions!
“As if,” I scoffed. Optimism could only get you so far until you ran dry. First the monster and then this vision. I was sensing a pattern. For now, there was nothing I could do. Many open questions had to wait, simply because I had no way of answering them. Maybe I would find answers later. Or not.
Thoroughly disturbed I started running again. Life was better than that eternal darkness but how much better was still up for debate. I only hoped that this was the last curveball that life threw at me. Wait, what was a curve- nope! Not going back there. Instead, I just continued moving, imagining leaving my problems behind. Surely, the rest of the world would be nicer. And filled with other thinking beings. It was honestly getting a bit lonely.