When I open my eyes, I see nothing around me. Actually, literally, nothing. It’s impossible to describe such a profound emptiness in any meaningful way. There is no light, but there is also no darkness. There is no space between the pockets of nothing, and yet there is also no open space. I can’t move because there is nowhere to move. I can’t breathe because there is nothing to breathe. I’m in stasis, but I'm also conscious.

Whatever hellish purgatory I’m in, I can’t even comprehend just how utterly empty it is, and every time I try, I stumble into new paradoxes I can’t resolve. Myriad thoughts rush through my empty mind. A moment and an eternity pass in the blink of an eye.

The moment I feel like I must be going mad, I finally hear something tangible, something I can latch onto and focus my weary mind to. But even it is full of contradiction.

A voice. A thousand voices in concert, speaking as one. I can’t seem to comprehend if it’s male, female, elder, child, human, beast, or monster. It is all these things and so much more, and yet none of them. It strikes me with such terrible awe that I almost miss the words entirely. “A new arrival from a diligent kitten,” it declares, its voice(s?) cycling between every conceivable tone that makes it impossible to interpret its intent.

The void goes silent once more, and I feel like I’m expected to say something. I’m too terrified to speak, but I somehow do it anyway. “T-Tyler… I’m Tyler Snow.” I decide to say. I suppose introducing myself to the entity is my only real option besides maybe pleading reverence, but I feel somehow that that would just annoy it.

“I am Aegis. I rule this realm, and at the behest of Sai’Andra Rhodes, I will grant you my gift.”

Oh. This was Aegis. I was speaking directly to god, it would seem. I suppose I did die after all. Holy shit, I’m dead. Wait, no, I can’t think about that right now. Somehow, I have more important things to wonder about.

I feel a scrutinizing gaze pierce through me while I’m being ignored, followed by a pang of both panic and gentle calm. “Interesting. You already bear my sister’s gift.” it intones with what I can only interpret as equal parts curiosity and rage. “And yet…” the voice calms and becomes excited.

There is a momentary eternal pause in the conversation in which I’m considered by god, and it makes me feel so very small and yet of universal import.

I feel like I’m going to be driven insane just by this eldritch being’s presence if I have to continue to interpret the endless facets of its cursory glance. I want to scream.

And then suddenly, the presence becomes simple. The void I stand in becomes understandable, almost corporeal, and the cacophony of contradictions cease entirely. My head feels fuzzy, but I blink and move like I ordinarily would, glancing around to look for the presence before I hear a melodic female voice call from every direction in the surrounding void “I’m sorry.”

Did… Did god just apologize to me? “F-For what?” I stammer without thinking, and immediately regret the words spilling out of my mouth. What the hell, me!? You can’t just ask a deity that almost just exploded your mind by accident to clarify what it’s sorry for!

And yet it acquiesces. “I do not ordinarily require this long to ponder a soul. I apologize for exploding your mind.” it speaks somehow both monotonously and with a powerful sympathy. It’s still a contradiction, but I can understand that singular oddity without the cacophony of other things around it. “I have muted my presence while I comprehend you.”

Wait, it heard my exploding mind thought? Of course, it’s god, it can hear my thoughts. Why not? “Umm… I’m sorry. If I’m… weird. Or something. Did I do something wrong?”

“I do not blame children for my sister’s meddling, no. Her gifts can ordinarily be discarded with your shell.” There is an actual pause as I feel a ponderous presence on me “How very interesting, though.” it declares, a beat of silence punctuating the declaration.

And with that, the terrifying chaos returns in full force, but I’m too distracted by the familiar pull as I am once more disembodied into a mote of my own essence, far more rapidly than the succubus before it. There’s no perverse pleasure taken in this, it's a fast, surgical motion practiced billions of times by the god, and I hardly have time to acknowledge it before it's over. I stare with my disparate soul sense at the only other thing among the nothingness: My own body. My spirit.

I watch as it’s engulfed wholly in an unholy blaze of darkness, its ashes scattering into nothingness. My humanity, extinguished in an instant, disappears into the aether. A terrifying sense of loss tries to wash over me, but it feels muted. I feel a profound sense of something new that makes the emptiness of the missing piece of myself feel lighter. Potential. Infinite potential. And it’s calling for guidance.

The cacophonous amalgam of voices calls out once more “What are you, Tyler Snow?”

A calm silence washes over me, and I understand intuitively that it’s awaiting input. It wants to know: What do I believe to be the totality of my being? God wants me to proclaim what I believe to be the very base of my nature, and it’s willing to await my answer.

I barely know who I am, though. I only have a small sample of my own memories to go off of. I was a human being named Tyler Snow. I was a nineteen-year-old man. I went to college and worked a part-time job at a coffee shop. I… something about paint?

Thoughts rush in when I recall that detail as god nudges my memories back into place. Paint. Acrylics. Watercolor. Brushes. A tablet. Pencils. Paper. Words and feelings. Poetry. Beautiful worlds of my own creation. All these things wash over me and make me feel… so thrilled. And so very sad. And so many other emotions. I was an artist.

Aegis still awaits my answer, however. It doesn’t wish to glean it from my thoughts. It wishes for me to declare it with intent. How can I declare what I am in a more profound way than an artist? It doesn’t take me long before the word comes, though. I try to clear my throat, though find my form lacking. Still, I prepare myself to speak out with my non-existent voice and call as loudly as I can into the nothingness, my soul ringing out through its own disembodied cry, clear as day.

“I am a creator!”

The deafening chaos returns for just a moment before ceasing, feeling something like surprise. Amusement. Joy. Fear. And then it once more collapses to a single tone. “We will speak again, Tyler Snow.”

And suddenly, I am engulfed in change.

—

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

In a bright flash, I feel reality filling back in around me. Concrete. Fire. Metal. I’m back. So many things feel different, though. Sharper. The fire in front of me has grown to enormous proportions, larger than my full body size, and I feel very close to the ground. “H-Huh?” I stammer in what can't possibly be my own voice, looking down and seeing not my familiar body, but only a pair of claws.

Claws?

They’re thin muscular legs covered in tightly-arranged cyan scale, tipped with sharp black talons. I lift one up. They’re mine. I have claws. I turn it over to look at the underside of my new limb, also covered in hard scale. I slump over onto one side, losing my balance a little as I realize these are my FRONT claws. I am quadrupedal!

“Ugh, seriously?” comes Sai’andra’s voice from somewhere above me, and I turn sharply, almost falling again as I stumble over my own legs trying to turn in place and get back on my feet.

But then I do fall back, throwing my body in a panic, instinctually dodging what I momentarily interpret as danger when I see Sai, and that I no longer reach up to even a third of HER diminutive height!

I stare up at the towering nekomata, and I breathe heavily as she glares judgementally with her now glowing blue eyes. I wonder of the significance of her constantly changing eye color for only a moment before I shout out incoherently “Sai! Y-You’re huge!”

“No, you’re small, idiot.” She mumbles. I watch as a large hand-mirror materializes in her grasp “Congrats, you’re a drake.”

She props the mirror down against a small rock on the floor at my height, and I scramble back up into my new four-legged gait to look.

The reflection is entirely alien to me, and I can’t help but to stare. A sharp, triangular head marked with numerous horns, is supported by a long muscular neck. A thick, scaled torso, close to the ground, shifts seamlessly into a long tapered tail. Four lithe clawed legs support the whole body. And on top of its back are two folded, scaled leather wings. It looks like a dragon. A very tiny dragon.

And this is me. This is what I actually am now. A demon. Just like that. I stare in stunned silence, trapped between wondering the terrible fate I’ve fallen into, but also an eagerness to explore. “I’m… a dragon.” I mouth experimentally, watching my very wide mouth open and close in such a way that makes talking still feel completely natural. My voice is higher pitched than it was before, closer to a child’s, but with a strange rasp to it.

“Please, you’re a drake. They’re like, the rats of this world.” Sai clicks her tongue “And you’re stuck with it.”

“What do you mean I’m ‘stuck with it’? You told me I’d be changing into a bunch of different demons.” I glare up at Sai. Did she lie to me? I keep staring at the mirror though, moving my facial muscles as I try to get used to the monster I’m seeing as ‘me’.

“Yeah, but you always return to the same form when you die.” Sai sounds… annoyed about my form. Does she have a thing against drakes?

Wait, die? “I thought I was immortal!” I pout.

“Semantics.” Sai shrugs “You can’t actually die, but when you’re beaten to the point of death, you’ll revert to this state. Every time. And yes, that’s going to happen. Inexperienced demons die a lot, and frankly, I may just need to use you to take a hit for me now and then if we’re together.” She gives me a mischievous smile, her eyes shifting to orange again.

Pragmatically, that makes sense. It sounds extremely unfair, given I know that I’ll still feel the pain and suffering of a violent death even if it would never take, but if it comes down to a choice, my pain is probably worth less than Sai’s life since she is ultimately mortal. I shiver. That feels like a weirdly natural thought. Is my pact with her influencing my thoughts?

I catch something moving in my own reflection. My eyes were blue for a moment, but when I move to inspect them, they suddenly move to a brilliant green. Huh. Maybe all demons’ eyes just shift colors like that? I immediately become distracted again as my wings shift slightly, in counterbalance to me moving to my side. I hadn’t done it consciously, but it drew attention to them, and I suddenly become excited. I have wings! I lift them, the muscles obeying me as if they were limbs I'd had for my entire life as I unfurl them and beat them against the ground a few times, stretching the thick membrane as I might have stretched my arms as a human. They feel stiff and solid, but they’re wings! “Oh! Ohhh! Can I fly!?” I exclaim hopefully. Flying! That sounds amazing! Being able to soar through the air, cutting through the sky with my wings! That would feel amazing!

Sai shrugs, extreme disinterest plain on her face. This is new and exciting to me, but she just looks bored. “Not really. You could probably glide if you started someplace high, but drake wings are for defense and balance, not flying.”

I look down at the ground. That’s admittedly disappointing. I note I can see my snout when I look down. Wait. Snout. Dragons have magic breath, right? “Can… I breathe fire?”

“Nope. You can tell by the scale color, you’re a frost drake. Hah. Like your last name. Snow. I get it. Sometimes Aegis has at least a little sense of humor I guess.” She finally cracks a smile as I turn completely around for the mirror, looking myself over in whole.

Frost drake. So that means I can breathe ice? I take in a deep breath and focus on it. It feels like instinct. I just know implicitly how to infuse my element into it, and I exhale sharply into the ground, the cement covering itself in a thin layer of rime, a few crystals coating the surface. It feels… nice. I put my claw into the cold patch. It feels REALLY nice! I make an experimental jump, lifting my claws and pushing down on the spot that still somehow remains just as cold despite being surrounded by the warm air for a few moments now. Feeling my claws against it makes me feel wonderful! I inhale again and spray a wider area, spinning in place to paint a circle on the ground immediately around me with ice. I feel… happy. In my element.

I can’t help myself. I scamper across my small cold patch, running back and forth and getting excited as my claws expertly grip the slippery surface and I feel the cold permeate my scales. When I start letting out excited giggles, however, I stop in my tracks. This… wasn’t like me.

This was very much not like me.

“Ah, there it is. The realization.” Sai giggles darkly to herself “I already told you, demons are creatures of instinct. And you, kid, have no idea how to control yours yet.”

I blush. Or at least I know I would blush if I had visible skin. I was just acting like a carefree child, excited by the snow. I don’t know what came over me. This was instinct?

Sai sighs, her eyes, blue again, still looking mildly annoyed at my presence. “Drakes pathologically need to spread their elements all over the place. It’s annoying. Your little frost circle here is gonna stick around for at least a day if no one cleans it up.”

Part of me wants to say sorry. I did something annoying and it only feels polite. But I like it. I like the cold a lot, and I want more of it. And besides, I’m a demon now too! I can be strong!

“Well…” I say nervously “I think it feels nice.” I hold my head up proudly “Maybe I’ll just make more ice.” I hold my head up high and try to make myself look big, smiling defiantly at Sai.

Sai looks unamused. I see her eyes flash a glint of orange, and then she pulls her leg back. Wait, is she-?

With a devastating cracking sound, I feel the wind get knocked out of me as her foot contacts the side of my body. I lose my footing and feel myself lift off the ground as I suddenly go flying across the room, into a concrete wall. THROUGH the concrete wall. And then another. And finally skidding to a rolling stop on the street outside, my scales scraping across the asphalt until I come to a halt in a confused heap.

Holy shit. Holy shit! Sai just punted me! Through a wall! Because I talked back to her! And it… kinda barely hurt? I mean, it hurt, but it was nothing compared to the impact I felt when I was human. It was like the difference between touching a hot pan and being set on fire. I am… very durable.

Still, I stay on the ground, gasping as my tiny lungs remember how to draw in air, and watching the wall that she had catapulted me through.

“Lesson number one on demon instinct!” Sai calls as she walks around the corner, having exited the building through a proper door out of sight. “Demons are selfish, arrogant, mischievous assholes who will solve any problem we can with violence.” She declares loudly as she slowly approaches me. I flinch as she reaches down, and she quickly yanks me up by one of my wings to hold me up face to face with her. “All of us.”

And in that moment, the illusion of Sai’andra’s uncomplicated, kind, and caring nature shatters. I’m terrified of her power and experience. I’m terrified that she’ll hit or throw me or worse. I’m terrified that this is the woman that I’ve bound myself to for my foreseeable future.

But I’m also terrified because she’s completely right. And so I blow a lungful of frost in her face.