Nobody walked through the eternally long halls. They were deserted, the only company the man had was the wind. Solitude never bothered him, so he took it as a good sign.

The corridors were tainted in darkness, with no sources of light in sight whatsoever. The walls, the ceiling, and the floor were made of the same type of stone bricks, dark grey. Sometimes, the man could see a cell. They were mostly empty, but once in a while, one was inhabited.

The residents of the prison weren’t like him, they were abominations. Rotten bodies that had lost the light in their eyes. Some were more physical, and others... were more like apparitions than real beings. Nonetheless, they remained in their cells, with no need for wardens. They were always looking elsewhere, with the ego out of their eyes. The prisoners were broken and had no wish to escape.

The man found them repulsive.

In his mind, there was nothing more hideous than giving up on life, and these creatures had done so a long time ago.

He didn’t bother interacting with them, instead, he continued merging with the shadows, walking on the darkest corners of the unlit corridors.

The lack of activity began to worry him. He had been walking for a long while, enough that five percent of his biomass had been burned away. Fat was a good method to store calories and energy, but muscles were not. And his body was mostly composed of muscles.

If the exit didn’t show itself, he would need to find more wardens or he would end up losing all of his biomass. It was still soon, yes, but he didn’t like the pattern he had seen so far.

The gelid winds and the muffled cries for help continued to thrash him, but he just ignored them as he had always done. Where did they even come from? The prisoners weren’t crying, and he was indoors so no wind could flutter around. This prison became weirder and weirder the more he thought.

Thought.

A capability he had gained after assimilating enough biomass. His previous, decayed body was unable to do so. Or at least in a meaningful way.

Taking into consideration the pressing need to find the exit or more wardens before his biomass ran out, the man shapeshifted his legs into something more appropriate.

The reference frame was of those creatures that hunted rodents. They were weak, scrawny, and fluffy, but also stealthy and agile. He was mostly interested in the shape of their legs. They worked differently than those of him or the wardens.

He couldn’t say they were outright better than his, though. They were different. The four-legged hunter’s leg was composed of three sections in a zig-zag pattern, unlike his two which were mostly straight. This separation allowed the hunter to jump into a sprint faster, and probably maintain that speed, but it came at a cost. The greater separation made the overall structure weaker. His legs could absorb some hits, but the hunter’s legs would be decimated in one strike.

Greater speed for lower defense.

The man didn’t know if such speed was more efficient than his current one because what mattered now was reducing the rate at which he was burning biomass.

Only one way to find out.

He sat on the ground, raising his legs to the ceiling. He did this in order to reduce the strain on the legs as he shifted them. Shapeshifting parts of his body was painful and bloody, especially if he did so in a hurried manner.

This time though, he was intelligent about it.

With the raised legs, they were now easier to manipulate than before. Then he found out that if he just left them stretched on the ground as he sat down, the load would be even lower because the muscles wouldn't have to fight against gravity.

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The main change was in the skeletal structure of the legs, making new bones where there were none, though the amount of bone remained the same. He had only repurposed it in other locations.

Having said so, the shifting did not only occur on the skeleton. His muscles and blood vessels had to also be shifted in accordance with the new bone structure. The blood vessels were easy, but the muscles had been complicated to move around. He had never had such a colossal amount of anything as he now did with his musculature. It was difficult to move it around as the ligaments were incredibly tense and dense. But sooner than later, he managed.

After a while, he stood up with an energetic inhalation, feeling reinvigorated.

The change wasn’t due to the shifting of his body, but the small moment of respite. He hadn’t noticed, but his body needed to relax and reduce stress. This was his first time exerting himself, so he didn’t know that was a factor.

He pressed into a sprint.

Suddenly, the surrounding corridors became a blur thanks to his newfound speed. He had been walking all this time, but now... he was running.

The simple act of moving fast felt exhilarating. Energetic, even if he was burning speed at a higher rate than before. He didn’t know that just moving could be... fun. This was his first time doing so after being incarcerated for all his existence.

It was nice.

The man had to watch out for every step as a single misaligned stone brick could make him trip and fall to the ground. At his current speed, that would mean that the impact would break his neck, and whilst that wouldn’t outright kill him, it would be painful, nonetheless. And pain was bad.

He had only known pain.

He wanted to learn something besides pain.

He pressed further into his run, the corners of his vision becoming a blur, the air slightly distorting more as he pressed further.

No signs of wardens. He pondered in his trance-like state. His mind was fully focused on his every step, trying to maintain balance with this speed. Considering that in these last minutes he had traversed more distance than his time since his liberation, it was getting distressing.

Why did those two other wardens be nearby his cell, but no more were to be seen? He didn’t know many things and never bothered to try to learn them, maybe by speaking with the wardens? Now he wished he had tried to learn. Being ignorant of everything outside of himself was... distressing.

The man’s speed decreased as he saw something on the horizon.

A light.

It was dim, but it was certainly light. It took him a few seconds to completely stop his movement. His feet scraped down on the ground as he tried to stop the momentum, but it was a difficult endeavor. It could seem that decelerating was harder than accelerating.

He went down to a crouch, his extremities on the ground as if he was a four-legged creature. That light felt warm, especially in the surrounding darkness. It didn't mean hope, but danger.

The light had a light blue coloration. It felt as gelid as the ever-present wind.

With careful and slow steps, he prayed forward like a hunter. There was something unsettling in that light. But when he got close, he noticed there was no one around. No wardens, no anything.

The light blue hue came from a small hole in the walls of the corridor.

He felt the hairs on his head stand up with every step he took. Was it freedom, what awaited on the other side of the wall, or something else?

Then, carefully crawling under that hole, he slowly raised his head to look beyond it. He didn't find any freedom. He found something worrying.

Before him, there lay a massive hole. Looking down, he only saw darkness, but looking up, darkness also followed. It felt infinite. Up and down both ways. But inside that darkness, there was something else.

A radiance.

It was the light he got seen from the hole in the wall. It wasn't like the light his flames had done, but they appear more like some kind of mist. The light acted as if it was tangible moving around like the wind.

It shouldn't work like that, he thought. Should it?

In the infinite darkness, it took him a bit of time to find the pattern along the walls. The hole wasn't a natural formation but a result of the spiraling corridors.

The man noticed how the walls of the hole were actually the other side of the walls of the corridors slowly descending into the hole. The angle of the descent was outrageously slow, maybe kilometers upon kilometers for a single variation of a meter in altitude.

The only positive out of his realization was that he had been walking in the right direction. But considering how slow was the ascent, that wasn’t much of a positive.

He couldn't even see the ceiling. So how many hours, days, weeks, or even years would it take him to walk all the way up from the corridors?

Walking wasn't the right answer.

The man shifted the biomass of his body to his right hand, gathering a lot of muscle and bones on the fist. In no time, his right fist was even bigger than his torso. Then he smacked the cracked corridor wall.

The walls partially collapsed. The small hole became wider. Or at least, wide enough for him to step into it.

He jumped into the nothingness.