One, two, three... five. The number of times I've wondered how this place stood for this long without crumbling to the ground.

Of those five occurrences, three crossed my mind a little before, a little after my last run-in with architecture falling down around me, and the straggler taking place after a mishap with the bulkheads of my cell around seven months ago. If I had a sense of humor, I would've laughed as that cartoon played out. Four grown men slipping and falling on my clones as they flung themselves wildly onto the malfunctioning bulkheads which had clamped shut too tightly, springing their sealing mechanisms. They were trapped inside with me for to them probably felt like hours, though it was only three or so minutes by my count.

Not that I could capitalize on an opportunity like that. Too slow for a start, and other than consuming things from the inside, seeing as they had no appetite for invasive species of the intestines, I had no tools with which to fight them.

As for the others, well, that same number in metal shards were plunged deep into my body, really driving home how terribly designed these facilities are. I know it's stating the obvious, and believe me when I say I've never fully appreciated that fact, or this body of mine until now. If somehow I was brought into this hellhole, and I wasn't the 'me' I am now, I would've been dead... sure, getting devoured by horrors untold is one thing. You get used to that. It's another when you're witness to your own impalement.

That aside, the ceiling overhead is as one might guess, home to a veritable rat's nest of cables and pipes. Much like those from my birthplace and the ruins of my poor little abode, the holding tank, which suffered the most after the ensuing catastrophe. Most of them appeared to be what carried that pink fluid to all the devices around here, my tank included. And, judging from the shards' trajectory, those same pipes served as a delightfully vicious battery of grapeshot cannons. Their fuses no doubt lit by the reeling foundation of this suicidal plane simulator.

Metal plating parted and curled under the strain, opening wide to reveal bulging conduits, shortly followed by a fragmentary explosion. I did catch the spikes in my periphery before they hit their mark, faster than I could possibly react with my sluggish reflexes.

Oh, like I mentioned earlier, another conduit carrying a slightly more volatile green substance spewed over my holding tank, reducing it to a pile of smoking effluvium.

I didn't feel remorse for what was once my only home. What I can say is it remained the only constant in my life, unwavering and unchanging over the years when all hope edged further and further away from me. It's where I 'pretended' to sleep, and a place I could sit awhile without regard to the prying eyes behind stone walls. To see it brought low so abruptly... It will be missed.

But more importantly, what to do about my predicament?

Try as I might, I couldn't naturally squeeze myself out of them. Both shards were fairly long, irregular in shape yet retaining enough edge to puncture the floor. One obliquely pierced through, the other hugged closely to the ground, impeding attempts to extract myself from them. Moreover, the floor and projectiles had friction-welded together, ensuring my futile efforts to uproot them remained just that.

I did think of trying [Mass Division]. Splitting myself apart between the two pinons would work, if not for the skill's one glaring flaw: mass.

While I did consume the smallish creature from earlier, it only increased my body's mass to 120% of normal, falling just short of 140%, the threshold I had experimentally determined as the skill's activation minimum. Attempts to drop below that global minimum by myself through the skill did pretty close to nothing. It did wake up that voice enough to tell me, "[Notice: Insufficient Mass]." Very helpful. As if the lack of any reaction failed to clue me in.

All that said, if an external force were to carve me up, much like that old bastard did, then I probably could go beyond, although I shudder to think what that might mean for my sanity.

Wish I knew all that beforehand, would've saved me a great deal of time and effort. The voice in my head didn't have much to say other than the basic skill description and made no mention of these seemingly critical details no matter how I rephrased my questions. It didn't give an explanation for why I fell unconscious all those years ago either. Still don't know how to use mana, a core function of my two active skills. Only magic I've ever seen were the fancy lights those robed people use.

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Enough of my frustrations though.

Now while I did mention that I couldn't become any smaller than normal, what about the other way around? One might ask, "Why not simply store away all your mass for later? you could've done so all these years and become a gargantuan monster no one could dare hope to contain, so why not?"

I would then ask the asker, "Did you think I didn't try?"

250%. That's the maximum mass I can attain before [Mass Division] automatically kicks in to eliminate any excess, returning me to normal size. If I'm not mistaken, the only time I've ever managed to go beyond that limit was when I killed that tanned man three years ago...

I dejectedly waggled a little flap of goo around, and watched as the ceiling sagged lower. I probably wouldn't die. Probably. Ran the gamut of corrosive stomach acids, magic knives, and magic spells and so far, nothing has to date. Though it's too soon to conclude that when I haven't been buried in metric tons of stone and metal.

Just when I thought things were coming up me too. Why wouldn't I think so, when the bulkheads are wide open? Ah, and here I am venting again.

While I didn't notice them in the heat of the moment, they too must have gave way as the floor shifted, knocking their 'sturdy' framing out of alignment. The blue glow around their edges also dimmed and quickly died. Whatever's powering them is down too.

It's so close...

There must be some way...

A tinge of familiarity. I remember thinking this way, when I tried to find the old man. Why didn't I think of this sooner?

[Clone Telepathy]

The chaos soon drifted away, and I once again found myself in one of my clones.

Like many of the others before it, it was in a tightly enclosed space. Only this time, it was open.

Without hesitation, I curled around the drawer's lip, and fell onto the floor with an ungainly slop.

Although the visual connection I had with my clones came in crystal clear, motor control proved more of a challenge. The scale of my movements didn't match those of my own body, perhaps exacerbated by the distance between us. No consistency either. When I believed I had some semblance of balance, I'd find myself flip-flopping the opposite direction, snowballing from the slightest overstep.

Nevertheless, like a nascent caterpillar, I wriggled my way through a mortuary lined with hundreds upon hundreds of drawers. A few like the one I vacated were pulled ajar, thin fingers of vapor clutching at and dispersing into the air.

How many were they planning on keeping here...

A century's worth of somersaults later, My progress ground to a halt before a nigh insurmountable barrier: A door.

Many might take them for granted, a lock making the only difference whether one could operate one. As for me? Oh no. Height makes all the difference here. To make matters worse, even if I had the height there was no handle to reach for.

Another one of those high tech jobs, with a green gemstone scanner on the right hand side. If memory serves, you need a hand for one of those, and I lacked that sort of equipment.

Should I just widen my telepathy's range and roll a couple more times for a better clone?

I seriously considered the idea. It did seem reasonable to assume that the outages across the facility meant that there are other compromised containment areas. Maybe on the next attempt I might be outside? That's a thought...

Not. With my luck I'd wind up in the lowest circle of hell. There's no telling where I might end up, leading to a massive waste of time that could ultimately kill my original body, or worse, trap it forever.

Or maybe, daunting as it may sound, what would happen if I lost it? I believe I'm still technically in my original body, despite my awareness here. If anything were to happen to it... never mind that.

This has to be my best chance. Freedom is almost certain here. Just... Think.

[Clone Telepathy]

Rather than that, I focused on one of the drawers immediately beside me.

And down we go...

I waddled up close to my old self. It jiggled back and forth, a wobbling, ambiguous, blurry blob. An otherwise unresponsive and seemingly lifeless husk after my sudden departure.

Next...

This time, I painstakingly tried to heave myself onto the one I left before.

Again...

One by one, I dragged myself over and over, stacking up a great pyramid of wiggling mass.

Should be enough.

The slumping summit of Mount Gelatin rose up to meet the iridescent gem on the wall. Probably wasted more time doing this than rolling again. Still, I couldn't take the chance.

On closer inspection, the gem appeared to glow faintly. Imperceptible to the naked eye, at least for a human. I had a feeling that it was my 'eyes' that let me see it. As unlikely as it sounds, it probably had some power left.

Not sure what I'm doing up here.

A valid point, since only humans could activate it. Nevertheless, I drew closer, rubbing it in the hopes a benevolent deity might come out.

Yeah, definitely a waste of time...?

A thin green line swept past my midsection, reversed direction and passed again. Astonished, I watched as the door shook, cracked, and fell into the hallway beyond, away from its metal frame.

It... opened?