Discomfiture soon set in. I was, in fact, not human anymore.

That fact didn't strike me as significant at first. Most of my attention drew toward and was subsequently overwhelmed by the numerously faceted yet not so numerous stimuli around me, leaving me with little time to ponder over my sense of self. But as that initial bewilderment faded, I began to fret over the implications of what I'd become. I was in thrall to identity crisis: was I still the same person I thought I was? Will I turn into a monster, or was that already a foregone conclusion?

That insecurity grated on whatever constituted my nerves. Even as I whiled away the time, messing around a bit, which consisted of flattening and flipping myself like a fritter, my mind drifted back to those questions. Only to pile on more layers of uncertainty and more gears to grind.

Distractions from it all were few and far between. I made several dozen circuits around my abode, and that activity quickly dulled. On the bright side, I ironed out a relatively smooth cadence to my ungainly strides. I couldn't test how fast I could go. The fluid put up far too much resistance against my efforts to determine a top speed, which amounted to little more than agonizing slow motion. Besides, my little pink bastille was impregnable and potentially necessary for survival. Essentially, barring any hopes of testing myself on the outside.

Not that there was much for me to do out there anyway. Is what I came to accept, albeit with a touch of disappointment. As long as I remained this helpless, sitting here was about all I could do until some external influence came into play.

At least, that was my belief until my entire world began to flush down the drain. Quite literally.

The drain plateaued at a lethargic pace. Though, desipite no eyes or true sense of touch, I could detect the minuscule changes in its flow. Perhaps sensitivity to changes in my environment trailed as an addendum of my senses, or simply a result of texture. Couldn't say.

Regardless, It became apparent that my little world was a cylindrical vessel or storage tank, when the fluid level dropped far enough to expose my upper body to open air. I don't believe it would take much of a detective to see that it had to be an exhibit tank or specimen container of some kind. Which of these were true wasn't of any consequence, nor did I know which to accept. I was on display either way. The thought made me a little self-conscious, as frivolous as that sounded. The idea of people looking at me when I couldn't see them was a bit disturbing, and a shameless invasion of privacy!

Although that probably isn't important right now...

Up until now, I wasn't able to sense what was above, or really much of anything save simple textures or presence. It was just a hypothesis, but whatever the pink substance was may have blocked what I could only refer to as my sense of sight. I could clearly discern the top and bottom now, plated with a silvery metal I assumed to be stainless steel or some similar alloy. On the bottom, slightly offset from center, which oddly enough I hadn't noticed before with my sense of texture, a circular drain with a coarsely-stippled grating sunk into the steel.

Sure enough, I was right in guessing the walls were glass, transparent, though I still couldn't see through it. Its surface blurred unaturally, glittering and morphing in the same way the fluid blocked my perception of the floor and ceiling.

I assumed the sensory interference was by consequence rather than design. The way I saw it, no one would suspect something like me to possess sapience, let alone sight. Assuming there were people around to suspect, which there likely were. My abode was unequivocally artificial. Nature certainly had no hand in it save for maybe the materials comprising it.

I hoped nobody saw me. It would be no small surprise for someone if they noticed a mass of whatever I was flopping around in a tank, vigor and intelligence on broad display.

In any case, boggled by the sudden change in environment, I was left to helplessly watch the last of my fluid wash down the grating. In a desperate but farsighted attempt, I wriggled over to catch the last drippings inside the folds of my body, just in case it truly kept me alive. Not that I had any assurance that it would, or if the measly bead of the stuff was enough insurance against starvation, but if I was going to survive what came next, anything would help.

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And so, I braced myself for whatever Fate had in store for me.

She didn't keep me waiting. Almost immediately, the top of the tank lifted open, revealing the ceiling of my domicile to be a hinged cap to the tank. A presence loomed so close it gave me a start. It hovered momentarily above me, pivoting this way and that as though unsure from which angle to attack. When it finally settled on a strategy, it scooped me from underneath, only to slosh me into yet another, albeit confined, container.

Now free from the fluid of my tank, for the first time, I beheld the world with a clarity I could not believe.

My senses flared, nearly blinding me as I took in my new surroundings. The first thing my attention fell on was the tank. It sat against a gray-stone wall and, from my new perspective in my captor's arms, it wasn't as big as I thought. A meter or so tall, and about half that in radius. Bundles of tubing and copious amounts of cabling snaked their way upward to the open, slotted alloy cap, obfuscating the myriad connections from view. I suppose the lines constituted the control and refill system once the pink fluid emptied. As for the rhyme or reason of it was, needless to say, lost on me.

Everything that wasn't the tank was nothing short of technical. Ethereal, three-dimensional holograms, consoles, and unidentifiable paraphernalia cluttered the room, cramping most of the floor space. It had that steampunk vibe of valves and mysterious looking gems, in contrast against the high-tech incongruities jumbled in the mix.

Fascinated as I was by my not-so-humble beginnings, I was far more curious about the identity of my porter. To my surprise, he had more human-like qualities than I imagined, unlike my own not-so-recognizable self. Sallow, thin-faced, and remarkably wide-eyed. The man fit so well with the mad-scientist archetype that with the long, unkempt shock of graying hair, I could've easily mistaken him for an emaciated and austere clone of the titan of physics himself. Only one piece was missing, and that was the trademark lab coat. In its place, he wore white robes with a curious four-pointed star emblem on his left breast, close to where his heart would be.

After taking me into custody, the old man's destination wound around and around numerous gray-brick corridors and stairs all leading up. His lop-sided gait, every so slightly meandering to the right, forced him to heave his hip to the next step. It took conscious effort on his part to keep to a straight path even on flat ground.

It reminds me of a certain whaling captain from long ago. Of course, without the wooden peg.

I was beginning to wonder how many more stairs he'd climb. More than half-a-dozen lingered behind, and we were poised on our ninth set when we arrived at an ominous-looking set of dark metal double-doors off to the side. Another of those colored gems protruded from a control panel on the right-hand side. He placed a corresponding hand over top of it.

For a moment, nothing happened. Hand wavering over the viridescent jewel, foot tapping impatiently against the stone floor. Then, a fine, green-colored laser line began a scan of his outstretched hand, moving from the tips of his fingers down to the bottom of his palm.

This place really loves to build up this whole sci-fi motif to the limit.

I half expected to see cocktail-serving androids somewhere. But some of the background feels different from what I'd expect of the genre. Who uses crystals instead of electronics?

The double doors swung open to announce the completion of the security check, to which he promptly shambled through.

It was back. That strange interference that blocked my sight before. I couldn't tell if the walls were metal or stone, obscured behind a blurry warping of the space in front of them. The same went for the floor and ceiling. They yawned open, bending the spaces to look like a bottomless void above and below. Clearly, that wasn't the case, as the eccentric man unhesitatingly walked right above and below them, wholly unaware or more alarmingly unconcerned by the non-Euclidean departures from reality, and deposited my container onto an altar-like table positioned on a wide metal dais. Which, naturally, floated above the void, mocking the very laws of physics.

Beckoned by his entrance, a number of other robed persons who only just arrived through the double-doors joined him. They gathered around the dais, deathly serious. It was difficult not to feel uneasy. They were, after all, staring at me.

Without warning, the lid on my container opened and its contents -namely me- unceremoniously dumped onto the altar. Not that I felt any pain. It did, however, wound my pride a little. The man from earlier didn't bother to reprimand them, opting instead to focus on me, thick eyebrows furrowed.

What are you looking at?

That was, of course, a rhetorical question. I couldn't help but fume at how uncaring he scowled at me. As though I amounted to little less than an object, rather than a living being to respect.

The others pressed in closer. One of them handed him a sharp instrument. It had the same kind of blurring affect on it, which piqued my interest. Until now, it only applied to my surroundings, but to see the same behavior in something so small one could hold it drew my attention.

I watched as he lowered it into me. If I had to guess, a fruit knife? Maybe a bit bigger and thicker around the midpoint of the blade.

What exactly is he doing..?

Before the next thought could streak through my little body, a dense fugue had taken hold of my senses. Barely conscious, I silently screamed as my entire being tore in two.