The feeling... The oblivion of the essence of a mortally bloodstained island, created by the greatest mass among others, a singularity filled with half-human aspirations, quests, chaotic thinking impulses, and bodily torments. A new boundless wave erupted in an infinite, spine-tingling echo, after which all sounds disappeared, all images vanished, and all emotions faded away. There were no foreign words. No body and its memories. No birth. And no more tales. The moral was erased by meaninglessness, and it was consumed by emptiness. There was everything. There was nothing. A grave silence descended. Colorless vectors of the lowest mass spread out, and the densest structure of existence twisted in an instant into a distorted line on the quilted sheen of the bottomless milky canvas, stitched from the nets of undepamid coverings of visual flesh.
The tremor of aimless darkness softly illuminated with bright flares, blurring again and again in the gloom, and reappearing like freckled spots before someone's endlessly closed eyes. Struggling for death in someone else's understanding. A cold wind stubbornly settled like a draft in the ears. The singular space around turned into a haunting cocoon, within which old memories and illusions without organically structured chromosomal masks and their designs were born, having no limits and infinitely entangled roots. All the colors of existence, the spectra of foreign singularities, the unity of feelings and emotions converged with existence and the virginity of chaos, submitting to someone's will. It was a fall. Long, irreversible, and equally aimless. It was a new moment that enveloped in a deep and indestructible coma.
A moment that embraced in the arms of a strong and reliable sleep. These seemingly shimmering cliffs with a pale halogen tinge silently and joyously screamed, scattering like heavy shards following a mutilated fiction. Rejecting and at the same moment ushering the eyes of separation, it seemed reluctantly adjusted this mad seam of thin vacuum layer, where no boundary was visible. What awaits them all below? Another meeting, the pain of decay? An end or perhaps a new beginning? The main thing is not to lose the familiar gaze.
Yellow-orange birds rise in an unreal cradle, in which everything is gathered. Including the memory of existence, laid under the weight of organic decay and its uncontrollable rebirth. A one-time natural cycle, a wave after which absolutely everything disappears. The beats of their wings against the atmospheric absence, the rustle of velvet feathers awakened hearing. And their new voices urged someone's thought to fill itself with a fierce tide of blood, developing within the limits of bodily sleep, from which a human hand attempts to break free. Just like a blind, cold-beaten two-week-old kitten, unaware of anything but hunger, it scratches its fingers against the intangible void, tearing off chunks of scorched singularity. Muscles, joints, and nails suffer from pain, cramps in the fingers and shoulders moving only in one direction, liberating from the shackles of nature and non-being. Understanding follows the voice, a serene and very pleasant sound. This is yet another wave, after which new life is born.
***
I woke up in the middle of a hot and endless desert that once was called "the beach." An illusion, a chaotic vision of the mind, or an inevitable reality? It's pleasant to look at, but painful to feel, knowing where all its winding, acid directions lead. Once, there was black sand, spacious green meadows, and many lakes where fish swam and sugar canes grew. On this entire island, there lived a single settlement of people, which was once struck by great cannon shells. Torture, a thrilling sensation of a deformed body. Emotions blend into an uncontrollable fear, a darkness washed by the violent flow of organic molecules. Time of accompaniment. The surrounding space continues to breathe, now alongside all my ten fingers. It was very hot; my skin burned and was covered with horrible pain from the touches of the wet garments of a soldier drenched in blood and some dark fluids. He had a young woman's face, marred with dirty scratches, plates, burns, and thick yellow hair resembling dense wheat. In her velvety ears dangled broken and scratched animal ears, bloodied and weak; they did not move. Eyes, eyebrows, and nose. They were caked with dried earth and twisted crimson branches of decaying nature. She had four ears. So many, perhaps? And her face was motionless, like that of a corpse or a deeply sleeping animal, striving for oblivion under the weight of bullets and the harshest blows of nature, leaving fatal wounds all over her body. This is the first time I see this creature.
A person...? Or is she something else...? And this guy looks like a human. He suffers too, knows where to go and what to do right now. I obey him, trying to hold the right hand and leg of this half-fox against my left side, but I am so weakened that with every passing moment I fear losing her by accident, even though we make small climbs. I can't bear it. Flesh seems to be slowly tearing apart, separating from bones, joints; soon everything will begin to tear slowly along with the tendons I know, remember, but do not understand what they are. It hurts. My joints prick; they feel as if they are engulfed in flames that are about to melt my limbs. A bitter taste of sweat on my lips. It rolls down my face, my body, which itches terribly. I don't know who I am or where I'm heading. I am completely a stranger here. Where is this "here"? Does it make sense? Should I be here? How disgusting, all of this. The sensations. They dig under my skin, scratching roots on my head, as if squeezing salty juices from my eyes. I want to rid myself of the pain in my knees and spine; otherwise, I feel I will soon lose consciousness from everything surrounding my body and mind's chaos. I cannot allow myself to fall, to sleep. I might drop this creature...
The half-fox probably doesn't breathe, which I warned the similarly young-looking guy about. He said I was talking nonsense and that I should grab her body again and continue carrying the wounded one with him. I see no other options before me and around that would ease my condition and help us reach the nearest patrol quickly. I don't even understand, how does one think? What does all this mean, what I am trying to do with these people... These beings? Is reality before me, or a very bright, burning dream that scorches my senses? Can I somehow ease her suffering? But how...
Who am I? Where am I and what am I doing? My fingers, palms. They are so pale, almost gray like some ancient marble statue, due to the narrow, dense wrinkles covering my skin like deep, spreading cracks. Am I old? Or am I almost dying... My hair covers my forehead; it itches badly along with my nails. In my left eye, there's a throbbing sharp pain that cannot be eased with a mere blink, although, if I try to keep the eyelid closed, the pain becomes barely noticeable, yet somewhat weaker.
Fear and amazement. A woman made of metal, with thick gray hair and large multicolored feathers. The brightest were green, blue, and red, just like her eyes, shimmering like lively light orbs of her massive beast resembling a patchworked gray wolf and a bright red fox. They stood on a high rocky slope between crumbling, golden sand towers and hardened soil, in whose shade dark green shoots swayed. The sky above her was just as clear, infinitely blue, seeming to touch my forehead. And around, an endless golden ocean of stones, rising in mounds of sand. It rises around like grass. Somehow, I understood that she wanted to harm them. I decided to somehow hold the woman and the angry mutant next to her, to learn about her, her reasons, and thoughts. Perhaps her favorite color, drink, and activity that distracts from bad thoughts. They must exist since she is one of those beings that want to kill, thirst for change, to destroy.
I felt nauseous. My consciousness was dissolving, threatening to disappear and drain the remnants of willpower from my limbs, legs and arms, eyelashes and lips. I wanted to end my incomprehensible existence, to rid myself of the inexhaustible destructive discomfort. Everything around me seemed blurry, as if I were looking at hundreds of similar paintings surrounding me from all sides. Like the vision of an ordinary fly, dodging collisions with many different worlds. Be it a rock, shards of dirt, rays of the warming sun, or a living figure surrounded by golden-gray dust among hundreds and thousands of tall trees leaning over narrow overgrown paths. I was almost losing consciousness. My legs were giving way, running somewhere sideways, rising and stumbling. A piercing sharp pain seized my arm, and then something burned me intensely. A translucent blue snake on a white stone. My right hand sparkled with bright colors, but only for a moment. They were beautiful, bright, fantastically colorful fleeting bonds of an atmospheric phenomenon, dissolved like a mirage. Just like the eyes of that woman. They emanated unbearable pain that made me want to scream, somewhere deep inside me.
Almost blue lips, pale skin almost like mine. Her right hand resembled mechanical sharp claws, just like those of an owl or an eagle. Like birds? Someone had broken her face. Inside, between her cheeks and nose, were her bones? Beads, countless spinning purple beads scattering across mechanical grooves, structures of organic channels and subcutaneous networks. I trembled, choking on my own blood, while I sat beside her, not understanding what to do. Should I lift her? Touch something? How to do it right? And then I realized that I couldn't even count. Numbers, letters, I understood nothing. How old am I? I turned around, trembling with fear, despair, guilt. I felt guilty looking at her. Guilty for what I hadn't done. The convulsions of the woman stopped. I wanted to gently embrace her hand and plead, "Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me..."
A large iron bird with metallic feathers sticking out sideways, or was it an ordinary airplane wing? The spine of a young whale? It's unclear, this flying machine was waiting for the three of us, with people in white robes sticking out from it, moving strangely like that very thick melted plastic that had smeared my eyes and eyelids. One of the silhouettes had small girl's lips above a round little chin, around which thick pink hair flew, very long and huge like a very dense viscous stain or melted cotton candy, almost dissolving in the embrace of the scorching wind. A helmet concealed the faces of both unknown to me.
Inside, it was cramped. The sound of machinery echoed everywhere, the heating of jet engines, and signals emanated from digital circuits, boards, and virtual assets. Everything was furnished with boxes, doors, some tight mole passages. It was completely unclear how we four squeezed inside, surrounded by silvery stasis, shelves, and assorted installations of various shapes, sizes, and shades. Squeezing through the curtains in the neighboring cabin, among beings in spacesuits and trembling plates on shifting walls, I found myself in a spacious cabin where everything beeped, hummed, and trembled a little. Next to me was another soldier, tall and with thick gray hair, almost an old man. He asked, "How long have you been wandering here alone?" and handed me something like a sausage. It tasted cool, soft. It wasn't meat or anything else; it was slightly raw, strange, wrapped in silver foil and tied with rubber bands. Silently, trembling from pain and fatigue, I stared at this chunk, understanding nothing, afraid to say anything.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
I turned toward the cabin, sealed off by mesh wires, smoke, and one heated skillful one with spotlights. Sandy shores stretched beneath my feet in both directions, while stone islands lay below us all. Someone resembling a doctor was trying to save the life of that very fox, and this was helped by a guy who this time wasn't alone. They were adjusting the equipment, examining it, injecting and applying something around the eyelids. Something resembling a green ointment was rubbed along the eyes, making them look like large bruises from which black specks sprouted. From these specks, tiny, almost transparent light-colored fibers rose up toward the chaotically spinning installation near the ceiling. So many words... Too many... I can't understand anything...
I had no desire to eat. I felt nauseous from everything, my body ached, and my eyes prickled as if with tiny needles. I feared the death of this being. I felt its presence in this mutilated body. I understood what it meant. It was so close. But I... Did I do this? Am I sick? How did I manage this? I wish no one death. I don't know why I don't want this and whether I should heed the strange sensations inside me. Before me lay the mutilated body of a lifeless fox-warrior, whose vital signs were instantly rolling back to zero on the screen devices. I turned away when they began to strip her of her clothes; her front torso became bare. Liquid sparks of hot crimson blood still flowed from the wounds, a bit yellow and brown. The wounds were deep, penetrating, and even torn, covered with the most terrible burns, wounds, scratches, and dark bruises all over the body, which had to be freed from the metallic shackles of armor. She resembled a resilient young tree that had been mutilated on all sides by fire, bullets, perhaps knives, and many other things that I couldn't even imagine. Her body was engulfed in torment, agony, a history with which I first encountered with my weak hollow consciousness.
If pain can be measured, I would like to feel how painful it was for her now. To understand what it's like. Again. I wonder, was she ever a child? Were her broken fingers, with their scraped skin, once small? Tiny little paws, stubbornly pushing against the floor. Did they draw? Did they touch the river? Did they feel the warmth of loved ones? Where do such thoughts come from? And these blurred, indistinct images? My imagination? How strange it all is. Perhaps I'm beginning to remember something?
— Blood pressure at 0.7 empuls! No pulse in the central arteries, blood plasma isn't regenerating as it used to! She's still dying! — the loud voice of the military medic commented on the condition of the fox. — Blood transfusion! We can try to save her, but... There is no blood like hers. Another type is more likely to finish her off completely. God... — in the medic's eyes, which shone through the moving colorful lenses, an immeasurable despair was evident. Breathing became a little difficult. My fingers gripped the handrails tightly, as if I were trying to suppress the tremor. But then I quietly forced out: — Our merciful Helvia has long prepared a new home for her. — A thin light blanket gently lay over the barely breathing, wounded body.
His previous face boldly bore the nervousness, which abruptly revealed a faint and unexpectedly warm half-smile. It was as if one wanted to believe that all the suffering of the warrior would soon end. The dream she is seeing now will become the last reminder of the world she fought to protect with all her might. The world she believed in. The world she loved? A world completely unknown to me, and one I would surely try to learn about, decipher, as long as I had this strange opportunity. The healer sorrowfully sat down across from the young soldier, who did not lift his gaze at all, probably immersed in either his own thoughts or attempts to come up with something.
— This can't be... She will endure. She will bear this pain, heal again. I know this, — the same guy who had carried her on his shoulder with me murmured anxiously. — I've seen this many times, no... The time hasn't come yet... It's too early. Too early to think that way. — he spoke very quietly, as if he were favoring an unknown truth that for a brief moment sparked another incomprehensible thought.
Most of the words I didn't understand at all, of course, except for death itself. I didn't want this creature to die; it fought for something, risked its life, and was ready to withstand the pain that engulfed its body and mind. Did she want to live? To continue fighting for what I was trying to imagine, stuck in this strange ship? For a moment, I somehow managed to see her right eye. The black pupil was surrounded by a dark blue hue, reminiscent of either the sea or a brightly shimmering sapphire glowing with a mystical light. It was as if, in that moment, I beheld a life disintegrating into grains. Moving, breathing unevenly, and with great difficulty rising in this organic isle. I knew nothing about her, about her history, emotions, and feelings that happened to her body and understanding every day during her time in this world. What would she like to do after the aforementioned war ended? And this guy... Kuroba? The doctors around me? The old man who treated me to food. The pilots taking us to safety? Each of them has their own instincts, desires, and duties that manifest from the moment of their appearance. What does this mean?
— M-maybe, my blood...?
The medic, along with his little patient, resembling a small child with a respirator, fixed a keen gaze on me and then nimbly approached, pressing the index finger of his white glove to my vein on my arm. Chain mechanisms sprang from nowhere, squeezing my wrist and forearm. I didn't even feel the prick of something like a syringe piercing my skin. The distance from the injection site to the medic's head began to stretch with a chaotic combination of twisting, disordered, and shifting mechanisms, resembling a white-red river with golden streaks. The medic's helmet-protected face looked at me. Was he bewildered? Or frightened? This strange fantastical displacement of wires and screens blocked my view, tiredly lowered into those blurred, colorful spheres.
— Who are you? What is your race? — I heard a very calm voice in front of me, balanced and comprehensible.
— I..? N-no — I was confused.
— What are you talking about? He's just an ordinary person, — Kuroba interrupted me.
— His blood lacks elements of heredity. His plasma seems to be filled with something else; this does not exist in nature, — the medic hesitantly replied, still holding my hand and examining the composition of my blood mixed inside the mechanism. — It resembles ahadisilith, daugmu, but it's not it. The molecules are very thick and large, possibly due to colorless accumulation. Their composition, I... I don't even understand what this is! According to you, he is a normal person? — he glanced back at Kuroba. — Sorry, that was rude of me, — he suddenly apologized to me.
— This does not exist in nature? — Kuroba hugged his elbows and slumped, pondering deeply again, but not for long.
After a brief reflection, the guy said that we should give it a try. Everyone exchanged glances, and then the medic asked me for permission to use my blood, which theoretically could help heal the lifeless soldier. None of those present were sure about this. And me? I knew nothing. I instantly answered him. I agreed. So quickly and unexpectedly for myself. I carefully looked at her face, still noticing her burned dark body, where the skin and wide muscles around her pale as clouds shoulders twitched in convulsions. Fountains of blood, wide muscles, and bones, along with skin, shimmered and exploded into fleshly, painful vortices and arcs, pulsating like a yolk. I felt a very strange emotion. Very strong and heavy. Can something like this have weight? A special tangible structure that is invisible to any eyes? This emotion was very unpleasant. Did I want to cry? I don't understand my existence. I don't understand where I am and why I am here. I see the mangled fox body over which all these beings mourn. This state, space, destruction, and merging are subject to gradual decay. Choice, movement, or some other action. Could I choose anything I wanted?
As I began to lose consciousness once again, I refused to stop the blood transfusion. I could barely hear and see; it felt as though I was drowning at the bottom of a very dirty and deep river. Everything before me was blurred, muted, and quiet. Someone was talking, expressing surprise and confusion about why my blood was dark. Dark? What does that mean? And that it regenerates too, just like the exhausted warrior with fox ears. My blood is dark? Regenerates? What is happening to me?
It became very loud; more silhouettes, shades, and images flashed before my eyes. Sometimes they shattered upon colliding with the surface around me, with the air, with some bright, unpleasant light. At times, my eyes hurt when different colors invaded them. Someone was dragging or transporting my motionless body on a bed. I was constantly nauseous; something was spilling from my mouth. I was asked the same questions repeatedly, and with my last strength, I nodded my head, not even understanding what everyone around me wanted. I wanted to sleep. Even without covering myself with a blanket, sitting in some soft object, I wanted to close my eyes and lose consciousness. In those moments, they would give me an injection near my nose, a huge, cardboard-like hand with a manicure would lean against my head and touch my skin like some tiny insect. I felt nothing except for my eyelids and the tip of my nose. In my eyes, the blinding white light of the ceiling settled, darkened afterward. Something was beeping, crawling, and quietly thudding nearby. I still felt nauseous. Then everything beeped very loudly and clearly. This went on for a long time. The sound was like some instruments, metal, beeping, and a prolonged noise like engines hovering around me. I lost track of time, and once everything fell silent. One day, everything around me disappeared and ceased to exist along with my last breath.
I opened my eyes for the first time. The air was cool and warm at the same time. My right arm was connected to chain mechanisms, with chaotic movements of capsules and some fixed installations around my neck, shoulder, forearm, and palm. A dark crimson-black liquid was being drawn from my vein and rushing through long, thin tubes... I saw a fox. A half-fox? A half-fox, half-human? It looked like that peculiar creature, probably because of its ears and tail. Tail? A golden, fluffy appendage peeked out from under the blanket, incomprehensibly large, like a wheat ear. Lifeless. Like another tiny fluffy creature.
She was lying in bed, wrapped in a lush beautiful blanket with a crescent moon and stars. Just like a child, which made me smile in my thoughts. If that could be considered a smile. So serene and peaceful, as if I had smiled before, long ago. Thick wheat-colored hair spread out like on snowy skies, surrounded by equipment, some kind of technology. Her closed eyes were covered with thick yellow rags. Her face was marked with scratches, bruises, and small burns. Thin, pale skin. Ears... I wasn't imagining things. There were four of them. They were completely enveloped by mechanisms and rotating prosthetics from which a quiet, soft buzzing emanated. I was probably in a chair too, wrapped in a thick blanket and surrounded by pillows instead of fluffy creatures: some beautiful blue fish and a green lizard, which were guarding the half-fox's sleep to my left.
I stared at her for a long time. I couldn't look away, trying to discern her languid, quiet breathing around the sheets. Only when I was convinced that she was breathing, her lungs were evenly filling with oxygen, did I allow myself to relax a little. Is she still alive? Will she recover? Will she feel better? Will she be satisfied with this? So many thoughts, they don't fit in my head. What will happen next?