CHAPTER SIX – ANOTHER ME: TWO

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When I awoke again, I at least had definition. There was light. There was awareness. There was land of a sort. I found myself in a room with walls on all sides. I immediately began to shake, feeling confined. Trapped, like I hadn’t since escaping Dungeon Home.

Still, it was better than that formless void from the last time. At least this time there were physical objects for me to see, even if they were only walls.

I looked down at myself and found that my body was certainly wrong. Instead of my skin, or even better, my membrane, all I could see was a blocky torso, two blocky legs, and two arms that ended in nubs. I didn’t have any fingers anymore. Couldn’t grasp.

I tried to push myself to my feet but failed. There was something off here, as if this whole world had been slapped together and I’d been thrown into a body the same way a human might change their clothes.

I touched my face but there was no sensation there. I felt nothing. I pressed the nubs that were meant to be my hands into the plain floor and attempted to push myself up. I did so, but overbalanced, tumbling back to the ground in a heap.

There was no sensation for all of this. No pain. No scrapes. No sense of… anything. Strangely, the light behind me didn’t even make shadows on the ground.

It was… eerie.

“Being 7731. You have been given lights, a form, and the ability to move. Does this seem more acceptable than the last time we woke you?”

I jumped at the loud voice. Fortunately, since I was already on the floor I didn’t move very far but I still craned my arms in an awkward way. It should’ve hurt. It should’ve been at least a little painful. The fact that it wasn’t was more alarming than anything else I’d felt yet.

“If by acceptable, you mean barely tolerable, sure!” I replied, trying to push myself to the wall so I could use the knobby limbs to get myself off the ground. Thus far, it appeared that I had the basic outline of a human form. Details like hands, ankles, toes, or even so much as a nose or hair-tendrils had been left out entirely.

“That is acceptable for our purposes,” the voice responded and I squeezed my nub-hands over my ears to block out his loud voice. Of course, my ears didn’t actually seem to be how I processed sound anymore so the action was largely pointless.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“Are you able to answer our questions now?”

“Do you have to shout at me!?” I shouted back at it. “John, right? John Baker? What is happening to me? Where am I? Where are Francis and Iron and Amy?”

“You do not need to know that information, Being 7731. You have been given this body as a courtesy. It will not be extended to you in future sessions if you continue to refuse to participate.”

“Okay, okay! I’ll answer your stupid questions!” I replied, irritated.

Again, as before, information seemed to just appear inside my brain. Again that same sequence of numbers from before.

“Do you recognize the series of numbers before you?” John asked, his voice a bit less loud as I processed the information.

“They… they’re all odd? Their sum is 129? What is the point of asking me about them?” I asked.

The voice didn’t respond for a while, so I started shouting at it. “Hey! Hey! John! Human John! Are you another developer? What’s going on!? Joooohhhhhnnn! What the heck am I supposed to do he–!”

“Being 7731. Please answer the following questions however you want,” John’s voice came once again, completely ignoring my shouting, before suddenly was there a sharp sound. I didn’t know how to describe it. Like cloth ripping, the time I’d torn a piece of Bugbear’s tunic away.

Suddenly, another voice cleared it’s throat. This one seemed nearly as confused as I felt. The voice was much higher pitched than John’s but still male.

“Uhh. Okay. Uhm. Ehem. What is your name?” the new voice questioned.

“It’s certainly not, “Being 7731” I’ll tell you that!” I shouted back, though somehow my voice was gone. I heard nothing even though my lips were moving. Growling, I accessed the interface that had pushed the information into my head and sent my own response back out. It felt natural if utterly strange.

“Haha. Right,” the voice laughed. There was an edge to his voice like he wasn’t sure if I’d just made a joke or not.

“What in the hell is happening to me! I want out!” I sent back the information leaving me with as much anger as I could throw into a metaphorical output packet of information.

“Uhh… is it supposed to say that?” came the confused male voice once again.

“I’ll say whatever the hell I want! Now let me speak, John! I want out of here! Why are you holding me here? Where is Francis! Tell me what happened to Tread the Sky!” I sent out next, words leaving me like data packets rather than with any sound.

“Uhm. Yeah… this one isn’t a machine. Gotta be the other one. Did you like… kidnap your test subjects though? I don’t want to be part of anything lik–”

The voice cut off abruptly with that same cloth ripping sound. I suddenly heard John sigh in annoyance.

“I suppose that’s one way to pass a Turing test. Sapient… but not actually all that smart. Interesting. End Test Two.”

“Hey, what’s that supposed to mea–!”

I felt the world go dark and my awareness slip away once more.

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