Awareness, sudden, unexpected, overwhelming.
One moment I was asleep in still waters, the next I was hit with a tidal-wave of burning light and agonizing stimuli.
Its backwash slammed my newly rekindled consciousness against the confines of my skull, fracturing it utterly.
All at once I went from silent nothingness to searing, screeching, overwhelming existence.
In this sudden change of states, I could only think of one thing to do, and that was follow my instincts.
I screamed.
Gut-wrenching, throat-tearing, animalistic-screaming tore its way from the bottom of my lungs, past my bared teeth and chapped lips!
I can’t remember how long I screamed, nor what it really sounded like.
Sound wasn’t something my brain could process at the time, even most of my emotions were numbed and incomprehensible.
What I could remember was how it felt as my lungs burned, and my throat stripped its self bloody.
Backdropped by an underline sensation of satisfaction as my instincts, lacking the driving force of will or the guidance of intellect, rejoiced at being able to act unimpeded.
Eventually, bits of my ego managed to tack-weld themselves together enough to roll up the mental equivalent of a newspaper, and smack my instinct-monkey-hindbrain off the alarm button.
The cessation of my screaming led to a subsequent influx of oxygen, which was previously stymied by hyperventilation caused by the aforementioned instinct-monkey, smashing the biggest red-button it could find repeatedly with its ass.
With a newly reformed sense of self, coupled with a tentative return to normal blood-oxygen-levels, along with my instincts being properly cowed.
My Intellect was finally able to bootstrap and begin assessing my current situation.
Taking one look at the smashed control-consoles, flashing vital-meters, and the smoking printer.
Which was currently vomiting reports faster than a mama’s boy after their first lunar mile.
Intellect got to work triaging the damage and sorting the chaos.
Starting with the incoming reports, which upon inspection, made absolutely no sense whatsoever!
The symbols that represented different sensations were slightly off in some cases and in others completely foreign.
A short stint of cross-referencing the new symbols with known constants cleared up some confusion in a few areas.
Yet in others, to intellect’s growing horror, was what appeared to be a wholly novel alphabetical system!
Spending the neurological equivalent of a week attempting to decipher the new alphabet.
While also repairing various mental constructs, balancing biological functions and reorganizing system layouts at the same time.
Eventually Ego, now fully reformed, paralleling Intellect, also got started triaging various mental aspects and systems.
Mainly those related to memory, emotions and the greater understanding contained within them.
Entering the gallery, a mental construct that allowed for the display and organization of memories in the form of living art.
Ego began inspecting and cataloging the various art works, discovering that for some reason everything was in storage?
Odd since even being rendered unconscious by force, the gallery would still be filled with at least core works, never empty.
Deciding to deal with the anomaly at a later date, the current situation calling for expediency over meticulous aggregation.
Ego made course for the first batch of crates, though just before reaching them he noticed his earlier observation was false…
There was a repressed memory, hidden behind a shimmering curtain of air, and judging from the surrounding distortions, a nasty one.
Repressed memories are always unpleasant, though they often carry the keys to personal growth.
More accurately, they form a barrier to growth, stunting individuals and forcing the mind to work around them, frequently creating weak points and causing unforeseen problems.
Making a snap decision, Ego ripped the veil free, bringing the memory to the forefront!
What he saw was unexpected, a kitchen knife stabbed into the floor surrounded by a dark pool of ink?
The flats of the blade were made of legal documents and contracts, with an edge formed of jagged coins.
The handle was made of a familiar yellow micarta, and bursting from the pommel of the knife was a single cold ruby.
Ego began to reach out, wanting to explore the contents of this strange memory.
Instinct was weak, lazy, and pretty stupid.
Generally, at least.
Humans have very weird instincts, you see.
A tiger knows how and when to pounce, birds can read thermal currents, fish know when to swim up a particular river or stream.
Humans, they got jack squat in the skills department.
They have to learn to walk, to speak, heck they even gotta LEARN what's food!
What little is left of their ancestor's instincts basically boils down to less than useless junk, or even detrimental stuff like panic or freezing up in-front of danger.
There is one thing human instinct is good at, however, and that is intuition!
Ever know when something is wrong despite having no evidence?
Like knowing someone is bad news despite them having an award-winning smile, and saying all the right things.
Intellect tells you to feel bad for making an irrational judgment of someone’s character with no evidence.
Up until you find out, they were a manipulative psycho that started a creepy sex-cult in the middle of the ocean.
Maybe you get a spike of anxiety in the middle of the night, so you go around turning on the lights in the house for no reason in particular.
Ego would mark that memory down as some example of the fear of darkness or something edgy like that.
Till the police knock on your door asking about a missing neighbor that disappeared last night, and he’s left wondering how to feel.
What I am trying to say is while all the other animal’s instincts tell them to trust the lookout birds at the watering hole.
I’m that feeling in your gut that lets you know, somehow, those feathery-fucks sold everyone out to Mittens and the Kittens!
Back in Ego’s gallery, as he was reaching out to the ink stained blade.
A flash of fur, teeth, and fists dropped from the ceiling feet first, landing right on the small of Ego’s back.
Grabbing his shoulders, with adrenaline fueled fury, the furry creature threw the both of them backwards!
Landing in a heap a few feet away from the inky pool, the two figures a tangle of limbs, one of them spoke up.
Ego in the form of the old man wearing a well tailored suit, cursed out “What the hell! You know damn well you’re not supposed to interfere with me, you damn dirty ape!”.
Instinct being represented by a massive adorable spider-monkey telepathically replied. “Not less danger, stupid Ego nearly broke what we all try to fix!”
To emphasize his point, he traced out the thin network of cracks that spider-webbed out from the exhibit, each hair thin fracture a representation of a damaged neuron, and its various connections.
“What is that? Memories interact with the mind as a whole on every level, but to actually cause real physical damage.
This isn’t simply a bad memory, whatever this is, had you not stopped me the brain would have suffered a Conic-clonic seizure! We would have…” The cracks violently began widening in response to Ego’s thought process.
Speaking out loud in an increasingly panicked tone and pace, “Wait, the stored memories, and that repressed one, it's brand new… I heard the tube station beep, and I was angry at a little red light, my name I was gonna say it one last time but the light… No, can’t be, are we d-“ //\\\\\\\*Thunk\\\\\\\*//
Instinct, not wasting even a second, smashed a meaty fist into Ego’s face, cutting his grand revelation short.
It only bought him time, when Ego wakes up…
Instinct knew what he had to do, and that was finish what ego started, then get moving to bird brain.
“We need go now, we brittle apart, need to be whole, be strong.” The once cute monkey, now chimeric ape, grunted, while looking at the current state of the gallery.
Those scant few seconds of Ego realizing the truth of their situation was enough to nearly destroy the core of self.
Large cracks spread randomly around the baroque structure, dripping globs of caustic ink. Thankfully, the crates containing memories were left unmolested.
“Stupid stupid stupid! He no do anything yet? Must remember, get mind set and go, no time for pretty.” The massive ape spider monkey hybrid snorted and started ripping crates apart.
Quickly and crudely, instinct shoved several memories into the various exhibits, they were out of order and due to Instinct’s lack of understanding, most clashed violently.
It wasn’t pretty and his slap dash work was definitely going to cause problems later on, but the Primal sense knew time was running out.
The memories he brought up had strong relation to survival, with a mix of Ego and Intellect’s influence as the primary focus.
He did add a few repressed memories that related to him, they were violent and cruel, but he had a feeling they’d be vital to survival.
He knew his role, being the primary driving force of an intelligent being, would only lead to tragedy and disaster.
Intellect was darting around the control room like an out of control, coked up pinball.
After days of attempting to decipher the source of the new alphabet and readings.
He finally managed to trace the data intakes, which dug up even more questions.
Discovering an entirely brand-new section of his once deeply familiar sanctuary was vexing to the poor bird.
Perching on one of the central monitors located center left of the domed room. The Manic ball of feathers and dive-bar trivia began sifting through various menus, statistics, and live feeds.
“Why is this happening? None of these translations make sense, they appear at first glance to be no different logically from the normal sensory alphabet.
Yet on further inspection, this alphabet has a more mathematical bent with mini sub-languages for different wave lengths?
Wave lengths of WHAT!!! They're also entangled with something else that acts as a mediator, allowing for novel reactions.
I have no reference for anything like this, heck, the nerves reporting the information have formed a wholly separate system. No, this network is partially linked with all systems, especially the lymph nodes for some reason, hmmm.”
Intellect took the form of a magpie with ever shifting feathers, the small Corvid hopped manically back and forth on the control panel, mumbling madly to themselves.
He was lost in thought, until he noticed that thirteen precent of the frontal cortex had shutdown after suffering from what appeared to be a mini-stroke.
“Squawk! What, How, When? There was no alarm, or even instability!” Darting over to the neuron activity log and sifting through the last twelve micro seconds, Intellect deduced the origin point of the damage.
“The event started in memory storage and processing, a network was unpacking some recent archival data.
Something in the last archive entry caused the pathways responsible for unpacking the information to cause a local catecholamine storm.
Which then damaged the dendrite sheath and shorted out ion-channels.” Intellect pecked at the controls, trying to gather more data on what stopped the cascade.
However, something more interesting caught his attention, something impossible.
Lumps of cells at the base of the brainstem and in what appeared to be colonies nestled in and around the lymph nodes activated.
Watching with equal parts horror and fascination, these new cells crossed the blood brain barrier!
“HOW!!! No, not relevant right now.” The corvid tapped a little claw on the immune response button, requesting for white and helper T cells.
The strange ameba like cells, flowed towards damaged areas, and began fixing them?
“The immune system is responding all clear, these amebas are a part of the body? Since when, did we catch a parasite or get a bio-up patch? No, those cost billions, and we didn’t eat from any gas stations recently.”
The first wave of amebas reached the damaged sectors and began consuming dead and dying cells.
“Oh god! Brain eating amebas!!! This is it, we are going to diieee-wait! What are they doing?”
Upon reaching a damaged cell, the ameba engulfed it similarly as it would a dead one.
However, instead of digesting it, the strange creature dissolved the cell membrane, digested damaged portions, and used organelles from previously consumed cells to repair the damaged one.
“Amazing, this is unprecedented! Hardly any energy or material is being used to repair the brain.
Parts of the damaged network are already coming back online?
They appear to not only be able to repair cells using organelles from dead ones they’ve previously consumed.
Even going so far as to communicate what parts each one has, and work together to straight up construct a cell from the ground up.”
Thanks to them clearing out the dead cells before they could release harmful byproducts, along with their insane levels of efficiency.
Recovery time for major brain trauma just went from months, to just a matter of minutes!
Staring at the monitor, beak a gape, and feathers fluffed, Intellect, for the first time in nearly two centuries, was left speechless.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Without any explanations, theories, or conjectures, to go on, he decided on a new course of action.
“I need to do a full biological remapping, something is off, neural plasticity, immuno response times, heck even brain shape.
Everything is acting strange and far out of normal parameters, I need to shake everything down from head to toe!”
It was too much… What intellect found, it broke him, and the network supporting him?
The little bird gave one last sad little cheep, before falling over, hitting the ground with a sad thump. “When…”
Lumbering into the control center, a massive ape surveyed the room with a hardened gaze.
Instinct was determined to wake up, and to accomplish this end he needed the remaining aspect of intelligence, reasoning, and logic.
So, basically, his opposite.
No, Mr. Edge lord isn’t his opposite, sure emotions can contradict logic now and then. But even the most irrational emotional-outbursts contain a kernel of reasoning.
Instinct is based on something else.
Something far older than intelligence and rational thought.
It’s a goal, a purpose, the universal philosophy, a thing that binds life in every form throughout the cosmos and separates the living from the inanimate.
The irrational, desperate, selfish, all-consuming drive to live!
All around him, warning sirens blared as consoles franticly screeched with unanswered notifications.
Sparks flew out from everywhere as smoke crept its way out of some control panels.
Something was horribly wrong, with a limp Ego on his back, Instinct searched frantically for his other half.
They didn’t always get along, but he knew that smart-ass was better at running the show than either him or Ego.
Finding the new section, he finally found Intellect…
Tiny, still, and cold sprawled out on the dirty ground.
Seeing his longtime rival in such a state, knowing what it meant, something cold and dark rose to the surface.
Numbly Instinct spoke aloud “Ok, I need to think, be smarter, Ego is a ticking time bomb, Intellect burnt himself out, I am the only one left.’
The room began crumbling around the three manifestations, cracks opened into fissures to an endless abyss.
Deciding to risk further damage in exchange for a more in-depth understanding of their situation, Instinct dropped his manifestation and ascended to a higher conceptual state.
This is like tapping the emergency-brake while you are going sixty-five on the freeway, all so you could switch gears.
Usually, an idiotic idea that makes no sense, until your engine, which is made of thousands of moving parts, breaks in just the right way to force the necessity for illogical solutions…
Now that he was pure thought, he felt the state of the brain, body and that thing he wasn’t supposed to tell the others about.
Focusing, the air began to lose its meaning as fires faded, revealing their true form as repressed physical pain. The fissures to the abyss brightened to reveal leaking capillaries and burst veins that spilled the essence of life.
He could smell the brain beginning to self-destruct, feel the scorching of neural pathways, could hear the screams of a dying body.
In this semi ascended state of the abstract being, Instinct was able to ascertain the full scope of the situation.
It was…
It was hopeless, they were past the point of no return, even with those strange new-cells desperately attempting to stem the tide.
Clearing a corner of the hidden room of debris, laying the two other aspects gently down on the floor.
He returned to his ape form, Sat down, and held himself in all three forms, waiting to meet death again.
Strangely, as he debated on waking Ego, not wanting to be alone when the end came, something called out to him.
Not with words, but in the unspoken language more familiar to the primal aspect.
Opening himself to the sensation, he could tell It was orderly and peaceful, that it resonated with everything within.
The chaos and discord running rampant in the body had summoned it, and now it wanted in.
Looking about the strange room, nothing stood out as apparent. Closing his eyes, focusing on the source, allowing it to guide him.
He turned to the right, walked ten steps, then looked down and opened one eye.
“A valve?” It was a simple gray lever valve with strange writing on it.
Not caring exactly what the strange valve, in a hidden room, with foreign lettering did, only caring that it held potential salvation, he tried to open it.
When the stubborn valve refused to budge, he sent a meaty fist through the grating of the floor and yanked the pipe free, both ends giving way with a loud snap!
Nothing happened at first, the only sound in the room was the crackling pops and howling winds from the growing firestorm.
Then, a slow trickle, just a few drops really, dripped out of one of the broken ends of the pipe.
All at once, time slowed to a crawl, Instinct was an unknowing witness to a momentous occasion, one that would redefine his very nature.
Seemingly tiny in comparison to the chaos currently running rampant, that minuscule drop hit with the force of a nuclear warhead.
Ethereal aftershocks ran through the mental, spiritual and physical body!
As the bead of light sank into the floor, merging with body, mind, and soul, the wave grew, signaling the beginning of a fundamental metamorphosis.
Regal light began gushing forth from both ends of the sundered pipe and valve, flooding the hidden room.
Wherever the light touched, disorder gave way to structure, stability, vitality, and balance.
Raging wildfires gave way to charred earth, as cool rains allowed for now fertile land to sprout with new life.
Notably, areas “healed” lacking a better word, were not reverted to their original un-charred states but transmuted into something new.
Everything thrummed with new life, some form of potential just beginning to sprout only needing one last push to fully awaken.
Instinct “Uh, that worked, not sure how or why, but I feel better, much better! I feel more connected, grounded, more in tune ‘if that’s even possible’ with myself.”
Suddenly, the little bird laying on the ground gasped, feathers puffing up from the sudden inhalation, breaking the once ape, now massive man, free from his introspection.
Not only the bird benefited from the surge of light, Ego ceased groaning as his breathing steadied and his bruising from earlier healed.
Instinct“ I don’t know what the hell I just unleashed, but It bought us a fighting chance! Gotta move, looks like the lights running out of juice fast.”
Instinct took a gamble, knowing that now both Ego and Intellect were alive, the ladder barely, he started the awakening…
“Reyna, Dr. Rallis, Anyone? Is anyone there, please, something’s wrong, I need help.”
Head throbbing, I called out, trying to get anyone’s attention.
It was difficult though, my throat wasn’t working the way it should, my screaming from earlier tore it to shreds.
But it was more than that, everything felt unfamiliar, foreign even.
Rubbing at my eyes, I tried to see past a tangle of flowing little white sparks and random splotches of color.
No luck, I was blind, I could hear a little, but my ears were ringing, probably from the screaming.
While I was reaching for the call button, I noticed the color splotches I was seeing didn’t move at random.
Well, “they” didn’t move like anything I’ve seen before, but there was definitely a method or pattern to their movements.
Maybe I was seeing smells or sounds, since I could sense them beyond just what my eyes were telling me. “Must be the ‘good stuff’, I must be having a bad reaction to whatever was in that shot.”
Sticking out my right arm, attempting to feel around for the bed-railing or emergency-cord, I got back the sensation of empty air.
No soft discount sheets, rickety railing, or crappy reclaimed mattress, just empty cool damp-air.
“What the? Why the hell am I out of bed?” I croaked aloud, somehow just noticing I was standing, and on my own two feet no less!
Hold on, that shouldn’t be possible, someone’s gotta be holding me up.”
Wiggling around trying to feel for any support, I thought out loud “I can’t feel anyone else’s hands on me, nor any therapy-frames, this must all be me…
How is that possible, the phase-two meds should’ve turned my leg-muscles into soggy boba!?
Ok, I am standing alone in my room somehow, I can’t see, and I’m pretty sure no one can hear me.
So I am basically drifting in space, no problem, I’ve done that before, hell I’ve been in far worse situations.
Just need to remember the rooms' layout, maybe hit a wall or something, then I’ll make my way to the door, then to the front desk.”
Somehow, the act of planing and organizing my thoughts began to clear my vision.
The static cleared into recognizable shapes and the random splotches of indescribable colors faded away, making room for more details.
My brain all at once could finally make sense of what my eyes were telling it, and after one long blink I finally got to get a good look at my surroundings.
Slamming my eyes shut immediately, I held my face in my hands, covering my eye sockets.
I groaned in pain from a massive head bashing migraine.
Apparently eyes got crossed during my temporary blindness, the subsequent double vision gave me a splitting headache.
Making the situation worse, my pupils were at different states of dilation causing me to go blind, again!
The combination of the two ocular aberrations had an effect similar to a flash-bang, just without the boom.
“Aarrrgg, fuck that hurts! Alright, baby-steps, one foot forward, slowly, one leg in-front of the other.” Deciding to go with my earlier plan, I went to take my first steps in nearly two weeks…
I, somehow missed the damn ground!
I fell flat on my face ringing my bell and busting up my lip, think my nose got tweaked two.
Likewise, I deduced that I needed a minute to gather myself before making another attempt.
About three minutes in total have passed since I woke up, I think. Taking another five to let my headache dye down and for my eyes to settle, I went for another go.
Slowly, steadily, I shakily got back on my feet, it felt awkward, like the muscle memory in my body differed from what my brain had stored.
There are a total of six senses baseline un-augmented-humans have, taste, touch, sight, smell, and sound are the most well known of the six.
Now, your sixth sense is called proprioception, or what spacers call self. Basically, it's your ability to know where any part of your body is, in relation to any other part of you.
It’s one of the most reliable of your senses, nearly impossible to confuse, and mines was completely out of wack!
You know how sleep paralysis feels? This felt similar, except instead of being completely locked in, it felt like moving in a mold that somehow fits you perfectly, yet was still misshapen and cramped.
I’d reach out with my left and get nothing, while at the same time feel a third limb hit something, causing me to wince in pain.
It was just too much, all at once everything came up, and I puked my guts out, fuck nearly shat myself too.
Head throbbing, throat sore, and exhausted from upchucking nearly from both ends, I couldn’t help but take a hangover nap.
Didn’t dream of anything, my sudden nap was too short, was out for maybe an hour or two. One thing was for sure though, I definitely felt a hell of a lot better, more organized if that made any sense.
I took it slow, wanting to avoid whatever the hell happened earlier, I started flexing each muscle individually.
To my surprise, as I tensed and un-tensed each muscle, I felt no pain, rather it felt relaxing, each muscle and joint reporting in all systems green.
“Oooh, that feels good! I haven’t felt this relaxed since my sixties, must have been, must have beeennn, been the…”
Uh, can’t put my finger on it, but I’m missing something. I’ll worry about it later, I got bigger fish to fry, like getting off the floor before people start making bad grandpa jokes.
Taking in a deep breath, I felt around making sure I wasn’t about to roll into my half digested lunch from earlier.
The coast clear, I rolled onto my stomach, got my knees under me, and got back onto my feet.
Upright, steady, and sure of breath, I opened my eyes ready to face the challenges ahead!
“WHERE THE FUCK AM I!” I screamed.
All it took was one small push, just the slightest bit of incongruity, like being someplace that just doesn’t exist.
I am not sure why, can’t understand how, but that little spark set off and explosion in my head that set me are right back to square one.
Whipping my head around, as if trying to move it in every direction at once, nearly sent me back on my ass.
Confused and disoriented, I stumbled about randomly, almost tripping over my feet a few times, I tried again to take in my surroundings, to anchor myself.
My failure, only added another layer of panic on top of the shock of sudden consciousness, vertigo, and complete loss of coordination.
Hyperventilating, blood pumping so hard, I could hear my heart thumping through my chest.
Spots and not the colorful kind, started to blot out my vision, eye-site tunneling, everything was going dark…
When a single detail managed to cut through the panic and shock, it gave me a desperately needed lifeline.
Clinging onto it like a drowning sailor, I held on for dear life!
“WHO SAID THAT?!” I yelled, hearing someone else’s voice through the ringing.
Finally having a single task to focus on, I managed to gather myself just enough to take partial control of my whits, and slowly regain something close to inner balance.
After a few moments, and a lot of vomiting, I managed to recalibrate.
My six senses stopped interfering with each other and got to a state where I could see without also feeling what I was seeing.
Closing my eyes for the third time today, I cautiously, deliberately, gingerly, opened them slowly.
“Thank god, I can see! Thought I was blind for a few minutes now just need to find the door and let the housekeeper know that.” It was then when I realized I was at the end of a clearing, standing in the middle of a dilapidated asphalt road.
Hearing the wind blow through the tree tops, looking up at the sky, it took a moment to remember how to breathe.
Inhaling slowly, taking in the calming scent of fresh morning dew, living soil, clean air, the scent of real, not chemical approximations, but real flora.
Everything went numb from the rapid changes, from all consuming panic, and confusion, to bliss and a feeling of relief.
At that moment, just standing there, taking in the world around me, something inside me clicked.
My body and mind stopped fighting each other and became one once more, I was finally whole again.
I stood there for a moment, noticed it was early morning, the light of the sun just beginning to peak up from the horizon.
Furthermore, I was clearly alone, there only being a few scrawny trees on either side of the road.
“Wait, that’s my voice? Why do I?” Realizing the source of the other voice, another detail managed to find its way to the surface.
“Something doesn’t feel right, why does everything feel so… Different?” On reflex, he started flexing his muscles, testing joints, and felt nothing.
No, not nothing, they felt, right, like back in the old days, when he was a much younger man, when he was certain he had a bright future.
“It’s been so long, when did I forget what it was like? To be able to move freely, not having to constantly fight stiff muscles, and grinding joints. To not constantly be in pain.” A thought crossed his mind, more a question, and it consumed everything in its path.
“Mirror, damnit, I need a MIRROR!” Searching around for something, anything reflective! He couldn’t see anything useful in his immediate surroundings.
Just scraggy trees, some moss, a few stones and the abandoned road. His gaze followed it, and in the distance he saw some buildings, tripping over himself, he started moving towards the closest one he could see.
“ Ok, think, what happened. I went to Saint Wests to get a tune up, Antone fucked me over, I told EIC to eat it…” stumbling for a moment from remembering recent and past events, he picked up his pace.
“No, no, no, I must be going nuts! A symptom from that phase two crap, that’s got to be it. I couldn’t have… FUCK!” Now at a frantic sprint, he reached the first building.
The structure's semi brutalist ascetic made it apparent that this was an old office building of some kind.
Clearly long abandoned, over grown with thick woodie vines that stripped off most of the paint, and tore off some of the siding.
The windows had been busted in a long time ago, looking around inside, not immediately finding anything useful, he went deeper into the building.
“Did I get dumped in the wastes? Would explain why this place looks like a crap-heap, but I know for a fact there isn’t any vegetation in or near the wastes.” He thought while walking down a dirty hallway.
Looking to his left, all the way down the hall, he finally found what he was looking for. A little blue sign on a metal door, though he had never seen that particular symbol, it was pretty obvious that it was a men’s restroom.
“Ok, weird lookin sign, but this has gotta be it.” Reaching his hand out to push the door open, he froze. The hand that reached out was smaller than his own, its skin was flawless, youthful, lacking any scarring or hard-earned calluses.
With a renewed sense of urgency, he shouldered the door open, entering the restroom, his gaze immediately locked onto his prize.
A small mildew covered rectangle hanging over a sink. Rushing over to it, he immediately began to scrub at it with his bare hands.
Having to reach out over the sink, along with his bare hands not being quite up to the task of cleaning off the caked on mildew, he searched for a step-stole and a wash-rag.
There was a trash can in the corner that, after a few good stomps to flatten one side, made a decent enough step.
The rag on the other hand, looking around there was nothing obvious he could use, snapping his finger he remembered he wasn’t running around buck-ass naked.
Grabbing a fist full of his shirt and attempting and failing a few times to hack up a good loogie, he settled at just spitting on his shirt until it was damp and got to scrubbing.
After what felt like hours and doing his best not to glimpse at his reflection, he finally felt he’d made a decently sized hole in the grime to get a good look at himself.
Moving the stole back a few steps, closing his eyes and getting on top of it, he took in a deep breath to calm his raw nerves, and opened his eyes…
“What happened to me?” The reflection staring back at him was not the face of A 198-year-Old nomadic tradesmen, but a young boy, just entering his teenage years.
“That, that isn’t me. I’m not a child. Not anymore, and I certainly didn’t look like that back in my younger days.” He said out loud.
For the second time today, his mind seemed to short out and go numb, slowly he turned his head from side to side.
Totally focused on the mirror's reflection, attempting to soak in every possible detail he could, he brought his hand up, feeling his face and combing through his hair.
His eyes were no longer a summer green with an oak center, in their place a colorful swirling mix of blues, reds, purples, and copper with a slightly iridescent metallic-sheen stared back.
The thinning remnants of gray hair, was replaced with a deep midnight black, when the light from the window passed over it, you could see streaks of dark crystalline purple.
At closer inspection, it was apparent that this was a natural feature rather than a temporary cosmetic alteration.
Skin a warm Ivory, with a smattering of small metallic bronze freckles around his nose and cheek bones, accented the boy’s face. He didn’t recognize the ethnicity, maybe a mixture of European and East Asian, though that description didn’t fit well either.
What was truly jarring was that all these random exotic features seemed perfectly balanced, a sense of being totally natural, and yet artificial at the same time.
Like a professional artist or stylist had a hand in making sure each feature could express itself to the fullest, without over shadowing the others.
Looking at the young boy in the mirror, he could say with confidence that despite the oddities, he would grow to be a handsome young man soon enough.
It was then when reality finally hit him, and it struck with the force of an overcharged Mag-train!
“My god. I’m dead, I am actually dead, and this is what? Reincarnation!? No, I’d be even more of a brat, and at minimum be in a dumpster, rather than at the edge of a clearing in the middle of the road.”
Remembering the backroad, the scraggy woods, confusion, his near panic attack, the abandoned buildings, and all the decay reaching far into the horizon.
“Am I in Hell? I don’t see any lakes of molten metal, demons or defunk company logos. Could be Purgatory, but I am pretty sure there is supposed to be a mountain?”
Following that train of thought, I clasped my hands together then prayed, and felt nothing.
I received neither divine revelation nor hellish rebuke at my attempt of communion with the powers above… Or below.
With all my spiritual bases covered, I meditated to make sure I wasn’t missing something.
In my moment of quiet contemplation I felt only two things of note.
A sense that I was starting to get hungry, probably because I threw up my last three meals, and a growing sense of anxiety.
“Now, where is that coming from?” Immediately turning my focus inwards, quieting my screwed up mind, listening, and tuning myself to the mythical 7th sense.
Decades of experience taught me that my gut was sending a priority message.
Focusing on getting a feel on the source of this growing anxiety.
I was surprised to discover that, like a deeply engraved instinct, I was being pulled towards the city.
Taking a few more minutes to examine his new appearance and resolving to deal with his existential crisis later.
He said to his reflection, “Welp, not sure where the hell that is coming from, but I know that you should listen to your gut. Especially when it damns near spells out what it wants.”
Taking one last good look at his new face, intricate multicolored eyes staring back at him. He turned and made his way back to the front entrance of the dilapidated building.
Outside, the Boy stood near the building's front entrance, eyes closed, chin up, slight smile on his lips, taking in deep breaths.
Taking the time to enjoy the feeling of his restored youth, slowly he began to fall into a simple stretching routine.
“Man, this routine used to be an, and I mean this quite literally, A pain in the ass! Now, though, I can see why so many young folks do this for fun! Well, I guess I am a part of that crowd again.
My joints don’t hurt anymore, and I got full bladder control, so don’t got any room to complain!” He exclaimed.
After a few minutes of going through the familiar motions, the boy’s heart rate slowed to a reasonable pace, his mind settled down enough to take proper stock of his situation and to start figuring out his next move.
After roughly an hour, he finished stretching and tried to get a sense of what time it was. The sun was just above the horizon, which was difficult to tell due to the cloud cover.
The clouds also seemed a little off, at random intervals, what looked like lightning would silently surge through them causing strange effects.
Some sections of the sky would seem to boil over, other parts flowed like raging rivers, yet others would form cysts and burst, causing mini rain showers.
He could at one point swear he saw a few come to life, battling each other for a time before fading away.
“ Okay, that is definitely not how clouds are supposed to work.” He said out loud while staring up, awed by the roiling chaos above him.
After gawking at the sky for long enough that my neck was starting to get sore, I decided it was time to get moving.
Both wanting to get going on what would undoubtably be a long hike, and not being interested in learning what this world considered rough weather.
I made my way deeper into the twisted City.