More questions that these boring concrete hallways can't answer, I could fill several pages with them by now.

As the weird person I was the first thing that came to my mind when musing about all the things I didn't know was Occam's Razor. 'Occam's razor is a principle of theory construction or evaluation according to which, other things equal, explanations that posit fewer entities, or fewer kinds of entities, are to be preferred to explanations that posit more.'

That means the simplest answer is usually the right one.

Based on that, my standing theory about my situation is that I somehow spent a few millennia as a soul then somehow got transplanted into this body which was suspiciously geared towards infiltration and such.

A cold breeze swept across the hallway and I shivered a bit. My looted clothes, if they can be called that, at least protected my privates from the chilly wind.

Why was there wind in an underground hallway anyway?

My aimless walk turned into a slow jog as I followed the direction the breeze came from. It wasn't natural, that I knew as it tasted the same artificial air as before but colder like it was flowing through an AC.

After five turns in these maddening hallways, I was glad I didn't sprint, that would have been a waste of energy I decided as I looked through the crack in the wall and into something that could be called a ventilation shaft.

I mean you usually didn't just make a vertical shaft from the same damn concrete and call it a ventilation shaft.

I would have thought it was something else were it not for the sign next to it. Let's dismiss the fact that the crack was probably not a mistake but a feature if it had a sign next to it for now.

I could read the sign, surprisingly. It was like those anime openings, a bunch of languages cobbled together without much sense and afterward it made to sound somewhat like Latin. I'm sure the Romans would be turning in their graves were they to read this thing. Still the meaning 'Ventilation' and 'Beware' I could understand even if one was somewhat French and the other similar to the German word 'Achtung' meaning attention.

I think I've read a linguistic study once where they predicted that in the future the most dominant human languages would combine into a sort of global language for humanity. Back then I thought it was unlikely, almost everyone spoke English already in the second millennium so why would they need a language like this?

I got distracted again. It was a bad habit, not too bad now but it didn't help when I got distracted by noticing a bee through my window while studying for my physics exam. That wouldn't be too bad but I spent the next 8 hours sitting in front of my computer and researching how the ecosystem on earth would crumble if bees disappeared suddenly.

I had to re-take physics the next semester.

Now looking at this shaft, heh. There isn't much light here but I can still see somewhat well, so not seeing either the bottom or the top of this two-meter-wide shaft doesn't bode well. Am I somewhere far underground as I feared?

I stood there wondering how the hell could I climb up the concrete wall before I realized I was a damned tentacle monster.

With a thought, the fingers on one of my hands morphed into snow-white claws, well tendrils that I shaped like claws. I didn't know how sharp or tough they were if I wasn't trying to break down biomatter with them so this was as good a time as any to test.

The answer was both disappointing and expected. Turns out my flesh-eating eldritch tentacles weren't made to claw through concrete.

Not that it would matter if I knew how to replicate something that could claw through concrete.

With a grimace, I stabbed my fingers into the wall inside the shaft and felt the displaced concrete shift under my skin. I pushed it out of my fingers and tossed them outside my body around my elbow.

Tiny threadlike tendrils materialized inside my arms to guide them through, they shifted them through my human flesh and bones like they weren't even there and without harming them. It was infinitely fascinating to a sci-fi nerd like me and technobabble like 'phase-shifting' and such were already flooding my mind.

I stuck my other hand into the wall like the first and repeated the process, followed by both of my feet. Good thing I didn't find a shoe or I would have to leave it here.

I wasn't much of an athlete but I had obligatory sports courses in college and the 'strength and fitness' one could be completed by going to weekly wall-climbing training. Which I did.

That was the second time I realized humans could get sore in their finger muscles.

Still, it gave me the courage to now attempt climbing this vertical concrete wall with only the gaping darkness below me and the flickering light slipping through a few cracks as my company. So it proved more useful than most of my other compulsory subjects.

Right hand, left leg, left hand, right leg. Repeat.

That was my world for the next few hours. I hope. My internal clock wasn't too reliable at the best of times.

Looking down I could see the small marks I left on the wall trailing far below me and getting swallowed by the darkness. I've climbed far I think.

Now if there was a damned exit.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

My body didn't tire over the climb as I thought it would. Wall climbing was exhausting, but whenever I felt soreness or tiredness seep in, I instinctually drew on my stored energy and refreshed myself. The soreness went away and I felt like I'd just drank two energy drinks.

I considered the downsides of 'healing' my soreness but realized I could just replicate muscles just as easily as I shifted between my forms.

The only reason I still looked mostly like myself from my previous life was probably familiarity, it was comforting to be back in my 'own' skin.

That was the reason I didn't give myself more muscles than a bodybuilder on steroids would have. I liked being pretty, which might be the reason I didn't replicate my birthmarks. My face might also be a slightly bit different.

I was never an artist in my previous life but I realized why painters said a painting is never finished. I could play around with this 'character creation' forever and I would. It was fun.

While thinking about that I noticed the light seeping through the cracks above me was different. Not flickering and its shade was darker. Not the cold LED-like lights that were used all around this maze.

With a new surge of energy infusing my body I accelerated my climbing and got to digging through the cracked wall once I got there.

I was starting to get impatient a few minutes later when I only managed to dig a head-wide opening through the twenty-centimeter-thick concrete.

Wasn't I like an octopus? with no bones and tentacles and all that?

Patting myself mentally on the back at my genius idea I shifted myself wholly into my 'eldritch form'. Damn, that sounds so edgy. Well unless I shout 'Eldritch Form: TRANSFORMATION' every time I do this it is manageable.

It was only an idea but it worked better than expected. When only one of my tendrils reached through the hole I got the idea to try and reabsorb all of my mass on this side.

It worked like a wonder. My mood wasn't the least bit dampened as my now lone tendril flopped to the cold floor.

With a thought the tendril expanded and I stood there, naked as the day I was born, once again. Rest in peace clothes, you have served me well.

My vanity warred with my pragmatism as I considered growing hair out all over my body like fur to make up for my missing clothes.

A tough decision but in the end another cold breeze made a strong case on the side of pragmatism.

Only until I find some salvageable clothes here, I swore as I suddenly resembled a primate and not the beauty I was moments ago. In my perfectly objective opinion of course.

My smile was only dampened a bit as my fingers brushed through my fur, as if to dust myself off. Fur.

I wasn’t into that sort of thing, alright? I had alway been a girl of diverse … taste? Yeah, let’s go with taste.

Yet, I’d never once considered people with more hair on them than needed, attractive.

I could admire a nice beard or even some chest hair, but I drew the line strictly before I couldn’t tell whether I was touching a dog or a human.

Anyways! Adventure and mysterious lights await in this totally not horror movie worthy building.

I stilled.

Dumb idiot. You just jinxed yourself.

Somehow — I suspected weird eldritch shenanigans — I could feel distinct air vibrations than sane people would call sounds.

Well, sane people heard sounds and didn’t feel them on their skin, didn’t they?

It was a low grunt coming from a … somewhere. My spidey senses might be tingling, but they weren’t quite military grade radars. I knew there was something shuffling around somewhere on this level.

Well, it’d have made me overjoyed, had I not just realized that I was a perfect candidate for the unfortunate main character of a horror movie.

So, as I moved forward with uncertain steps the skin on my hand instinctively paling into an utter-white tone. If I could absorb dead things, I should, probably be able to do the same with living things, right?

Please don’t be a robot.

I moved forward, lights flickering above me as I hugged the moldy concrete wall closely. Who knew whether the center would hold if I stepped on it?

My heart thundered unnecessarily in my throat and I was starting to doubt my sanity for the uptenth time. Why am I getting closer to the source of that sound?

I gulped.

The vibrations were getting stronger and I could tell whatever made them was now only a bend away.

Yet, something was drawing me to it. I wanted to see it, what was it? I wanted to know what it was, what it would taste like … what?

I reached the corner and banished the unnecessary thoughts. I was going to do this, I knew that. There was no use asking why or how, I was going to peek over that corner and take a look at the first living thing I’ve found in this new life of mine.

Slowly, ever so slowly, I inched closer to the corner and without making a single sound, I leaned in.

The new hallway, which was more like a hall with the walls collapsed on both sides, was just the same shade of boring as the ones before, but there was a single different thing about it.

A form about as large as a larger dog was huddling about between the rubble, a brownish rag covering its hunched form and that combined with the lack of working lights in the hallway made it impossible to truly tell what exactly it was.

I wanted to know. I had to know.

My gaze flickered over my furry form and the ground, questing for anything that might prove useful. It stopped on a small concrete fragment. A rock.

You can’t go wrong with a rock.

I carefully crouched down and wrapped my fingers around The Rock.

Then, I threw the poor thing with as much strength as I could manage at the other end of the hallway, the one opposite to me.

I heard the thing shuffle and move about, something scraping against the floor with a painful sound as it moved with uneven steps.

I hugged the wall, wanting to meld into it and my weird powers obliged.

I would have yelp, but my mouth and lungs melted into thousands of separate tendrils which flowed over the wall. I became the wall, or maybe a wall painting.

This gives another meaning to being called a wallpaper.

The workings of my eldritch body escaped me, but my sight and hearing still eclipsed greatly what I had in my human body. Still, it was getting extremely uncomfortable with each passing second I spent like this and there was a pervasive feeling of exposedness.

I felt vulnerable in this form, even if intellectually I knew it was more powerful than my human replica body.

The thing came into view.

‘Thing’ was an apt descriptions as there wasn’t anything kinder I could call it. There is a face only a mother could love, but I think this thing’s mother threw it into the garbage, there was nothing to love.

It’s head was misshaped, looking morel ike a mutated potato in shape than any human skull I’ve seen before and god its eyes. One was as large as my fist and the other was tiny.

I refused to observe its skin any more than I had to.

All the terrified human in me wanted was to run away screaming and maybe wash my eyeballs with soap after this traumatic sight, but I didn’t move. I stayed still and waited as the abomination shuffled over on its weirdly bent legs towards The Rock.

It stopped there, staring down at the floor with a probably uncomprehending, dumb gaze. It had its back to me.

I flowed off of the wall, slowly reforming into my human form crouched down on the ground.

My eyes were fixated on its back and my fingers instinctually stayed white as I silently crept closer, avoiding making even a single sound. Turns out furry feet are quite good for muffling footsteps, it was either that or the thing was deaf.

Why am I doing this? I wondered, but it was quickly pushed into the back of my mind as I navigated my way through the rubble.

I needed to absorb it. Assimilate it.

Then I was behind it just as it decided it was bored with staring at The Rock.

I punched. I wasn’t a good puncher, but I took some kickboxing lessons a while back so I wasn’t horrible at it either, I was doing my best back then to impress the cute instructor so it was ingrained in my muscle memory even years later.

My entire weight was behind the punch, not that it mattered as my pure white hand sank into the shoulder of the monster without ever stopping.

I felt nothing, no contact, no flesh under my skin and no remorse as the thing screached in pain.

All I felt was energy flowing into me through my fist and knowledge flooding into my mind.

The thing lashed out and in my panic, I only brought up my simple, human hand to block.

Maybe because my mind was so far from being human, I saw the meaty hand easily break through my hand and crash into my side. I assumed a human would have only realized they’d been stuck when they impacted the wall a moment later, but I was glaring at the abomination throughout my flight.

My fist was torn out of its shoulder, but I’d already done more than enough damage to it. It wasn’t going to use that side of its body ever again.

I couldn’t even scream as pain overwhelmed my brain, bones fragmented in my body and organs ruptured from the impact, but the energy I got from the abomination flooded into my body. By the time my feet touched the ground I was whole and healthy again, with only a sense of annoyance at having to waste energy at something that was so avoidable.

I glared at it and it stumbled back.

Rancid blood was pooling under it and one of its hands was barely attached to it, flopping around as the thing scrambled back onto its feet. It roared at me and I decided that it was going to die. Not that it wouldn’t have already.

It had to make up for the energy I wasted on it.

Some more energy streamed into my legs as I kicked myself off of the wall, launching myself across the hall. The thing didn’t even have time to react as my form morphed and a dozen tentacles burst out of my sides like extra limbs and sank into its body.

Then, I smashed into it knee first and pushed it to the ground.

Tentacles pierced into all three remaining working limbs and instantly turned muscles, tendons and bones into nothing, but energy to fuel my relentless attacks.

It tried to bite me, but I smashed my fist into its face and it went still.

Absorb. Assimilate. Grow.

I blinked awake a while later, looking down onto the clear ground, the fight appearing distant as not a single sign of it remained.

Aside from what I had gained from it that is.

I could feel the energy swelling in my body, ready to answer my needs and I knew things I had no way of knowing.

What I killed, had been a human. A mutated one, with its genes fragmented and warped by something, but it was human.

Or it had been at some point.

I was a murderer.

And I couldn’t find it in myself to feel any remorse.