Free falling through darkness wasn't bad enough. I'm getting assaulted from all angles, and none of my skills is working. Hands, ethereal and able to grip my flesh, are pulling and ripping me apart. Is this what quartering feels like? The execution method carried out by four horsed tied to a single poor sap?

Why am I thinking of this?

Oddly, I don't feel endangered even though I'm losing mass by the second. One of my legs was pulled out of its socket, then torn off my body.

Damn, how long is this fall?

I snatched my leg back from the hand that stole it from me and batted away another one with the said leg. It's my fucking leg.

Before I could figure out a way to put my leg back on, I hit the ground. Hard. I guess I don't have any resistance in this form since I splatter.

Bones broke and are sticking free from the macerated flesh. I bounced once before skidding across the nothingness I landed on. Landed? Crashed?

No mana, no resistances, no skills. Another bad trip, huh? It hurts. My body is broken beyond belief and even less in one piece than before. But the pain is muted, unreal. It's what I'd imagine the pain to feel like rather than the actual product.

Ironically, the only fingers I can move are the ones on my prosthetic. Is it weird that even in the astral-form-turned-self-possession, I have a fake arm instead of my original one?

I broke every notion of this being reality and got up. My organs ruptured on impact. Both my legs were out of commission, one more than the other, and the non-prosthetic arm was crushed under my body. One of my eyes was plucked out when I wasn't looking during my fall, and my skin is missing in more places than I realized.

I used my hand to push myself upright and sit on my broken bones. I set my right arm back in place with my left and straightened out both my legs, even though only one was fully connected to me.

I noticed that I didn't have blood. Not a drop has hit the ground or leaked from my wounds. The hands haven't attacked since I landed. I wonder why?

It's hard to tell, but the terrain is slightly different from the tunnel.

A dream state, hallucination, it doesn't matter. I recall that jarring sensation when that entity pulled me from the ocean during my "dream" thingy. I try to focus on that feeling.

No luck.

I try again but again, nothing. Maybe a different approach is needed. I rub my chin and realize I never set my jaw in place. With a single click, my reality changed. I felt the jarring feeling and "woke up."

I was standing in a trance, but no longer.

A shadowy, sinewy figure walks around me. Staring at my repaired body, inspecting me like I'm the most valuable thing in the world, then utter garbage the next moment. It is a living whispy silhouette with the only stand-out thing being the red eyes.

Bloodshot eyes. Never blinking, blood-red eyes. Unrealistalty realistic compared to the rest of it. It runs its hands down its body in ecstasy before shivering. It recoils before melting into a puddle. It rises from the liquid and locks eyes with me.

"!!!"

It doesn't have a mouth but seems to emote like it's giving the monologue of a lifetime. I grab one of its arms and look at its hand.

"!?!"

I recognize it as one of the hands that pulled me in and ensuingly accosted me during my trip down. It covers its non-existent mouth like a blushing damsel before touching the blank blackness where the mouth would be.

It pulls its arm back, and I allow it. It dramatically arches its back and faces upwards before ripping open its face, leaving a horrific tear where a mouth should be. The wounds turn to lips, and the gaping hole grows a smile.

"Oh me, oh my. How silly that I forgot one of the most important holes!"

"..."

"No answer? Don't be unfun! That's not fun. Are you mad at me? What did I do, mother? Forgive me!"

I'm waiting for the drugs to leave my system. Whatever the fuck is going on should stop once that happens.

The thing latches onto my leg, much like my thrall, and starts laughing and sobbing. I try to kick it off, but it doesn't skid across the ground as my thrall would have. Its consistency turns tar-like, and it slithers up my body.

The back half of my body is stuck in this standing glue trap, and no amount of struggling or ripping free keeps this thing off of me.

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"It's going to be harder than that to get rid of me."

"What are you?"

"I'm hurt, honestly. I've been with you the longest, and you forget me once you got prettier friends to play with? I'm sure you can figure it out with that unique brain."

I knew when I first saw it. But I wanted confirmation.

"I'm not crazy."

"No, but we are. Together! Two peas in a pod. I'm your accessory, your companion. The other side of the coin. It's never boring inside your head with your thoughts, and I assisted with that fact!"

"..."

"Didn't you say I was yours? "I will be inflicted with madness, but it will be MINE." You sure do know how to make an amorphous-brain-entity blush!"

"Fucking get off me."

"I've been waiting for this a long time, Ellis. Unlike the others, I was given a head start since the groundwork was almost complete. I need to take advantage while the others don't have it in them."

"What are you talking about?"

It mulls and pulls me closer.

"I'll tell you if you promise me something?" It whispers into my ear with its ripped lips. Even though its tone and personality have been bouncing around, its eyes never changed. It doesn't wink or squint. It hungrily stares like it needs to examine outside stimuli to sustain itself.

"Depends on the promise."

"Don't throw me away!"

"..."

"Stop denying my existence! Therapy is overrated! Medication does nothing but make you dull!"

"I'm not currently seeing a therapist. Nor am I on medication."

"That's irrelevant. Don't toss me aside. I don't need to be daddy's favorite little specimen, but don't abandon me."

"..."

"Come on. Skip stages two through four and jump straight to acceptance. Denial can only help you so much."

"You don't seem to be the type of madness that that entity spoke of. More chaos than the sickness of a genius."

"You're already hoggin all the good stuff. I get the leftovers! I am what you are not. I complete you!"

"Nah."

"...what?"

"I refuse to acknowledge you exist until I get answers. Actual answers."

"You can't do that!"

"Been doing it all my life."

"..."

I begin walking around the space I found myself in. It's strange. I'm in a similar state to my attunement dream but in an entirely different location. I think. The tar-like form of the clingy madman tries its hardest to root me in place, but I ignore its tugging.

If I can't get rid of it, I might as well keep it from slowing me down.

There are floors, walls, and ceilings, but they seem to share the color of the man—whispy ispy, inky, blackness. I'm glad they aren't as sticky. The room I'm in seems to have a layout that boggles the mind. I can't find any rhyme or reason for the geometry of this place.

"...I can show you the way out."

Ignoring the voice, I eventually find a doorway out. It briefly comes to mind to try my mansion skill on the door and see if I can leave that way, but instead, I go for the handle.

Locked.

"I could unlock it. Just ask! It's my place, after all."

I grip the handle harder and turn it until it breaks. I kick my foot through the door and rip myself through.

"STOP IGNORING MY HELP."

We really are in the ocean. I can see the surface where I conversed with that entity way above me. Clashing colors and spectacles of light and particles swarm this place.

Seven distinct islands, sources of the carnage. And just like the one I left, not 100% tangible yet. At least compared to the real world.

The islands are the nucleus of the malignant energies wreaking havoc. I bet I'll feel all that when I wake up. Literal cracks are forming where the fighting is happening.

"They'll kill you. They can't be reasoned with, not like me!"

Two of the seven energies stand out. One of the nuclei looks fully formed, just a floating doorway with the same design as my new [Lexicon]. The energy is less "floaty" and more like tendrils trying to reach the other islands.

The other is just a floating rock: no whispy energy dying the surrounding ocean, but a slowly growing mass of solid stone. I wonder if that counts as cancerous.

The thing said something, but I ignored it. There isn't air around me, but the "liquid" this place is filled with. I start swimming around.

I wanted to check out the other islands, but the various energies had their effect on me long before I could get close. Pain hurt, Rock tried to petrify me, Undead made me feel funny, and I didn't even attempt Death.

It gets more condensed and congealed closer to the nucleus of each energy, but the island I left hasn't given me issues.

"I can answer any questions."

Maybe the whole sequence of the tunnel hands was an infliction from that energy. Maybe, I'm so not insane insanity doesn't work on me. Maybe my traits are helping me out in this instance.

I arrived at the floating door with unlocked chains swimming around it. It's locked, so I knocked. I get no reply. Brute forcing the door didn't work either. Maybe Taboo is taking a nap or something.

"Hey. Hey! Hey. Hey! Hey. Hey! Hey. Hey! Hey. Hey!"

It would be a contradiction if Life killed me. Maybe something worse might happen, however. Cancerous growths, spontaneous pregnancy, my life force might explode. Etc. Etc.

Actually, I'm good. I don't approach that island.

This place sucks. Almost everything here is trying to kill me in one way or another. They are actively killing me, but I might not be feeling it. The last time I took this drug, the time dilation was insane, so I probably haven't doomed myself.

"I SAID I'd answer any question! I submit. I bare my belly to you!"

"That was surprisingly fast. I don't believe you."

"..."

I wonder if it would be hard to get to the surface. If the top is an actual solid roof since I stood on it last time, would it be a barrier?

"How long would it take for you to believe me?"

I wonder how much of me is here. This isn't my "real body," right? I saw it before getting yanked in. Am I just a soul, or am I in my soul? I can feel my life force.

"I wasn't lying when I said I am the leftovers! I got your abandonment issues, man. Don't be doing this to me. I got your need for attention and your-"

"Would that mean the more I tell the truth, the more you'll lie?"

"Not really? It's more of a mental thing than a reality. If you were a mythomaniac, a pathological liar, I would be a saint in comparison. I don't think your honesty is a disorder."

"So what do I have that you don't?"

"Unfiltered pride in a false sense of invincibility? The desire for answers to any question that pops up? The subconscious urge to get stronger than the people fucking with you? This is starting to turn into therapy. I don't like that!"

"I maybe have half those things."

The thing slides off my body and floats in front of me.

"A spark of realization burst my previously conceived notion into flames. You wouldn't be able to get rid of me if you tried! You're unapologetically mad. I guess we have similarities as well!"