Blackness. It was hard for him to see anything. He tried to move and he found himself unable to do so as well.
[Am I tied…?] he said with a glint of desperation.
Then he stopped. His voice sounded incredibly weird, like he was hearing it from a recording machine. He tried to open his mouth and he couldn’t. Not because it was tied, but because he couldn’t feel it. In fact, he couldn’t feel any of his limbs.
After a few minutes his vision started to become a little clearer. He tried to blink several times, but, again, there were no eyelids he could command.
When he finally saw where he was he shouted as loudly as he could and he tried to move around and flay his non-existent limbs. He found himself several hundreds of meters above the ground and, at first, he thought he was dreaming.
But he wasn’t.
He then tried to move once again, but the only thing that he could move was his field of vision. He thought this was incredibly weird and then he saw a glimpse of his own body.
It was white and it seemed to be…smoke…
[Am I a freaking cloud?] he shouted in this disbelief.
He then tried to look around and seeing several other clouds nearby that did looked like the correct answer.
[How did this happen?] he asked himself as he tried to remember what had happened.
First, he remembered his original name, Andrew Taylor. Then re recollected his entire average life and the last thing he remembered was that he was at a new restaurant and he was eating rabbit stew, because he had never eaten this kind of meat. He only had had the “C” trinity of meat, chicken/cow/pork.
Then he remembered that he started choking after the first bite, the waiters rushing to help him, then the blackness overcoming him and now there he was.
After trying to calm his nonexistent heart, he tried to understand his situation the best he could.
[I guess I died…but, why am I a freaking cloud? Who did this to me? And…am I talking or just thinking?]
He got frustrated not being able to come up with a real answer for his predicament. Soon enough, Andrew discovered that he could freely alter his field of vision. While he couldn’t look everywhere at once, he at least was able to look at every possible angle as if his very “eyes” moved around.
When he accidentally looked at the Sun he quickly tried to change his “eye placement”, but the cloud-man decided to experiment a little and looked up straight to the Sun.
He could see the star in its full glory. It was bright it didn’t hurt his “eyes” in the slightest.
[Neat…] he muttered a little impressed, but not by much.
He then tried to look around and see if he could at least know where he was. The cloud-man realized he didn’t recognize anything around him. There were many forests and empty fields on the ground. He tried to jiggle his way towards what he assumed was east, but he was powerless to do anything. He was at the mercy of the wind which was pushing him towards north.
Andrew saw some movement on the forest bellow and he noticed an animal. But the distance was so great it was probably an ant. He tried to force to see what it was and for his shock his field of vision “zoomed” into the area.
He quickly tried to look around, at first thinking that he had actually moved really fast, but he soon discovered it was what he could call an “ability”. The cloud-man tried a few more times to see how much he could actually control his vision.
He discovered he could “zoom in” around one kilometer. Andrew had to wonder if he could enhance it if he trained it. Then, he remembered the animal and tried to look for it again.
Luckily, it was eating grass and have not moved. Upon a closer examination, all he could say was, [What…is that thing?]
It had the antlers of a deer, but they were bright blue, it body was shaped like a cow, and was as big as one, but it had red scales with hooves. Its head was shaped like an armadillo’s.
[Am I even on Earth?] he asked himself as he tried to check the trees for more information, but they seemed similar enough with the ones he knew. However, one thing truly got him by surprise.
A sudden blue spear pierced through the skull of the animal, making it fall. The spear shone so brightly he had no idea what was even made or how it could pierce such an armored animal so easily.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
The answer came shortly as the spear simply faded away and two men wearing strange beige clothing appeared. The cloud-man then realized his vision was moving away from them, after all he was being pushed by the wind.
[No! Please! I need to go back. I need to see this.] He pleaded, but there was nobody to listen.
He groaned in frustration no longer being able to see the scene since the trees now blocked every angle he tried. Plus, he was so far away that he wasn’t going to be able to see much anyway.
Andrew had to wonder what had just happened. [Was that magic? Looked like it. Now I know for sure I’m not in my own world. But why am I here? Why a cloud? Who transformed me into this?]
After a short break he then asked himself, [Can I do magic too? Do you need words or mana to do this stuff? I can move my sight. Does this count?]
Once again frustration took over him. He hated it. He was a salary man back in the day. He had a very average life. He didn’t have any real ambitions in life, but he couldn’t think of a reason why he was like this.
[If this is some kind of punishment, why? I don’ recall ever hurting anyone to deserve this. Why couldn’t I have become like two guys down there? Why a stinking cloud]
As he ranted while looking bellow he didn’t realize he was approaching a much bigger and darker cloud. Why he noticed they would collide all he could do was scream.
But there was no pain.
In fact, his body merged with the other cloud and now he had an even bigger vision field thanks to it. He was glad that no harm had happened and that he had a little bit more freedom.
A few hours have passed and he noticed he was slowly declining in altitude. He couldn’t tell if this was a good or bad thing. He tried to observe things a little more. He could see some mountains to west and never ending plains to the east. To the south, there were mostly forests, same to the north, however, he took it as an opportunity to try seeing more about the creatures of this world.
He spotted a few rabbit looking creatures with long front legs and sharp claws on them. He saw one of them jump on what he assumed was a snake and devour it whole, barely even chewing it. For once he was thankful such creatures weren’t near of him.
He also managed to see some also birds which had metallic grey feathers. He wondered how they could even fly like that, but they were quite beautiful given how it reflected the sunlight.
As Andrew observed nature, his body started to grow in size as it gathered with other clouds and soon it started to rain. At first, he thought nothing of it. But then he felt himself jerking and becoming more instable as his very consciousness seemed to go up and down.
Then he fell, plummeting onto the ground below. He screamed(?) as loudly as he could as his body collided with the dirt. There was no pain. He simply stopped falling once he fell on the ground.
If he could breathe, he would be desperate to breath to calm himself down. After his non-existent nerves calmed he tried to fully understand what had happened to him.
He tried to use his “ability” to see more and he eventually understood that he was a puddle of water now.
[So, am I stuck in a water cycle? What will happen to me if I’m absorbed by the ground? Will I be able to become a cloud again?]
He hated not being able to do anything. While he could still look down, there was only dirt and grass for him to watch. So, he kept focused on the sky, witnessing the rain fall on the land.
It was quite a beautiful scene seeing the drops of water fall and the sky slowly clear, revealing the now night sky.
[Wow…so, it has been raining for hours?] He mused.
He was also fascinated by the sky. He had never seen so many stars. The closest he had ever seen a constellation was in a book as a kid. Living in a big city full of neon signs, lamp posts and many sources of light prevented people from seeing many stars.
He tried his best to remember the constellations from his world to compare it, but this wasn’t something he had been interested before. However, he knew some of the more famous ones, like the Southern Cross, Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. But none of them were there. This reinforced his notion that he was indeed in another world.
He then tried to sleep, but he remembered that he had no eyes. Andrew was fated to remain awake all the time without any rest or break. The now puddle-man eventually got bored after trying to count the stars in the sky so many times, after all, he could lost on multiple occasions and had to start over when he counted the same constellation two or three times by accident.
That was the very definition of boredom. Nothing to do, nobody to talk to, being unable to move. Just stare upwards for who knows how long, not only that, his field of vision was also limited by his puddle size.
The dawn came and he saw the Sun rising and he was forced to hope that he could become a cloud again. But he had no idea how long the evaporation process would take or even if his theory would be correct.
[What if I simply became air this time? Would this be better? Worse? AGH! I hate not knowing anything! WHO DID THIS TO ME! SHOW YOURSELF!] Andrew tried to “shout” as loud as he could, but there was no reply.
He felt like crying. He was mentally tired, confused and was at the mercy of fate. He tried to occupy himself by trying to find wildlife, but form that angle he could mostly observe birds.
He ended up seeing what he could describe was a fluffy pterodactyl on steroids. The creature was huge, with green feathers over its body with a long and curved beak and he could swear he saw a glimpse of teeth.
[I thought birds didn’t have teeth…]
What shocked him the most was that another one appeared and the two started to fight. It was something he would only thought would see in a movie with expensive CGI.
The first bird flew under the second one and used its beak to grab the leg of its opponent and spin it around, probably trying to make it lose its balance.
Red blood fell from the wound as the second bird trashed trying to keep tiself on the air and trying desperately to attack his assailant. It was an one-sided match mostly because of the pre-emptive attack of the first bird. It chopped the leg of the opponent off and let it fall on the ground.
From the wound, a steam of blood slowly coated the earth. Andrew couldn’t believe on the sheer volume of the shriek the wounded bird. If he had years he would be deaf.
The first bird then flew above its prey and with a swift move it stopped the wounded animal from escaping by biting hard on its nape. More blood leaked and the second bird’s body slowly trashed around until it completely stopped.
Once it secured its kill, the winner dropped its prey on the ground and there was a small tremor on the ground. The creature weighted 700 Kg and was around 4 meters long with two meters of wingspan. Its body was sturdy and didn’t splatter upon impact. The first bird then came down on it and started to rip its flesh apart with its sharp bear and horrifying looking teeth.
[Please, don’t look this way! Please, don’t look this way! Please, don’t look this way!] Andrew almost prayed, hoping it wouldn’t notice it. What if the creature knew he was there? What if it tried to drink him?
These questions cursed his mind and send shivers across his body when the bird looked at his general direction, but it was just surveying the area. It was not aware of the presence of the puddle-man. For the bird’s perspective it was just a small amount of water, not even worth drinking.
A few hours later only the bones remained of the gigantic bird. Andrew was impressed how clean the bones looked now. Once sated, the bird flew up in the sky, causing huge gust of wind.
[Is this species cannibal? Maybe this was the territory of the winner bird and the other had the horrible luck of invading it by accident]
This was simply added to the lists of question he didn’t have the answer for.
Sometime later when the sun was slowly descending, he noticed the same tremor he had felt before the rain. He started to be elevated into the sky.
[I guess this is the moment of truth…]
He debated with himself whether or not he should try to move, but when he saw a cloud he decided to see if he could stick to it. He decided that becoming pure air would be too dangerous because he could be elevated so high he would never see the ground again and he would truly be lost.
Andrew expected to fail, but, this time, he seemed to be able to actually move towards the cloud he was aiming to be part of, although he moved very slowly. It was a just a modest cloud around 3 meters of diameter. It had no sign it would rain soon.
When he collided with the cloud he became part of it and assimilated the whole thing. He gave a cry of joy and only now he realized he was able to have some minor control over his own body.
He tried to test it again and…it worked. He moved painfully slowly towards any direction he wanted to. But it was a considerable progress. However, every time the wind got strong, he was not able to fight it.
When the wind’s speed lowered he tried to look around and he saw a castle on his east. There was some smoke and strange multi colored lights coming from and around it. He decided that this was going to be his target. So he set his course towards the castle and see what was going on.
[Maybe someone can help me] Andrew hoped.