“You mess with the bull you get the horns!” Resh yelled. It was an odd thing to say considering he had been fighting was his own animal instincts. Resh had never been the brightest spark though. Then it looked at the message notifications it had just received and its celebrations abruptly stopped.

Mental integration complete! Resh psyche has gained additional memories of past life, Aarav. Resh and Aarav have merged together collective desgination to be decided! +20 Intellect, +30 Acuity! Your mind is now complete. Congratulation!

Language Mastery: English, you have mastered the Language. Now you will not forget it even if you do not use it.

Language Mastery: Gujarati, you have mastered the Language. Now you will not forget it even if you do not use it.

Language Mastery: French, you have 20% mastery, keep using it every day to master it.

Language Mastery: Hindi, you have 30% mastery, keep using it every day to master it.

Language Mastery: Swahili, you have 10% mastery, keep using it every day to master it.

“What!?” Resh screamed with his grotesque mouth. Is this…where is my human body? I used to have one and now…this is my body but it also isn’t!? “What is happening right now? What is this!?” Resh reached to his mouth with his squirrel’s legs. “What the hell!!!? No, no, no, no, no, noooooo!!” I didn’t have animal hands, I have human hands...where did those go? Resh, my name used to be Aarav, closed his eyes, which were on stalks of slime flesh. “Argh!” A scream escaped from his inhuman lips. Tongue rolling and trying to understand the interior of an unfamiliar mouth. Everything seemed alien, he had been this being for months now, why was he only now realising that this was not normal! Why had been okay with it all this time?

What was happening, what had happened to him? The last thing he remembered was the car accident and then pain and then nothing, now a haze of memories from his previous life as Aarav was comin to him as if through a fog. His memories of being a human haunted him, those dreams he had been having, or were they memories then? Those had been the worst possible moment of his previous life. Now that they were all rushing back he shuddered.

Next thing he knew, his mind was awake and alert, fighting a body that would not respond to his desires. He had won; a first for him if he was honest but it had been a win and he would take it. It had also served to distract him from his immediate conundrum. He had not instantly realised that he was, in fact, a Slime. It wasn’t the part about not being human that threw him. He had gotten used to that over the last few months. If Aarav was honest with himself he had never really been the most exceptional human being, as Resh he had much more effectively adapted to his surrounding and his love of trees and woods he permeated both lives. No, what had thrown him was that he was the furthest, most disgusting thing from a human that was possible. Again, why have I been okay with this for the last few months? Why is this only occurring to me now! The memories that allowed Aarav to judges the situation as a human would had been missing from Resh up till not. But with the memories of his previous life slowly making their way back it was easy to see the situation from the new context.

“This is completely insane! How could this have happened?” The voice that came out of this facsimile of a mouth was guttural and like what he imagined the chain smoker sounded like, more animal than human. Resh had to admit though it might have been an improvement on his squeaky voice as a human. Am I really looking for silver linings right now? Aarav could not accept that this body was his. It was a body and he happened to be in, for now. Okay, this body is a little gross but I have been wandering around in it for a while and it definitely has its advantages, still gross though... Right now this body looked, felt and smelled like mud…

So I am both Resh and Aarav, Resh first in this life and Aarav in the last one? Am I Resh and Aarav or is Resh something else? Aarav took a moment to analyse what was going on…no, both were a part of who he was, so should I go by Aarav again or stick to Resh? Resh was…oh, it was from when…not thinking about that right now. It is enough to say that Resh was a mistake and not a good one. I am going to stick with Aarav from now on. Did you hear that system…or whatever god is listening. Aarav, that’s my name…A. A. R. A. V!

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Collective desgination Aarav chosen! Congratulations!

Urggh, I can’t believe I ate dung, crap…I ate it. And wallowed in it like a warthog in mud, if the mud was actually faecal matter and the warthog was about ten times uglier.

The shell shocked human mind that was trapped in the Earth Slime body, was deathly afraid of being underground, fromt hat one time being buried alive, oh wow, I dreamt about that as well...

The veil of fog in Resh’s mind was now completely gone, the parts that had been hidden were the memories of his previous life. If anything waking up fully Aarav had gained a more intelligent mind than he had as a human on the old world.

Turns out being bashed in the head several times throughout life killed brain cells, who knew?

Instead of having to deal with broken and disconnected thoughts and feelings Aarav was free and whole to freak out completely at this new reality. “Thanks a lot! For nothing!” Aarav screamed to the sky, to Buddha or Christ or Allah or Brahma or Mahavir or whatever damn god that existed or didn’t exist on this plane…wherever here was, the question that he kept circling back to was how had he been okay with this situation the whole time, like it hadn’t even occurred to Resh that it had been human before thie birth... upon reflection…maybe he hadn’t? Then the image of a vast creature deep in the earth shivered through his mind and he fell silent for a moment.

“This cannot be happening….but it is happening….I have to figure this out. How could this have happened!! I don’t think I want to be a slime creature forever, there are so many cooler things that being a Slime. I will move on to greater things but Assimilate is ridiculously useful so can’t loose that…” Now Aarav was agitated.

It was a bit of a blur but he had been running from some loan sharks…what was new. And they had tried to run him off the road. He had just gone out for food. They had thought he was running away and he had panicked when they chased him.

It hit him. I…died? No….no……..no……….

He was silent for a long time, wallowing in mud and despair like a turd-hippo. A depressed turd-hippo. Aarav sighed. Every time he breathed, he was once again reminded of the mouth full of fangs he had Assimilated, could get used to this…I would still like nice human teeth though and a human nose and eyes and everything else really, I did like being human when I was…

Aarav once again took a few deep breaths and calmed his fragmented mind. He needed to assess his current situation and figure out what this meant for him. He felt like he was handicapped. What he considered his more valuable sense was not working properly, maybe it was dark? There was no colour in the world…was it him or was it his Slime eyes…? It’s time to dig into what is going on with me. After that minor freak out…it was a minor freak out. He wasn’t sure who he was trying to convince.

Looking through all the Skill notifications and growth and ability it was clear that a lot of time had been spent working on them and pushing the levels upward. But many of these senses left much to be desire, eyes that couldn’t see colour, ears that could hardly hear any but the deepest sounds and a nose that could only smell things that were right under its nose and a mouth and tongue that felt like it was from a child’s worst nightmare. The sense of taste wasn’t great at the moment either.

Out of all of them though it was not being able to see colour that was throwing him off the most, that needed to be rectified quickly as well as understand this whole evolution and growth progress as far as Aarav was concerned, the faster he could evolve out of this body into a stronger one the better. I dub thee, turd body. Maybe changing to something fresher and cleaner and nicer would improve his mood? Strong Odour Alteration and Strong Camouflage to the rescue! The Earth Slime scrolled through the list of smells and looks just like online shopping, I can change my entire body though, not just the clothes I’m wearing…

Deciding on Polished Wood, both the smell and the look made him feel a lot better. With the high density of his body, even if it was small at least he was no longer mud-coloured. A nice polished wood was much more acceptable. Not anything close to what he was willing to stick with but an improvement at least. He would live as mud if needed but right now he didn’t need it and so…

Continuing to breathe in steady even breaths in and out, in and out, was doing a lot to calm the more irrational thoughts. Halfway through the fourth breath he also realised that he did not need oxygen to survive, was he even breathing in oxygen or was this atmosphere a completely different chemical make-up? Hmm…that’s right, keep thinking distracting thoughts and you might be able to forget that you’re a turd monster right now. Just…happy to be alive…he thought wanly.

“Well, it was good while it lasted…” Once again Aarav was talking to himself. It wasn’t the first time and it wouldn’t be the last. Like most recluses, he had learned to keep himself entertained. Aarav hadn’t been the most stable person as a human being. So being a Slime was gradually pushing him closer and closer to another meltdown that threatened to be even more epic than the one before. He kept trying to bring his mind back to safer topics.

Suddenly, a small inkling of instinct welled up, warning Aarav. Something came stalking into the clearing where the anthill was, and Aarav realised he had been pretty loud in his exclamations of anger, fear, denial and several other emotions that tangled into an unrecognisable mess.

This creature was the last thing Aarav wanted to see as he had flashbacks to their previous encounters. It had not ended well for him in any of them.