Silent, void-like darkness greeted my sleepy, unfocused mind when it awoke from the depths of its unnaturally deep slumber as I mentally shuddered.

It was cold, colder than I had ever felt before, the kind of feeling you would expect as if Death was visiting your grave, yet it was still just a vague notion.

It didn't feel real because, much to my dismay, I found that I couldn't sense anything.

No pain, no pressure, not even the aches and pains that had plagued every moment of my waking, adult life. It was as if I just ceased to exist yet, somehow, had retained the ability to think.

The explanation, especially taking into account my recent tribulations, seemed relatively straightforward.

-"So this is it? I died. Game over man, game over. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Two feet in the grave and a hand on the Reaper's scythe."

Even though I felt somewhat annoyed, I couldn't muster much emotion in regards to my current state, and despite everything I felt I should be feeling at my death, I quickly accepted my fate. Even if it was accompanied by the vague sensation that I should be doing something vital, fluttering at the edge of my consciousness.

Deciding it was pointless, I did not pursue the feeling, content in my ignorance and unwilling to disturb the serenity that surrounded me.

Nothingness continued, and for the first time, I found true peace, though I would admit after the first five minutes or so that it was a little... tedious.

-"Meh, it seems Dante had it all wrong. No demons, no levels of purgatory, even though an encounter with a succubus might be... enlightening, nothingness isn't all that bad."

I had given it my all, fought tooth and nail and even though I had failed, I felt like I had done enough to rest in peace.

On this alien planet, with my memories of those who were important to me erased, I had no responsibilities or ties to life, so as long as I could somehow live... err, exist in death with my final moments, which I could, I was happy.

Deep down, I knew I was just making excuses and trying to look a the bright side, but with eternity, I could face that lat-

'We are not dead~.'

An ethereal voice penetrates the darkness, nowhere yet everywhere at the same time, but instead of paying it any attention, I ignored it.

I had had enough of mysterious, disembodied voices.

First, it was the more than annoying pod-girl and then the suicidal one that consistently urged me towards the pools of water in which I finally met my, at least to me, untimely demise.

Yes, I had instigated the whole series of events by attacking the apes instead of eating the luminous, glowing fruit that looked so dangerous even the radioactive Godzilla would turn his nose up at, but even still, I didn't feel any guilt or remorse. I just felt... disheartened that it had ended so pathetically.

-"Knowing my luck, I had probably dreamed the whole thing, having been hospitalised for some pitiful reason like being hit by a truck, while having been pumped full of drugs sending my mind on a one way trip to la la land before they decided to pull the plug and end my suffering."

'We are real~. Us being able to think, talk, feel is proof of this~. We are one yet, we are more~."

I restrained the urge to chuckle, even though I didn't seem to have a body, as I continued to ignore the voice that had all but confirmed that we were the same person, which meant it was part of my imagination and thus, fair game.

-"Wait, what if I am the imagination and ‘it’ is real ?"

Finding more humour in the fact that a dead person could be having an existential crisis, more so than the potential point that I was talking to myself, I decided that I would worry about it later. I had eternity after all.

'We are not dead~. We must wake up~. Time is not on our side~.'

The voice's words triggered a memory, and I started mentally singing a song that, for some reason, seemed to fit the occasion.

-"Time~ is on my side~ yes it is..."

Noting that the voice had fallen silent, one - nil to... err, me?, I decided to relive my final moments.

I recalled my decision to ambush the insect-like ape, breaking its neck and dragging it into the dense forest as I searched for a secluded spot to consume my prize.

Of how my skin had crawled, feeling as if some indescribable terror was about to descend yet, nothing happened as I continued on my fated journey.

The sound that had echoed into the forest as I ripped the sharp mandible from the mouth of my prey and used it to slice its own flesh. Of course, after I had pulled apart its plate-like skin with my bare hands, getting drenched in the sickly, yellow blood at the same time.

'Rise~. We shall not fall here~. We must move forward, not dwell on the past~.'

The sound that the otherworldly clicking made, announcing the arrival of other insect apes heading in my direction, seemingly on the hunt for me.

'Please~. We are one~. If one falls, the other shall cease to exist~. You must wake up~.'

I felt the annoyance and humour that bubbled forth, in equal measure, at the memory of the failed attempts at leading them into a trap, resulting in me practically needing to put up a neon 'Your buddy is here' sign.

'How can I prove myself~? We must leave this place~. Now~."

I remembered how shocked I was when, instead of raising the alarm when they discovered their partially eaten friend, that they had fallen upon their former kin, ripping him apart as they devoured his flesh.

'Time is running out~. You must accept we are now one~. Or is my host so pathetically weak~?'

The voice was starting to get on my nerves. It looked like my delusion had the same impulse as me, entertain themselves by irritating the other. The real question was if I was stuck here for eternity, who was going to turn into the mumbling idiot first.

'We were two weak, separate beings that become one, creating something new~. A whole that will forever be stronger than its parts~.'

Deciding that the ‘other me’ failed at English even more spectacularly than I did, just, knowing the meaning but not the natural usage of the words, I continued my recollections and once again bore witness to my end.

The pain I felt the instant the spike tore through my chest, inflicting a mortal wound, resonated within what only could be referred to, at least due to my inability to describe it, my soul, before the memories moved to my last moments. The ones where I dragged myself through the jungle to a pool of hot water in some retarded notion that it would save me.

I mentally laughed at the stupidity of such an idea.

Yes, I was going into shock, but with a hole the size of a fist in your chest, no amount of hot water was going to change anything.

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'Water is my element~. I saved us~. We live, but maybe not for long~. They hunt us~.'

For the second time, the first being when I started singing in my mind earlier, I couldn't ignore the voice's words as my paranoia and sense of self-preservation united in spectacular force.

-"Who hunts us?"

I wanted to sigh, knowing that I had finally taken that last step to insanity and started talking to myself but what was the worst that could happen? I was already dead.

The darkness seemed to expand and contract and, even though it wouldn't shut up as I was trying to relive my end, the voice decided to remain silent.

Time had no meaning here, yet the urge that I needed to do something continued to grow as I waited for my delusions response.

-"Voice?"

Finally, an indistinguishable amount of time later, I was rewarded for my patience.

'We do not know what they are~. They come, they kill, and they take trophies~. We shall call them hunters~.'

I would have complimented the voices naming sense if I didn't think it was ‘another me’ though, I was debating that the description fitted a name like Predator more.

'They do not take the head~. Now, we must wake up~. Danger approaches~.'

I wanted to frown, feeling somehow naked and vulnerable when talking to the voice in my head, one that seemed to have access to my thoughts, as I felt my skin start to tingle.

-"Skin?"

Slowly at first, then with ever increasing speed, my nerves painfully came to life. The sudden overload of information, just like the static, tingling feeling when a part of your body had fallen asleep, momentarily knocking me stupid as my mind battled with the implications of what I was sensing.

The steady, rhythmic beating of two heats reverberating in my chest.

My muscles, which were unconsciously tensing as I slowly regained control, feeling familiar yet, at the same time, completely alien.

The dull, muted rumbling that continuously assaulted my ears.

'Rise Alpha~. Our journey does not end here~.'

I ignored the fact that the voice had used my assumed name as my heartbeat quickened.

A shiver sent goosebumps crawling across my skin moments before I felt my face wrinkle into a broad smile.

I had a heartbeat, or maybe even two.

I could feel the water warm water pressing down and stone floor on my skin.

The gentle trickle of the small stream that should be running from the white tree in the centre of the clearing, that fed into the pool, echoing in the water around me.

I rejoiced at my findings, barely wanting to believe my senses.

To put it simply, I was alive.

Clenching my fists, my smile growing ever wider as it twisted into what must appear to be something feral, with each new sensation, my bones popped as the muscles flexed and strained.

I WAS ALIVE!

My eyes shot open as I attempted to stand, hurting as if I had never used them before, the water resisting any attempt at moving quickly but unlike what I would have expected, I did not float for long as I gently landed on my tiny, childlike feet onto the floor of the pool.

-"..."

I quickly checked the rest of my body, almost falling to my knees in despair as all the elation I had been feeling disintegrated into nothingness.

Ignoring the fact that I was able to breathe underwater, having little to no buoyancy, I was faced with something that many would probably rejoice at, yet all I could do was curse.

I was back in the body which symbolised the worst period of my life.

The voice seemed to ignore what truly upset me, deciding to answer the first question.

'I breathe for us in liquid~. You breathe in the air~. Together we are strong, separate we are weak~. Our merging has remade us~.'

A chill ran down my spine, and while I subconsciously enjoyed the ability to feel once again, for the first time, I started to take the voice seriously.

I was overcome with a premonition, like an itch you cannot scratch, that I just couldn’t ignore.

It felt like I had all the puzzle pieces, a story waiting to be told, yet I couldn't see how to put them together.

The feelings, the changes in my body, the hazy memories as I bled out. They held the answers yet; I just couldn't make sense of them.

'We must go~. To survive is to win~. To die, lose~. We shall not die~.'

I looked around and, though I wasn’t breathing, tried to hold my breath at what I discovered.

I wasn't alone down here.

At my feet, the flickering reflections from the light hitting the surface above rippled over the bleached white bones of a skeleton. One who belonged to a species that I knew all too well. It was human.

Yet, even that wasn’t the most shocking thing.

As I continued to examine the remains, I came to a very shocking realisation, and my mind Jarred, not able to grasp what was going on.

Not only were the bones from a species I recognised, but they were also from an individual you could say I was intimately familiar with. One I had known my entire life.

The chunk missing from the left side of the jaw, the result of a childish bet, the cracked sternum and ribs, from a car crash, and the tell-tale signs of a fracture in the left leg were all the evidence I needed, even if my mind refused to accept it.

My stomach flipped, wanting to empty whatever contents it held as I desperately kicked for the surface.

'Do not fear what was once us~. We cannot absorb everything~. There will always be waste~.'

A warm, comforting feeling enveloped me as I broke the surface of the water, but I instantly shrugged it off as I threw my arms over the pool's edge and heaved myself ashore, desiring nothing more than to be out of this gruesome pond as soon as possible.

No sooner had I crawled out of the watery pit, my body convulsed, and I started vomiting copious amounts of green, blue and black liquid onto the ground, the liquids refusing to mix as they ran off the stone surrounding the pool and into the grass.

At the back of my mind, I recognised two of the colours, the vivid green and the calming blue, but I couldn't focus on where as my world began to spin.

Collapsing to the floor, I rolled onto my back with closed eyes and gasped in the sweet, beautiful air as I tried to order my thoughts.

I had awoken at the bottom of a pond without drowning.

I seemed to be in the body of a child and...

I had seen my own skeletal remains.

Sighing, I tried to steady my frayed nerves.

-”I must have drowned a boat load of orphans holding kittens on the way to a puppy convention in a previous life…”

Minutes ticked by, my body occasionally convulsing as it purged itself of whatever it could, one moment feeling as if it had just been ripped off life support, the next as if I had been stabbed in the heart with a truck load of adrenaline.

Nothing made sense, yet at the same time, nothing felt wrong.

Suddenly I remembered the injuries sustained in the fight with the three apes, not including the first as I still couldn’t call it a fight, I slapped my left arm onto my chest with a dull, thud.

Slowly, as if afraid to see what was there, I looked down, only to slam my head back into the floor with a thunderous crack as I closed my eyes again.

The scars on my arm, the ones where Spike had mauled me, were gone, along with any sign that my chest had once been the proud owner of a custom-made tunnel. In fact, apart from looking like I had never seen the light of day, and more than a little malnourished, I looked completely normal.

My pale, almost white skin reflected the bright sunlight as it bathed the clearing, its warmth giving me a little comfort, as I once again opened my eyes and examined my body.

Even though nothing was wrong, I couldn’t help but curl into a ball at the results.

It wasn’t sadness that drove me to try and comfort myself, nor was it the relief that I was still lucky enough to count myself amongst the living. It was because, at the moment, I just didn’t know what to think.

It was because, at the moment, I just didn’t know what to think.

My world had been continuously turned on its head since I woke up in the accursed metal tube that delivered me to this new, strange reality, and the moment I thought I knew what was going on, life would throw another curveball. Showing me that not only did I know nothing, but I also couldn't even imagine what could happen next.

The pod's voice echoed in my memory as I remembered where I had seen those liquids before. I knew that no matter how much I wanted to declare I was crazy and go try and find some nice people in white coats to take care of me for the rest of my life, everything I had experienced was real.

If the liquids were anything to go by, I could assume my week time limit had come to an end. The suppression of my emotions, along with my rapid adaptive abilities, were, if not gone already, not far from it.

I was alone, without even a scrap of clothing, on an alien world surrounded by creatures that saw me as nothing but food and I had probably only utilised a fraction of what I would need to survive. 

I continued to lay on the ground, curled in my ball for what felt like hours, but instead of despair, with each second that passed, my resolve continued to harden until even the mere thought that I would fail, was nothing more than a fleeting shadow.

I had already walked through the valley of the shadow of death and emerged from the other side victorious.

As a weak, pathetic modern day human, I had battled and defeated aliens with my bare hands.

No, I was no longer that man. I could no longer think of myself as a human let alone earthling.

My hearts thundered in my chest, my arteries pulsing as I rose to my feet, inhaling deeply.

I felt like I had been, not just reborn, but reforged.

Raising my fists out to my side, I tilted my head back and let the the world know my resolve.

This time, it wasn’t a wolf-like howl. No. This was a roar befitting a true monster. One that would do anything to maintain its claim in the world of the living and secure its place in the sun.

My vision constricted and my bones continued to crack as the ground around me shook, as if it was terrified of what walked upon it.

I smirked, though it felt more like a snarl.

I knew it was conceited, but I couldn’t help letting my mind slightly wander, thinking that the very ground trembled beneath me.

Forget Alpha; I would become the Omega. The first is something the later generations would remember long after it had turned to dust. I would be the last.

‘We will be the last~.’

Warmth once again seemed to wrap me, the only way to describe it would be as if a ghost, if it didn’t make you shiver, was trying to give you a hug, and this time, I didn't resist.

'We will survive~!'

I chuckled, a sound that would have terrified me before, the noise coming from my throat having become incomparable to its previous form.

-"No, I will thrive."