That wasn’t a good look. That expression he carried on his face in those final seconds, as I am shorn off from the face of this corporeal plane. Blinding, mystical energies rushing out from the edge of his blade envelop me with a furious power that I am not able to withstand for even a second, as the true strike of the hero comes and returns me to whence I came. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.

I die.

  And once more I am propelled upwards towards the heavens, that I can never hope to reach. Instead, I simply return to the void. I return to the nothingness of the place before birth, of the place after death and as I spiral wildly out of control, as my soul spins and turns from the violence of the blow, I slowly come to a halt far above it all. My momentum slows, as if I were stuck on some thick, coagulating jelly that had absorbed all of the violent mass of my hurtling being striking into it. Like a spider’s web, stopping me from flying higher. Like a sticky, wet mucus. It traps me here, where I am bound to wait. To wait and to try again. To get it right this time.

I float.

  Did I get a little carried away? I think so. I guess I do that sometimes. I just really, really like fighting the hero, okay? I don’t know why. It’s just what I enjoy, guy. I’m glad he gave me a shot, even though I bet he was humoring me a little. At least until the end there. Ah. Their eyes. Those weren’t happy eyes. They didn’t like seeing my menu. Is this the first time they’ve seen it? I think it is, now that I think about it… Yeah. Yeah… well, apart from the thief. I wonder where she was? Hope she is okay.

Well, I guess I’ll see her next time.

  Anyways, I didn’t really even bother looking for the stairs, huh? I guess I did get carried away. Sorry dungeon-master, were you watching me? I’ll do better next time. Sorry fire-elemental Miika, I hope the fire burns out before the eye-monster gets you. Maybe Nichodemus can give you a hand? I hope he’s okay. I guess? He seemed alright as a person, kind of a jerk though. Then again, I did steal his body. I hope my next life is something fu-

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  Wiggle! I wiggle as I hop forward but there is no sploot! There is no splat or wack or thwick or thwack or any of this or that. There is simply a dull rustling, like the treading of a foot over soft grass. My gelatinous mass shakes, the fuzz that is growing over my gel-like exterior rustles like leaves in the wind. There is nothing wet to the noises of my body, as I spread my goo wide to get a feel for it. This is what it is now, since the fuzz came. My senses have become dull. I press my flattened goo down to the ground to try and feel any vibrations, but there is nothing.

  Even if I know that there are rats all around myself, I can’t feel them well. The fuzz stops me from feeling. It grows on my body, its mycelium roots sinking through me. It drinks from me like a parasite. It is indifferent to the acidity of my goo, it neutralizes it. Makes it weak. Wiggling my way forward, I feel hungry. I feel cold. It has gotten bad. This hole used to be safe, used to be home. But now there is fuzz. There are rats aplenty, but none to catch. None to eat. The warm air has become so cold. My wiggling is slow and the cold helps the fuzz grow further.

  Jiggling my goo, I feel around for any others near me. For any other slimes. There are some. But they are also weak and indifferent to my presence. I bump into one, it simply wiggles and jiggles a smidge to the side. The fuzz makes us both lethargic. It drains us. It makes us cold. Waggling past the other slime, I hop forward, continuing on the hunt. Even with my dulled senses and body, I still need to hunt. Many of the others didn’t keep hunting and they simply became nothing. Sure, one or two of them I ate. But they live on in me now, it is all I could do for them. So I must hunt. To keep us all alive.

  But the rats. There are more rats than before. But we can’t catch many. Sometimes one. Sometimes we hop and plop and there is an unlucky rat. Those are good days. Good meals. But it isn’t enough. The digestion process has become slow because of the fuzz. My acid is weak. It can kill, but it is slow. It is unenergetic. Lethargic. Cold. Wasteful. It is wasteful. I jiggle around, feeling for anything. Something moves to my left and with the last of my energy I spring over to the side, using my leap ability to gain some extra speed.

  The rat wasn’t calculating with my incredible jumping prowess and I feel it sink into my body from below. I feel it penetrate the fuzzy exterior of my body, sinking through the mold that grows on me, as it presses into me where it wiggles! Wiggle wiggle! Yay!

  But it dies slowly. I feel it scream as my acids mildly burn it, as it tries to escape, but it can’t escape. So all the while it writhes inside of me and screams and screams and claws and wiggles! All the while, the only mildly acidic goo burns away the soft parts of the rat. The toes. The eyes. The eyes. It burns away the eyes and it seeps into the sockets where it burns the inside. It travels down its screaming throat and burns away the inside of its guts. But not the tough skin. I can only eat the insides now. I can only eat the soft flesh.

Ten. Twenty seconds later the screaming stops and I feel a little better and I plop forward. A hollow sack of rat-fur and thicker bones is left behind. Food I can’t digest anymore. A waste. All the rest having become a part of me. I wiggle, feeling the rat’s energy and I jump forward again, continuing the hunt.