Will wasn’t sure how long he’d been lying down, or even if he was lying down in the first place. It was as if his brain was in a fog, everything seemed strange to him, especially his body. There seemed to be a lack of something, but what it was he lacked he wasn’t sure.

Everything was dark, pitch black as if he were surrounded by a veil of some sort. Time seemed to elude him, leaving him wondering how much time passed. It could have been days, or months, years even and he wouldn’t have been able to tell. Yet either way, it seemed like an eternity had occurred over the sequence of hours.

Then there was light, faint like an echo of illumination, it seemed to outline a dark surface, one he didn’t recognize. Over time the light grew bright, until it became ever present even as Will slept. His mind grew stronger as well, returning to what he felt it should be. Soon he recognized changes with his body, a lack of limbs or eyelids, a long slippery body, and a long tongue that tasted the stale air around him. Soon he realized that while he could slightly see the strange surface surrounding him, he could also sense it with his body, as if his mind knew there was a surface around him.

A cycle of day and night settled over him, as the slightly obscured light that surrounded him darkened and lightened over time. A strange feeling settled over his foreign body, a feeling as though he were growing somehow. Then one day he could move, his body coiling gently as it pressed against the surface that surrounded him, the one he’d dubbed the veil. More days passed, and his ability to move grew, until he felt as though he was in full control of his own body. It was the day after he gained full control that he cracked the veil, allowing a stream of light to enter his space. At first, he was surprised to find he was frightened of the light, as it was alien in concept. Then fear gave way to an instinctual desire, a desire to escape his veil and see the world around him.

The desire was strange to him, yet he couldn’t help but follow along with it. Pressing his body against the inside of the veil, Will felt as if the now papery surface slightly resisted his strength, as if determined to keep him inside. Then pushing his head into the veil with all his might, he heard a slight tearing sound and suddenly he was free.

Blinding light flashed before him, blocking his ability to make out the world around him for several moments. Then, slowly his vision cleared, and he found himself with the ability to perceive things he’d never seen before.

Will saw walls made of rock, stalactites hanging from the ceilings, a gravely floor, and an opening that led to a vast stretch of massive trees with lush green leaves. He saw his veil, which was white, familiar in a way and yet the opposite in others.

It took him minutes to comprehend what he was seeing, to remember the names of what he saw. The memories were strange and elusive, as if they too had been blocked by some veil and only the slightest trickle of knowledge was able to move through.

‘Egg, cave, rocks’, the words came to him slowly, until it all built up and clicked.

Will was in a cave outside of a forest, born from a recently hatched egg. Part of him felt as though there should have been other eggs, but he could see none. More general knowledge came to him, as he found himself coiling his head around to take in his own body. It was long and inky black, with smooth scales that were already hard despite his just being born. He realized then that he was a snake, that felt strange to him, wrong somehow, and yet he didn’t know how it was wrong.

Flicking out his tongue on instinct, he felt his world open up to several foreign senses. A massive number of faint tastes hit him, tastes he recognized, though not to this potency. Bark, leaves, grass, and a distant taste that he believed to be salt. It was a bewildering feeling, tasting the air to such a degree, he felt that that there was more to the sensation, but he couldn’t quite find the word for it.

It hit him a second later that the sensation was like smell, although far more… effective. Then as he stuck his tongue out again, flicking the air he noticed another feeling, one he’d previously noted but hadn’t understood enough to recognize. It was as if he were sensing the heat around him, tasting it the same way, he tasted the air. As he thought on this sensation, the word sense came to him, and he decided it was a fitting name.

Testing his new abilities out, he found he could sense a dying heat in the egg he’d hatched from. It was interesting to him, yet as soon as he focused on the sensation, he felt another source of heat from further in the cave.

Curious, Will slithered forward slowly, the movement unsure and tentative. Yet as soon as he began to slither, he realized that he somehow already had the knowledge. He’d been born with the instinctual knowledge of how to move his body. Sliding through the cave, he found himself heading further into darkness. The darkness proved no issue for him, as he found he had no trouble sensing his surroundings, the same way he’d sensed the papery veil.

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As he moved through the cave, he found himself surprised by the presence of a new sensation. Not his ability to perceive heat, but rather by a heavy feeling that seemed to permeate the air. The feeling felt… powerful somehow, though rather than being smothering it was almost welcoming in nature.

Slithering over a small edge that led deeper into the cave, Will was surprised to see the presence of a shiny long item. It was long, with one end stuck in the stone ground while the other end was black and pointed towards the top of the cave. The object was beautiful, possessing black swirled designs on the shiny end of it. Next to it another item was stuck into the ground, a smaller version of the large object and possessing purple lines rather than black lines.

Both objects gave off a sense of power, though each gave off a different type of power. The tiny object’s power was more elusive, somehow bendable while also possessing great might. The taller one was more like a wall or a boulder, the sensation giving off the feeling of unyielding, unbending might.

How Will came up with those descriptions, he had no idea, he was certain the feeling of the objects were completely new to him. Yet while the feeling was foreign, he was surprised to see the objects were not as the items in question popped into his head.

‘Sword, dagger’, he realized.

Slithering up to the blades, he felt the feeling of comfort grow as he neared them. They felt right, safe, as if the power alone would protect him from any who would wish him harm. Reaching the tallest of the two, he lifted his round snout and pressed it against the metal, it was warm to the touch just as his senses had told him it would be.

Then to his wonder, the silver and black metal rippled under his touch, as if the surface had turned to liquid. A second later and the blade returned to normal as if nothing had happened, curious Will did the same with the dagger and was pleasantly surprised when it rippled as well.

Filled with Juvenal elation, he tried to do the same once more with the sword only to find it did not ripple again. That disappointed him, though his disappointment was quickly dissolved as he heard a distant wailing sound. Curiosity filled him, as he turned back towards the entrance of the cave where he’d heard the sound and began to move across the gravelly cave floor.

The cave opened to a vast forest, with each tree seeming to stretch upwards for an eternity, with their trunks seeming impossibly wide. Stretching out, to breach the entrance of the cave, Will slithered outside the entrance and onto the soft dirt floor of the forest. For a brief moment he worried he would lose the cave, and the sword and dagger that made him feel so safe. Yet he quickly felt inside of himself that he could sense the strange feeling that emanated from the weapons, and felt confident he could follow the feeling back to his home.

Just as Will set off over the dirt, towards the closest trees he heard the wailing sound again. It was high pitched and squealing in nature, reminded Will of a pig, though he wasn’t sure where he’d ever seen a pig before. As Will heard the sound, he began to slither a touch faster over the ground towards its source. As he slithered over the ground, he couldn’t help but turn his head to take in everything he could about his surroundings.

Will found the area he was in was hilly, while the trees had great big roots that he’d quickly learned how to slither over. A multitude of dead leaves and sticks covered the forest ground, along with the occasional green bush.

It didn’t take long before Will could sense two massive sources of heat, one long and lithe while the other whilst the other was smaller and wider. When Will reached a particularly steep hill, one wide enough to support two trees and a singular bush, he knew that the sources of his curiosity were just over the hill.

A sense of caution overcame him and decided to slither into the green bush and look out through the green surface. Crawling into the dense green, he poked his head out to the side opposite of his entry and looked at source of the noise.

Two massive animals were locked in some sort of struggle, one was a pig-like creature covered in long grey hair that reached a length of half a foot. The creature had a horn at the top of its head, a squat flat horn that seemed more like a helmet than a weapon. At its mouth were two tusks, long and black with two sharp ends that were pointed at its aggressor. The creature was crude looking and huge, with muscular limbs and a slightly round belly.

Its attacker was some sort of feline, covered in dark brown and red flecked fur with a massively round head that was larger than Will’s whole body. It was larger than the hog, both in height and length though Will doubted it weighed more. Its body was lithe, and beautifully fierce with two Sabre teeth and deep amber eyes.

Will watched the scene with a strange fascination, as the feline attempted to kill the large hog. The hog had already taken a massive scratch to its snout and one of its shoulders, causing it to bleed. It was quickly backing the smaller beast up against a particularly large tree, lunging at it any time the hog attempted to flee to one side or the other.

A newborn feeling assaulted will for the first time, one he immediately recognized as hunger. The source of the hunger was clearly the blood leaking from the hog, the red liquid smelled of salt and metal, which Will couldn’t help but find appetizing.

As he felt the hunger course through him, he waited to see the result of the fight and was unsurprised when the feline finally managed to get past the hog’s tusks and latch onto its throat with its jaws. After that all it took was the feline whipping its head violently and snapping the hog’s neck to kill it. Just as the creature began eating its meal, Will felt himself give into his hunger and turned away from the scene to find his own meal. It was time for him to hunt.