The searing pain spreading inside his brain intensified.

"R-Zero Six speaking here, respond, O Five Five," the man spoke to a tiny voice transmitter attached to his left shoulder while Mir lay on the ground, twitching like he was being electrocuted even now.

But the source of his twitching wasn't the man's Pulsar bullets. It seemed to be a reaction of his body to the changes happening to his Hybrid image. Especially the body parts that had been heavily modified in the Hybrid form were reacting in the most intense manner.

All across his skin, Mir felt goosebumps beginning to break out, spreading an itchy sensation that drove his senses mad with frustration.

Some parts of the skin on his head were beginning to hurt seriously, as if dozens of needles were piercing the skin beneath his hair repeatedly.

His lips were forcibly stretching themselves across his mouth, forming a rigid, tight smile. Mir could feel a tearing sensation from both corners of his lips.

Inside his mouth, his tongue was growing shorter and smaller, while a feeling of heaviness enveloped his gums. It was as if a dentist was trying to force apart every organ in his mouth with cold steel tongs.

"Yeah, listen. We've got a situation here in Sacred Ground No. 06, sector O-twelve, intrusion case no- 34. One of the intruders is carrying around an artifact from the Church of Sunbreaker. It doesn't seem to be stolen, from the looks of it. Has been used regularly in the last few days. The problem is, he's a witness."

The man continued to speak to the voice transmitter. Mir's mind barely registered what was happening. Panic had engulfed his thoughts.

He couldn't stop the changes! The mutations, the Hybridization had already begun! And nothing he did, no matter how stubbornly he mentally opposed the changes happening to his body, they were proceeding unimpeded.

"Yeah, Yeah, sure. Contact their spokesperson. I have him under arrest."

The man looked away from the transmitter and noticed Mir's strange physical activity for the first time.

"The fuck happened to you? Did the Pulsar-"

"The diary! Give me the diary! I'm fucking dying!" Mir yelled through his choked windpipe. It felt like the mucus there was dissolving, burning the insides of his trachea.

His expression must have conveyed enough sincerity, because for a moment, the man pushed his hand forward with the diary, only to jerk back as Mir tried to grab it.

"Safety measures, kid. I don't care what happens to you, but I'm not handing over a sacred artifact to a detainee. Tell me what's happening to you first."

Mir's eyes rolled crazily behind his transparent mask, the level of pain and discomfort in his body increasing every second. With a muffled groan, he tried to form a coherent explanation amidst the waves of pain. But every inch of his body from head to toe was sending out jarring signals to his brain, making the task impossible.

"...Huh? R-Zero Six here, copy that."

The man seemed to have received an order from whoever it was on the other side of the voice transmitter. Whatever the command was, it made his stance more flexible. He threw the red diary at Mir cautiously and backpedaled quickly.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Had the church intervened? Most probably, yes. But Mir didn't have the time to feel grateful. He grabbed the diary, crawled over like a crazed lizard towards his bag and took out the pen.

With a vision botched by streaks of blood and fingers barely able to maintain a proper grip, Mir filled out the templates on the first page.

Within seconds, the wishes were completed.

1. When undergoing a mutation, my mind can analyze how the mutation is affecting my body.

2. My mind can comprehend how to oppose any physical or mental changes caused by mutation or external influence.

3. My mind is strong enough to overcome the urge to give in to the temptation of mutations.

4. My mind can withstand any infiltration, and sense any foreign influence affecting my thoughts.

5. My mind can oppose my Hybridization transformation.

6. My mind will gain enough clarity to break out of any hallucination caused by genetic stimulation.

There was no way to tell whether any of the wishes he had written in the diary would work. There was also no telling which wish was working and which wish wasn't. Mir was barely satisfied by the aspects he had managed to cover in the wishes. But for now, he could only wait and observe.

The man's interest had been piqued by his current state, it seemed. He was not only watching Mir writhe on the ground, but he also had two of his cameras pointed in his direction, recording the whole thing.

"Kid, are you trying to resist becoming an abomination or something? Because I'll be extremely disappointed if you are. The Church of Sunbreaker must be desperate if they're handing precious artifacts to kids whose Evolution Scale score is below five!"

...What?

Even amidst the pain, Mir did a double take. His score had fallen below five? No, wait... How did he know Mir's Evolution Scale Score?

"Eeeerghhh!"

As the pain increased, Mir shakily added another wish below.

7. My mental clarity and thinking will not be affected by pain or emotions.

Suddenly, Mir felt an odd, detached sensation. Waves of pain still hit him unceasingly, but his breathing began to grow stable. The undeniable urge to yell and groan from the pain receded by a great margin.

At least one wish was working!

Mir lay on his back and tried to sense the changes happening inside his body.

Immediately, he could acutely identify each change, each mutation trying to manifest in his organs.

The most serious changes seemed to be focused on his back, near the tailbone. Concentrating on the specific sensation slightly, Mir found his consciousness sinking inside a murky world of dull sensory inputs.

Hunger.

Intense hunger.

Not-Dark wasn't coming.

Dark was here. Dark wasn't leaving.

Food was here. Fresh food wasn't coming.

He was familiar with this gap in the cycle of dark and not-dark. It happened sometimes.

Food began to leave when his hunger increased.

Dark continued to stay. Food continued to leave.

And then, food was no more.

He wanted more food, but none came, not from his leaves, nor even the regular endless supply from his roots.

His thoughts began to grow...difficult. He couldn't sense many things now. He felt...smaller, weaker, less conscious.

He understood. Food would be no more. Not in him, at least. His family, though, they had food, somehow. Just like how he used to have a lot more food in his body many cycles of dark and not-dark ago. But his reserve of food had grown less and less over each gap in the cycle.

The ongoing dark would stay much longer, he knew that.

But he wouldn't.

But he wanted to. He wanted to see the next not-dark.

His hunger, his wish to see the next not-dark eventually gave rise to a strange, foreign urge inside him.

This was similar to the urges that let him make a new family...but it was also different. His hunger had been passed on to this urge, not just his urge to create a family.

With nothing left to do, he let the urge take over.

Something parted with him from his body, something small. But he could still sense it. It hadn't left him fully, it had merely grown out of him.

Soon, he realized that through that attachment, through that part of his extension, food was coming.

The food wasn't fresh, but it was still food!

He felt a strange sensation, almost like seeing the not-dark appearing after a gap. It filled his mind with hope! Power!

His hunger began to recede as the food kept coming.

More hope! More power!

I will be here when the next not-dark comes!

A family member, the one closest to him, relayed a message to him as his body and mind recovered.

What? Their food was gone?

How strange!

But he didn't care. What could he do? If your food is gone, try to do what I did!

He relayed the message to them and continued eating.

But suddenly, the new supply of food stopped.

He was confused. No matter what he did, no food came through the extension of his body.

He began to grow weak again. The Dark was still here. He couldn't make food for himself.

The hunger came again. But this time, he was prepared. He looked inside his mind for the...the urge. The state that led him to make that strange extension, that new source of food.

He found the urge, that state of mind soon. All he needed to do was just will it and-

Would this grow another extension from his body?

He clearly remembered writing on the first page of his red diary that he didn't want to give in to any temptations to mutate caused by any hallucination.

Wait...what was that?

Red diary? Writing? Mutate? Hallucinations?

Strange images filled his mind.

No matter how hard he tried to will it, he could not focus on the urge that would let him create another extension.

He felt that he didn't want to do that. In fact, he found himself incapable of mustering that power. Something inside him kept stopping it at the last moment.

Like a powerful thought. More powerful than his hunger, more powerful than his wish to see the next not-dark.

But he would die!

Wait, DIE?

What did that mean?

Regardless, he couldn't do it. He couldn't trigger the change.

His world became a shade darker.

And Mir felt the world brighten up.