Day One in the year ???, currently in ???

I awoke with a slight ache in my head, but thoroughly alive and reveling in that fact with my slowly gathering faculties. I took deep, slow breaths and kept my eyes closed. A smile stretched my newly formed features while I rejoiced in the air entering my lungs. The feeling of them expanding and contracting. The simple presence of real physical muscles, and the glorious ache of holding a breath made me more thankful in that moment than just about any other point in my life.

I had thought to be actually waking up and moving soon, and was just waiting on the need to breathe out, though it seemed I had underestimated my new self. I went ahead and manually cut things off right after I hit the minute and a half mark Well that’s new. Certainly I need to look into that and whatever else is as well, but first… Water! I smacked parched, dust covered lips and determined that to be my first objective. It wasn’t hard to motivate given I was as thirsty as almost any other part of my life, except a hike in the Rockies once where I had forgotten to bring enough water. The bag was still sitting on the back of my car when I had finally made my way back, and I learned a valuable lesson.

With that in mind I opened my eyes, missing the gunk from before, but covered in rock dust that was piled around the corners of the small crevice I was laid out in. It wouldn’t be fair to call it a cave, as while I was a good 15 or so feet from the outside, the top was only a few feet above me and I had just enough room to lay kind of comfortably with my head resting in the tapering end of the structure. The water I had seen when still passing over was directly in front of and above me, running from the ceiling to drip off the same protruding section I had clocked myself on.

I would have started sucking on the rock, and was already reaching out to grasp it, until my eyes fell on my also dust covered arms. They were different. Which I should have known to expect were it not for a nearly all encompassing thirst. I jumped on that change in thought, even while putting it aside for later, and used it to backline the thirst issue. OK, so I’m in a cave and it's hot and dry, plus with the dust and sandstone-ish rock, I rubbed my new hands along the mostly smooth banded stone around me, so I might be in some kind of desert? Hopefully its near some kind of water or this might be my only option.

I wrinkled my nose at the metallic scent it gave off when I leaned in, and doubled down on the hope of finding some other source. The small amount in the cave amounted to no more than a trickle anyway, and probably wouldn’t be enough to sustain me if I had to travel. Not counting I had no way of knowing if it would be safe even if I managed to boil it.

Leaving the drip to itself I wiggled myself standing, using the slightly sloping rock behind and in front of me to manage the small space. Some of the dust wore off of my hands, and I noticed grayish skin beneath it. I told my spike of alarm it could easily be something else not easily wiped away and pushed it down with all the other pressing issues I had pressing on me.

Making stilted but quick progress through the crack I couldn’t batten down the excitement I felt the closer I made it to the outside. The light pouring in carried the air of adventure along with its white gold tones. The stone caught my eye when my vision adjusted. Instead of the grey I had believed it to be, the light showed me it was more a grayish blue, with each of the thin and thick layers having a slightly different tone.

I turned my head when I felt the warmth on my outstretched arm increase, eating up the insane visuals my eyes got when I could finally see my surroundings. I stood outside of the now confirmed crack, staring at the same bluish sandstone reaching up well over a hundred feet. The canyon was slim, straight for a few football fields in either direction before veering off at unknown angles, with the walls about 50 or so feet apart for what I could see. I had exited my birthplace—which still feels weird to say, honestly—on a small rise and surveyed the nearby area. I braced my self against the rock wall, and huddled against it, trying to make myself as small and unnoticeable as possible.

The dust covering my bare torso covered the cotton-like leggings I had come to wearing helped in my illusion of security. I had awoken not only with pants, but also a pair of lightly cushioned slip-on canvas shoes. You’d think if my body was created I’d get more than the bare minimum, though it didn’t seem like Nott had invested too much in all this anyway. So clothing after water then.

Breaking away from a tangent takes not a little amount of will for me, but I managed it, and focused on the sparse, but beautiful landscape around me. Most of the area was the same curving striated walls reaching to the lip of the canyon, though there were veins here and there of other minerals, oddly exposed along the rock wall all they way to the teal sky above and the ropy clouds that twisted through it.

Bits of Greystone, and other materials no longer attached to the wall, cluttered the small strip of flat sediment that wound throughout the twisting stone. The debris lay intertwined and covered by long grasses of different kinds dotted infrequently with small trees. Yellow smooth bladed grasses reached my knees and covered every inch of the flat area not taken up by something else. Smaller clumps of rusty red broke through, serrated like a saw blade tipped in a burnt orange. Small spindly trees with thin drooping branches towered above the rest at 10-15 feet, but were no more than a few inches around, and faintly glowing pods tipped different flower-likes popping up in small clusters around a bleached yellow-green mineral.

I walked up to the closest, almost in the direct center of my little gulley. My steps were a little off, as it seemed I was a few inches taller, and while I felt like I was also a good few pounds larger as well, it had a sense of solidity and speed instead of only dead weight. Got to take it easy, just like physical therapy. You’ve been through that before so you know the role. The alien tree under my hand felt soft and fuzzy. Barkless, and a soft flecked brown, the trunk kept the same few inches around all the way to near its tip. There it started to form a twisting series of grooves from which each raised ridge came thread thin branches spiraling out into a bell shaped dome around the beautifully odd tree.

I decided to avoid interacting with them for the time being, given while there were some small plants other than the grasses and trees, there was nothing but bare rock within the boundary of the stained glass leaves. My dilemma on whether to touch it or not was cut short when the wind shifted, blowing against my back and to the right of my crack—hehehe—when I looked back towards it. The air didn’t seem to bother the tree much at all, slipping between its ovoid leaves as if they weren’t there, while it made the grasses and other flora shift in rapid waves even flattening some places where taller rocks lay.

While it seemed the trees were determined to ignore even the air around them, I was not. With the stiff breeze came a glorious and achingly sweet sound almost as awe inspiring as the resonance I had felt and heard from the book. I glanced down at the silvery gold shape of an open tome as I power walked towards the sound of redemption. It hadn’t changed since it had reattached to my hand before I left the room, and I was determined to check in after I sated myself with what lay ahead. Hopefully it's water. Clean water. I could get something to burn maybe, but I’m a little leery of those trees. They moved so little it looked like the trees doing more so than the winds.

I reached the end of this section of canyon, defined by a hard turn and narrow passage only a dozen feet wide at most, and much more round at its bottom. Climbing its slight incline and avoiding the grasses and glowing flowers that still occasionally spotted the gulley as much as possible, I walked for nearly a hundred yards before the impromptu tunnel ended. The new clearing seemed almost the same overall shape and size, and featured a lot of the same flora, and even had a few small bird looking creatures flitting about the different luminescent plants.

Between us stood the most wonderful waterfall you could possibly imagine. At least if you were dehydrated and well on the way to not having to worry about thirst at all. In reality it was a small outpouring about a dozen feet from the base of the wall directly left of the passage from a patch of porous looking rock I had seen a few pieces of lying around. I walked closed to the edge of the spray, which came out quickly but only spread a foot or so after leaving its opening. Crouching I drank greedily but in small sips, trying to not overwhelm myself.

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I had promised myself I would look and judge before drinking, like I could see bacteria anyway, but just seconds after getting a whiff of its cool and crisp clean scent I was in its throes. I leaned back after a solid minute, leaning back on my hands and just relishing the sweet taste of water to put Fiji to shame. The brand, not the country. That would be mean. I don’t landshame the differently fortunate.

While dreaming of owning a massive bottled water fantasy empire, I saw the skin on my hands was clean and sighed. It was also still grey, though more like wood ash than the blue of the canyon walls. I pulled some of my now shoulder length hair close up to view, but all I could get was ‘dark’. The dust coating my body and clothes was much more pronounced in my slightly matted hair.

I was happy with the changes I had received, of course. Regardless of the uneven terrain, climbing smooth but sharply angled walls or just constantly moving, if carefully, I had yet to be winded. I didn’t foresee myself climbing to the top freestyle like Stallone, but the short hike from my cave to the basin and spring felt almost like walking across a flat and supportive floor. You couldn’t tell much from looking at me since my arm and leg muscles, while bulkier than I had known before, were not sharply defined like a true bodybuilder’s would be. More like I had been exercising out on trails and biking around Seattle everyday. I glanced at my hair again, and good hygiene and curiosity pushed me. I disrobed, holding on to my only garments to clean, and walked carefully into the pool.

I could see the bottom, but you never knew where something could hide, and so I stayed as close to the edge as I could. Nothing attacked once I started scrubbing out the dirt from the pants and shoes, or in the following ten minutes. I sat them aside on the bank of the basin to dry in hot sun, which was thankfully still not directly in my sight. I rubbed my hair for a few minutes until the water ran clear, revealing dark ash brown strands with hints of the deeper blues from the walls.

I’ll have to ask somebody about this one. It seems that that stingy character creator was more for my focus, funny enough. I do feel more coordinated and fluid, and my strength and speed is noticeably greater, musculature notwithstanding. Haven’t tripped at all, come to think of it. Still feels odd. I mused to myself and leaned back against a depression in the rocky bank of the basin, watching it disappear on the far side of the gulley into a spread of the same porous stone that the water spewed from. It was an odd effect, as the water never stopped flowing, only disappearing as if it was an infinity pool edge and the water was draining right before the rock face.

I wasn’t about to get close to it as the far side dipped down rather deep. While I could still see to its bottom, the dim light and murkiness from shifting sand and furtive shadowy movements kept me firmly in the less shallow but much safer stream winding down the slight hill below the source. I leaned back, and despite the danger started to doze. I was in that semi-conscious state where you’re aware that stuff is still happening outside your mind, you just don't really care until that primal fear breaks down the spa doors and shoves your face in the cold pool. I don’t know how long I lay there, but when I jerked awake like I had missed an alarm for work, the sun was dimming, which meant night was fast approaching. Shit. That was dumb. Dumb dumb dumb, Creed. Should have just drank and maybe looked for food and gone back. Or at least looked for shelter instead of daydreaming.

The sound that had luckily interrupted my spontaneous slumber echoed through the canyon again. A clacking like a series of plastic coated metal spikes being driven against stone, it rumbled through the small clearing like a tidal wave hushing every sound but the wind and babbling of the spring.

I rushed to put on my shoes and pants, slipping the mostly dry garments on, and retreated as quickly as I could to a rock formation near the spray, hoping to use it to hide and that whatever came in would go for the pool down below. The noise from the other entrance intensified, the clacking now constant and no longer brought adrift on the wind.

The hummingbird looking little creature I had not gotten a really good look at, and the trees and grasses were incredible, but what stepped from the twist to another area was attention grabbing in the worst possible ways. A chest high, nearly car length arachnid waltzed into the clearing on grey and satiny spike-like pegs. Capping the pegs were the standard scorpion fare legs, only covered in a shaggy spotted tan fur that continued up the rest of the terrifying beast. Instead of pincers, it had too equally massive, but oddly human looking arms ending in a Protectron’s three pronged hand. It was more organic seeming, with a pouch that went into where one's palm would normally be. On the body, where the eyes would typically be, was a rounded trapezoidal hole that curved upwards immediately and was lined with the same tan fur.

While this would be Nobel prize level stuff already, what passed for its stinger would stop the hearts of the same people who would award it were they in my shoes. It almost did mine, to be fair, and I was hidden some hundred feet away behind a set of rocky outcroppings.

There was no barb and stinger, instead a long and tapering pyramid. Nearly a foot, it was separated by a slightly curved piece on top, with wider triangles making up either side. This wouldn’t have been so bad if the aberration before me hadn’t opened the three plate like a mouth. The top raised up, while the two sides broke away completely from each other. They still kept their angle and simultaneously displayed enough backwards facing teeth to give a shark envy.

I managed my breathing as well as possible, hoping it wouldn’t be able to smell me through the waterfalls spray. He couldn’t see me at least, but there’s no doubt that if engaged, I would not have ended up somehow beating the odds and surviving. My victory at that point in my journey would have been pyrrhic, or nonexistent.

I watched as it walked into the pool and partially submerged itself, only the arms, upper back and Graboid mouth/stinger showing above the surface. It sat there for almost an hour, and had not moved an inch, and cramps were operating full force. Before I fell over from the pain or my legs went completely numb, the human-handed scorpion finally made a move.

I had no idea what may have triggered it to move, but it came almost directly for where I was hiding, and my worst fear was it had somehow tasted me in the water flowing down to the pond, considering how close it had been to the inlet. I went to move, hoping my cramped muscles would still operate since I wasn’t a complete wreck anymore, but was sadly disappointed to find my entire body rigidly stuck in a half crouch. No matter how I willed myself to go I didn’t move an inch, and the scorpion-like creeped closer and closer. The loud tattering of their legs grating on my nerves until they were raw as when I had first died. The suicide, not the fake death Morah put on.

My mind breathed a sigh of relief, since my body couldn’t at the time, when the giant chest high beast kept moving past me, heading straight for the opening near the falls I had first entered through. It was short lived, because of course life hated me and I couldn’t catch a break. The scorpion stopped midstep, taking a short moment to spin on their center, until that terrifyingly empty hole was pointed directly towards my now exposed eyes.

The fur all around the hole and leading all the way to the stinger head flattened, automatically braiding into a series of interconnected geometric patterns. Standing out against the lights undercoat of the creature, the symbols started rapidly vibrating, and distortion appeared around the opening on its front. At the same time a suction sound could be heard and particles of light that seemed to be literally ripped from the air were drawn into its angry abyss. The sound ramped up and with it the same plates making up the stingers ‘mouth’ opened more until they were all angled towards my location. A shimmering distortion of light pulsed from the plates, similar to the opening below, and light streamed to the center between the plates, starting to form a sphere from the bits of energy flowing to the point.

Within seconds the entire thing is filled to the brim. While I waited for death and it to finish the sphere's formation and end me, a striking cry echoed throughout the canyon. High pitched but as body shaking as standing in front of the bass at a concert, it blasted through me, and any defenses I might have been able to muster up went away in an instant. I fell to my side, only able to see the absolutely stunning auroras I had not noticed due to the monsters arrival and my own stupidity.

I waited for death, unable to see the scorpion thing. I craned my head as far as possible, twisting another muscle further than it should go in its state, and managed to get a shocking glimpse. The scorpion no longer was ready for some kind of magical death attack at all. In fact, the stinger had slammed shut and apparently hard enough to draw a streak of iridescent blood still oozing from its crevices.

It abruptly turned and dashed off in a near detailess blur, when a second cry echoed even louder than before. Okay, definitely not the scorpion. What now?! My thoughts were answered with a second blur slamming into the scorpion, and a maelstrom of flying mud and flinging blood took its place.

I could only watch out of one eye as my terrifying foe was literally torn limb from limb and eaten before me. It was satisfying to know I would not immediately die, but my only hope then was that the newcomer would be full by the time they finished, and the blood dripping down their maw would not be mixed with my own. For the second time in fewer hours I called the wrath of the universe down on myself again, and a pair of golden orbs the size of a hubcap stared across the piecemeal trimming left from it’s feast.

Despite my situation I managed to eke a gulp through my paralyzed throat and a simple Oh, Shit! passed through my mind before the figure blurred yet again.