Chapter 2: Disconnected

Floating in the fluid that surrounded every inch of me, like the presence of a loving mother. Gently floating, I felt myself lose control of my body.

Along with my loss of function came the loss of emotion and pain.

I felt nothing; everything was logic inside my head. There was not even joy nor happiness, nay the relief that came with the release of pain.

Guilt, anger, love, sadness, not even surprise.

I was suddenly keenly aware of every thought inside my mind, just as I was keenly aware that I would never see my old body again.

But even in my state of disarray and disconnection from everything I knew.

Strangely enough, I could still see.

I could still see, outside and inside, whatever I was inside.

But because of this, I saw my body dissolve. I saw the scientists, the animals, and the trees being consumed like they were popcorn.

If it were me from before, I would've watched in horror, but me right now?

I watched with an almost unresponsive and undemonstrative look; no reaction came from the deepest reaches inside my mind.

I watched my hair, eyes, and skin disintegrate in the fluid surrounding me.

Every artery and bone gone, gone and assimilated into the womb's designated sack of nutrition.

I assumed so because everything the womb ate would be transferred to the sack on the womb's floor.

This sack would throb and inflate when something came into its tube.

I watched impassively as that sack then turned into a giant embryo.

I saw it grow eyes, pitch black eyes.

And when those eyes looked at me, even though I wasn't sure, they looked at me. I instinctively knew it was.

I don't know what it was with me and instinct.

I felt strangely in tune with everything around me and its consequences.

Like a rough idea of the future, sharp sensations and feelings tie into my subconscious. My lizard brain suddenly has this massive prevalence in its once quiet wake.

But those eyes, I wasn't sure why, those orbs of pitch-black ink that were looking at me, were pulling me in like a fly drawn in by honey.

And suddenly, from consciousness to unconsciousness, I went.

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My consciousness returned to the forefront of my mind. The sun was burning bright in the sky, its light bringing a small amount of disturbance to my retinas, their heat burning my chest. My eyelids were doing little to stop its burning brilliance.

Furrowing my brows, I slowly opened my eyes, the sun's rays irritating me, and sharp pain in my head disturbed and shook me.

An unknown amount of time had passed, but before I knew it, the emotions that were gone came back in full swing.

And suddenly, I remembered everything.

Still, I felt nothing.

It didn't feel real. I saw and felt everything. And still, it didn't feel real. The pain was real, don't get me wrong, but everything else was just...it left me without words.

My world has been fucked up for a while now, and nothing will ever be the same again. That realization almost broke me, but I held on.

So what came out was,

"Where am I?"

I asked in a hoarse voice, surprised at what came out.

'My voice! It's back!'

My voice had returned; I thought I would be mute for the rest of my life.

I got up from the ground quickly enough. Usually, I would have trouble getting up because my colossal frame, gravity, and fragile human bones could barely support my weight.

Suddenly, I got a sense of vertigo.

Clutching my head, I rub my fingers into my eyelids and glabella. In the process, taking two steps back due to its unbalancing effect. The feeling, the texture of my hands, was unfamiliar.

After a few more seconds, the unpleasant feeling disappeared, and I could finally open my eyes again.

I unexpectedly find the ground far below me, even more than usual.

"What the...? How tall am I right now?"

I asked no one in particular but myself, fully expecting myself to know the answer out of nowhere suddenly.

While looking down at the ground, I noticed my body.

It was different.

My leg joints had a blood-red metal-like material in the knee area. A sharp barb pointed upward, promising pain if it ever grazed anyone.

It wasn't just my knees; every joint in my body had these blood-red protrusions. Even the joints in my fingers had them, my fingernails sharp and metallic.

Strangely even though red metal coated most of my hand, I could still move it, maybe with even more dexterity than before.

My hands looked like I had hardcore emo accessories if you asked me.

I started noticing other changes, like my skin changing from milk chocolate to a dark bronze-blood-like color. My skin was incredibly soft but way more rigid than before, my claws doing absolutely nothing to my skin.

My mind felt abundantly clear, as if almost all my life I had an invisible headache, and only now did it go away.

Like mist finally cleared from my mind.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

My vision was way better than before, seeing the tiniest speck of dirt, maybe a kilometer(I don't know the exact distance anymore. My size is ruining my perception as I'm incredibly tall, after all) away, and that's saying something. However, I don't know my exact height.

The feeling in my mouth also felt different.

Opening my mouth, I felt my teeth with a finger and quickly took it out, blood coming out of my finger like a fountain.

I didn't react as blood sprayed on my face and eyes.

Then I pressed a finger on my wound while putting pressure on my laceration, finding in surprise that my blood had already stopped dripping to the floor.

"Huh."

Removing the finger blocking the view of the wound.

"Huh."

I exclaimed dumbly again as I watched the wound close in seconds.

"That's it. I'm done being surprised anymore. This is exhausting."

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After Michael came back to his senses, the vast desolate wasteland that surrounded him stole his attention away.

'Did I do this?'

The young giant thought to himself. He didn't believe he could cause so much destruction, but that's the only thing that made much sense at the moment.

After all, he's the only thing that burst into a blistering sack of death that killed and absorbed everything in sight in a few moments before losing consciousness.

The only thing left was the ground he was standing on.

'Where do I go now?'

I debated inside of my mind, but I just came to the same conclusion over and over, 'I can't ever live amongst anyone ever again!'

'...There's nowhere for me to go...'

I thought calmly,

'...I'm too different...'

"... too big..."

I said in a deep, baritone voice that surprised me. My voice belonged to a teenager moments ago, but now it was several octaves lower in just a few minutes.

Getting over my body's new change, I wondered.

"Where do I go?"

I questioned, liking the sound of my new voice.

Having asked, my breath wasted in the wind, I walked to what I thought

was north.

I found that I could tell which direction to go intuitively.

My thunderous footsteps echoed in my new strong ears; in just a few minutes of walking, I found a beach, its water so clean it was suspicious.

I lived in Puerto Rico most of my life and knew what most beaches would typically look like.

There would usually be washed-up algae. Maybe some sea glass, hell, even some seaweeds, would suffice.

But the beach was absolute, no trash, no plants, no sealife...nothing.

"Did I...?"

"No, it can't be...right?"

I questioned the wind and sea, but it remained calm and desolate. Only the sound of the rolling waves greeted me, water against water, its crystalline dance coming and going as if taunting me.

"Fuck!"

I bellowed in frustration. Reverberations in my voice create ripples in the already choppy waters.

With some effort, I stomped my foot into the ground. The sand goes in all directions underneath my foot. The pesky bastards, the cause of many rashes, beneath my soles turned into crystalline glass granules glistening beneath my giant frame.

Bringing my hands up, I caressed the soft hair growing on top of my head, sensing an incoming headache coming my way. Considering there was literal steam coming out of my nose as I breathed heavily under the midday sun.

I decided to sit down and think; maybe the calm ocean breeze would inspire my brain into a moment of genius to solve all my problems.

I knew I was naive and foolish, but what else would I do?

This island didn't have food or a place to sleep, not that I could sleep under anything now that I was as tall as I was.

Could anything even nourish me anymore?

Something as huge as me would require vast amounts of calories to continue living normally.

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And there I sat, questions, doubts, fears, all coming and going in my own little world.

All these problems and more floated into my head as time passed steadily.

Soon night came...

My eyes wandered upwards, catching the stars in the sky.

Billions of brilliant hues of silver greeted my eyes, the Milky Way galaxy in full view.

My eyes wandered even more, and there I found it sitting there.

Up in the sky,

the moon...

It has been ages since I've seen it.

It's shining brightly tonight.

Many say she's the opposite of the sun.

She is but a mirror of the greatness we see every day, a shadow even.

The sun...

But... somehow, that doesn't make her any less beautiful.

The moon... whose light was showering silvery light onto the opaque, eerie ocean below, promising as many marvels as there are horrors beneath the surface of that silvery tint of the unknown.

The picture froze me in place, awe and the beauty of the scenery in front of me grounding me. A weight pressed against my mind; it wasn't uncomfortable; it was like a warm blanket covering me. Warmth radiated around me until it permeated, slithering into me, energy entering me without resistance.

Soaking it up like a sponge until it stopped, and I was the one radiating the warmth around me.

Opening my eyes...

My eyes reflected the hues of silver, purple, pink, red, and orange as they took in the beauty of the image of distant stars and galaxies.

The sight brought peace and clarity into my mind once again.

Closing my eyes, I breathed in and out, the cool ocean breeze caressing my face and body. The salty but pleasant odor tickled my nose, the draft entered my ears, and the cool air brought tiny specks of water running down my face.

I found it hard to stay awake, my whole body getting heavier. I simply decide to surrender to my need to sleep.

And from consciousness to rest, I went.

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And when I woke up, everything was different once again.

I could see better, hear better, heck; I could even feel better. But the most pronounced thing of all those improvements was that I felt calm.

I raised myself off the ground again and found the floor even further below me than it was yesterday.

This time not feeling any vertigo, I wiped my hands around my body to get the sand off my body. My eyes drifted, finding that my surroundings had changed.

No longer was I on the beach; I was in a vast and seemingly never-ending forest expanse.

The air is exceptionally fresh, the temperature typical but humid, I thought as water condensed on my hard shell-like skin.

Deciding not to stay idle, I began walking deeper into the forest.

Picking the direction where I heard what I assume is running water, I walked faster toward it.

20 minutes into my adventure in the forest, the trees were smaller than me, I had noticed.

Strong winds assaulted my face and ears. Who knows what kind of dangers I could encounter at any moment, so I decided to stay focused.

After 5 more minutes, I found a small river (by my standards) that I, for a moment, decided to follow. Until I stopped myself, "Right... I can't be near any type of civilization."

By instinct, I decided to follow the river because that's where people built places to live. But now, where do I go?

What's my purpose?

What's my destination?

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Deciding that surviving was more important right now, I walked through the forest aimlessly; I noticed that I didn't feel an ounce of hunger or thirst.

The tiredness one would generally feel after walking through the forest for the better part of 5 hours wasn't there. I tried holding my breath for 3 of those 5 hours, and I didn't feel the need to inhale at all.

It was like I lost the need to breathe. My eyes scanned the trees under me, occasionally finding some forest creature on the top of the forest canopy, watching as birds flew away from my giant frame.

Even as I moved left, right, up and around, forward and backward, I knew I could find my way back with no problem.

Finally, finding a suitable clearing with no trees, my mind went to the show of force I did as I was letting out my frustration.

I wanted to know how much stronger I had become.

I began to fan my arms around myself. The resulting two consecutive sonic booms and air current sent the surrounding blades of grass and the trees several hundred meters away into a flurry. Like a category seven hurricane passed through—even some of the trees were uprooted.

All of this just by fanning my arms around myself with no particular effort on my part; I was baffled.

But then I noticed that the arm I used to fan around myself was broken in several places, looking like an extra crunchy tree branch. I winced and cringed at the sight, expecting the resulting pain to assault me, but it never did.

All I saw was my arm emitting a warm red glow, and eight snaps and crackles later (while some slight sizzling happened from the heat radiating from my hand); my arm was as good as new.

"Ok, that was freaky; I'm not gonna lie."

Then I felt that heat permeate my body and my head before it disappeared.

I felt absolutely rejuvenated, even if I didn't feel tired.

"I think I can't feel pain anymore either..."

"Cool."

This time I tried doing it again with my other arm. The results were vastly different when I raised my arm and brought it around me.

While a blur whipped around me, and three consecutive sonic booms were heard. Ninety percent of the trees in a hundred-meter radius were uprooted and sent flying twelve meters away.

"W-w-wha...huh?"

I stated intellectually; I looked down at the arm that caused that much destruction and found it without a scratch or a broken bone.

A slight warm glow surrounded my arm and body, but after two seconds, it went away along with the sizzling.

I watched all this with a blank look for a while, my brain processing the absolute destruction and sudden spike of power that just happened.

I used the exact amount of power I used with the other hand, but somehow I got even stronger.

Then I wanted to test something again, I tried again with my other arm, and the same result happened again. I didn't get stronger this time, maybe a little bit, but it was negligible.

Suddenly remembering the time when I bit my finger. I hesitated a little before I put my finger in my mouth again and found I could do it without getting cut this time.

Shortly after, everything clicked inside my head.

I got stronger every time I got hurt.