Samantha was tired, tired of running, tired of living off nothing, tired of it all. She missed her bed, she missed pancakes, she missed her old life. She even missed school of all things. It was not that she resented her parents, no, she resented people. People had started the war that took her father’s leg, people had come and taken her family's home to continue the fight, people had refused to give her mother a job and forced them to live like animals. She was mad and angry at the world which had given her so much and then in one moment took it away. Even nature had it out for her and her family, of the few sets of clothes they managed to bring she only had a pair of jeans, a pair of shoes and two bland shirts left. Her mother Martha had only a dirty light blue dress and Francis her father had two pairs of pants and a ripped white button up shirt.
Food was also a constant problem as her father could not hunt. Tonight, she had gone hungry like most nights, her mother barely able to find anything to eat out in the woods. They said once they made it to the city everything would be all right, but she did not believe it. The world had rejected them, why would the city be any better. She could not help but sit and sulk as her father, a tall and brutish man, would order her mother, a taller but slender woman, around attempting to do what little she could to make things better.
Soon enough it was time for bed and reluctantly Samantha got into her sleeping bag under the hung patchwork sheet that was her tent. A luxury that her mother and father did not share, having to sleep in their bags in the wide open. At this point it she had become accustomed to this routine, her father was bitter and angry when he came back from the war. Samantha did not know why but he took it out on her mother when he thought Samantha was asleep.
She heard them talk one night, when they thought she was asleep, how the frontline was closing in and that even the city was at risk. She did not know what the frontline was but she knew it took her father’s leg and that it had to do with the war. She was determined to prove she was helpful, to prove she was a big girl, to make her father happy again. She just wanted to stop the fighting, because if she lost her family she would have nothing left.
So, after her father began to snore and her mother stopped stirring she snuck out. She was 10 after all, she was practically a grown up. If her mother and father could not provide food, then maybe she could. She couldn’t help but she imagine the smiles her parents would have if she could find some berries or maybe even some apples! They would have a feast!
Such merry thoughts where quickly brushed aside as she left the light of the fire. The moon bathed the entire forest in an eerie glow, she was more than once scared by a rodent darting from one funny looking pine tree to another. She wanted to turn back many times, but was determined not to give up.
After a few minutes she found it a small tree with bright red berries and deep green leaves. The fruit looked kind of like small raspberries, so she figured they were safe. Humming and smiling, she began to fill up her shirt with the berries. The fear of the night was completely dispelled by images of her father smiling and her mother hugging and for the first time in a long time she felt true joy. If only she knew it was this easy before, she would had done this a long time ago!
When her shirt was about halfway full she felt… something. An invisible fog slowly expanding across the ground, crawling up her spine and demanding her attention. Like a deep primal instinct, she knew, she did not know why but she knew she had to find source of this and kill it. In a daze like trance, too young and too exhausted to fight back, she dropped her berries and began to walk towards the source. For a while it continued like this slowly wandering more on instinct than thought.
She was broken from this when she saw the most peculiar sight a lone shoe in front of a small cave. It was nothing special just a small black shoe made of leather and obviously for a male, but it was about her size and was in a lot better condition than hers. She decided to try it on and to her surprise it fit, it was a little big, but it fit. Now if only she could find the other, so as not to walk lopsided. She looked around the cave but found nothing. Out of desperation she looked into the cave, and she saw it just barely inside the cave, a small shoe illuminated by the moon. She wondered why such a thing was here, but it did not matter, if berries where a prize new shoes where a dream. A dream she had long ago given up but was now, finally, just in reach. All she had to do was crawl into the cave and get it.
As she crawled, she reasoned that after she got the shoes she could go back to picking berries.
“Wait!” she said with shock, why was she here? when did she get her? What was that feeling?
All these thoughts where cut short.
-
Johnathan was surprised at how fast his bait had attracted a human, what was even more surprising was how willing the human was to enter his cave. After the human, “she” he surmised by the long hair, grabbed the first shoe he ordered his army into place. Most of his creatures were useless against a human, but the snakes with their poison and the turtles with their powerful bite could easily take out a child. He had a turtle wait at the bottom of the entrance, attempting to look like a rock and the snakes to the side hidden from view until it was to late. The idea was that the turtle would go for the neck and the snakes would go for the arms and legs.
He watched hungrily as the child finally began to slowly crawl into his cave. Closer and closer to her demise. He could almost feel it.
“Wait!” she exclaimed suddenly and froze laying halfway into his cave. Johnathan did not know why she screamed but he was not going to allow his prey get away this close to success. He sent the command and immediately his minions jumped into action. The turtle removed part of the child’s neck with a loud hungry snap followed by 15 snakes pouncing and biting all at once. What was left was a swollen bleeding spasming mess that resembled nothing like the child it used to be.
Overkill? Yes, but he would be damned if she was going to escape. He felt her knowledge, Samantha’s knowledge, fill him but he did not touch it yet, he had plans for it. He had the turtle grab her and pull her in greedily dissolving what was left of her body and blood. He felt the same intoxicating power rush he had felt the first time. If killing a child felt this good imagine killing a adult human! Still he could not kill all who entered, his first and only goal was to survive at all costs and that meant allowing some to escape or to think they beat him.
Now it was time to experiment, he had found something from Johnathan the child’s memories. Something that his mother had told him. A body was a vassal that housed a soul and a consciousness. The soul contained the will and the consciousness bridged the souls will to the body. At least that’s what he understood, Johnathan’s mom had only said “A soul is who you are, and your consciousness is how you express it” when asked what a soul was.
Johnathan surmised that when he created a creature he could recreate the body perfectly. However, because the body was still technically him it shared his soul and his will. Because he had not tried to give them a consciousness the body only had instinct to react on. For lesser creatures this was enough but for more complex creatures they would need an independent consciousness and potentially an independent will.
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This is where Samantha’s knowledge came in, to him it was a tangible thing he could peal away to learn about the person it once was. Once it was apart, though, it could never go back together, either becoming part of him or disappearing forever. He wondered if this was really all it was, knowledge, what if it was the consciousness, or at least part of it. The only way to know was to test it but the possibilities excited him. He recreated Samantha’s body in front of his stone and examined her body. She was slender with black hair and brown eyes. Her nose was a bit bulbus but her eyebrows thin and well-shaped. This was his first time really looking at a human, and while he was no expert, from what Johnathan the child had taught him, she would have probably been a good-looking lady when grown up. Finally satisfied he tried to shove the consciousness into it.
At first it seemed to work, as she slowly opened her eyes and looked to the stone. But his dreams were dashed as she immediately began to spasm, screaming in pain with white foam at the mouth. He dropped a spike on her head out of mercy, returning her consciousness to him and splattering blood everywhere which he quickly absorbed along with the body. It seemed his will alone was either not enough or too different to her to be compatible with the original consciousness.
He could try to modify the consciousness, but he feared he would destroy it, so he had to go with plan b. He already knew he was going to regret this. See Johnathan surmised that the stone was more than a heart or a stomach, but a soul made real and the storage of his consciousness. The core of his will and being. His core which allowed him to shape his body to his desires. If this “core” was a solid soul, then it stood to reason if he put her consciousness into a piece of this it may remain stable.
Johnathan called a mouse over to his core and with some hesitation commanded it to bite a piece off. Immediately his body was racked with pain. He screamed out in agony as he felt another piece of himself separate, but unlike before it did not disappear. Just as he hoped he still had a connection to the piece, so long as it was not consumed, but it was no longer truly a part of him. He used this connection to slowly force Samantha’s consciousness into the small chunk. As he did so the piece went from a roughly cut slowly pulsing red stone to a deep blue finely cut cube that seemed to feed off the same life force that his core produced. The results were interesting to say the least but he was not done yet.
After making sure he could feel Samantha in the small blue cube, he created another human body and commanded the mouse to place the stone on the body. Once the stone was placed and the mouse had left he willed the stone and the body to merge. He really felt a bit like one of those mad scientists Jonathan the child had loved so much. The stone glowed bright blue and began to pull power directly from his core. At first it was not so bad but as the stone sunk deeper into the body the drain steadily increased.
He was really frightened at this point as he could feel his strength leave him and his mind blur. He attempted to stop the process, but it was too late, and before he could fight back he sunk into darkness.
A light. A bright yellow light. He awoke from his dream with a start, he had dreamt about the sunset he had seen from the blurry memories of Johnathan the child. He was determined to one day see such a sight instead of having to view it from imperfect memories.
The events of the other day slowly creeped in and he quickly looked down at what he had created. There looking at his core where two beautiful deep brown eyes housed in a grotesque green body with pointed ears and sparse hair. He could only surmise what such a creature would actually smell like but he imagined it was not pleaseant. He was about to kill it and start again when it spoke.
“Wh.at … amm.. Iii...” a deep broken up voice spoke. It looked around “w..where .. am I”, after a pause tears began to fall from its left eye as the right tear duct seamed to not work. “Where .. is . Mom” its words becoming steadier with each try.
-
Samantha awoke slowly from her nightmare, she had dreamt she had run off to pick berries and found a strange cave. She shivered as she recalled what happened after she entered the cave, it was unlikely she would soon forget the feeling of her neck being removed. Then she dreamt it was all blackness for a while which was suddenly broken by a light with terrible pain. This was ended by a sudden smash taking her back to darkness. She was glad it was over though, she was going to tell her mom all about this and swore to never run away again.
That was until she opened her eyes, she was still in a dark abyss and something was up with her body. She lifted her hands in front of her face and took a sharp breath in shock. These where not her hands, they were green and unshapely. Her fingernails where now inch long black claws attached to misshapen fingers. She sat up and immediately felt a presence emanated from a glowing red stone to her right. She turned to it and felt it eyeing at her.
“Wh.at … amm.. Iii...” a voice not her own spoke, it felt like her throat had never been used before. “w..where .. am I” she suddenly realized as she looked around the dark abyss only illuminated by the small stone. Suddenly a thought occurred to her and she began to cry “Where .. is . Mom”.
For a while nothing happened and she just cried but eventually the stone pulsed and from within her being she felt a ancient voice “I do not know what you are or where your mother is, but you are a part of me now and you are safe I promise”
She didn’t feel better with these words.
-
Johnathan had fucked up, he had fucked up real bad. He had tried to play god but instead he created an abomination. What was worse was this thing was linked to his soul and was essentially a part of him now.
He could feel its pain, its desire but he didn’t know why he promised it safety. Consoling it felt like the right thing to do. He had caused this mess and while he may have been a callous killer before, this thing was a part of him. It was not as easy to see himself as food like he could see others.
Slowly she stood up and walked expertly through the maze to the door, as if she could see. When he questioned her she simply said, “I’m going home”. He thought that was a good idea because she would probably just dematerialize. Even if she did not, something else could wipe out his mistake and that would be fine by him.
-
Samantha left in a rush, she did not know how she knew where to go, she just did. She somehow could feel the walls of the cave as easily as one could see, like a sixth sense. While the words of the glowing stone had attempted soothed her, she could feel that it wanted to get rid of her. She knew she had to get out of here. So, she headed to the exit she could see with her mind’s eye, towards the exit towards her family. She already hated the cave and its low ceilings, its odd turns and its damp drippy spikes placed just a little too often to be natural. She especially hated the things that hid in the shadows staring at her like she was some monster. She would get out of here and get her dad to call in the whole army to destroy this place. Then her mom would get what was done to her undone and she could finally forget this nightmare once and for all.
She eventually got to the exit, and immediately rushed out. The sight of the sun and the breath of fresh air filled her with relief. This was short lived, as she was meet with the horror that was her body. She was misshapen, green and her toes ended with black claws like her hands. She felt her ears which where almost as long as her face and were pointed. Her hair, god her hair was ruined, it grew in patches, if it grew at all, and it was so greasy.
She did not have time for this, her mom would know what to do. She sprinted to where her family last camped out, rushing past the dam tree that started it all. She called to her mother when she was near, but the camp was empty. They must be looking for her! All she had to do was wait and they would come back, and her parents will surely know what to do, or so she hoped.
That hope was dashed when a sudden shriek to her right woke her up from thoughts. It was followed by an earth shattering bang after which she was shoved down with a violent force as something struck her body. A sharp pain racked her body and she could see dark red blood seeping from a hole in her side. She slowly sat up to face her attackers only to see her own parents. Her father with fear and tears on his face, holding his gun, had shot her with the only thing he kept from the front lines. She was about to plead with her crying mother when another bang violently shoved her into the blackness again.