After exiting I found myself in the bad part of a city, at least I hope this is the bad part. Graffiti covered every wall as far as the eye could see, cigarettes filled every sidewalk crack, trash spilled from every alley onto the sidewalk, and there was just a bad vibe in the air.

However, that last one might just be this world that I am in. The very air was infested with the darker aspects of reality. Turns out the sense I gained in unreality worked in reality as well and allowed me to see reality’s building blocks as threads. Which was good as I was pretty sure I was blind and only “seeing” the world with my sixth sense as the world seemed to be dayglo. This could just be how the world looks, but I doubt it.

The aforementioned infestation had one major effect according to my preliminary observation of the surrounding essences. Essences were what I decided to call the various concentrations of concepts. The observed effect was that essences that seemed fueled by or incorporating negative concepts are empowered and positive aligned essences are suppressed. It followed in my opinion that any powers or abilities would follow this trend. Another educated guess was that dark emotions and thoughts would grow ever more present in the minds of inhabitants. Put those two guesses together and you get a world that probably was full of bad powers and people.

I got up from the ground using the wall my back was up against and my only functioning arm. Old leftie if you’re curious. I then attempted to walk over to a dingy store front across the street from me as it had a glass window behind iron bars in hopes of checking the damage. I already knew that my right eye and ear, my right arm, and left leg were crippled.

My bad leg buckled under my weight the second my arm left the wall and I fell into the empty street. I looked at my “good” leg and found it twisted and deformed. The only thing I could say it had going for it was that it could hold weight to at least some degree.

I reached for the threads that made up the ground just like I had previously done with my own body in the space between worlds in hopes of shaping it just like my body. It was an exercise in will, determination, and hope. I was correct in my assumption and finally I was able to make a misshapen cane comprised of concrete.

I then shambled over to the window and attempted to take in my new form. It turns out I was right about that blind thing. I could tell I was looking at a reflective surface, but could not see any reflection. The mirror was little more than a silvery wall to me.

If I could have taken in my reflection I would have seen a short goblin-like creature that looked like melted wax in both color and texture. The creature had chucks removed and leaking a blackish purple along with a huge crack running through its right eye and ear. The only hair to speak of on the creature were tuffs of dry white hair on its head. The only visible eye had a shattered mirror pattern leaking the same light as found in the cracks on its pupilless white iris.

So, it was probably a good thing I could not see that as I was already dealing with quite a bit. Thankfully unreality weakened my emotions, sure that would eventually be a problem but for now I will take what I can get.

Unfortunately, my blindness made it so I could only look at my insides with my new sense. Which were no bueno, no bueno at all. My body, which was a gestalt made of my previous physical, mental, and spiritual bodies that fulfilled the functions of all three, was twisted and deformed far more than my appearance ever could be. In my defense I was the equivalent of a kindergartener with clay when it came to sculpting bodies.

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Out of nowhere I felt like my strings were cut and I collapsed to the ground. The consumption of my vital energies was a bit more rapid than predicted and I was left empty handed in terms of a solution.

*Thud*

I turned my gaze to whatever just hit me in the head. Turns out it was a golden apple with a note pinned to it.

***

Congratulations! It’s a boy! :D

Welcome to the family, little brother.

Here’s an apple.

With love,

K.O.C.

P.S. Be careful out there and always remember you are what you eat

***

While eating random things given by strangers named after genitalia is usually a bad call, it seemed like the best of my options. Well, my only option.

It was a struggle, but eventually I was able to lift myself up and crawl over to the fruit. On my hands and knees, I leaned my head down, wrapped my teeth around the apple, and took a bite.

The gold tasted like nothing. The rotten fruit inside, however, was sickly sweet, the kind of taste that was so close to being good, but your body just instinctively rejected it. I was able to choke it down though, keeping it down though was an endeavor.

The rest of the bites were just as fun. I could not risk one bite not being enough for whatever the apple was supposed to do. If it did anything at all, brothers were known to mess with each other, and some people had quite the twisted sense of humor.

When I finished my impromptu meal, the urge to vomit grew overwhelming and I tried to hold it off.

I failed.

The golden projectile vomit splashed against the ground. The vomit then flowed back towards me. Which was quite disgusting by the by. The golden vomit eventually reached my arms and crawled up them then spread across my skin leaving a golden layer covering me.

What happened next was a strange experience. The best way I can describe it was the rotten apple after losing its gilded cage grew proverbial roots and spread, causing anything they touched to rot. I then felt a jolt run through my form as my insides shifted into a strange rotten form.

The only hint my new senses could give me of my current state was that my body was comprised of several black gemlike structures connecting to an abyssal spine running through a blackish gray body with a golden shell surrounding everything.

Given the note from the phallic brother and this makeup, I am guessing that I have turned into a human apple. Observing the energy flow of my new form I noticed that my energy problem has mutated I no longer need straight vital energies, I needed new seeds. The seeds contained a strange rotten energy that fed my fruit which kept me ticking.

Now I just needed to find out how to craft one.

My current seeds gave me enough energy to keep the doctor away for another day. Well, medical examiner, but they were doctors, so I think the expression still fit.

Well with that out of the way, time to find somewhere to spend the night.

I looked around for a building full of rats as that was my best source of subjects to experiment with seed creation.

Approaching the warehouse I saw how my new body ran, poorly. I was so weak that I could not walk without a cane and was insensate outside my sixth sense. And yes I moved blind up to insensate, I could no longer hope that it was just a quiet scentless night.

The only true solution to this problem was replacing my insides. This process was in theory extremely simple as all it involved was replacing the failing parts with functional ones. The snag was that my insides would rot anything that touched it conceptually except my skin. That meant that I either needed to completely replace my entire being, a task that I cannot even think of a way to do, or find some other solution.

With that inspection of my long-term needs done, I was on an ever-present deadline for a plan to address them. I had a day to figure out seed creation.