I slammed hard into the intersection of solid interior structures, doing my best to shift my eyes out of the way of my impact. It hurt to hit things while I was moving, but it hurt much more if my eyes impacted anything. I'd learned a lot about movement as I pursued the life, developing my own method of locomotion by forming and cycling through numerous limbs as I weaved between rectangular enclosures and the myriad material devices spread chaotically across the floor in the enormous, open-air room that stretched in every direction as far as I could see. My movement was difficult to control, but I'd proven myself to be faster than the life if I used enough limbs to propel myself. However, it had far better control of its movement than I did. It lived in the material. It understood this domain. I was learning its tricks, slowly but surely, but it kept evading me the moment I found an approach. I had to admit, though; it was an intriguing experience, learning. So many things I had to bend my newly born mind around, and I felt something wonderful each time something new broadened my horizons.

But it seemed that was over now. The life stood before me, facing toward me rather than away now. There were no more paths for it to take. I needed only to stride forward and take the life for my own. I had won. It was a long chase, and it had eluded me several times, but in the end, I had cornered it. Cautious that it may still have some other trick that I couldn't yet understand at its disposal, I carefully postured myself to pounce if it tried to pass around me. I let out what felt like a joyous sound from my voice box and carefully observed its next movement.

It stepped back from me, and I charged forward. It made itself small and moved closer to the ground, and that's when I realized something crucial. What do I actually do to consume life? I slowed my approach as I got close to it. It seemed to have stopped trying to escape and made itself small. I thought it was surrendering, so I considered my options carefully. Is life fragile? Is it to be handled carefully? I leaned forward and nudged my form against it, curious if it would simply join with me.

When I made contact, I felt an unfamiliar surge of warmth. This... did not feel like the life I had felt before. This was different. It felt just as wonderful as the first, but much different. Alien knowledge flooded my very being on contact. Just as the first life gave me inspiration to form eyes and legs and a voice, this one offered more explanation of the material. These concentrations of life were humans. That's what they called themselves. This one felt... more still than the first, but just as welcoming. I gleaned many things as I processed what this human meant to me. It had fear. Fear was... bad. Bad was something to be avoided at all cost. It followed something that kept it from the bad. Oh, it too had a greater thing that commanded it. Unlike me, it had not lost that thing, though.

I stared at the human with my many eyes, trying to comprehend further, but I still couldn't understand what I was supposed to do with it. It was my mission to consume it, but...

Oh. Consuming it was bad. But I was commanded to consume life. I leaned toward the human, wondering if my eyes could comprehend more if I was closer.

That's when it reached up to me on its own. I went to pull back, unsure what it was trying to do to me, but the moment I felt its touch, every part of me froze.

It felt... good. It felt good to have its appendage resting against me. Good. Good was the opposite of bad. I needed good. It was right to be good. I felt a quiet rumble begin in my voice box, which spread quickly through my whole body. Warmth. Like life. I closed my eyes. This was not material. This was so much deeper than that. Comfort. Good. Happiness.

In that moment, I was beginning to understand. I had the same potential it did. Was I life myself, in some fashion? I was not human, no, but could I be like it? I wanted to be like it. It was good. I leaned into the human's appendage. I needed more, and the human seemed content to oblige me. More understanding eked from its touch. More knowledge of this new world slowly built inside of me. It didn't all make sense to me right away, but it was coming to me from its touch. Words. Language. The sounds that it made had meaning. It had so many meanings. Countless meanings. I couldn't understand even a fraction of them, but they were there.

And the human's commander, the one that told right from wrong. I learned of that. Compass. A word for guidance. A system of guidance. A creed. That's the word. I let my body relax, feeling the human shift beneath me and let out another sharp sound as my mass dropped onto it to hold it in place, but it kept its appendage against me. It felt good to let the alterations within my body settle back into my mass. I relaxed. I would need to spend some time with the human to understand it. And I had to understand it. Without my former self to guide me, I needed to know what was right and wrong, and this being of life understood that far more than I did. Perhaps this is what was meant by consuming it. Was this what I was meant to do all along? To absorb the knowledge offered freely of humans? That wasn't bad, was it? No.

Distant vibrations carried through to me. A threat? I prepared to turn away from the human, but it brought another appendage to my form and I felt the rumble in my voice box deepen and the joyous feeling of warmth that came from it double. I closed my eyes to soak it in. If the human didn't feel threatened, then I didn't have to be either. It whispered sounds at me. I couldn't comprehend what it was saying, but I knew that it felt good. It felt comforting. Warm. Warmth was good. While this one lacked the same warmth of the first life I'd touched, it gave of it more freely, and it understood more of what was good.

I felt the human push in against me, its gentle movement stopping for the time being. I opened my eyes and saw it staring back. Now that I was observing closely, it was curious that the human seemed to only need two. I wondered what magnificent things it could see if its eyes were powerful enough to need only a single set. "Hey." It spoke. The word didn't mean anything to me, but it got my attention. "Can you understand me?"

Piecing together the little I understood of language so far... yes, I did understand that. What a strange thing to ask. I had no idea how to communicate back to the human, regardless. I stared deep into the human's eyes, hoping that it could see my comprehension. We stared at each other for a long time before I felt its other appendages wriggling beneath me. It wanted to be freed. I considered its mobility again and wondered if I should be holding it in place to continue consuming its knowledge. No. That wasn't right. That wasn't good. Freedom was good for something that had done no bad. And I had to share the good if it was going to share it back. Reluctantly, I lifted the part of myself that held the human against the ground, and I was ecstatic to see it rearrange itself and become larger instead of fleeing. I felt a twinge of pride that I'd done good, reinforced when the human resumed touching me, even unencumbered by my mass. Trust. I had to trust it. I had to trust it wouldn't flee from me. Just trust that it would continue to share its life and knowledge and warmth.

But it wasn't the only thing in the room anymore. I felt... I heard something move behind me again, and this time, it was too close to let myself ignore. Something had been sneaking up on us, and I turned, threatening the new something with my voice. It looked like another human to my eyes alone, but I wasn't fooled. There was something familiar in it. Too familiar. Bad. I steepened my voice. I'd gleaned by then that humans were fragile, soft things. I would have to be careful not to harm the human holding me, and to ensure nothing else brought harm to it. I had to protect the life. This was my human. It wasn't to be consumed by another less enlightened thing like what I had been before. It wasn't to be consumed at all in the way that I had understood it before I touched it. This was a threat to the human and by extension to me.

But my human stepped around me before I could shift my movement appendages back into motion. "No no no! Don't!" Its voice called. A negative, repeated urgently. I stared uncertainly at my human, but it exuded confidence. It knew what it was doing far better than I did. Perhaps it already knew some better way to deal with the bad? It began to touch me again and I once more closed my eyes. Trust my human. Trust it to know how to deal with this strange thing. It turned and gave demanding words to the thing all while it still praised me, giving me more and more of its knowledge, trickling into my being as it dealt with the familiar darkness. They kept exchanging words in their strange human language, back and forth for some time. It moved too quickly for me to follow, but I sensed the other being's words were distressed. It must not have been knowledgeable. I peeked my eyes open when it referred to me, but quickly returned to blissful absorption.

Then the other thing tried to take another step toward my human again. I didn't move to lunge at it that time, but I did warn it with my voice that I was still a threat if it tried to take my human away. "Hey. Hey, it's alright. He's not dangerous." I heard my human reassuring me. It broke contact with me and moved back from me. For a brief moment, I wondered if it was about to flee, but then it stopped at the other human-like thing. It stood at its side and they willingly touched each other. I could only assume that it trusted the thing. I still didn't, but I acknowledged that it expected me to respect this thing. More importantly, it reassured me that it was not simply going to flee. It was past me now, able to move back through the path we had both entered from. It could run now, if it wanted. But it didn't. It trusted me. I trusted it.

I took a cautious step toward the pretender, eyes locked on it to ensure it wouldn't try to do something bad to my human. They talked amongst each other about something I once more couldn't follow, and then my human forced the human illusion to raise its limb to me, alongside my human's own. I just had to trust. I closed my eyes again as it made contact with me, and I was surprised at what I felt. Warmth. Life. Not only that, but it was the same life I'd felt the first time, when I had just entered this material place. I leaned into it just as I did with my own human's appendage. It was so odd, though. I never imagined that that first radiant warmth could have belonged to something that also felt so... bad. So wrong. Something had happened to this life. This other human. Did it know? Did it know that it was harboring something wrong and bad? As my human removed its appendage from me, I peeked an eye open at the tainted human, making sure to keep an eye on it while my human gestured to me for the other human.

I flinched, though, when something even more sinister sounded its presence. Not from the tainted human, but from somewhere else, beyond the room. Far away. Something familiar. Something like me. I stepped around the tainted human, placing my motoric limbs carefully so as not to crush the fragile human flesh, then stood between them and the sound, guarding the entrance to the room. I supposed that I would need to protect the both of them. Tainted or not, this other human belonged to mine, and so I was to protect it as well. I used my voice to let out a warning to whatever lay beyond the room, but I think it was too far away to hear me.

"We need to get out of here." My human declared, but then the tainted one shouted out in surprise, and moved past me, forsaking my protection. I briefly thought of just letting it go to its fate, but then my human said a word I understood to be explicit and followed after it more calmly. It seemed that we were to confront whatever was calling out across the material world. I followed closely beside my human, once more taking care not to entangle my much larger appendages with its own. It gave me a brief touch of acknowledgement, and I was glad to once again reaffirm that it wasn't going to flee from me. I wanted to stay by its side. I wanted to continue to feel its warmth. I wanted it to continue to feed me knowledge. I wanted it to share with me its life. And if that meant that I would have to confront something like myself in its name, then so be it.

The humans picked up pace quickly, and I had to follow at a short length to ensure I didn't trample them once I picked up speed, but I was beside them instead of chasing behind them this time. Both of them frequently glanced my way, and I looked back, giving reassuring happy noises like I had when they touched me, so they knew that I had no ill intent. I was to protect them now.

—

The material world was shifting around us. The light at the impossibly high top of the most open room was darkening, dyeing the whole world in a worrying orange glow. I was worried something terrible may be happening, but the humans seemed unperturbed by the world beginning to drown in a pall of sickly darkness. I altered several of my eyes to compensate for the dying light above and trusted the humans. Such a strange place of unexpected change the material world was, and how the humans inhabiting it seemed unflappable in the face of its chaotic complexity.

We crossed the material world, with all its strange objects and rough gray structures cast in fading overhead orange. Occasionally, I crashed into something that made noises and startled the humans as the objects tumbled into unpredictable pieces. I was still clumsy with my fine movements, but I was getting better with practice.

We heard the cry of the thing that was like me once more, and we adjusted course, rapidly moving through gray and brown and orange until we neared where the structure where I had been born. The call was coming from that first place where I had emerged from the nothing. Were more fragments of me finding their way through despite there being no opening anymore? Would they be understanding of my discovery of the warmth of life or would I have to protect the humans from them? When I'd passed my birthplace again earlier, I had noticed that it was becoming different. I didn't have the words for it the first time, but recalling it now that my human had granted me knowledge, it felt intensely bad. Wrong. Sick. If that was where I came from, was what I was before wrong, too? Was I bad? It was best to consider that later.

As we entered the building, I saw it. It wasn't anything like a human. It was not life. That thing, too alike to me, was a dark emptiness that swallowed up the gray structure around it, vacuuming the dying light of the larger room outside into itself and shifting forms so that one couldn't possibly discern where any of its organs or appendages were coming from. Unlike me, it hadn't discovered structure. It was disorganized and chaotic, and it almost seemed confused. Was it even in control of itself? Was this what I looked like? No. Maybe when I'd first emerged, but I'd learned since then. I was smarter. I was experienced.

The creature was not what was most alarming, though. It was the human that it was dragging along the ground beneath it. It was moving away from us, pulling a still human form with a single limb wrapped in the thing's shadowy tendril and dragging the human across the floor. The limb was the only part of it that seemed to be immune to the chaos of its mass. Its only purpose.

"Cora!" the tainted human yelled. That word again. Was that the human that it was carrying? Cora. A name. The word was meaningful. That meant that the tainted one knew that other human. It was a part of my human's collective. They were a group. A herd. A pack. A team. Was I now a part of that team? Did that mean it was also my duty now to protect the Cora human? I nudged the tainted human aside in a hurry and let out a challenging scream at the creature at the other end of the room, just like I had done when I'd first formed my voice box. I cut it short when I realized both of the humans around me looked hurt, holding their appendages to the top of their forms, making themselves small and folding themselves in distress. Did my voice harm them? I would have to be more careful.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Regardless, the other dark creature seemed to shift in a way that suggested it was acknowledging me, but it continued moving away, toward where I had been born. There had been no need for communication in non-existence. I was connected to all and to nothing when I was part of that world, after all. What need would there be for something like language? Even body language? At least I had learned to understanding the humans, a little bit, but this creature, so much more like me than them, was now beyond my ability to explain and negotiate with. The only way I could get through to it was with action. I had to catch it. Just like with the human before, and make it listen. I didn't know what I would do once I caught it, but I had to protect the Cora human.

I charged at it, digging my motor appendages deep into the rough grey floor and picking up speed quickly, preparing to barrel into the mass of darkness before it could get any closer to that room. A few of my ancillary eyes caught sight of the other two humans following in my wake, as fast as their appendages would carry them. They would risk themselves for their pack. Compass defined it as noble. Good. Right. As the words sunk in, I agreed.

I had to make sure I didn't run over Cora, though. Fortunately, I was beginning to understand how to navigate this world better. I pushed myself to a wall and dug my appendages into it. My limbs stuck deep into it, though they tore through the material even more roughly than they had with the floor. I charged across the wall and then bounded over Cora at my intended target. It was bigger than me, but I could simply use my body to pin it like I had earlier with my human!

As I jumped through the air, a new tendril suddenly lashed out from the center of the writhing darkness and struck me. It was so much different from life. It was cold. Hostile. It felt like it drained from me rather than giving to me. It was wrong. An enemy. And as it made contact, I felt a sinister calling. I saw a thin line of shadow, connecting it to somewhere else in a non-material direction. It was still lashed to our home, unsevered as I had been. It was still part of the whole. And it invited me to accept a tether of my own. It tempted me.

In that split second, as I flew through the air and the thing made contact with me, it was like time had stopped. I had a chance to return to what I was. To be offered guidance I had once known. To return to the comforting void. Would that make me content now, though? Now that I've felt life? Now that I'd been shown affection? Now that I understood all this language to describe how I felt? I stood at a crossroads. I could return to the fold. I could abandon Compass. I could be part of something so much bigger again. Something I now understood, inherently, as wrong. Or I could help the humans. Instinct told me to return home, to give into the nothing. But Compass told me to help my friends. Friends? Friends.

Compass knew better than instinct.

As I made my decision, time resumed, and the creature's tendril followed through with magnificent force. I did not know such terrible strength was possible, much less from something likely identical to me. My whole mass was carried sideways, back into the wall I'd jumped from, and I felt something new. A horrifying truth that momentarily made me regret my choice.

Pain. Pain! PAIN! I writhed in place, my voice box failing to scream out to express my shock. Something within the wall had struck through me, sharp and hard and cruel, and I managed to squeak out my first muted cry of pain, my entire form scrambling for a shape in which the suffering would stop. I needed it to stop! But it was within me. Stuck. Pain was unbearable. I didn't want this! I wanted warmth and happiness! Pain was bad! Pain was very, very bad!

The creature continued dragging its prey through the hall, like my pounce had never even happened. My human stopped at my impaled form while the tainted one continued after Cora, shouting its name again. I reached an appendage for the life. It could help. My human could help. It had to help. The warmth of life could help. It took my limb and pulled. More pain! It hurt! I twitched and writhed more, retracting my limb. Pain!

"C-Calm down! Calm down, big guy!" It called, frantically shouting up at me. "I got you! Just pull yourself off! Fuck, is that blood? Do you bleed?!" It called. It shared my panic. Concern. Bleed? Do I bleed? No. I understood the word. This was not blood. It hurt! It was pain! But it was not blood. It was not life. I reached a second limb for my human. It could help. It was the manifestation of guidance. It held Compass. It would help me. Trust.

And it did help. It took hold of my limbs again and pulled hard. More pain. More suffering! I released noises from my voice box, wholly unfamiliar. Moments later, though, I fell from the wall. So much pain! I slumped down into a heap, unable to maintain order in my form as I twitched and writhed in desperation for it to end. And after a few moments, the pain finally began to ebb, easing but continuing to sting long after I'd been removed from the wall. My eyes scanned the structure I'd been stuck to and saw a jagged protrusion jutting from the destroyed gray structure. It was stained black, dripping with my essence. My emptiness. I was not like life. This was not vital fluid, I was leaking emptiness.

The protrusion had been inside of me. I had been stuck to it. The pain was quickly fading, and I found my form relaxing into the dull numbness. The relief of being removed from pain was good. It was so good. Relief. I made frantic noises of gratitude at the human. It had caused pain, but it was for ending pain. Something bad to make good. Such a strange exchange.

I tried to push myself back upright again, but I found my strength wanting and fell back into a heap. Tired. Lingering pain. Too tired. But I needed to save Cora. I needed to help my human and its pack. But this new feeling was overwhelming. Exhaustion. I was so tired. I wanted to stay still and let my wound rest.

"You're not dying on me, are you? Fuck, can you die?" My human asked. I wasn't sure what die meant, and I still didn't understand how to respond. "Shit, what's going on over there?" It mumbled, glancing toward the turn in the hall ahead that the other dark thing and the tainted one disappeared down together a moment ago. Turbulent cries were calling from the next room. Could the tainted one rescue Cora on its own?

"Look... whatever you are," my human called to me, a shaky gentleness in its voice. "Cora might be screwed. If that thing did this to you in one blow, who knows what it would do to us? But if we lose her, we lose access to magic. And I don't think we can afford that." She gave a concerning pause "It's worrying that it's taking her somewhere too. Fuck, it needs her for something. Can you still fight?"

Fight? Oh. Violence. Fight. Violence was bad? Violence was very bad. But I forced myself back up, on shaky limbs, thrust into the ground for support. I needed to help. An exchange. Just like pain for relief. Could I exchange violence for good? I would have to try. I could only form a few extra appendages to stand on. My energy was waning, and it seemed relative to how far I could spread out my mass. I needed to compact myself. Fewer eyes, smaller surface. I would need fewer appendages for mobility. As I pondered my shape, though, I looked down at my human. She watched my shaking limbs with uncertainty. I reached my head forward and touched its shoulder, closing my eyes as she put a hand beneath me, holding me gently. Just a little more knowledge. I needed to know a little bit more about humans first. And as before, understanding came to me.

I lifted my head again as I contracted in, my body dwindling quickly in size, organs recycling themselves. Everything that I'd formed so far, to become more aware of the material world, needed to melt away for me to reform myself. I would need to reclaim them when I brought myself down to size. My body shook as my wound stretched and shrunk, but I couldn't bring myself to reform the lost flesh completely. More pain, but mild and necessary. I was in a hurry, so I used my human as a blueprint. I was not life, but my malleable form could mimic it. When I felt myself stop condensing, I formed eyes first. Only a single set. Immediately, I felt a mild sense of discomfort, not being able to see all around me. And I saw my human. It was staring back at me with wonder, now at the same eye level as me. Was it fear? No, just shock. It had not been expecting me to steal its shape. I quickly reformed my auditory processing, and then my voice box. I was back to the same stage of development as before, but smaller now. It was surprisingly easy to change myself so drastically.

"Like a... pitch black human." My human muttered, then shook its head. "Is that helping? Becoming smaller? Is that it?" I stared at my human in silence again. I was still uncertain how to respond to questions like that, even though I thought I understood what it was asking. I gave a short click from my voice box so that I at least acknowledged I heard it. "Ooookay... okay. Well, let's go! Thomas can't do this alone!"

I watched it turn and lift its leg to move. This was going to be the hard part. Human motility was much more complex than what I'd done while I was larger. Multiple moving parts within their limbs that let them use fewer appendages. I didn't have time to learn that, though. I'd shrunk so I had more mass to make more limbs with. It would have to do. I followed, forming several appendages in quick sequence to carry myself forward just like before, planting each limb hard into the rough, gray floor. I had the mass to work with now without completely exhausting myself. I turned to look at my human as I caught up to it. It glanced down at my appendages with concern on its face, but said nothing before focusing back on our goal.

We turned the corner to see the entrance to that beginning room, now inundated with countless cracks. Tiny broken windows into nothing that pulsed with dark, wrong, emptiness. An antithesis to life, just like when the creature had touched me. If there was any doubt before I beheld that room again, I knew then that I did not ever want to return to that place. I never wanted to be that again. It was shocking to know that I'd come from that.

The tainted human, Thomas, if I had heard my human correctly, was staring up at the writhing shape, standing defiantly in its way. Strangely, the darkness had stopped in its place. It was facing toward the center of the room, but it hadn't simply barreled over Thomas. How long had they been standing like this while they waited for us? Thomas turned to look at us and its breath halted. "Scarlet...s?" Thomas sounded confused. It didn't expect me to look like a copy of my human.

My human charged right for Cora, but the creature finally seemed to react to the movement. It was hard to predict it, but I could tell it was about to strike my human. But humans were fragile. They weren't like me. They could not reform themselves. They could not endure pain. They could bleed.

My human let out a shriek of terror and flinched away from the attack. I didn't need to think before I shunted myself forward to my human's side. Scarlet. My Scarlet. I moved into the way of the creature's blow.

Violence. I needed to meet violence with violence. An exchange for my pack. It was a good action. I focused on my condensed mass, shifting my density quickly into one upper limb and intercepting the creature's attack with my own, our limbs colliding in a percussive slam.

Given how much bigger it currently was, I was surprised when the creature's mass gave first. It reeled back as my attack continued forward, and it unleashed a cry of its own. It stumbled at the impact, and Thomas had to step out of the way as it writhed and jumped in place, trying to make sense of what I'd just done to it. Scarlet pulled Cora away in the confusion, falling to the ground with the smaller girl on top of her, freed from the creature at last.

I corrected my newly bipedal balance, almost falling beside the humans in the backswing of my blow, and then looked down at my limb, unsure how I had put so much strength into the attack when I was already weakened by my wound. I experimentally flexed the digits of the human hand. Was it something to do with this shape?

"Hell of a haymaker..." Thomas muttered breathlessly at me. There was no time to ponder what had happened, though. We all turned as the creature righted itself as much as something like it could and unleashed a shrill cry that shook the world and made me feel so very small and weak. It was surprised, but it was far from defeated. Thomas pushed my shoulder to urge me to turn around and shouted, "RUN!"

Run. Yes. Run away! This thing was beyond mine or their capability to defeat, now. We had Cora. We needed to leave, now. Scarlet scrambled to its feet while Thomas ran forward and quickly picked up the still-limp Cora in both of its arms. I stood between the creature and the humans, protecting them while they gathered themselves. The creature lurched forward as my Scarlet called, "You too! Come on!" and I began to flee behind them. Thomas was not limited by carrying Cora at all, and the creature was slow to follow us through the doorway, but if it was like me, it could catch up with ease. We couldn't just flee in a straight line, but that's all we had.

We got to the corner of the long room and I spotted the exposed bar, still soaked in my black essence. That was our only chance. I stopped at the bar and grabbed hold of it. My Scarlet stopped at my side and shouted, "Come on, what are you doing?!"

The monster let out another cry, and I saw the creature's many appendages writhing at the corner behind us. I pushed my Scarlet back and stared my human down again, hoping that it would understand. It stumbled a step back, staring back. Trust. Please understand. Just trust. She nodded slowly and then turned to run again while I shifted my mass to my arm again and turned to watch the monster approach. I would answer its earlier violence and make it feel the pain I felt. Wrong. No. Bad. Compass says revenge is bad. This is to protect the humans. Good. I nodded to myself and pulled.

The wall made odd creaking noises as I pulled harder and harder, then I stumbled back, losing my balance and falling to the floor. The jagged thing had been wrenched free from its place on the wall. I created limbs to raise myself back up onto my human-like limbs again and held the weapon in my strengthened hand.

The creature once more unleashed a cry that made the entire room shake. I stood my ground, holding tight to the wound-making thing. It came close to me, and before it began to raise a limb to me, I lunged forward. I threw my entire mass at the creature, foregoing my usual slow to start method of movement, and thrusted the thing hard into the center of the creature's body.

I felt the weapon offer resistance, but I held it tight and pushed in further, the creature screaming out a somehow even louder cry while I pushed my body into it. It bucked and threw itself around wildly, whipping my whole body with it while I held to my weapon as a handle, shaping my mass around it so it couldn't tear me off. It leaked black essence much like my own all over me. It wasn't stopping, though. I'd injured it, but it was still moving wildly. Did it not get tired? Would it eventually stop if I held it in?

I felt a tendril grab hold of one of my lower human limbs, and it finally got a grip on me. It violently pulled on me, and I was forced to let go.

I felt my form slam into the wall once more. PAIN! A different pain, but still pain! I was not run through with a spike again, it was just a hard hit against a solid surface, but it hurt! It really hurt! It pulled me away from the rough gray surface and whipped me around to slam me against the opposite wall. I cried out in terrible pain this time as it threw me into the wall hard enough to tear material from the surface, striking my right at my eyes. It cried out once more and whipped me back, just missing the ceiling.

I had to free myself before I didn't have any energy left. I had to get away. I had to change myself with what little I had left. It began to swing me forward, to slam into the ground with what would certainly have been a decisive blow. I suddenly dissolved the entire limb it was holding me by back into myself. But I didn't stop moving. It had already begun its swing, and being freed from it didn't stop me. My body went flying away from it down the long room, and I hit the ground. Pain! More pain! And it didn't stop. My body scraped against the rough gray surface and bounced back into the air, crashing back into the ground one more time. So much pain! I couldn't see anymore. I didn't have the strength to maintain my eyes. I condensed my mass further, sliding and tumbling, my body ripping and tearing apart as the motion carried me further and further, essence spilling out across the floor. I rolled along like I would never stop, like the pain would get worse and worse forever.

But eventually, I slid to a stop, and my suffering magnified as I came to a rest. My whole mass hurt! So much pain! Being impaled had been a terrible feeling, but it paled in comparison to my wounds settling without shock to brace me. Wounds folded on wounds within my mass ached and throbbed, gnawing at my flesh in unbelievable agony. I was losing mass rapidly, and there was nothing I could do about it.

I let out what I thought would be an agonized scream that would shake the heavens, but my screech came out only as a weak croak. I had nothing left.

Was this right? Was my sacrifice worth it? Had the humans escaped? Compass said yes. This was good. This was the most good I could have done. I had given everything for them. For the humans. For my Scarlet. I could rest.

I heard something approach. Human steps. "You better not be dead." My Scarlet hissed. No, it was supposed to flee! It was supposed to use my distraction. I felt myself lifted from the floor, my wounds throbbing with terrible pain once more. But now there was warmth. I gave another painful croak. Was it safe? Had I immobilized the monster? I had to trust. I had to trust my Scarlet could take it from here. There was barely any of my mass left, and I had no energy to move. I supposed it was its turn to save me as I felt swift movement carrying me away. My voice box failed next, leaving me mute as it dissolved back into my mass to conserve energy.

"Thank you." I heard my Scarlet whisper to me before the pain forced me to dissolve my auditory processing as well. All my organs had failed, but I was still within my ruined flesh, forced into a state of total rest, only able to shiver in pain in the quiet dark.

I returned to nothing. But now it was warm. Now I was so much closer to life. And maybe I could come back to it.