It was a swamped day like any other, and Conan just finished his work and was heading home. It was 2 a.m, but it had become a daily phenomenon over the last few weeks to meet the project's deadline. That was the life of a Programmer these days. After putting an alarm on for 9 a.m, he went straight to bed as usual. Six to seven hours of sleep was enough these days. "Just a week before the project deadline, and then I'll have a break". With that last thought, Conan drifted into a deep sleep.

...

The ground felt cold to Conan. He tried to wake up, but his body felt unfamiliar. There were double sensations all over the body. It was a strange feeling, and it was as though he had four arms and four legs.

He opened his eyes and scanned his surroundings carefully. It was dark, but light was coming from the Selenite looking crystals sparsely surrounding him. "What the …" Conan panicked as he noticed that he was seeing double vision, but then he realized the even weirder part that there was another body and somehow he could sense and control that body as well

It felt like two bodies, but both had a single consciousness. Neither body was his but belonged to an unfamiliar male and a female body, respectively. They also wore some kind of strange outfits. For comparison, the male's clothing resembled a sort of medieval type of clothing which were usually worn by wanderers or adventurers, while the female garment was a Renaissance dress with embroidery at specific places such as those worn by wealthy women in the medieval ages.

"Am I dreaming?" Conan thought to himself, but he scratched that idea immediately as it felt too real for it to be a dream.

"Maybe I died because of overwork, and this is an afterlife" that also didn't make sense as he could still feel the pain.

He tried to feel up his chest. He could feel the masculine body of a young boy, and on the other end, he also sensed a weird, soft sensation of a girl's chest. Then he spoke, "Who are you?" and sound came from both bodies. One was a deep, low sound like a male, while another was a gentle, soothing voice from a female.

He thought of discovering more about the place he was in and put on hold other thoughts for now, like figuring out how this situation is even possible or what even happened to his original body. He felt strange trying to stand up with two bodies. He tried to move around the place, but it was quite hard controlling both bodies simultaneously in two different directions. Because of uneven ground, many times he tripped over and fell. After a few hours of practice and minor bruises here and there, he started getting accustomed to controlling both bodies simultaneously.

There were many strange luminous crystals all over the ground and roof. Now, after facing towards each other with both bodies, he had a proper look. The male body was about a 16-year-old and had dark hair and eyes with a pretty handsome face. The female body was approximately a teenager around the same age with dark hair up to her shoulders and dark eyes with a beautiful face.

"My original face was somewhat on a handsome side, but with the present look, I dare say that most girls would be interested in me at first. The girl's face was very cute, any guy dropping head over heels for her instantly. Her chest area was lacking a bit, but I think there's still room for growth.", Conan thought to himself.

Looking at the ground, he found some strange markings. If he were to describe them, he would say that it looked like a magic or a summoning circle from an anime, but there were no summoners around. This circle had seven rings to it, with some unfamiliar symbols in between and seven intersecting runic symbols at the center. After observing those symbols and the rest of the area, Conan found that this place seemed to be some kind of cave, and the past few hours since he had been here exploring, no one has come either. "Looks like no one will be coming, I need to get out of here and find some people to understand what happened", and so Conan decided to look for an exit.

There was a single tunnel leading outwards. Conan controlled both bodies and moved towards the path out of this place. The tunnel was dark, but the Selenite crystals encrusted in the walls helped him to follow the path with caution.

After walking for hours, it seemed to be a never-ending tunnel. Conan began to doubt whether this tunnel had an end or not. Even if he gets to the end of the tunnel, there's no guarantee it's going to lead him out. Both bodies were already feeling hungry and thirsty.

Finally, Conan heard some dripping sounds of water ahead. Both ran towards the sound and eventually noticed that the ground here was a bit wet. The small brooks of groundwater flowed along the walls and onto the crystals, giving them that trickling sound. Both of them cupped their hands to collect some of the water and drank it. Conan felt great as most of the fatigue after that long walk was relieved. Conan decided to take some rest before resuming the walk again.

After quenching his thirst, Conan continued his journey. The path ahead was not straight but seemed like the body of a snake. Sometimes there would be high grounds and sometimes low grounds and sometimes the tunnel split towards either the right or left direction. In another few hours, there was a slight change to the structure of the tunnel. The path became wider and wider as the tunnel roof grew further away from Conan’s head.

At the end of the tunnel, Conan reached a large hollow area. It was slightly brighter here, thanks to numerous crystals clustered all over the walls illuminating the place. Looking up, the sight was beautiful. The roof looked like a real night sky with crystals glowing like stars sprinkled about. The size of this location was as large as three football stadiums on Earth, and it also had a beautiful pond in the center. Further ahead, there seemed to be three more tunnels attached to this cave leading towards different directions.

Conan approached the pond immediately. The water was so clear that one could see to the bottom of the pond. Both male and female dipped their toes into the water and washed their faces.

"Look for fish or aquatic life, we could fill our bellies if we were lucky," Conan told the girl.

"Sure, I will search in the right part of the pond while you look on the left side." The girl replied

Conan decided to have some conversation with himself to not feel alone in this place.

"Damn it! I don't find any aquatic life at all", Conan cursed.

"At least there seem to be some aquatic plants at the bottom of the pond. There seems to be something glowing too. it looks like a mushroom the size of a palm, and perhaps they're edible." the girl said.

Conan also found two big mushrooms shining at the bottom of the pond. The pond wasn't too deep, so he removed his clothing and dived into the pond. Looking closer, one of the mushrooms gleamed with a multi colored glow while another shone with a golden glow. He quickly plucked those two mushrooms and swam back to the surface of the pond.

After hours of controlling both bodies simultaneously, Conan had become good enough to make complex movements, even more when focusing everything on the movements within a single body. Making complex movements with both bodies simultaneously was still difficult.

The girl helped him out of the pond and said, "We don't have any means to cook or heat it. I guess we will be eating them raw. I wonder if they are edible".

Conan wore the clothing again after drying himself off.

"Lets each eat one of those mushrooms. If the two are not edible then it's just our luck but if only one is not edible and something happens then at least one of us will be fine", Conan suggested.

Conan ate the golden mushroom while the girl ate the colorful mushroom. They tasted a bit bland but filled the stomach. Immediately thereafter, both felt a sharp pain in their stomach. They fell to the ground while holding their stomachs.

"Don't tell me they were both poisonous", Conan thought to himself.

He just realized that he should have just tried one of the mushrooms and waited awhile before consuming the other with the other body.

In a short moment however, the pain went away and he suddenly felt a warmth spreading throughout his body. The same was happening with the female body as well. He analyzed himself for a while, everything seemed normal, and he even felt more energetic than before.

After getting up Conan checked out those tunnels he saw earlier. The center tunnel was big enough to fit two elephants in it, whereas the other two tunnels were sufficiently large to accommodate two adult humans vertically. Although they also had illuminating crystals along the path, one could not see where those tunnels lead. When Conan approached those tunnels, he could sense some wind coming out of the left tunnel and center tunnel. That was a good sign, which means either of those tunnels leads outside. However, he was not sure how long it might take to get out, and even if it reaches the surface, there is no guarantee that it could be safer than here. Therefore, he decides to take a little rest here where he is sure before following one of these tunnels.

"We should sleep here for today and decide which tunnel to take after some good sleep." the girl suggested.

There was no way of knowing whether it was day or night outside, but Conan nodded and found a spot to lie down. The place looked safe, so Conan felt no need to keep up guard. So the girl also found a place next to him and lay there.

Both immediately dozed off as they were tired from the long journey. While asleep, almost invisible to the naked eye, mana particles began to gather around their bodies. Soon those particles started getting absorbed into their bodies. Conan slept well while this process continued for hours until no more particles remained in the air.

Suddenly, there was a large tremor causing the ground to shake. Conan immediately woke up and found some small rubble falling from the roof. There was another tremor right after and it continued. It seemed that a large animal was prowling outside and causing tremors at every step. Then there was a loud "Grawl ..." sound coming from one of the tunnels up ahead.

"I don't want to know what kind of animal makes that sound, especially if it's carnivorous. Let us take another tunnel and get out of here." Conan thought to himself.

He discovered the sound was coming from the central tunnel, and Conan decided to take the left tunnel. Hence both entered the left tunnel and resumed their journey.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.