No, this wouldn’t be it— no fucking way. I’m not going to die before I find out what’s out there. Aloram scurried to his feet, fighting to overcome the suffocating pressure of the bear’s presence. Red, pulsating veins of light like thin tears in its skin traced lines across its enormous body, peaking through the dark fur. It growled at him, shaggy torso heaving with heavy, angry breaths, its unbelievable size filling the cavernous room.
He’d heard somewhere that you were supposed to intimidate bears to get them to leave you alone, but somehow he felt that didn’t apply here. He risked a quick glance around the cavern. The walls were far away, out of reach; the only exit was the corridor behind the bear where it’d emerged.
Scanning the ground for a weapon, Aloram found nothing. The ominous scratching sound of scraping claws against rock brought his attention back to the bear; with another roar, it loped towards him, mouth open, fangs bared. Towering over him, far too large to fight, the bear spelled certain death; he had to escape.
That roar it did earlier was not normal. This bear has some sort of supernatural powers— or something. His eyes were drawn to the ruby embedded in the bear’s forehead, radiating a sinister foreign energy. Probably something to do with that rock.
It was coming quickly, only a couple dozen feet away now; as it approached, he got a better gauge on its size. The bear must’ve been fifteen feet tall, each one of its legs the full size of his body. Its huge, black head swayed as it ran, red eyes crazed and possessed of a territorial, killing intent.
Aloram readied himself, kneeling into a low crouch, unmoving, waiting for his moment. The cave filled with the sound of its clattering claws, the rumble of its pounding gait, the deafening thunder of its roar.
The bear’s weight shifted onto its right foreleg, and he flung himself forwards in a dive. Its left arm swung sideways towards his head with incredible speed, like a tree-sized baseball bat, the whoosh of air over his outstretched body chilling the bare skin of his back.
He was directly underneath the bear’s head now, brown matted fur and glowing-red filling his world, pulsing like molten forge iron, could feel its hot breath and the splatter of warm saliva on his back. Gritting his teeth and crawling forwards under its belly, he felt an immediate sense of claustrophobic danger— if it lowered its weight on him, he would be suffocated, squished against the cave floor like clay into a mold. He scrambled forwards, crawling on hands and knees, skin cut, feet kicking at the rock beneath, propelling himself towards the tunnel on the other side.
The bear twisted, snapping down at him with its yellow fangs, but he was too fast; clacking jaws snapped in the air above him, and he was free from beneath it, the ceiling of drooping belly, fur, and throbbing red energy replaced by soft blue light and the high emptiness of the cavern above him.
Without looking back at the bear slowly turning around to give chase, he sprinted towards the corridor of sloping rock it’d emerged from. His bare feet padded noiselessly on the rocky floor, silent except for the occasional splashing of a footfall in a puddle, or the pained yelp of smashing his toes into an unseen lip of rock.
He searched for any route of egress too narrow for the bear to follow, but found none. Stalactites hung from the ceiling above, extending hundreds of feet down, joined by stalagmites rising from the cave floor like living spears. Some were dull and lifeless in the dim light of the cave, while others shone brightly with a menagerie of exuberant colors.
Twisting purple spires, their glass-like, pulsing structures unlike anything he’d seen on Earth rose from the ground. Hanging columns of blue stalactites illuminated the cave ceiling, and dim orange crystals clung to the walls in the thousands, occasionally augmented by a sprinkling of other colors amidst the orange sea.
Aloram weaved between them all, twisting through the ancient maw of natural pillars that rose from the earth and hung from the ceiling like the teeth of some primordial dragon, confident in his movement honed from years of Muay Thai, wrestling, and speed drills. Despite his haste and the efficiency of his movements, the bear closed in close behind. It smashed through the stalagmites, shattering them, sending chunks of rock and crystal flying in all directions in its furious pursuit.
He’d chosen a shit spot to get teleported to, that was for sure. He sprinted as hard as he could, his ability to slip between the mineral spires and use them as natural obstacles the only thing keeping him out of the bear’s reach. His breathing came quickly, but that unearthly energy that he’d noticed immediately upon waking up seemed to infuse him, keeping him from tiring as quickly as he’d expect to. Wish I’d had this in my pro debut, maybe I wouldn’t have gassed out in the third. If I can learn to harness this… what would I be capable of?
The bear roared out its rage, returning his thoughts to the present, but from its volume he thought he might’ve gained a little distance on it. He checked the path ahead for obstacles, then risked a glance behind him.
His pursuer had caught a stalactite in its front shoulder from above, a spear of translucent violet crystal protruding from just atop its right foreleg, and smaller spikes were embedded in the padded bottoms of its paws like shards of broken glass, glinting from beneath. Black blood seeped from the wound on its shoulder, dampening its fur and matting it into clumps.
Despite the injuries, the bear charged on, swiping at the stalagmites ahead of it in an enraged frenzy, spraying bits of glowing crystal everywhere, painting the cave with a sea of dazzling lights in every color. In the chaos, Aloram noticed an alcove, a fold in the rock wall at his side, a fissure in the dull-grey stone. It was just large enough for him to slip through, ten feet tall and the width of a refrigerator; he slid sideways into it, his chest and back scraping on the rough, sharp rock. His breathing quickened, his heart tightening in his breast. Now’s not the time, be claustrophobic later; I’m not dying before I figure out what’s going on; this is a new beginning, put that weak shit aside.
Shimmying deeper inside, his body turned sideways, the raucous booming of the bear’s approach neared rapidly. His arms were outstretched beside him, fingertips reaching, feeling against the narrow wall, willing the crevice to continue deeper. His head was cocked to the side; there was scant room in the cramped passageway for it to turn, so his eyes were forced to stare into the jagged sliver of silver light where he’d entered. He shuffled sideways, moving further and further inside, the entrance shrinking ever so slowly away.
In a moment of sudden suspense, the roaring stopped, replaced by a hot, heavy panting. The faint light vanished, blocked by something, plunging him into inky blackness; he could see nothing, hear nothing, feel only the cold rock against his skin. Something scraped against the wall outside. An ugly rasping sound, it traveled down the corridor and insinuated itself upon his ears, surrounded him with a dreadful grating sound of bone against rock, nails on a chalkboard.
Alorams eyes were open wide in the huge darkness, searching. An angry crimson orb appeared at the crack in the wall, the abyssal black pupil inside staring into his own. The ring of red pulsed, ached its need to kill him. His skin prickled, gooseflesh tingling, the hair on his body standing upright in the excitement of near-death fear. Then the bear blinked, turned away, dragged its clawed paw off the wall with a final grinding of stone. The reverberating thud thud of its pawed footsteps faded away, then nothing.
He released a long sigh, his body shivering involuntarily from the incredible flush of adrenaline, fear, and relief. Eventually, his usual calm returned, and he noticed for the first time the aching of his feet, the stinging of cuts, scrapes, gouges on his skin: the protesting cramps of his muscles, strained hard from the run and bent awkwardly in the narrow crevice. Still alive… still alive. What a creature— what a run. I haven’t felt that much excitement in… ever.
Still alive, but not for long, unless he figured something out about his surroundings soon. The crevice was a safe harbor, so although it wasn’t the most comfortable resting place, he used its protection to take stock of his situation. I’m battered up pretty good, but nothing’s sprained or broken; I’ve had way worse than this before. I have no food though, but there’s plenty of water out there, and maybe I can try eating whatever was growing on the walls outside. It looked like lichen or moss maybe, but I’ve never been the outdoorsy type. If it comes down to it, I’ll just eat whatever there is and hope for the best.
Feeling a bit better, he took some long, slow breaths. Yeah. I’m fine. This is fine. At least it smells better than back home. And way more exciting, too. I’m liking this a lot, actually. Head crooked awkwardly to the side, arms and legs stretched out to his sides like a starfish pressed between two jagged rock walls in nothing but his boxers, he smiled.
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My new home, he thought with a warm sense of endearment. How did he get here? Why? He didn’t care. There was nothing left for him back on Earth— and he had known instinctively upon feeling that odd, all-permeating energy that this place was not his old planet. The bear pretty much confirmed it.
He was an outsider there on Earth, and always would be. But here? He could be something new. He could feel it. Whatever he wanted, he could have, if only he reached for it. And if he found a way to harness that latent energy? Something told him that the only limits on his power here would be his creativity and his determination— neither of which he was lacking. The smile grew wider.
I could be anything here. A king, or a god.
He wanted to explore that energy, which lingered in his awareness like a new sense, but first he had to address another, more pressing concern. He was thirsty, his throat scratching with it. He licked his lips, tasting the salty-sweet sweat, then began to shimmy down the crevice in the opposite direction, away from where the bear had wandered off.
After about fifteen minutes— he’d always had an exceptional sense of time— his fingers felt the flat of the wall turn away into a corner. His head still turned the other direction, he couldn’t see what lay beyond, but the prospect of finally getting out of the tight corridor thrilled him. He shimmied further, arm reaching out of the crack all the way to his shoulder, feet shuffling sideways.
He sidestepped, matched his feet together, sidestepped again. Almost there… He took another step, his left foot reaching out. And when he set it down, there was nothing there. He lost balance, his left leg plunging into the void, pulling him over, tearing him from the fissure in the wall.
“Gahh!”
His left cheek scraped against the rock, neck twisting painfully as he was dragged out by his own weight, fell careening through open air, limbs flailing in the empty blackness. The moment stretched out forever, wind howling past his ears, stomach leaping into his mouth, darkness interrupted by flashes of pale-blue moss and glowing crystal.
Then his mind burst apart, shattered by indescribable pain as he crashed into a body of water below. His vision was dominated by the turquoise blue of the lake, his skin afire with the stinging pain of the impact and the searing heat of the water.
All the breath was knocked from his lungs, and his frantic attempts to suck in air only resulted in choking, drowning mouthfuls of water. His ears and nose filled with it, the tears in his skin from the cuts and scrapes of his flight afire with the burning touch of the hot liquid. He swallowed gulps of it, arms and legs spasming, kicking, pining for the surface— for escape.
The water burned his skin, coursed through his body, through his veins, incinerating him from the inside out. It filled him from navel to fingertips, imbuing him with a foreign power— his skin tingled, vibrated, his entire body thrumming with the energy surrounding him, occupying him. It was like the energy he’d felt before but distilled a thousandfold, refined to something made unrecognizable by its purity.
He realized that he wasn’t trying to breathe anymore, didn’t need to. His eyes were open, but he saw nothing of the pool— just a sheet of bright turquoise energy, swirling like the cosmos behind his vision. The pain that had racked his body moments before was gone, his entire awareness of self vanished. He was everything and nothing at once, adrift in a nirvanic state of non-being, suspended motionless in the center of the deep reservoir.
The power washed over him, through him, swirled about him, took hold of his soul and pulled him along with it. He felt cleansed, his ethereal being rinsed of impurities, reforged. His mind peeled back like flower petals, a chrysanthemum opening to enlightenment— a small part of his mind made itself heard, reached for consciousness, fought for control. He struggled against the all-consuming pull of nonexistence that clung to his mind like a lustful lover, wrapping him up and tugging him back in.
Aloram screamed defiance in his mind, wrestled control from the directionless ocean of nonsentient power, asserted his sense of self and claimed sovereignty— insinuated his control on the massing energy. The power swelled around him, coalesced within him, the turquoise energy whirling about his suspended body like a tornado, siphoned from the water of the lake and consolidated into the infinite reservoir of his soul.
He passed into unconsciousness, his mind retreating to the deep recesses of a dreamless, comatose sleep. Face up, his body floated on the surface of the lake, its brilliant turquoise hue now gone, replaced by the clear colorless translucence of ordinary water. Slowly, it began to take on the ugly stain of a new color.
*
A black, squirrel-like rodent, a cerrat, chased a small blue slime down a rocky corridor, clawed feet scampering behind the rapidly hopping blob. Its moist black nose shook in anticipation, sniffed with excitement, intoxicated by the pungent aroma of the slime’s fear, short black fur prickling with the thrill of it.
The scent of its fleeing prey was more perceptible to the cerrat than the slimy film left behind on the stone cave floor, for its eyesight was poor, its senses hyper focused on touch and smell. The slime hopped around a corner, body sloshing sideways in its haste, almost toppling it over.
The slime squeezed through a crack in the rocky wall, sliding beneath a patch of luminescent shadesmir moss glowing a soft blue not unlike the color of its own body. The tiny soulsphere in its center throbbed with fear, with the animalistic desire to escape, to live another day, another moment.
It pressed itself through the crack, its body compressing and elongating, plopped through to the other side into a vast cavern of looming darkness. It hopped away, expending all of its meager Rei to empower its springing bounces, the scurrying scratches of the ferocious cerrat close behind.
The cerrat gnashed its spiny white teeth at the crack, then raced after the slime, intent on catching its prey regardless of its pitiful attempts at escape. The cerrat’s scrawny forelegs felt at the entrance of the cleft, then charged inside, dragging its slender, sinewy body through, stout brown whiskers bristling against the close edges of the narrow walls.
It loved tight spaces; its long, thin body perfectly crafted for navigating the cave’s cramped fissures; its sharp, short, curved claws the consummate tools for climbing high-reaching stalagmites and low-hanging stalactites. The cerrat sniff-sniffed after the slime, following its trail through the crack in the wall, emerging from the crevice into the cavernous room on the other side and sprinting full-speed at the fast approaching scent of panicked despair.
Then the cerrat noticed something strange— the slime was heading towards it, hopping back the way it had come. The cerrat saw it now, a slimy ball of translucent gel tinted a light blue, the dull amber soulsphere at its core pulsing terror.
The cerrat’s beady black eyes bore into the soulsphere, its prize… but why had the slime turned back? Lesser Rei-Beasts only survived in the cave [well, in the world in general, not that the lowly cerrat would know it] by extreme caution; a run-in with a greater entity resulted in near certain doom, and so, like most other smaller Rei-beasts, the cerrat’s danger-sense had been quickly honed to a razor’s edge— the only way to avoid a truncated lifespan.
But the pleading voice of caution couldn’t stop the cerrat’s hunger, its ambition. It pounced, leaping at the slime, body flying elongated through the air, forelegs outstretched. A clawed foot swiped at the slime’s core, wrenching the soulsphere free, rending the gooey body in two. The cleaved halves fell to the dispassionate rock below, already dissipating into evanescent, ambient Rei, dissolving and returning to the endless circle of life.
The cerrat squeezed the soulsphere tight in its frenzied paws, blurry vision filled with the amber glow. It stuffed it into its mouth, gnawed on it greedily until the sphere finally cracked. As it broke, the soulsphere melted into amorphous Rei, infusing the cerrat with its energy.
The cerrat jittered with glee, shivered with its newfound strength. It was on the verge of evolving, destined to grow beyond the limits of its present state. Whatever had scared the slime was surely no match for one as powerful as it, one as clever, as cunning as the soon to evolve cerrat.
Drunk on the manic headrush of an impending Rei ascension, which was ubiquitous to all creatures regardless of species, the cerrat suffered a single lapse in judgment— the first in its short and markedly successful life.
It ventured deeper into the cavern.
The cerrat waddled with power-high steps, swaying stupidly, nose tossing through the air as it made its way further away from the crevice through which it’d emerged. It smelled the mineral-rich scent of water— a hidden reservoir tucked away in deep isolation. So recently reaching the requisite Rei level to incur a soulsphere of its own, the cerrat was almost completely blind to the waves of sinister aura wafting from the lake not twenty paces away.
It swaggered to the edge of the water, sniffing at the rim of the basin, whiskers twitching. In the dim light of glowing shadesmir moss and crystalline outcroppings high above, the cerrat noticed that the water wasn’t clear, as it had grown to expect, but an ominous jet black, like ink spilled from a pot and pooled on the floor.
In the center of the still lake, a human floated face up, eyes closed, limbs outstretched. The cerrat’s sleek mink fur began to tingle, cold danger prickling at it. Unheeding, the cerrat stuck out its long pink tongue, licked the surface of the water, wet nose wrinkling. It tasted… wrong; if the cerrat had been human, it would’ve thought of the unpleasant sickly sweetness of gasoline.
The cerrat retracted its head, content to leave this disquieting place and find a nice alcove to settle down and undergo its long-awaited Rei ascension. It turned, took a step— the midnight-black water rose in a wave, lapped over the rocky bank of the lake, and engulfed the cerrat. It dragged the creature warbling, shrieking, screaming into its depths— then quieted.
The inky blackness of the lake rippled, a final few bubbles rising and popping on its surface, then stilled. The cavern returned to a deathly silence as the lone figure floated serenely below, pale skin a stark white blot on the circular plate of water beneath.