Aghhh, what was that? 

Wait, why can't I feel my hands? Why can I feel too many limbs??! 

Keep calm; this can sure have an explanation. 

I then see myself reflected in a crystal tube. Oh shit, I am a bug now!!!

"CHRCHZEEEEEEEE!!!!!"

"Oh, you're awake. That was fast. I have already sealed your old body to avoid more problems."

OH, I'm so pissed right now, who do you think you are to do this to me! That nearly killed me!

"You need to familiarize yourself with this new body, and it has to be fast. The spatial storm that was blocking the communication has started to stabilize, and I expect an Imperium Escort to come and either destroy this lab or try to recover every piece of technology and sample."

Oh, that sounds terrible news, indeed. I stopped screaming and listened.

But about that. How long have I been in cryo sleep? 

I tried my best to start moving to the screen, but my first steps were, well. I managed to advance by falling in the right direction. 

When I arrived at the screen, a few painfully embarrassing minutes later, I tried to point to the screen and touch it. It did nothing. 

"It doesn't work like that. It's funny to see someone trying to use those ancient methods. What do you want to know?"

The screen changed into a myriad of symbols, from human figures, objects, and nature-like elements. I guess I will try to point at the closest one. 

"A girl, you mean your family? They lived in Terra, way, way before the Great Expansion. And your next question is a more difficult one to understand or accept. You have been in cryosleep for, well, a long time."

It showed me several pictures with a calendar that keeps running; I started to feel the empty sensation of powerlessness and desolation. 

I saw the events of the ending of the 21st century, 22nd, 23rd, 24th, and it keeps rising. It reached thousands of years. How did this happen?

From the few minutes of images and videos, I could have a basic understanding of the history of humanity until this point. 

We started to expand, explore the stars. I see that we developed such advanced technology that we believed that we were going to reach the gods. 

"I know it's a lot to go through, but you better understand we had no choice to save your life. We could not come with a better solution."

Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

I kept focusing on the calendar, watching events unravel. 

Wars, expansions, invasions, and Chaos took place all through the galaxy. 

The calendar kept climbing to the 10th millennium, 11th, 15th, 20th, 25th, 30th, 35th, 40th, and finally, the 41st millennium. 

The first Xenos contacts, fighting multiple races, the age of strife, thousands of years of chaos storms, and how finally, a human raised above everyone and started an unrivaled expansion, conquering the galaxy. And I finally see the human who granted it to happen.

The Emperor of Mankind. 

He was a man, yet also much more than that. A man with psychic powers like no other human has ever had before or after.

And then, shortly after that, the greatest civil war that devastated the Imperium the Horus Heresy. It nearly killed the Emperor, destroyed half humanity's armies. But the real tragedy was that it forced the Imperium into darkness and religious fanaticism. Even ten thousand years later, the scars have not yet healed. 

I see how we lost everything; Every dream, hope, any chance to become more, to reborn.

Everything was lost.

There are hundreds of dates, names, and events that I forced myself to memorize, and somehow, I could retain all that information. This body is not like a human one. 

Everything I knew has suddenly lost meaning. I am so, so far away from home. And the worst part is that everyone I knew is now dead, including my family. That realization leaves me cold.

"I know it's a lot to take in very little time, but there is still a chance you could find some answers about your past and your family in Terra. 

There is a place called the Library Sanctus. Information from the Imperium is stored to preserve ancient knowledge. 

You could even find documents, data, and books from before the Great Unification.

There you could find the answers you need. But let me be clear, that is one of the most secure places in all of the galaxy, and you would need a miracle even to reach the Segmentum Solaris."

I started to point to the voice, then the screen. After a few tries, I made it understand my question. 

"Me? I'm sorry, I am no more than an old AI, I cannot move, nor show you more than I what already have. I was built to manage this lab and help in the experiments to free you from the corruption, but after all this time, I could not succeed. And my information sources are limited, partially corrupted, or destroyed, just an old shadow of my former self. My time is ending, just like this old lab. We're both nearing our end."

It was kind of sad. This AI has been thousands of years trying to fulfill its purpose but has reached its limits too soon. And the only way out for me was turning me into a Xeno. 

"There is a reason why your mind has been transferred into a Tyranid. This species is highly adaptable, but the main reason is that they are a nearly perfect counter to the corruption. 

They can survive the warp energies without suffering mutations and can nullify the effects of the Warp much better than any other known organism. And this corruption is related to Chaos itself.

Some of the Chaos Gods are even aspects of the other side that came and found this reality much more comfortable, so they took a piece for each one of them, and stopped the rest of the Others."

The voice kept talking about other relevant topics, but all I could think about was about the tiny, near impossible chance to know about my family's fate and my own. 

It's all I care about right now; Answers and survival.

I tried to get up again. Slowly at first and after each step gaining more confidence. I walked through the room to get used to my body. 

"The lab will enter into a deep sleep to save energy, but that also means that the modules with hundreds of specimens will be left unchecked in the next days or weeks. Those are experiments meant to have a better understanding of how corruption works and how to stop it."

-Hungry! Food! 

"Wait, what modules? And more importantly, why do I suddenly feel scared yet hungry at the same time? Aghhh, so hungry!!"

-We are hungry! We want food! 

"All we ended with are a few hundred beasts way more dangerous and deadly than they were ever meant to be. 

The effects are much stronger in intelligent animals as they start to develop a connection with some energy we still do not understand. 

We had to put them down eventually or contain them. Some animals even developed cores and started to evolve into ranked beasts."

All this sounds bad, dangerous, and just wrong at so many levels. 

"And what the hell is that voice?" 

-We are you, we hungry, find food. Prey! 

"Okay, this is weird, what is that? But yeah. We are hungry, I mean, I Am." 

I kept doing some movements like walking, moving sideways, and trying to jump. I'm starting to get the rhythm. 

"I don't have any more energy to spare if you ever can escape this place, find my core computer. It's called v3.136_endvers7."

Why does it sound like a bad name for a side project of any down the road company? Anyway, I need to get out of here and try to find that core device.

"The core has information, maps, it could help you in the future, and who knows, maybe we could even talk someday again… goodbye…"

The voice died down. I felt so alone all of a sudden without another intelligent being to talk. I have so little control that I can hardly know how to manage the stress, maybe eating? 

"Food time? We hungry!" 

Oh God, I need to find some food to shut this voice down as soon as we can. I mean, I.