An amorphous blue blob exists in the form of a semi-liquid substance. The only thing that keeps it from being just a primordial soup is a single red nucleus the size of a ping pong ball, capable of changing the entire structure of its body to fit the situation; this creature is called a slime. Having the same masses as a pig and the intelligence of microbes only exist to eat and survive with no will of their own. It is a pitiful creature that couldn't reach its full potential as the apex predator of the food chain…that's until now.
Satoru looks at the ground then back to his body. He has been in here for awhile, shambling around the cave like a slug using this new body of his. Even after all this time it's still uncomfortable for him to move around like this; mostly because it's inefficient, slow, and gives him a slight tingling feeling in his supposed belly whenever he moves.
Although he wants to bring back his human physiology. He knows full well that it's not possible as of right now, considering it takes a lot of focus just to be able to maintain the pair of eyes that he created out of the desire to see, and even then it's nowhere near as good as the eyes he used to have.
But it doesn't mean he has lost his hope of returning to what he was. The fact that he can grow eyes means he has the potential to do more. He already knows his body is unique from any other lifeforms that he had seen throughout his life, but the only way to know the full extent of his body, is to keep testing the limit.
He closes his eyes and empty his mind of all other thoughts. What he needs right now is something that can make him move faster and more comfortable, but need to be easy to create and maintain. Images flashing through his mind as he tries to find something that fits all of his criteria.
"This…".
He stops unexpectedly. The thing he thought of, although unusual, is very effective and fitted all of the check boxes. Knowing that the worst that can happen is him starting all over again, he shoots for it without hesitation.
He closes his eyes once again and remembers that sensation. The sensation that he felt when he formed his eyes. The feeling of his body stretching, separating and reforming back to the shape of a pair of eyes.
"Focus, and remember that feeling". He whispers to himself as he digs deep within his body for it.
Slowly but surely, he begins to feel it surging throughout his body like a workbench waiting to be used. He redirects it to the left of his body as he calls upon the image that he has prepared and places it on that workbench. As naturally as the flows, every molecule in his body begins to work; shifting, stretching his structure and reforming it to his desired shape.
What came out from all of that effort is a spider-like appendage the length of about 15cm. Although it's similar to a spider's leg, it has nowhere near the detail and texture of the real thing. It's simply a slimy knock-off that looks similar to one, but for Satoru that is good enough.
He continues and creates 3 more of these appendages, and as a result, they make him look like a half ass spider.
"Ok, time to test these out".
He tries to stand up as slowly as possible, yet even his body is still shaking like a tumbler doll that just got hit, but he still prevails anyway and manages to stand up without falling down.
"I got this, I got this. Cmon, let's do it".
He tries to move his left front leg forward and almost falls down because of the inability to balance himself correctly. Fortunately, he is able to adjust himself enough so he does not fall. Then next comes the right leg, and then hinge legs. With each step went by, he can feel his body slowly adapting and adjusting to these new gears. And in just a short amount of time, he is able to move around without fumbling too much.
Satoru crawls on the spider-like legs that he created for maneuvering around this new home of his. A damp and dark cave filled with humid air and the ticking sounds from the water droplets on the ceiling as they drop onto the ground filled with light green grass that somehow survives out of sheer stubbornness.
All four sides of the cave are seemingly endless corridors connecting to each other like the body of an Ouroboros. It's like a maze with no way out. Although Satoru had formed a pair of eyes to at least be able to see his surroundings, they're almost useless in this virtually pitch black place where the only light source is the ambient blue light of the crystals inside the cave.
The darkness not only removes the concept of sight but also time from him. Satoru doesn't know how long he has been here, a week? A month? It's hard for him to judge the time when there's no sun, but time doesn't really matter to a slime anyway.
'Clack'
The sound of a small pebble hitting the ground signifies solid ground to Satoru; he crawls toward that small pebble and flicks it away again as not only a way to compensate for the lack of visibility but to also slightly mitigate his boredom.
The sound of the pebble continues ringing into his ears as he repeats the same dull motion of finding and flicking it away. 'Clack' and 'Clack' are all that he hears; they almost drove him to the point of frustration instead of helping him with his boredom, and yet he still keeps doing it…but he soon gets send back to reality when a loud shriek suddenly banging into his ears from right ahead of him.
Satoru stops in his tracks and takes a closer look at what is in front of him. A pair of glowing red eyes hovering above the ground as the dim light from crystals in the cave slowly reveals the rest of the creature. A petite and skinny body the size of a Soda bottle, barely visible from where Satoru is standing. He realizes the thing in front resembles a Rat. But before he completely processes what is in front of him. The beast has already quickly dashed away from Satoru, but is still keeping its eyes fixed on him at all times and eventually vanishes into the air.
Satoru doesn't move an inch even after the creature has left. He just stands there and contemplates what had just happened. "Was that a rat?', he asked himself while swinging his eyes around to find traits of it and felt a little bit relieved when he didn't see anything suspicious. He was shocked. This entire time, he thought he was alone in this cave, trapped in here with rock and dirt, but now knowing that there are other "things" existing in the cave along with him makes him slightly disturbed, and haste him to find a way to get out of this cave even more.
He continues walking again after calming himself down a bit. The cave somehow has become terrier; the air now seems even more stuffy and damp while light goes from dim to almost nonexistence. All of this doesn't help because he feels like something is watching him from places he couldn't see, something dark and malicious. Those red eyes from before still linger in his mind, and sometimes he can faintly see them in the corner of his eyes. He knows that he is being followed.
The more he walks, the more he feels that something isn't right while time begins to feel even more distorted than it already is as he walks and walks. He doesn't even keep track of how long he has gone and instead focuses on that unexplainable feeling in his stomach, figuring out how such a small creature has that big of a presence.
'shhh'
The sound brings him back to his senses. He shakes his head to get rid of all of his thoughts and focuses on where the sound is coming from. It sounds like water, flowing not too far from here. He quickly dashes toward where he thinks the sound is, and after a few seconds of running, he can see a small stream the width of around 6 meters in front of him.
He walks toward the stream as careful as he could, looking around for any sign of foreseeable danger. After confirming that he is alone, he puts down his guard and approaches the stream. He retracts his body into a ball and stretches it toward the creek, and touches the water with his face. The water is clear and cold, and that coldness takes him back to life and clears his mind from other thoughts.
He takes a look at his reflection in the water; even as of now, he still can't believe that he is no longer human. "Why is he here" and "what is he" are the two questions that he has been trying to repress since the moment he came here. He wanted to distract himself from these questions by making the idea of escaping this cave his main goal…yet they still wiggle back into his mind like a worm that just won't leave and disturbed him to his core.
Hoping to get those thoughts off his head. Satoru redirects his attention to the direction of the stream, and although it's pretty dark, he can still see that the stream is flowing to somewhere not far from here. He gets up and dresses back, spawning four spider-like legs to continue his journey. Just right after taking his first step, he is quickly forced to back away by those red glowing eyes. The rat has returned; this time, instead of hiding in the shadow, it stands right in front of him and entirely reveals itself to Satoru like it's mocking him.
Satoru stops in his tracks, and although he doesn't feel very threatened by its presence, he still has a sinking feeling in his stomach. The rat still hasn't moved an inch. It just stands there watching Satoru like it's waiting for him to make the first move.
Satoru doesn't waste any moment. He begins to inflate his body like a balloon to make himself seem significant in front of the rat, a tactic he learned while watching a Peacock spreading its tail to scare away a Leopard during one of his operations in South Africa. But to his surprise, the rat didn't even flinch. It still stood there and glued its eyes on him like processing what he was trying to do.
The creature then immediately let out a massive shriek echoing across the cave, curved its body up, and hisses at him. Knowing the thing won't be backing down, Satoru quickly changes his body back and is ready for a fight, and it's at that moment he realizes that the creature is not alone. Behind it are even more blood-fueled glowing red eyes slowly appearing from within the dark…it looks like the thing brought its pack, and he is surrounded.
He knows instantly that he has no chance and runs straight away from them as fast as he can. But those things won't let him get away quickly; they run after him in a V shape formation. The fast lead swiftly and headfirst matches up with his speed and runs parallel with him. Then out of nowhere, one of them jumped straight on him from his right, forcing him to dodge to the back to not get hit, but the thing still bit off a chunk from his body, making him almost lose his balance. They're slowly catching up, both the ones from behind and on his sides. But just as he thought things couldn't get any worse, Satoru realized that is being chased into an inescapable corner.
Through the barely visible light provided by the crystals in the cave, he can see that he is heading toward an abyss that stretches to seemingly infinity from left to right. The other side is a barely visible platform, with the distance being 18 meters away and 7 meters lower than the ground he is standing on. Satoru panics; he doesn't know what to do in this situation; if he stops just for a second to think, they will catch up and devour him, but there is no way in hell he will be able to make that jump.
'THINK, GODDAMNIT!"
He forces his brain to work at its maximum capacity to figure out something that can save him in this situation. He searches his memories, the memories of a person who lived through countless wars as there must be something that can help him…something like…'Yes, that is it,' he thinks to himself like he just stroked gold. He knows if he can pull "that" off the, he will be able to stay alive. And with no hesitation, Satoru puts all of his strengths into his four wobbly legs and boots off as fast as he possibly can.
With each second passed by, he is closer to the edge of the fissure; even if he stops now, Satoru still wouldn't be able to prevent his momentum from sending him into his doom, but that is precisely what he is intending.
Without an ounce of dithering in his mind, he jumps into the black abyss the moment he touches the edge and spreads his body out as thin as he could mid-air, creating a shape similar to the body of a flying squirrel. The air resistance provided by the formation, and the momentum he created gives him enough speed and distances to cross the gap of the fissure and crash land into the other side.
Satoru feels like he has broken all of the bones in his body, even with none. He tries to get up by shaking his entire body to get rid of the dizziness by the concussion from the landing. He quickly swings his attention back toward the rats. They're all standing at the edge of the cliff. Looking down at him with frustration in their eyes and grinding their teeth the rodent they're. Seeing that, Satoru lets out a smirk of full-on provocation in his mind and wishes he still has enough energy to forms a mouth and vocal cord just to yells out:
"I'M HERE YOU MORONS, COME AND GET ME!"
The rats stare at him for a few seconds, then finally retreat back to whatever they came from. Satoru lets out a sigh of relief and flattens himself onto the ground; he is out of stamina and also lost a big chunk of his body mass.
He rests there like a puddle of water, unmoving and unbothered by everything else while reconsidering all of his life choices and wonders how they lead him to this. Nevertheless, it's time for him to move; only God will know what kind of danger awaits him if he stays for too long.
Satoru reforms himself back to a ball of the blob, which is now only two-thirds of what it used to be. He rolls around and tries to absorb as much of those stubborn grass plaguing the ground beneath as he could to heal himself. They all get sucked into his body and get slowly converted into his body mass.
The entire process will take him at least fifteen minutes to fully heal and even slower if he tries moving. Still, he gets up and continues walking anyway to not put himself in a vulnerable situation. Slower healing be damn. But that is also when he realizes that this part of the cave has way more of those crystals than everywhere else he had explored.
The light from all of the crystals is bright enough for him to see quite clearly and not to trip himself even with his somewhat weak eyesight. Although his attention is entirely focused on a small crack on the wall near him, the crack is about the size of a tennis ball, and the light that comes from the gap is even brighter than where he is right now.
Even though his gut is telling him not to go there, somehow, the morbid curiosity within him can put aside all of his rational thinking and self-preservation just to see what is in there…and it won.
He approaches the crack and easily squeezes his body through it because the only hard thing in his body is his core which is way smaller than it. As he comes out the other side, he sees that behind the crack is a small space enough for at least twenty people to stand in without being crowded.
The entire place is filled with those crystals, making it even brighter than the 4th of July. But the fun of exploration immediately stops the moment he strayed his eyes out of the blinding light. In front of him is a thing whose presence alone is enough to make him feel like he's suffocating.
The thing is bigger than even an Elephant; covered in hardened scales that are mixed of a shade of black even darker than the abyss he just crossed and aqua blue of the sky; a giant pair of wings that rival even the great Quetzalcoatlus and a neck that put a Giraffe to shame. In front of him is no ordinary animal but a creature of myth and legend, a Dragon.
While he is still shivering in fear and shock from its suffocating aura, the Dragon takes notice of his existence and crouches down to "greet" him.
"Welcome to my lair, little one." The Dragon spoke.