Death is followed by few things. Generally, life is not one of them.
The scarecrow was shocked. It knew that it had died, and it knew that it should have been the end, but that it had come back. This was all strange, but what was even stranger, was that it felt a hand in its mind slowly pulling the memories of its past life away.
It was a disgruntling feeling. Every memory in its head slowly turning into dust. It screamed, and desperately tried to cling on to something, but each memory it tried to hold to, promptly disappeared.
And there, it happened. The scarecrow had forgotten everything about its past life. It had woken up from nothing.
It immediately recognized a bunch of crows on the ground, and one on its shoulder. It could not live with this, and shrieked as loud as it could. The poor birds almost forgot how to fly, that was how shocked they'd been, but they got away, leaving a few feathers behind. The scarecrows eyes followed the birds as they flew into the sky.
Its heart raced at what it saw. A gray bird larger than the clouds soared through the sky. It was a mesmirizing sight, that filled it with a, but at the same time, a disgusting sight, that made it full with rage, fury, as if a fire spread through its stomach.
But what disgusted the scarecrow even more was that the scarecrow could not kill it. It wanted to rip the birds wings off, eat them, and then stomp on its head, until blood came out. Was that too much to ask for?
"What a wonderful day!" The scarecrow heard the voice come from its own chest. It looked down and saw a mouth there. The mouth felt normal, as if it had been a limb all along. A baby does not come into the world thinking that its arms shouldn't be there, and neither did the scarecrow.
The voice of the mouth was a light voice, also a kind voice, the type of voice that soothed you and made you calm down. But the scarecrow didn't find it soothing or calm or anything. It found nothing particular about it, because it couldn't care less to check. There was only one thing the scarecrow wanted, and that was raw power.
Apart from that stark fact, the scarecrow knew other things, things that the scarecrow had come into the world carrying. It knew that to gain strength it had to kill other beings. Luckily, there was a being within sight.
A fat pig, no more than thirty meters away, stood in its little pen, looking fat. The scarecrow wobbled over, tripping a few times, but quickly getting the hang of it, and shoved its hands, sticks, into the pigs head. The pig shrieked, and blood poured out.
"What the fuck!" The voice inside its chest said. "Why did you kill that innocent pig?"
The scarecrow did not respond, only growing happy by seeing the window pop up detailing its increase in experience points. The scarecrow wanted to spend its attribute point but it saw a farmer rushing out with a sword in hand, and something in it, somehow the body feared the farmer. It knew that it had to run away
Ding! Ding! Ding! 3 experience points gained!
You have levelled up!
Please assign your attribute points. The decision will impact evolutionary routes.
"Why are we running?" The chest mouth stayed. "Let's stay, I'm sure we can figure things out."
The scarecrow did not listen to the chest mouth, but instead decided to keep on running towards the forest. On the way there, its feet were caught in a spot in the ground were the plants had grown like a trip wire.
"That's unfortunate," the chest mouth said, still trying to be pleasant. It gave everything a second chance, even the scarecrow.
It jumped on one leg the rest of the way to the forest, and after a while it grew tired, its legs becoming much heavier, but luckily the farmer had stopped chasing them before the stamina bar reached 0. The scarecrow had kept an eye on it, at the bottom right part of its vision.
Health 2/2
Stamina 2/10
Mana 2/2
The scarecrow laid down on the ground bringing up its stat sheet to invest some of the points. Usually, when people were tired they heaved air to replenish some of the energy their muscles were craving. The scarecrow did not do that. It was completely silent, and completely unmoving, and the only reason it was on the ground was because it wanted to.
"I guess the poor pig was going to die anyhow," the voice said, trying to reason why the scarecrow wasn't as horrible as it was. Afterall, the mouth was attached to the scarecrow. "What's your name?"
"What is name?" The scarecrow said.
"Something I should call you," Orwell said.
The scarecrow did not respond, not feeling the need to. It thought that names weren't a source of power and therefore completely useless. Only power motivated it.
"My name is Orwell. I was originally an angel you know."
Again no response from the scarecrow. Instead, as its stamina bar was slowly ticking up, it bringed up its stat page, wondering what to invest its single point in.
Assignable points:1
Strength: 2
Agility:1
Dexterity: 0.3
Vitality: 1
Stamina: 2
Magic: 1
Charisma: 1
Because each of the options could all lead to power, the scarecrow did not care, and chose randomly. It put its point into stamina, and that was that. It closed down the stat screen enjoyed the fact that its max stamina had gone up to 15. That meant more power.
When its stamina had reached max points, the scarecrow stood up and looked around. It needed to hunt more creatures to grow in strength. It looked around the forest, and it could hear faint chattering.
The scarecrow creeped towards the noise, slithering through the bushes, careful not to break a twist or rustle leaves. Behind the colorful bushes, there were two goblins, both of them sitting there happily roasting a rabbit over a fire.
They chatted in their own language to each other. One of them had apparently said something funny, and the other person chuckled to prove that. Sadly, Orwell also found this an opportune moment to chuckle, and the two goblins were quickly on their feet with their spears pointing at the bush.
"Woah woah woah," Orwell said in goblin, sensing the shift in the atmosphere, "we can be friends, relax."
"You speak goblin?" One of the goblins puffed out.
"Yes," Orwell said. The scarecrow wondered if it should charge in or run away. "Can we join you?"
"Yes, but I am boss," the larger of the two goblins said.
"No problem," Orwell said in goblin and then changed to the language only the scarecrow seemed to understand, and said. "We've joined their groups. They think of us as allies, no need to fight."
With that new speck of information, the scarecrow stood up, walked over to the goblin, and shoved its arm into the goblins head at close proximity. Now it only had one horrified goblint to deal with.