In a cool pool of clear, fresh water, bones condensed from nothing and arranged themselves into a human skeleton. Around this human skeleton, muscle fibers weaved themselves from nothing and glued themselves to the ends of the bones as crisp nerves arced through muscle and bone while skin stretched itself across the muscle and fluid oozed from it and into and around the muscles and stretchy new organs. Finally, blood congealed and began to flow as new, inextinguishable life was breathed into this body.
At this moment, the body became the man with folded hands, Farron. From the inanimate came new life to a man who threw it away. It was grace bestowed upon the undeserving and unwanting.
Within moments, the body's life was made apparent in a panicked thrashing as Farron realized he was underwater. But then, he stopped. He stopped trying to rise to the surface and simply allowed himself to sink as he realized that he was working against what he had just achieved: death.
He hadn't changed his mind. He was still neutral to death. He was confused but ultimately refused to care. He was tired of life. Even if he'd been given another one, he would still throw it away. He quickly sank until he impacted the muddy bottom and scattered a plume of silt into the water that quickly settled. A myriad of curiosities appeared in his sight.
Thick roots covered much of the bottom around the edges of the lake. He was far enough from the bank to only feel mud, though. The center was barren of plant life. As he breathed in the cool water and let it fill his lungs, he coughed and let out the last of the air. It was cool down here. It was peaceful. This was a good place to die.
He felt a burning in his chest, but that was his only discomfort, and after several seconds, even that faded. He was entirely comfortable and at peace. Another curiosity, a fish the size of his head, lazily swam over his chest.
It looked like a sunfish and was almost circular in shape from the side but was very thin from the front. It was spoiling the view of the sunlight, though, so he shooed it away, and it obediently swam to the bank to hide in the roots. Drowning was much calmer than he expected.
Nearly a minute passed before his vision began to fade, and his body began to become as cold as the water around him. Black tinted the edges of his vision, but he felt no sense of urgency. The cold was a little uncomfortable, but after dying once, he wasn't scared anymore. He told himself he was tough, a stalwart bastion of logic who knew that death was nothing to fear. He could take it, and he would.
Like so, his consciousness faded, and after 12 minutes longer, his body became inanimate again. It was to become one with the mud as it rotted. A day later, the fish he shooed away earlier would return to snack on his corpse. In two days, its feces would feed the trees on the bank, and his body would become an aquatic buffet to nourish the lives of others.
However, the circle of life was interrupted by Life itself. The weak man who should have died was taken from the lakebed, and everything but the carbon in the body disappeared the next moment. Farron no longer inhabited the body, and it became just a body. Only ash was left swirling in the water.
A moment later, new bones were created amid the cloud of granular carbon, and, like before, muscles and nerves were recreated for him. As his blood began to circulate, confusion hit Farron again. He was as calm and cool as he was before he died, but there was new air in his lungs, and he was no longer on the verge of death.
But, again, he ignored the oddity, let out the air, and took another fresh breath of water. And, like before, he allowed himself to drown before another body was woven for him. Disoriented, he forced himself to breathe in the water for a third time.
After several deaths, he could no longer ignore it. He had to know what happened. Why was he underwater? What was stopping him from even killing himself with dignity? And why? He hated to admit it, but not even being able to do this was shameful.
He tried to stand and launch off the bottom towards the surface nearly 35 feet (10.7 m) above him, but he could hardly move. The water had so little density from various dissolved gasses that he could barely swim. Walking across the lakebed was possible, but his mind was too clouded to think of that, so he only redoubled his efforts.
He could jump perhaps 4 feet (1.2 m) but sank like a stone if he wasn't constantly swimming. After multiple half-hearted attempts, he drowned once more. Once he reformed, he held his breath to make another attempt and managed to climb 20 feet (6.1 m) before his lung burst and he lost his concentration.
He sank about a foot (.3 m) before he caught himself and began to feverishly climb. He was only 5 feet (1.5 m) from the surface when he lost consciousness and died once more. Once Life wove another body for him, a final attempt was made, this time with maximum effort. His lung burst at 26 feet (7.9 m), but he finally broke through the surface.
When he did, he desperately tried to stay afloat and expel the water, but only tiny amounts flowed out of his mouth and nose as the rest passed through the perforation in his lung and into the flooded pneumothorax. Both lungs had collapsed.
But his panicked thrashing attracted attention, and rhythmic splashes approached him from his right, though he couldn't see with the water in his eyes. Suddenly, a hand reached out to grab his hand and dragged him towards the bank. It was a girl walking across the surface of the water. Then, he blacked out.
Ten minutes later, a stunning young lady was sobbing, her knees to her chest and back to a tree. She had brown hair and blue eyes and wore a simple but stylish tunic that was now wet and covered in sticks and leaves from when she tried to revive the man she found in the lake. On the other side of the tree was Farron, unconscious and seemingly dead.
A dull thud attracted her attention. It was Farron's nascent body hitting the ground on top of the pile of ash he left behind. As he was being recreated, she slowly came around the side of the tree to find the source of the sound. The moment his body was whole, he came into her view.
As he stirred, she ecstatically rushed to him and knelt down to hug him in relief. But she almost immediately pushed herself off of him when she realized she was clutching a naked man in the middle of a forest.
But that simple touch alerted him, and after she pushed herself off, he began to yearn for more. As any social outcast, most touch was alien to him. Any reprieve from loneliness was like a breath of fresh air, regardless of whether it was meant that way or not.
She exclaimed, "Oh, sorry! I just... I don't know, I'm just, just so glad you're alive!" A giddy smile took over her face. "I'm sorry, you're just the first human I've seen in forever, sorry. Wait, no, I should introduce myself. I'm Elise, sorry. I should have started with that." She began to calm down a bit. And realized she should stop apologizing so profusely.
Her language was unfamiliar to him, but he could still understand her, though unsteadily. Habitually, he responded in English, "W-what? Where? What? Wait, Elise? That's your name?" Then, he sat silently for a quick moment as new words came to him.
In this new language, he began again and asked, "Who are you? Elise? Where am I?" In surprise, he sat up, cross-legged, and put his arms over his crotch. "Do you have any clothes I can wear?" She turned around, embarrassed at the situation.
"Right, sorry. Umm, I only have clothes for me because I don't have a whole lot of space in my pack because I wasn't planning on going very far, but we can see if some of them fit you, I guess." Farron eyed his new body and then appraised hers. She was beautiful but significantly smaller than him.
His new body was significantly leaner than his old one but contained far more muscle. He now weighed approximately 200 pounds (90.7 kg), only a little of which was fat. His muscles weren't toned and were covered with a thin layer of fat, but they were obviously there. He was also about 6'3 (190.5 cm), roughly matching his height on earth. In comparison, she weighed perhaps a little over half of what he weighed and was almost a foot (30.5 cm) shorter than him.
In response, Farron chuckled internally and said, "I kind of doubt your clothes fit me. We're not really the same size, I don't think."