999.M41 – Few minutes after the fall of Cadia || ???
I watched the myriad of twinkling lights travel above me as a deep sense of regret welled up inside me.
Souls, I think.
Flowing in streams to places I dare not imagine.
In life, I would have scoffed at the notion. Well, I did scoff at it when Mom tried to tell me about souls and spiritualism. If she were here, she'd probably say, "I told you so."
I had been watching them for what felt like an eternity. I was like a cripple lying at the bottom of a valley, staring up at the beautiful, shining stars swimming across the night sky.
Why wasn't I among them? Was it because I didn't believe? Shouldn't I be going to hell for that?
This felt more like limbo—purgatory, if you will.
I had long since given up on shouting or asking for help. It didn't help that I had no voice, nor that the other souls ignored everything around them. They moved like cogs in a machine, with purpose but no will of their own.
Maybe this was hell. My personal hell—for always thinking that only oblivion awaited me at the end of my life.
I asked for oblivion, and instead, I got an eternity of this. The monotony would have driven a human mad by now, but all I felt was boredom. Maybe it was a result of not having a body, or maybe I was just weird to begin with.
The only thing I regretted was dying too soon. It was 2030, and I was only 23 years old, fresh out of college.
I hadn't gotten along with Mom, and I wouldn't be surprised if she only showed up to my funeral to berate me for dying stupidly—maybe light some incense for my soul or something.
Dad had died a few years ago. I loved him, even if he was far from perfect. The divorce had hit him hard, and he drowned himself in alcohol whenever I wasn't with him. But he tried his best, I think. He was always sober and there for me when I needed him—unlike Mom.
I was an only child. My grandparents had died when I was young, and I only had a few close friends. At least some of them would have mourned me.
My biggest regret, both in life and now, was that I was born too soon and died even sooner. I would never see where science would take us. Would neural implants work? Would we colonize Mars? What about AI or regenerative treatments?
I was obsessed with sci-fi and science. I wanted to know if our dreams would come true.
Yet I died.
Such a dumb death, too.
Who the hell dies from slipping on a banana peel for real?
Well, I did. But that's not the point. I thought that only happened in cartoons.
I felt a faint sense of something disgusting on my skin—and I shivered.
The next thing I knew, whatever it was had latched onto me.
Revulsion and disgust overwhelmed me, yet I could do nothing. I was just a soul, an inert and weak little human soul from Earth. I hadn't been able to move before, and I couldn't move now.
I was ripped from where I was, dragged along as this thing traveled through the infinity of existence. And I began to wonder.
Was this a demon? Had it come to drag me to hell after letting me rot in purgatory for who knows how long?
Maybe this was how they tormented unbelievers—letting them stew in their doubts before throwing them into the flames.
The demon crashed into something, and its frail shell shattered under its strength. It dragged me through the crack, but I saw it mending itself—the opening likely closing mere moments after we passed.
It stopped.
Fuck.
This was weird. It didn't feel especially hot in here.
It didn't give me time to think before plunging its hand—along with my soul—into something.
Ohhhhhh, what the fuck is happening?!
I felt again. Though it was weird.
I could move.
I felt air on my skin, the vibrations it carried.
I understood those vibrations to be sounds. No—words.
"For… Chaos!"
Next came light. I could feel it with my skin, just like air.
Was I some kind of eyeball monster now, able to see with my skin?
No. It was strange, but I knew my new body. I understood what it was and how it worked.
I reached out from the broken, orb-like box I had been inside, 'looking' around with two of my tentacles—like some kind of snail.
Yeah. Tentacles. Or… tendrils? Whatever they were, they were long and white, and I could control them as easily as my own fingers.
Except… they had no bones or joints. They bent however I wanted them to.
Oh, this was trippy as fuck.
My weird soul-vision—whatever I'd had as a soul—was still there, overlaid atop my new senses. It gave me a growing sense of nausea and a headache.
I couldn't even close my eyes or turn my head away. I had neither. I was some kind of eldritch thing, made only of these white tentacles, without a solid core or main body.
A feeling of dissonance crept in, driving me crazy. But the nausea and headache faded as quickly as they had come. My new body couldn't feel those kinds of things.
I writhed on the floor once I managed to fall out of the broken orb. Even if I could control the tentacles perfectly, that didn't make moving this eldritch body any easier.
I wished I had my old body—at least in this hell.
Discomfort and nausea slammed back into me as my body began to shift and morph subconsciously. I knew that I was doing this—not some god or demon.
A moment later, when I looked down at a perfect replica of my human hands, I knew it hadn't been divine intervention.
It had been me.
I could still feel the monstrous, eldritch body lurking beneath my skin—but the outer shell was human.
I sighed in relief, closing my eyes. Even if it was fake, it gave me a calming sense of familiarity.
Just what the hell was going on?