“Holy shit!” Reed screamed in terror as the corpse pounced at him.

He jumped backward but was unable to avoid the gray-skinned denizen from raking its shockingly sharp fingernails against his chest, tearing through his shirt, tie, and skin. He continued to back away, fumbling with the handle of his sword as the creature reoriented itself. As Reed managed to withdraw his weapon the human-like creature savagely hurtled itself towards him, which was starkly contrasted by the rather civilized attire it was wearing. As he had no applicable skills or strength, when the denizen approached close enough to him Reed resorted to flailing the sword in front of himself like a madman. He managed to cleanly slice off one of the creature’s arms and a diagonal swing from its neck to waist nearly severed the thing in two. The creature collapsed to the floor before it was capable of tearing him to pieces.

Shocked and somewhat gleeful at the fact that he had been able to defend himself, Reed watched as the thing squirmed around on the ground before him. He was unable to see the state of the denizen’s torso but watched with horror as its severed arm stopped bleeding almost immediately and began growing anew. From the remaining stump rapidly emerged a vile mixture of blood, flesh, and bone, gradually replacing the lost limb as if it had never been gone. In a state of abject panic, Reed began hacking away at the recovering denizen, violently slashing his sword through the creature again and again. It wasn’t until the thing had been reduced to a disgusting scattering of remains that Reed finally pulled away, breathing heavily. His clothes were soaked in blood and his arms were covered in viscera.

He stared at the mess on the floor for several moments to confirm that it had indeed stopped moving, then dropped his sword on the ground and proceeded to vomit. After everything that could have left his stomach did, Reed walked to the other side of the room, away from the smell of mutilated corpses and vomit, and sat down against a table. He stared up at the circular window and waited for his mind and body to calm down. Despite the gruesome nature of what he had been forced to do, he couldn’t help feeling a sense of pride at attaining victory over a monster such as the one he had.

Suddenly Reed’s brows scrunched together and he glanced down at his chest. His shirt and tie were torn to ribbons, but where he was sure that he’d been clawed there was not a single mark. He continued to stare for a minute, feeling where the scratches should have been, until standing up to return to the scene of the fight. The unsightly mess twisted Reed’s face into a grimace, but nevertheless, he reached down to retrieve the bone-white sword. He walked back to his spot of rest, shaking the weapon several times to rid it of the gore, before holding the edge of the blade against the palm of his hand. He took a deep breath as his body tensed up and a determined look set on his face. But, after several seconds of nothing happening, he released his breath with a shake of his head and set the blade against the tip of his finger. He carefully pressed down, creating a shallow cut and slight trickle of blood.

As Reed stared expectantly at the light wound, he felt the tip of his finger begin to itch. The sensation rapidly worsened until it reached a point in which he felt slight pain, and stayed at that peak for a couple dozen seconds before vanishing. During the process, it had been hard to observe the minute cut, but now that it was done he could tell with certainty that the wound had been healed. He ran his thumb across the tip of his now smooth and blemishless finger in awe for several seconds.

“Alright,” Reed murmured, “Here we go.”

He once again set the sword’s blade against the palm of his hand and pressed down. Reed hissed in pain as a deep gash sprouted in his palm. The itching sensation returned fervently, only this time it was accompanied by a stirring of the strange bodily sense Reed had carried within himself for the past day. He watched as the large gash began to slowly close before his eyes. It would take several minutes to heal completely at the rate it was currently going, but nonetheless, he could see it happening in real-time.

A couple of minutes ticked by and the odd sense within him continued to run rampant. He felt closer to it than ever before, as if a switch waiting to be flipped, or a muscle urging to be used. So he did, through an instinctual process he could never hope to explain. Reed took control of the wild sensation. The moment he did so, it felt as if he had gained a new eye and limb at the same time. The control over the sense was foreign and unwieldy, and the mental faculties that had to be devoted to it left him discombobulated. Dazed as he was, Reed immediately let go of his control, regaining his lucidity. As his thoughts came racing back to him, he realized the potential that lay in his newfound powers. For in that brief moment of attempted control, he felt capable of molding his body into whatever form he so desired. As if he could grow to the size of mountains, empower himself with god-like strength, or heal the most catastrophic wounds. It all felt within his reach.

“Fucking space magic,” Reed whispered to himself.

Putting aside his caution for the first time in a long while, he once again took the reigns of his bodily magic. This time expecting the onslaught of sensory information, Reed was able to maintain a small sliver of focus. With this focus, he directed the power dwelling within him to aid in the healing of his self-inflicted wound. Reed dizzily watched as the flesh of his palm began to knit itself together at a speed several times faster than before. Within just over a minute the gash had been healed.

Reed lifted his hand to once again admire his handiwork, a soft chuckle escaping his lips. Riding the enthusiastic high of discovering magic of his own, he recalled the terrifying being with the crimson head-wrapping. It had forced him into diving inside the chasm which held the mass of flesh responsible for giving him these powers. He remembered the way it had held out its hand and tendrils of flesh morphed out of it. Powerful enough to reduce the bone material into rubble.

He raised his own hand in imitation and controlled the power yet again, attempting to replicate the intimidating being’s feat. There were cracking sounds as his hand twisted unnaturally and sharp pain assaulted Reed, but he pushed on. It continued twisting into a chaotic mass as his fingers lengthened and started to lose their rigidity. The pain continued to climb. All of a sudden the warping of his hand abruptly slowed. The skin of what used to be his hand started to tear, his bone began to splinter, and blood poured out as his contorted hand began to unravel. The pain he had felt while attempting to transform his appendage could not compare to the agony that now pervaded him.

Like a crazed animal, Reed grabbed hold of his sword with his still-functioning hand and sliced through his forearm without hesitation. The ungodly pain vanished, but he was now faced with an arm that spilled rivers of his blood. He could already feel himself growing faint, and in a panic tried to use his newfound magic to heal his severed arm. Instead of trying to regrow it as he had seen earlier, Reed merely wished to stop the blood flow. It took only several moments for the red liquid to cease pouring from his arm, but by that point his capability for rational thought had gone as he collapsed to the side, falling unconscious in a pool of his own blood. At some point, as he lay there, Reed succumbed to the blood loss and perished once again.