O misery, I can never escape you. But today, I have defeated you by accepting you into my heart.

No real tears came when I wept, nor did I feel anything when I tried to drink from the nearby ponds. The tears that came before were merely a hallucination, it seemed. It was just as Samson said: I was alive, but I definitely wasn’t human. I could touch and see in this place, but there wasn’t much else to do other than think and peek at memories I had inherited.

Not including the strange memory of a seemingly distant past, I had access to fragments of Samson and the four guardian’s memories, as well as footnotes to all the animals I had slaughtered to get here.

None of those memories were particularly happy.

Samson lived and died as a soldier, born into a program for genetically modified ESP-sensitive humans. Each of the four guardians were once ordinary animals that took part in some sort of experiment and were forced to evolve, eventually becoming protectors of the only twisted world they knew. The new memories were weights I couldn’t get rid of, shackles that melded directly into my flesh.

I don’t know how long I lay there, sick of existence and the pain and agony that came with it. After that last injection of memories, nothing really made sense anymore. It was too much for me to consciously keep track of; it took all my willpower to keep myself calm and rested in this illusionary land of flowers and cloudy skies.

What was that damned woman planning? She was sick in the head to prepare all of this setup for some punchline with me as the joke. Even a villain wouldn’t go this far to only drop the barest of hints as to what was going on. I sat and endured the confusion, wondering where she was now — or if I could find her and beat her up for some answers.

So I sat there in the grass, waiting for her to show up and explain what the hell just happened to me. Twiddled my thumbs. Studied Samson’s scripture and paced back and forth. Did everything I could think of, save for returning to the real world.

When I realized she wasn’t coming, I stood up and threw my fists into the air.

Forget it. Forget all of it. This was a moment for change — staying positive should be my number one priority. I shouldn’t be thinking about her when I could take control of my life again.

Now that I had real power in my hands, I wouldn’t have to worry so much about scumming about and having to experience the same torturous grind ever again.

Answering weird questions when I actually had the time and patience for cryptic bullshit. I was getting real sick of these caverns, and maybe a change in scenery would do wonders to improve my mental health.

Closing my eyes, I forced myself back into the disappointing reality of being a rock.

No eyes? Check. No limbs? Check. A cold and unfeeling abyss, devoid of anything that could make me happy? Double check.

I wasn’t happy about it, but I was back.

My inner world remained accessible, a small marble where the winds originated. Hopping back and forth took a few moments of concentration, which was a great relief. I could go back to being a semi-real person at any time.

Now to get out of here.

I was pressed up against a finely crafted wall of Etherite, which used a special gate to channel Ether into what I assumed was raw life force. I didn’t know how it worked, but you don’t have to know how something works to smash the valves and control terminals to bits.

When I was done cleaning up down here, I collected my belongings in my impromptu bag and left without looking back.

I wouldn’t call it enlightenment, but my encounter with my inner world gave me an intuitive understanding of my abilities.

I reached 5 EX after consuming the guardians and shutting down the reactor, which was precisely the point where I stopped keeping track of my size. It was a headache to micromanage that detail, and as far as I could tell, this was the strongest it was going to get for a while.

I managed to pry open my capabilities by having lots of Ether stored up, but spending Ether didn’t make my wind any stronger anymore, and the gates I learned thus far didn’t need much to activate. Thus, I reached my maximum operating potential under the current conditions.

Counting EXs was a complete waste of my time. A nice little kick in the teeth to seal the deal.

The dust collected from tortoises gave me one last ride back to where it all began, the ashes of the imaginary friends I made for myself. I thought about keeping them with me, but it wouldn’t be healthy to carry around reminders of the hell I had experienced here. The beacon, plasma gates, and broken plasma gun were plenty enough.

The abominations had already infested the upper caverns by the time I reached them. Everywhere I looked were mockeries of the human form, shadowy creatures with barely visible masks for faces. Some were big enough to fill up entire tunnels; the biggest ones had grown into amorphous blobs with scythe-like tendrils that cleaved through stone.

Yep. So much for bravery — my resolve faded as the hordes of unknowable terrors collapsed towards me.

I could take them. Even if I was scared, I could fight them. These creatures may not have had anatomy, but if I hit them hard enough, they would probably die.

Hopefully.

I readied a dodge, watching the movements of my first opponent: a shade with four arms and three eyes.

He ran straight towards me — then brushed past me.

The next shade ran past me as well. So did every single abomination after that.

Some took a few swipes at me, but dodging an unfocused combatant wasn’t a challenge. Soon enough, I was alone in the upper caverns.

Huh?

That wasn’t right.

I was prepared to fight my way out of here. I expected a life or death struggle against the nightmare horde, forced to use everything I had learned to barely overcome a new enemy that had terrified me for so long.

The horde had consumed both the Etherite and the tortoises that lived here; in the time since they’ve broken in, they had grown fat off the land’s resources. It was the worst-case scenario for me.

Now that very nightmare horde was fleeing into the depths of the earth. Creatures incapable of reasoning or logic fled from a threat even greater than themselves without bothering to take advantage of the opportunity before them. In a confused daze, I looked back and found that they had already dispersed — they threw themselves off the cliff I had just climbed up to escape.

Huh.

The path ahead was wide open, a road that concealed any number of creatures that did much worse than go bump in the night.

It was an uphill struggle every step of the way here, and it wasn’t going to suddenly get easier. So if the fates insisted on twisting the knife in my back, then I’d grit my teeth and charge straight forward into the future I desired.

Time to earn my freedom.

According to the memories of the four guardians, this place was some sort of high-tech research facility. In my mind, I could recall warm halls bustling with researchers and civilians alike, and plenty of smiling faces that belonged to individuals who were truly satisfied with their lives.

What was here once no longer existed.

I wandered into a ruin of black brick and thorned, thick lianas that pulsed with waves of blue light. Flashing red sirens had persisted through the corruption, though they did look like ominous torches at first glance.

I followed the sirens, hoping they’d take me to an exit. But I soon found that they led me back to where I had started when I took a wrong turn or backtracked; a violation against euclidean space.

Time was on my side. I was a rock — I didn’t have to worry about a natural lifespan. What better way to beat a puzzle than simply trying every single combination?

A few days into my trial-and-error quest, I ran into somebody else.

I found them limping along the halls, using the wall as a support. Deciding to play it safe, I merely followed, doing my best to conceal my presence.

There was nobody else down here. The non-euclidean geometry of halls looping in on themselves and walls that turned into floors didn’t seem that out of place after witnessing the initial rush of shadowy abominations.

It was a man, I decided, after following for some time. He was injured underneath that heavy cloak of his, but I was in no rush to help him. Why would I?

Imagine this: you’re wandering alone in the darkness in a horrible dungeon of some sort and all of a sudden, a rock wielding wind shows up and starts vibrating on the spot. It stares at you menacingly, and most likely, if you give it enough time, it’s going to finish charging its attack and murder you on the spot.

If I ever came upon a creature like myself, I’d run or try to destroy it on the spot. There’s no telling what could happen when you mess with unidentified objects in a place like this. Hell, even I was keeping my distance from anything suspicious.

I mean, he was dying, but that wasn’t really my problem. It’s not like I could actually heal him — I couldn’t just go ahead and assume human anatomy was similar to mutated animals that lived their lives in a constant stream of life energy. What if I accidentally gave him an ulcer or cancer? That was a recipe for hatred.

The law of reciprocity was not a law; it was an overfitted pattern attributed to the vague tendencies of human beings. As well, psychology, as a field, was really the result of people picking hills to die on and seeing who could shout the loudest, so I couldn’t assume all people thought the same.

I had no method of communication, either. I suddenly regret throwing away all that tortoise dust — I could’ve used that to write words. My wind song didn’t give me precise enough control to mimic a human voice, and really, what was I going to say if I could talk?

“Hey, can I come experiment on your body?” “Hey, can you give me the time and direction of the way out of here?” “Hey, can you be my friend?”

Give me a break. I wouldn’t even be my own friend, so why would anybody else want to be associated with me?

This guy could fend for himself — he had a big ol’ boomstick that made short work of the lingering phantoms that stalked the halls. I didn’t want to do any more work than necessary, so I let him take the lead.

Ah, he fell over. Looks like his wounds got to him.

There were white shards sticking out of his gut. Honestly, I’m surprised he was able to move around at all with a wound like that.

Wait… were those scales? Hold on, this guy didn’t have any skin. Just scales. No wonder he had a cloak and no-exposed skin — this guy actually had scales. Was this guy even human?

Should I still help him? He was going to die if I didn’t do anything, but then again, there were a lot of people on the surface. I’m sure one or two wouldn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.

I got an especially bad feeling about this guy. People don’t have scales. That’s just weird, man.

Though, there was the chance that I’d look back on his death and feel bad. I didn’t want to feel bad — I already felt plenty terrible about everything. But there was a nonnegotiable chance that he would wake up and immediately try to eat me or something. What a bothersome situation.

Alright, fine. I’d help him a little and see where it goes. He better appreciate it, or I swore I would poke out his eyes.

It was then, when I was attempting to fix him up, that I realized there is a reason doctors and nurses go through many years of training to become surgeons; everything was going horribly wrong.

Those shards were barbed. Pulling them out caused fresh lacerations, and I’m pretty sure innards weren’t meant to be outside the body, not the way they currently were. Maybe putting them back inside would work?

Nope, that was a bust. He was bleeding even more now. Let’s try some Ether.

I forced things back to where they probably should’ve been and prayed that his body would do the rest on its own. But the moment I thought everything was alright, his wounds split right open — just in time for him to regain consciousness.

Those weren't the screams of somebody having a good time. I tied him down with my wind, turned off my hearing, and focused on my work.

Listen buddy, I know this hurts you much more than it hurts me, but I’m doing my best, okay? Please stop convulsing like that — you’re making me nervous.

I had to cauterize the wound; the shards left some sort of unremovable poison that interfered with his natural healing processes.

Applying the third gate caused him to faint. I decided to stick around and keep supplying him with Ether, since that seemed to help him recover.

I’d have to rethink that list of professions I would take; this incident wouldn’t bode well if I ever wanted to have a future in medicine.

The man woke up half a day later. Groaning, he opened his eyes and looked at his surroundings.

He was trapped in one of the many rooms in this level of the ruin, a dark cell with only strange stains to furnish the walls.

His hand flew to his shoulder, but his fingers closed around air — his masked gaze snapped to the pile where his belongings were, to a heap on the other side of the room.

Standing between him and his weapons was a faintly luminescent slab with one too many blue tendrils hanging off its surface. Most of the tendrils were connected to a black, puck-like device on the ground, which the man recognized as one of his belongings; the rest of the tendrils twitched and latched onto any object that came near them, the limbs of an unspeakable horror learning what it's like to be alive.

That slab, of course, was me.

Before he could get any funny ideas, I pulled back one of the tendrils connected to the puck and caused a voice that was not a voice to speak:

PLEASE HOLD THE LINE. HELP WILL BE THERE SHORTLY.

The man held back. He got to his knees, then said, “You can’t be serious right now.”

I wasn’t sure if that was directed at me. I continued attempting to establish a line of communication:

THERE IS NOTHING TO FEAR BUT FEAR ITSELF.

The voice that was not a voice was scratchy and horribly disjointed, the results of half a day of attempting to rewire something that was probably a computer.

He woke up while I was still trying to figure out the capabilities. I was hoping to develop a proper way for me to communicate, but I had to make do with what I had.

DID YOU KNOW A ‘FRIEND’ IS A PERSON THAT HAS A BOND OF MUTUAL AFFECTION WITH YOU, TYPICALLY EXCLUSIVE OF SEXUAL OR FAMILY RELATIONS?

With much trial and error, I realized I could get the voice to say some pre-recorded phrases, pulled from however data was actually stored inside the puck. Hence why there were so many tendrils; each corresponds with a stock phrase.

The man was tense — he was most definitely trying to find a way to escape from the situation. Panicking a little, I pulled strings in rapid succession:

GOOD MORNING.

PLEASE ENTER A VALID NAME.

INFORMATION COLLECTED FROM RESPONDENTS IS KEPT STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL.

A moment of silence. Then, the man got up and walked towards his belongings without any regard for my attempt at communication.

PLEASE HOLD THE LINE. HELP WILL BE THERE SHORTLY.

Ignoring me completely, he picked up a black packet and drew a long, thin cigar. Then, with a snap of his gloved fingers, he conjured a tiny golden flame.

Whoah. Was that sorcery? Why couldn’t I do that? That wasn’t fair at all — you know what I’d do for a little bit of flame sorcery?

I wonder… if I killed him, could I take that power for myself? Wouldn’t that be cool? That would be radical. I failed to extract any useful abilities from the four guardians, but this guy…

No, no, you can’t be thinking like that. You just worked hard to save this guy, so killing him now would be a complete waste. Leave the law of the jungle far behind you — you have to be on your best behaviour from now on. Alright? Alright.

He was only having a smoke and looking at the wall. Nothing wrong with that.

If I started murdering people for mere power, then my earlier revelations would be for nothing. The very last thing I wanted to do was turn into those guardians, now that I had escaped their world.

Thankfully, the man failed to notice my inner strife and spent some time puffing on his cigar. I think he was testing to see if I still had my wits about me; after a few moments, he turned towards me and said, “I’m not telling you that. But sure, we can talk. There are scarier bastards than you out there.”

This time, it was my turn to be stunned into silence.

His cloak concealed the back of his head, but he took off his gas mask to smoke. Now I could see his face.

This guy, he wasn’t human at all.

Scales the colour of sand and broken glass. Eyes like tarnished brass coins. A flat, lizardly blue tongue.

I really wasn’t sure what I was expecting.

—USERS ARE ADVISED TO LOOK DOWN. BEWARE OF PERMANENT DAMAGE TO THE RETINAS AND PREFRONTAL CORTEX.

I pulled a random string to prevent an awkward silence. It didn’t work out the way I wanted it to.

I didn’t have any ground to stand on when it came to appearances. The wires of Ether I manifested weren’t the friendliest appendages, but the way the man stared at me was making me self-conscious.

“Did you get trapped in a relic?” he asked, blowing smoke upwards. “Or did you manage to eat somebody’s brain and are mimicking their mind? Can you understand what I’m saying?”

What a rude thing to say. I may have eaten the souls of several creatures, but that didn’t make me a bad person. I pulled another string and said, THIS IS A TEST BROADCAST. THIS IS A TEST, DO NOT BE ALARMED, THIS IS A TEST.

The lizard man wasted no time in re-equipping himself, sliding knives back into their holsters. When he was done putting all his stuff back on, he reached underneath his shirt, pulled out a long, thin dagger, waggled it in my direction.

“You did a pretty shit job of patting me down, if that’s what you were doing. But thanks for respecting my dignity. And the pick-me-up, I suppose.”

Damn straight. After taking a bath in his blood and guts, I did my best to not get any more intimate and only focused on making sure he wouldn’t croak on me. If I were to be humble about it, that was a ten out of ten for professionality.

The lizard finished his cigar and tossed the snub over his shoulder. With a scowl, he peered back into the hallway outside.

“I’ll tell you everything you need to know on the go,” he said, on the lookout for something. “We’re stuck deep in a Ruin, haven’t even gotten to the dangerous part yet. Gonna be a few days until we break out of here — and there might not be much time until our dear Princess gets all riled up again.”

He doubled back, then improvised a holster out of several strips of fabric cut from his cloak. Without asking, he picked up my stuff and strapped me to his back.

I pulled another string, saying, WE HAVE CONCERNS REGARDING YOUR PERFORMANCE.

“You couldn’t sneak up on a deaf pig,” he said, scowling over his shoulder. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you following me around. You’re not exactly the most subtle thing I’ve seen.”

So he let me trail him? Did he figure out my intentions already?

Maybe that’s why he was so unconcerned with me taking all his stuff. I suppose a murderous and evil rock would’ve killed him by now.

Oh well. It’s not like my goals were particularly complex; all I wanted was to get the hell out of this godforsaken place. I wasn’t about to complain about a free ride.