1st - Let’s Ignore Reality

{Mimic}

('What.')

Currently, my mind was in an absolute confusion state -in other words, broken- where I am even questioning myself for what just happened. The sudden appearance of a man, the fact that I think I somehow ate him and not to mention that I did it without meaning to, I could only stare at this... floating blue box in front of me as I replay those recent memories in my mind, over and over again.

'The man approach me, I can't move with my chest body, I panicked, then I ate him.'

'-proach me, I can't move with my chest body, I panicked, then I ate him.'

('Hang on a minute! What the hell is going on?!')

As I replayed everything that just happened in my mind, I began to see so many abnormalities within the span of me waking up to me eating the man. Streams of questions pops up one after another in my head as I continued to stand absentmindedly in the position of where I ate the man.

'Why the hell am I a chest?'

'Where the hell is this place?'

'Who the hell was that man?'

'WHY THE HELL DID I JUST ATE HIM?!'

...But right now, the most abnormal thing is...

('What the hell is this blue box thingy?')

After I have been rambling endlessly in my mind, I noticed that this blue box has been floating in front of my face for a while. As I finally calmed down after staring at it a bit more, I inspected the box more carefully. The words on the boxes seems to be regular English and I can make out each letter and word clearly. The content of the boxes however, was just as confusing as everything that just happened.

('Info window?')

I tried to think if there were any special meanings to those words, but I could only assume that by 'Info windows', the blue box is talking about itself. Remembering several RPGs I played online when I was bored in my room, the box resembles those type of ‘info windows’. I then tried to reach out for the so called 'info window' to see if I could touch it, until I realised the fact that I still have a treasure chest body. And so putting the thought about the info window in the back of my mind, as I inspected my current body instead.

Just as I have described before, my current body looks like one of those pirate's treasure chest. The base is made of a dark coloured wooden material while the rim is made of some sort of metal. Iron, I guess. Now that I think about it, I don't even know how it is possible for me to see myself if my body was a chest. Where are the eyes? Where am I even looking from? I have a feeling that these questions can only be answered in the future.

Looking past the biological matters, I tried to move this time. I tried to get the feeling of moving my limbs like my old body, but then I thought about this. I don't exactly have any limbs. How do I actually move? Try as I may, but I couldn't think of any ways to actually move. I mean, I'm a freaking treasure chest, what do you expect? Treasure chests aren’t meant to move. So, instead of thinking, I just wing it. I tried to brute force the solution by... well, brute forcing it.

After struggling for hours, or what seems to be hours to me, I could finally move! Well... barely a couple centimetres if you ask me, but nevertheless I moved! After what I think is hours, I could finally move two centimetres...which is not quite as impressive now that I think about it. But as I thought about my self-depriving achievement another info window came up, overlapping the first info window.

You have earned the ability of "Mimicry Movement Mastery (I)"

I read the text on the new info window and cheered happily in my mind.

('Movement mastery, that must mean I can move myself better right?')

I tried to move again and this time I can smoothly move with the speed of a crawling tortoise Happy with what I got, I could finally move around freely I thought and I slowly but steadily 'crawled' to the doorway the man can from. Of course I'm still very confused about me eating the man, but with so many abnormalities happening one after another, my sanity couldn't keep up and so I abandoned it instead and went with the flow.

('What other things is going to happen to me, I wonder.')

Yep, I guess I gave up on my current reality all together with my sanity after I tried to understand these info windows that's been following me as I move. 'Life is stranger than fiction', that quote suddenly appeared in my mind. Hmm, I wonder why.

After a while of slow crawling, I finally reached the doorway. I peeked through the open space of the door to check the other side before deciding to go wherever the door leads to. Not to my surprise, it was another unfamiliar place. The door lead to a dimly torch-lit corridor like one you would see in a medieval castle. And by torch, obviously I mean a fire-lit wood torch and not a flashlight. There were several torches, each hang on the walls going across by set intervals. The walls of the corridor is as described like something that came from a castle; stones and stones and stones, all the way across. The floor is the same, but perhaps smoother than the walls.

(‘Just where the hell am I?’)

Noticing no movement whatsoever even after waiting for a while, I carefully crawled out of the room I was in. Now that I am out, I can see the ends of the corridor completely. The left has the corridor stretching deeper into wherever I am with some sort of strings hanging around. When I looked closer, I realised they were broken spider webs, probably cleared by the man I ate or something. The right has the corridor turning into a corner so I couldn’t see much on that end. There is several ominous looking white objects littered in the corner though. On closer inspections, I believe they are…some sort of bones.

Not wanting everything to do with the end with the bones, I crawled the other way hoping I won’t encounter anymore madman. The feeling of eating a man is still quite strange, especially when I didn’t even know what I was doing.

(‘Man, I feel terrible after I awoke.’)

With that thought, I slowly descended into the long corridor, trying to reject and cope with my current reality at the same time.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

{Mimic}

"Mimicry Movement Mastery (I)" has evolved into "Mimicry Movement Mastery (II)"

It’s been another several hours and now a new info window has appeared. I read the contents of the info window and pause to think for a bit.

(‘So whatever this “mastery” is, it can evolve? I do feel like that I’m moving faster though.’)

Immediately after the window appeared over the other windows, I noticed that now I’m moving at the speed of a crawling infant. It’s not as fast as the walking speed of a man comparing this to the madman I first encountered, unless that man is faster than the average human. Though he is genuinely insane, he doesn’t look different from anyone that I know. Then again, I was secluded in my room for years so I don’t even know that many people.

Anyway, now that I have received another info window, I realised another problem has come up. With all of these info windows piled in front of me I’m starting to lose sight of my surroundings, and even when I turn myself around, these windows still follow my eyesight, or whatever sight I have at the moment. I can only see the walls from the side of my view by now.

I thought about how similar these info windows sounds like to those in RPGs and reincarnation novels -my favourite genre of games and novels by the way- and tried something.

(‘Dismiss!’)

…Nothing happened.

(‘Erm...Proceed!’)

...As above.

(‘...Close window?’)

Suddenly, the windows all disappeared just as fast as they appear, and…

*Kichi Kichi Kichi*

...I froze at the giant shadow imprinted on the wall in front of me. It was a monster of a spider’s shadow.

Now that I think of it, the web I saw earlier was abnormally massive, even when broken into parts. Was it this guy’s handy work? Maybe I should have realised it by then that this path is not safe.

The shadow of the gigantic spider creeped towards my shadow that was on the wall just beside me. Slowly, I turned around. Bad move.

*Stare*

*Stare*

We face each other, even though I really don’t have a face right now.

(‘What am I making a joke for?! THERE’S A HUGE FREAKING SPIDER IN FRONT OF ME!!!’)

I can’t move at all when I lock my sight at its eight bright red eyes, all looking directly at me. If I still had my human body, I think this is when I would piss myself.

(‘Oh god oh god oh god oh god...’)

My mind can’t calm down at all and it’s even worse when it’s moving closer and closer to me.

(‘Ah, so this is how I die. By the hand of a giant spider. Wait, should I even call those limbs “hands”?’)

While I was making my peace, the spider got to the distance that it can touch me.

(‘Ah, that’s it, I’m going to die now.’)

And so, I blacked out for the second time.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

{???}

??? A: “Hey! I found the last one!”

??? B: “This one’s distracted by that chest for some reason.”

??? A: “I’m pretty sure that there wasn’t a chest here before though?”

??? B: “Maybe someone was carrying it and left it here after seeing these guys?”

??? A: “Probably. For now, let’s just take it back with us.”

??? B: “I don’t think that’s a good idea, and this child doesn’t want us to touch it anyway.”

??? A: “Ha… Hey! If you like it so much, why don’t you take it back yourself?”

??? B: “Ah, he really did went back with that chest by himself.”

??? A: “Oh well. Whoever left it here is probably long gone or died by now.”

??? B: “Are you sure?”

??? A: “It’s fine! And plus, that child can play with that chest however she wants. It’ll be like a new toy to her.”

??? B: “...All right. If you say so.”

*kichi*