Existence hurt. It came suddenly, like a plunge into an icy waterfall.

Wait, what is a waterfall? He scanned his memories. A waterfall is a cascade of water falling from a height, formed when a river or stream flows over a precipice or steep incline. What is water? Hydrogen and oxygen in a stable bond of two hydrogen, one oxygen.

This lead to a spiraling series of questions. What is oxygen? Why does it bond with hydrogen? How much hydrogen can fit into a waterfall? Assuming a flow rate of 78,000 cubic feet per second, and a cubic foot being 7.48 gallons of water, something to the tune of 9.8 to the 30th power molecules of hydrogen. Every second. What is a tune? As a noun, a melody usually characterizing a piece of music. As a verb, the act of adjusting a piece of equipment.

This information swirled in his mind, uncontrollable. He felt himself, briefly, drowning. Not actual, physical drowning, but the sense of overwhelming force beyond one's ability was definitely there. His awareness was threatened with dissolution by the raging currents of knowing.

It felt like trying to hold a star to one's chest, desperately attempting to hog it's light. The statement made sense to him, although it did not with what he knew. Stars were vastly larger than he was. It was a metaphor, a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable. Even here, the information flooded in. His language had many metaphors, even though he had come up with this one instead of relying on one of the hundreds his knowledge had provided him with.

With a sudden, nonphysical snap, it was gone. Frantically he searched his memories, only to be rewarded with a dull gleam of insight. It was still there, he had just gained enough self awareness to be able to cope.

A shudder ran through him. The thought of being torn apart simply because one knows too much was...distressing, to say the least. It was time for him to turn his perception outward, if only to stave off oblivion. He existed, after all, and all this knowledge meant he had to exist somewhere.

So he tried opening his eyes.

Nothing happened.

He didn't appear to have eyes. That was interesting and concerning all at once. He tried to calm down his breathing and realized he wasn't breathing, either. If he could, he'd panic. No, wait, he could still panic. It just happened to be a purely mental thing.

He shuddered again. A burst of unfocused information came at him. He started sorting through it, placing it like his regular knowledge, but this didn't fit. This was sensory. He had some kind of external senses, and he'd activated them with his unguided shivers.

He began to hum. Unlike normal humming, he was not trying to match anything existing. He was testing a hypothesis. Realization of the lack of the needed apparatus for humming in the conventional sense was offset by another, more focused burst of sensory information.

HE COULD SEE! By humming. How odd.

A fact rose from his knowledge. Bats and certain ocean mammals could 'see' in much the same way as this. The fact was quickly isolated and suppressed in his mind until he could sort out his situation.

The first thing he could see was himself. That made sense, considering the method he was using for sight. His body, if he stretched enough to call it that, was a gem. Specifically, a multi-hued faceted bicone crystal, tapering to points at each end. Rough size estimate put his body at about a foot in height, maybe a quarter that in width.

Lack of biological processes at least made sense now. He was a sentient rock. Was he sentient? A quick scan of his awareness resulted in the conclusion that yes, he was indeed an intelligent stone. Curious.

His sight expanded outward. As it did, he thought about the self-referencing as 'him', and how it was strictly inaccurate considering his form did not possess a gender. He chalked it up (An idiom!) to a limitation of the language he thought in.

His gem, his body, was floating inside of some kind of bubble. The humsight (he was still work-shopping the name) could see through it, but he assumed that he was trapped. If he had come across an intelligent stone, he'd trap it as well, although unsure why. Perhaps intelligent stones were simply untrustworthy folk. A group of criminal-minded minerals, as it were.

The bubble was in the center of a roughly twenty by twenty foot room made entirely of some kind of sedimentary stone. There were no windows. On the floor was some kind of complex diagram that did not bring up any memories, excepting those tied to language. There were no matches. The diagram itself was a series of symbols wrapped ina circle, inlaid in the floor with what looked like silver. There was a door at one side of the room made of iron and set into an iron door frame. It was securely locked.

The humming was coming so regularly now that he didn't have to focus on it. Instead he took stock of his surroundings. Locomotion seemed an impossibility, and he did not want to risk a ten foot drop onto a stone floor. This room was curious, however. He was in, as far as he could determine, the exact center. Almost as if the room itself was built around him.

His awareness was drawn to the diagram on the floor. There was a kind of light or energy flowing through it. It did not appear to be electricity, as it moved slowly though the symbols. The light also was what comprised his bubble. He had to assume relation until otherwise told.

Possibilities ran through his consciousness. Most were discarded as technologically unfeasible. Final conclusion? He was an awareness artificially implanted into a rather attractive gemstone for an unknown purpose by an unknown creator with an unknown method being detained for reasons unknown.

It left a lot to be desired.