Sera felt the grain of a smoothed yet warm surface.

Her mouth tasted of blood and her forehead was wet.

When she came to, her eyes she found out, were already open.

Inhaling the surrounding air, she found herself facing a gun hanging from the ceiling.

The gun was massive, it had a long barrel with a green scope, and its texture was like the surrounding room.

A deep black, darker than any she had seen before, so dark was the colour of the room, that if not for the green light coming from the runes marked into the strange surface, Sera would’ve assumed her body couldn’t see.

Surveying the room as she got to her feet, she saw a dark red line stretching from the ground to her forehead she stopped before pushing her left hand to the side of her forehead slowly before pulling back and noticing a red outline on her hand.

Sera felt a headache slowly push it's way through to the front of her head as she dropped her hand, pushing the thought to the side and continued scanning the surroundings, her breath becoming rougher.

Besides the turret-like gun hanging from the ceiling, was a sealed doorway, which had no handle and was just a single large piece of… metal? Stone?

She hadn’t seen the material before, it was the same as the floor, as the turret, as the walls, as the room.

The more she looked around, especially at the runes the worse the headache got, even worse she thought to herself was her breathing.

Then as she was nearly done surveying the room she found a wall of water, in the shape of a cylinder, in the corner of the room, it was still, unflowing despite there being no glass holding it in place.

By all accounts the water should be flowing, “w-wha,” her voice croaked as she licked her lips noticing her mouth was dry, her throat was dry and the headache had reached its peak.

Sera nearly face planted before staring at the water before her, it was mesmerising, she was so thirsty, so lightheaded, as if she was holding her breath and wanting to drink deeply at the same time.

Trying to breathe deeply Sera brought the oxygen in puffing her chest out before holding it for a second and releasing it, trying to get some release from the gut-wrenching feeling that she couldn’t breathe-

Her body acted before her mind did, first it was a small step then she found her legs desperately moving towards the source of still water, her mind both confused and fascinated about what was happening before she hit the surface.

The moment she touched the water Sera tried to breathe the water in, only to find water filling her lungs, her throat, and now she was drowni-

Her vision cleared.

The water was so warm and relaxing... Wait, now that she focused on her body, she noticed it wasn't that the water was warm, it was that she was cold, if not freezing, what happened?

Sera’s chest stopped moving in and out as she closed her mouth and finally stopped to think what had just happened.

I’ve been transferred to Temporous. This isn’t one of my hallucinations and… I can breathe underwater.

Looking back at her hands, especially her left where she had wiped away the blood coming from her forehead she noticed that her hands had changed as her surroundings did.

Her fingers were all connected, stretching them out she noticed a small layer of skin between each finger, bringing her second hand to touch it she felt the thin layer.

It was calloused, strong and flexible. Sera blinked her eyes, noticing that she could also see easily and better than she had when she was within the room, when she was out of the water.

Looking down at her self, Sera found out the lack of lighting had hidden more than she thought, her clothes for one. They were coloured black and navy, but didn’t feel like clothes, they didn’t stick to her like cloth, cotton or linen did.

Instead, they were comfortable in the water, hanging off her body and when her hand touched the material they felt like scales. Scales she had felt on lizards or fish, with its own layer of slime that Sera quickly tried to wipe on another surface.

Only to find herself going up.

Her hand brushed past the green runes and the water was surprisingly completely unresistant to any movement, in fact it felt like it helped her move higher and higher until the room where she had awoken was no longer visible.

In its place was a much lighter room with two large black surfaces, facing towards the middle of the room and in the middle of them was a small green symbol.

Pushing against the corner of the… water elevator Sera found her covered feet met the floor easily, with not a drop of water falling from the lift.

But then as her head left, she could feel the water in her lungs leave as well, it was an unnatural feeling, like when she had to have the feeding tube taken out of her throat when she had been sick.

Trying to shake the memory away and failing Sera continued to stare at the green runes and monitors as the feeling of want came back.

The light-headed feeling, Sera now associated with holding her breath for too long or in this case being out of water was annoying, and she had to know more about it to escape it or at least manage it.

Sera looked back at the water elevator as she dipped only her head inside, her lungs filled with water, but the light-headed feeling stayed, do I have to submerge my entire body?

Moving closer to the source until it had reached her shoulders Sera stopped as the feeling completely dissipated, if it’s not my head and not my shoulders then…

Sera took a second for her body to feel the need to breathe before dousing herself up to her neck and feeling the light-headed feeling go away.

It’s my neck! Sera sloshed her head out of the water as her hands went to her neck and she felt them, there were small silts spaced evenly between her neck.

She could feel water going in and out of them, but she realised that it was happening without her lungs moving, could she talk and breathe at the same time underwater?

“I have gills.” Sera tested out her voice and found it echo with clarity, unlike when she put her head underwater as a child and all that came out was gibberish.

She wasn’t human, she was similar to a fish, blinking Sera felt a weird emotion well up inside her, her eyebrows creased “I’m more than a fish.”

Pushing against the corners of the room and getting her hands only slightly wet, she focused on the two monitors.

Walking towards the monitor on the left, the ground was slight elevated leading up to it.

Her webbed finger touched the screen and pulled back as it changed in size and colour, shrinking from its massive size it shrunk until it reached Sera’s hips in width then stopped.

Then the screen flashed with strange symbols pointed around it.

Intelligence Test:

“A maze.” Sera said as a look of confusion finally landed on her face then she began seeing colours stretch over her vision.

She went back to the water-lift for a moment before returning to the panel, knowing that if she started seeing colours she definitely wasn’t breathing enough.

Putting her hand in the beginning Sera began solving it.

“At least it’s not hard.” Sera returned to take a breath in the corner before finally solving the maze.

Wisdom Test:

Which of the three has the most uses?

A tool. A person. Both.

Sera reread the question before realising that it was no trick question.

“It feels like it’s asking rather than testing… right?” Sera’s voice bounded off the walls, sounding strange now that she was out of water.

Pressing the third answer the screen blacked out, as Sera took the time to breathe and reconcile she saw a bright green light flash, illuminating the black room and even the corner where she was still in the water.

Approaching the panel for what felt like the thirtieth time Sera found the screen empty except for a small hole in the middle of it.

0

Reaching over she noticed it was just big enough to fit her hand, “If it cuts off my new hand…” Sera turned back to the water elevator before deciding that if the facility wanted her dead, it probably would’ve killed her already.

Shoving her hand in the small hole the monitor lit up with a green filter, sticking her hand in place.

Only then did she remember the blood she found on her forehead earlier, this body was here before she’d been it.

It was a living person, before something had happened to it.

The facility had killed it.

And now it was about to kill her.

Desperately trying to pull her hand out of the monitor the pressure around her hand tightened as Sera moaned, her face scrunching up for a moment before the screen changed to a progress bar.

As it went up so did the pressure, and eventually it reached a point where Sera thought her arm would give and a resounding crunch would resound through the room.

But then the panel rumbled and the screen split into two, Sera fell to the ground and the monitor sunk into the ground beyond her and the elevated platform she was standing on began moving towards the middle of the room.

The second it began moving however Sera jumped off, holding onto her hand with her other she moved into the water elevator and began pulling herself downwards in case a turret would form from the ceiling.

But as she was halfway down, still pulling herself down with her one hand the room stopped moving, Sera peeked and saw where the monitor on the right once lay was now a podium.

On the podium a small, squared, black smooth rock was sitting.

The podium glowed green but any light that touched the rock disappeared, only from the lack of light could Sera tell there was something there.

Preparing to pull herself down further she gripped the wall with both hands and found her right had stopped hurting altogether, and in its place it felt charged.

And empty.

Looking back to the podium Sera’s faced changed from pained to contemplative then finally to neutral as she slid herself out from the frictionless water.

Slowly walking towards the podium she could now see that it was just a small rock.

Her right hand went out instinctively to grab it before she stopped herself.

“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me… But what else can I do?” Facing the water elevator, Sera looked up to find just a blank ceiling with no exit.

She was trapped between a gun and a rock.

The choice, well it was obvious, even for a girl with a few screws loose.

Resigning herself to her fate, Sera went back to the platform before reminding herself of what she did before having blood taken or getting needles injections.

She closed her eyes before tensing up and grabbing onto the rock, all she had to do was be strong enough to get through i-

Sera screamed as her hand froze around the rock-no the screen.

It split in half and extended out like a scroll, it looked like a tablet now.

But this tablet electrocuted you.

Sera fell to her knees as the room began moving again, the podium before her began shrinking as did the platform.

Sera could only feel the pain as she fell to her knees without the support holding up her body.

Three screens flashed in her eyes in quick succession.

New User detected.

Loading stats.

Loading database.

Loading skill sets.

Loading recipes.

Error detected.

User’s body aligns incorrectly with their soul.

Updating stats and skill sets accordingly.

Error detected.

PID damaged.

80% of database damaged, recalibrating in recovery mode.

Then the memory ended and Sera awoke.

Her eyes widened as the day’s memory washed through her, but not before two screens came up.

First a small blue screen came up in the middle of her vision.

Water Elevator Interface

[Weapon room]

[Prison room]

[Tablet Calibration room]

[Entrance room]

[Storage room]

Then as quickly as it showed up it was hidden behind a much larger screen.

PID Interface

Welcome User, to the PID or formerly known as the Personal Instruction Device.

This device is automated by an AI and will guide you through using this facility, however due to extensive damage and the unknown location of The Temple.

The PID will operate in recovery mode and prioritise your life first and recovering the database second.

Our database is corrupted and therefore...

Sera stopped reading.

She tried facing away from the blue screen, but it followed her every movement.

That was when she realised Amet wasn’t wrong about the start of her new life, it was going to be hard.