After being jolted awake by his mum dashing into his room to remind him of the time and then bolting out the door to go to work, leaving Dane alone again as he unsteadily worked his through his room, the desk full of half finished projects making him think for the millionth time ‘I should really get back into those’, fully knowing he never would, and the miniatures arranged atop his drawers bringing a faint smile to his face as he ducked slightly so as to avoid the door frame. After going through to the kitchen and making a quick breakfast he began to wake himself up properly. As he slowly ate through it he let his mind drift ‘the new chapter comes out today, right? I’ll read through that at lunch. I feel like there’s nothing worth it left out there for me to find… maybe I should finally give some of those movies on that endlessly growing ‘to watch’ list a try? Finally make a dent in it before it grows too large and I never want to start. I’ve got computing double first thing huh, maybe I can finally make some progress on that assignment due next week… it’s probably going to be a theory period first half so maybe not’ as Dane’s idle thoughts drift past he ran through the day in his head quickly, trying to build a slight blueprint of any plans he has before packing what he’d need. Running a hand through his dirty blonde hair (though he always thought that was a stupid way to describe what he saw as basically just ‘very light brown’) and going back into his room to rummage around he finally found his school tie and dashed out the house, he was running late though at this point that was basically just ‘on time’ for him.

With a pair of bright green ear defenders that matched his eyes when they weren’t covered up by his hair he started down the long, dirty road he had to walk on the way to school. The air always felt suffocating because the cars used dodgy exhaust pipes and it was always painfully loud for pretty much the same reasons and with a myriad of pungent smells from all the different shops on the side of the pavement it created a perfect storm to overload Dane but with equal helpings of practice, effort and the aforementioned ear defenders he could just about make it through and afterwards there was a park that was rather peaceful and allowed him to reset slightly. Well enough for school anyway. He passed through the playgrounds saying a quick hello to the few people he actually spoke with but not much more, he was always too exhausted in the mornings to properly manage an interaction any longer than that.

After arriving in school he goes to his assigned pc and logs in, only speaking up during the register and gets to work on his project making some good headway even if he had to look somethings up every now and then as well as spending about 15 minutes trying to figure out why one of his algorithms weren’t working only to realise he’d written the variables in the wrong order when calling the function and Dane went to the teacher to ask some questions about an article he’d read last night that he had found a little confusing. By the time he was satisfied with his answers break was already done and he mostly zoned out the rest of the day, his classmates constant chattering went right through him after all, even if what they where talking about seemed interesting it hurt his head to try and focus on them for too long so he’d given up long ago on that, it was hard enough to keep track of all the constant drama over who said what to who anyway so he decided it just wasn’t worth it.

Half way through the last period a fire alarm went off, some of the younger pupils probably set it off in the changing rooms, Dane knew, but he was a bit preoccupied with the hyperventilating; his heart pumping in his chest; his thoughts tearing up his mind in a cyclone; his skin felt like it was being pulled taught, about to tear, over his bones; he felt himself shaking and felt so cold even though he was overheating and everything felt…. hazy, like he was in a blur. It took a couple seconds but he managed to calm himself down enough to focus again and follow some of the rules his counsellor taught him, the 5 senses exercise and some meditative ‘self-suasion’ that basically boiled down to telling himself he was calm till he actually was.

The damned fire alarm was excruciatingly loud and had a piercing pitch that seemed to be solely designed to drill right into his skull however he was used to it well enough by now he could properly ‘reset’ himself by the time he’d need to actually get up and leave the class, running his hand through his hair to un-tense himself he managed to make it out to the muster points if still slightly in a daze when he hears shouting in the surroundings and a teacher rushes up to him

“Are you feeling okay Dane!?” They shout looking extremely concerned, almost haggard, “Huh? Uh, oh yeah… yeah I’m fine I guess, I just had another attack is all, I’ve got it under control now though!” He says, in an awkward attempt to sound optimistic and not cause worry, after all it’s not as if they can help and he would be able to control himself better without people fussing over him, this didn’t seem to work as intended though as the teacher doesn’t calm down in the slightest, only becoming more worried “Not that! The blood! Do you not feel strange anywhere, Dane? You’re hands are covered in the stuff! What happened? Can you try and remember?”

Huh? What’s he- I look down at my hands seeing them stained crimson before my vision seems to turn static and I feel myself sway woozily Oh, I guess something is wrong, where the hell did all this blood come from? It looks almost cartoon like for it to coat me this thickly, surely if I’d actually lost this much blood I should’ve noticed earlier right? I try and reply to the teacher but I just end up stammering out incoherent noises, my mouth not obeying my intentions Yeah that DEFINITELY should have happened sooner, where the hell am I even bleeding from anyway? As I try and pat myself down all over I just end up covering my shirt further in red Hah, mum will scream bloody murder at me for how hard this’ll be to clean, bloody murder? Get it? Hah… I look back up to where the teacher was before and I seem to have gathered quite the crowd at this point I’m… weirdly calm right now? Usually this is where I should freak out right? Sure its usually only sensory stuff that can overwhelm me but isn’t this an exception? This seems a little… off. Right, let’s try and work through this: you’re bleeding pretty bad, what should you do? Apply pressure to the wound, I can’t since I don’t know where the wound is; try and minimise movement, right so let’s sit down then’ As I lean back slightly while bending my knees to try and sit down my balance suddenly tilts and I collapse, landing on my side with my right arm trapped underneath me ‘okayyyyy that didn’t work, next? I uhh, I don’t know? I should definitely know! Come on! It’s a critical situation right now isn’t it? Don’t people get, like, supercharged when they’re like this? Surely I should be able to come up with some better ideas when it’s life or death! Wait…. Am I going to die? Oh fuck I am aren’t I? Wha-‘

Before I could finish that thought it all faded to black and then now, whenever now is, it’s still definitely all black but I’m not unconscious anymore? Maybe this is what the afterlife is…. It would be kind of disappointing if that was true wouldn’t it? I suppose I did die then didn’t I? It does worry me a little but I still feel strangely calm, is that maybe another afterlife thing? But I was definitely alive beforehand and I still felt this weird serenity back then. So I’m going to guess it’s got something to do with how I died and that carries over, does that mean I don’t have a body right now since I was cremated? I never really discussed it much but I did mention to mum that I didn’t like the idea of slowly rotting away in a box somewhere. Mum… I really hope she’s taking this well, long term I think it will be better for her; financially I mean but… yeah. Other than that though I suppose I don’t have much else that I’ll be leaving behind: I mean I definitely had hobbies, sure, but they where mostly passing fancies. I only stuck with a few for more than a year: my war game models; reading light novels and a slight obsession with insects. I always found them fascinating, hive insects specifically, the more you learned the more alien they seemed, and then there’s all the strange ways they’d behave if you interfered with their pheromones: did you know that if you place a certain pheromone on an ant it will be believed dead by its colony and taken to a graveyard by them even if it resists? Oleic acid, I think. Ah, I’m going off on tangents again, but bees are really cool too! After calming myself back down I took a moment to think: just about everything, about how I’d lived; about my regrets; about what I was going to miss; about why I died; about where I was. It was… a strange experience, to really just spend what felt like day’s thinking; just thinking. But I didn’t have to worry about not having the time to waste and I didn’t have any other options really so I just… thought about everything. Confronting every insecurity. Going over every lost opportunity. Getting over the anger I felt over every injustice. Addressing the grief I’d been brushing aside. Truly coming to terms with myself.

Afterwards I just felt… hollow, that feeling didn’t get an opportunity to last however as while I stayed stuck inside my own mind; stagnating ; something changed. I could feel again. I didn’t know what I felt; but I felt something, something deep inside and I latched onto that feeling, trying to understand it, analyse it, control it. It felt like having a heat in my chest without actually having a chest; like breathing in without lungs or a mouth; like a typhoon swirling inside of me while also feeling like being submerged. After an uncountable amount of time I felt myself get caught up in the current and as I thrashed to escape something twitched, the flow shifted, the tide raged before collapsing into a still, spherical pool and I understood, I understood how to make it move, to shape it, to control this force and warp it to my will. It was surreal, meaningless and abstract but it was something: a break in the unending void. I started to focus on the pressure from outside, trying to fight against it and break it away from me but I couldn’t. It was all encompassing, overwhelming, beyond me; I tried to force it to part in every way I thought conceivable, focusing on a single area, evenly distributing the push all around me, sectioning parts of, swirling the pool inside me back into a current and grinding it against the outside, surging it all at once in a massive wave, pulling back only to let everything rush back into the gap. Nothing worked. Every attempt emptied my ‘pool’ slightly and I had to wait a while for it to return to full with it being slightly larger every time, I felt lethargic if it wasn’t topped off and I didn’t believe anything less than a 100% would ever work. I had a creeping suspicion about this earlier but I was sure of it now, my mind was sharper now. It was far more precise, it was quicker, my memory was borderline eidetic even though that didn’t seem to retroactively fix things I’d already forgotten and I had this sense of clarity now that I couldn’t have ever comprehended back when I was alive.

After one of his more recent attempts he had the idea to try and pull the force back with the tide rather than pushing it out, after mustering the strength to pull on the pool’s centre, contracting it inwards and when it rushed out instead of trying to push the pressure away Dane let the surging tides slip through, something he realised happened when he didn’t clearly define the difference between the two though it left his ‘waves’ feeling suppressed in a strange way, and as they returned he tried to force the liquid to ‘grip’ some of the surrounding pressure as it returned, this grip was slippery and loose, unpredictable and hazy, it was imprecise and straining and by the time he’d pulled back half way the total amount of the pressure he managed to keep a hold of dropped down to a tenth however he maintained his focus and while it felt like sharp nails being dragged across his mind the promise of finally making progress again was enough to steel his determination. As the ‘pressure’ from outside entered his pool it acted like a liquid as well, albeit of far higher viscosity almost like oil or honey, and refused to mix with his own ‘energy’. This state seemed to stagnate for a while before Dane had the idea of ‘stirring’ his pool to try and mix the substances so as he ramped up a fierce vortex he payed close attention to the remnants from outside and as they eventually started to blend his pool as a whole was immediately enriched, some of its edges beginning to crystallise as an almost maddening energy suddenly began to fill him, making him feel alive. Powerful, even. This sensation kept on expanding till it felt like he was about to burst and he felt a pain burn through him filling every last crevice and he had to struggle to stay conscious throughout, bizarre since he hadn't slept at all yet, and as his mind began to become hazy, just before he slipped into unconsciousness he sensed the crystal shell complete itself, he finally saw something for the first time since his death. A light that seemed to be a message.

Observation complete:

Metamorphosis beginning in 3… 2… 1… Start