The taste was.... interesting, like bread heavily flavoured with mint, my tongue almost felt swollen with the intense flavour, but the real magic started when it went into my stomach.

Like a prehistoric beast awaking from deep slumber, my stomach vibrated, my entire midsection shook, and my teeth clattered together, and I encircled my arms around me in a futile effort to suppress the vibration, for it was driving pains into my heart.

The vibration stopped, I gasped in relief, I felt stronger, but the pain was nothing to scoff at, the vibration kept piling on the agony, I frowned and swallowed the remaining two mushrooms at once.

Pain was a familiar friend.

The vibrations didn’t increase as I expected, instead it turned into a dull minor hum, I felt a wave of palpable relief surge towards me, I sighed as I cracked my neck, I stood up on my feet, my stomach feeding my limbs strength.

I observed my surroundings more deeply, seeing details I missed in my haze of pain and tiredness. The cave was bigger than I imagined, looking up I could see a cluster of stalactites, sharp point poking down like spears.

The walls were littered with deep grooves, like claws from a huge animal, I walked over to it, bones cracking beneath my feet. Oh, these bones, they covered the floor towards the back end of the cave, I saw bit and pieces of skulls of humanoid creatures, but mostly the massive spines and ribs showed the creature fed mostly on prey of substantial size.

I placed my hands between the grooves on the wall and they comfortably fit in between each of those clawed marks, which were three apiece. Was it a gigantic bird?.

I noticed that the bones were only stripped of flesh but were not cracked for the marrows, so a predator that had an abundance of food?, or one that fed primarily on flesh and disdained feeding like carrions.

That burst of sensation came again into my head, clearer this time, the mushrooms giving this peculiar ability more boost. The various light spots burst into my mind with a flare of heat and light... one of them aligned to a few feet near me, under the grounds of the cave. Another was directly near my palm, near the deep claw marks.

I noticed the items my hands were detecting were more sparse in the walls and more abundant on the floors, clearly the claw marks were not for some home redecoration aesthetics the beast might have had, but for digging for whatever lay inside this rock.

I had no claws, so I had to find a tool to dig my way in, even though my palm was off the walls, the sensation still lingered in my mind.. vestiges trapped in my memory, I could remember all of them, all fifty- eight pieces precisely.

My breath suddenly caught, and my knees went weak, I clutched at the wall, and after a few seconds the fatigue faded. It seemed that my stomach was giving me a warning sign, the mushroom won’t sustain me for long, water was not an option, it will last only for a few seconds, before my body drained whatever micro nutrient was I side it.

I pulled my hands from the wall, then started... did I just pull my hand out of a wall?. My hand hovered before my astonished gaze, almost seeming alien to me, rock dust and little debris fell from it, and in an instant, my hand was fair and smooth, untouched by any dirt... I gained an enlightenment there, if I could have enough power flowing inside me, I would be untouched and glabrous. A god among mortals.

The weakness came again, and this time I had no more reserves, I fell to my knees. My vision whitened ... the hum on my stomach continued, and it was all I could do not to scream in sheer agony. If I had not eaten anything it would have been better, but as I did my body furnace has been lit up, and dousing it back would be nigh impossible.

Every single dollop of strength and vitality was being drawn from me. Why?. The overwhelming agony finally made me feel the six spot of coldness on my chest, all these while they had been struggling to stay alive... the vitality from the mushrooms gave them hope, and like starving hounds they refuse to let go of their source of life.... they would kill me.

Like a snake that fed on its own tail, they would devour themselves to stay alive.

This knowledge pushed me to take action, if I did nothing my hearts would reduce me to a desiccated carcass. I squirmed my way towards the water, each inch of movement a monumental traversal of mountains, a dull groan unconsciously leaked from my mouth, I was getting close, but it was too late, my vision darkened and I fell into darkness.

“Like a diseased limb, I knew you should have been cut off. Your weakness is.......”

My face sank into the water, and I drank greedily, not caring if I inhaled the damned stuff, I could not get enough. I came up for air every once in a while, otherwise I was on my face minutes on end.

My hunger coloured my senses, the water became a fountain of honey, and the bones in the floor gave out delightful aromas, that made me drool in spite of the water flooding inside my open mouth. I forcefully tore through the haze of that fragrance from the bones, trying to inhale the water fast enough to distract me from the disgusting pile of carcasses on the floor, my dragon nature roiled against the thought.

Shame, the water could not forestall my creeping doom, my body was a sieve, and the water was a tiny cup trying to douse a furnace, it would never be enough. An ocean worth of water would not quench my hunger.

I gave a mocking laughter, hunger seem to be my lot, I was a giant fish in a puddle of water why does the universe force me to shrink myself to fit myself in places that I had outgrown. A wily chess master with a sick sense of humour must be dying with laughter, why else was I doomed to repeat this cycle.

My tongue swelled in my mouth, and my eyes began to crack, even as I gulped down water like a starving kettle, my body was rapidly losing moisture, my vision reduced to shades of grey, and I realised I was going blind.

My swallowing decreased and eventually stopped, I was dying, and I was at peace. Even though this was not the end I wanted, did I really ever had a choice in the way I died?.

Instincts more than anything made me claw at the ground, I scrapped up pieces of algae and bones and decaying matter, my stomach was a flame that consumed without distinction. And I was going to feed it. I was beyond picking the perfect food choices. My blood cried out in anger.

I became a carrion, disregarding the loathsome taste of what I was eating, decaying matter and unspeakable filth I indulged my gullet upon. When common decency asserted itself in my consciousness, half the cave was empty of its grim contents.

I shuddered in disgust, this was what Zarathul reduced me to. What I made myself do.

My face buried in filth and muck, survival should never make a dragon eat filth, it goes against every grain of pride and decency I had.

But my experiences were stronger, the pride of the dragons were suppressed and an unwilling instinct that wouldn’t bend in the face of any storm took over, and that calm instincts assured me that I would survive anything, do anything, become anything..... to survive.

That self acknowledgement of my capabilities for survival drew a chill down my spine.

A glint drew my eyes in the cave wall, the spot where my hand pressed into held a milky glow, that drew me to it, I walked over, intrigues staining my steps, wondering what could so vividly paint itself in the hallows of my mind.

With bated breath, I pushed my hands into the hole, I had to scrap away some protrusion, otherwise it was almost as if the glow rushed to me, its was soft and crinkly, moulding itself to my palm, I withdrew it and I paused in thought, I had not expected what I just pulled out of the hole.

For in my hand, I was holding a book page.