Chapter 1 : Newborn

'Who am I ?'

This is the first thought that came to my mind when I opened my eyes. I was walking without knowing why, wandering in a darkness so deep that I couldn't even see what was in front of me.

I could feel warmth all around my body, so I thought that maybe I wasn't alone here.

But if that was the case, what am I doing ?

My head is a mess, I can't feel my own limbs and my thoughts are a mix of vague feelings. I tried to remember who I am, but I couldn't. I then tried to know what exactly I was, and again I still couldn't get a grasp on it.

I felt as if my whole mind was in a cloud, being at the same time aware and not aware of my surroundings, not aware of 'myself'. I even started to doubt my own existence, I didn't feel 'alive' at all.

'But wait… What is being alive ?'

While I was desperately trying to figure out the situation I was in, trying to understand my own thoughts, emotions and feelings, suddenly some light rose from the ground and illuminated the place. I couldn't help but be surprised by what I was seeing around me.

Many other 'things' like myself were slowly walking in the same direction, and they started to slowly open their eyes.

They were so much, and they all were so different.

Some were taller than me, and some were smaller.

Some had dark skin, and some had white skin.

Some had a rough shape like mine, with large shoulders and straight body, and some others looked more rounded, with finer and curved shapes.

These last ones had a totally different shape, they even had two small protuberances on their chest, but they lacked the one I had between my legs.

Even the color of our eyes and the fur at the top of our heads were different.

I couldn't understand who or what kind of being we were, but I could feel some similarities between all of us. Even if we were different, we all looked the same. We had the same things on our faces, the same number of limbs and we all had the same kind of symbols on our chest.

I didn't know what they were, as much as I had no clue of what I was myself. But I had a feeling that our presence here was a sign ; a sign that something, somewhere, went extremely wrong, and we were the consequences of what went wrong.

Before I could make any more guesses about our situation, a large shadow started flying above our heads.

"Rejoice, for you having the luck of the survivors. For you that have been chosen by the Singularity, and for you that will soon be one with the void."

'What was that ?! Something was speaking directly in my head, is it this shadow ?'

"From now on, you are carrying the genes of your now-extinct species. You all came from different places, learned different things, spoke different languages and lived a different life. But now, you are no longer humans. You are no longer tied by your species limitations. You are the sole survivors of the first protocol, 'Intensification' : and your soul has been successfully linked to the Great Singularity Mother"

'Extinct species ? Humans ? And what is this 'Intensification' protocol ?'

So if this scary shadow is telling the truth, we were once called 'Humans', and after getting extinct we went through this 'Intensification' and survived it ?

It doesn't make any sense… Where is this place ? How did we almost get extinct ?

I have so many questions to ask but no matter how hard I try, I can't make any sounds. It's so frustrating, I feel like shit. If that information is the truth, does that mean we are the last survivors of our species?

"For long, we kept an eye on you, humans. Silently, stealthily, we watched your whole civilization evolve, from the time you learned to use fire to the moment you were able to conquer your solar system. Many of us considered you as insignificant, a vulgar and extremely destructive specie, gaining its happiness from the misfortune of your peers and seeking pure transcendence only from its greed.

During this time, we decided to give you a choice. If you were able to change your impure society to a healthy one that would not endanger the galaxy 2 millennium after the birth of your so-called messiah, we would give you redemption. We would let you live freely, and forgive your heresy.

Despite our patience, not only did you not change, but you even worsened your behavior. You started to wage wars more and more deadly for your own kind, you let many die of starvation, your whole life goals were focused on getting materials gain until even forgetting the well being of the planet that gave birth to you."

This shadow sounds too angry to be lying, if it's telling the truth then we were clearly a destructive species. How did we end up killing each other for mere materials possessions ? Were those possessions really worth killing and dying for it ? I don't understand.

The more I think about it, the more I start to feel weird. Such emotions trying to come out of my belly and I can neither cry nor laugh. Fuck, why can't I remember a damn thing about it ?

Did they just remove our memories ? How the fuck are they able to mess with our mind ? Every time that I try to remember something I end up in pain, like if my head was going to explode from the inside.

Was I like this thing is describing us ? A violent and possessive being, following my greed to the detriment of my peers ?

Well, let's focus on the shadow's words, it seems that I'm not the only one overthinking right now and it's not like it's gonna change anything.

"After failing our test, we decided to eradicate your species. But luckily for you, we found a use for both your mind and body. Your genes are quite unique in the galaxy, and we felt that it would be a waste to eradicate those genes samples, especially now that some forces in the galaxy start being more vicious and dangerous than ever.

So we made a choice, before obliterating all of you, we selected a sample of 1 000 000 individuals. Each of them as a whole, represented 99.8% of the genes variety of your species.

After this selection, we killed all of your brethren on Earth, and restored the natural Equilibrium"

Wait, aren't these guys way worse than us then ? How can they blame us for killing each other and then just eradicate a whole species on a whim...

No matter how they try to justify it, this is just insane.

I don't know how many people were living on this 'Earth', but if they took 1 000 000 of us as a sample, our total population was probably in the range of billions.

These guys are dangerous, I've no idea who they are or what is this Singularity but they look like anything but kindhearted. I need to find a way out of this before ending up in the unlucky and dead people group.

When I checked my surroundings, I felt like everyone was about to go crazy. Some were already becoming mad from the shadow explanation, many of them started to feel like dying on the spot.

After looking around me, one person took my interest.

Just at my right side, my eyes crossed those of another human standing there.

It was the 'protuberance-on-chest-and-curved-body' type of human, the opposite of mine. It was a bit smaller than me, with a long and straight black fur on its head. Its face looked angelic, even tho I didn't know what an 'angel' looks like this is the first word that came to my mind when looking at her.

At this moment I had a vague feeling that we might be different depending on our sex genre, the thing I had between my legs seemed to be the perfect size to enter the little hole the other human type had at the same spot. And surprisingly, while looking at that human and thinking about it, my thing started becoming harder and bigger, as if it was reacting to the other appearance.

Was it for reproduction ? My whole body was telling me "YES IT IS", almost wanting me to copulate right now in the middle of this chaos and leave a seed of myself for the future. And apparently, from the other human expression, she probably was feeling the same while looking at me.

Never mind, if my body has time to think about copulating I should instead use my brain to think about escaping this place as soon as possible.

If we all die and our species definitely go extinct it's gonna be sad for sure, but strangely I didn't feel that bad about it. We are already so few remaining alive, and from what I understood it was half deserved. Even if obliterating a whole planet population didn't look like a good idea, I couldn't be mad at those shadows for killing us. If what they said is the truth, we would probably have ended up destroying ourselves anyway.

Right now I'm only scared, this feeling of not being able to do anything else than following those shadows' orders is not pleasant at all.

While I was looking at the people around me and trying to figure out how to get out of the place we were in, I felt a gaze scanning my entire being.

I felt as if my soul was as naked as my body, and this time, the gaze wasn't from another human that wanted to copulate with me ; as if someone was viciously staring at me.