The first thing I felt wasn't light.
It was hunger.
Not a dull ache. Not a hollow grumble. This was a predatory void. A violent gnawing in the center of my chest so absolute it erased everything else.
My name.
My memories.
Even the certainty that I was human.
The need for fuel devoured it all.
[STABILITY: 4%]
[WARNING: STRUCTURAL COLLAPSE IMMINENT]
The red glare burned directly into my optic nerves. Pain shaped itself into information.
I tried to scream.
What came out was a wet, clicking sound.
My throat wasn't built for speech. It flexed with valves and vibrating membranes. It produced a series of chitinous ticks that echoed through the cold fluid surrounding me.
I was submerged.
The liquid was thick. It clung to my skin like spoiled syrup. It tasted of metallic copper and fermentation gone wrong. The pressure stung my eyes with chemical heat.
Panic seized my nervous system.
I thrashed.
My limbs responded with jerky, hydraulic movements. They felt alien. One arm swung wide and hit something hard.
My hand was a claw. Three narrow prongs. Translucent. Tipped with jagged ridges of chitin.
I pushed.
My body moved through shifting internal pressure. A biological piston forcing motion through unfamiliar joints.
The claw punctured a membrane.
The wall split open.
Rotting fluid rushed out as the sac tore apart. I spilled onto a cold, ridged surface with a wet slap.
Air hit my skin.
It burned.
Light followed.
A harsh violet glare flooded the chamber. My body trembled as the cold air dried the gelatin coating my skin.
Slowly, my vision cleared.
I was slumped against a massive ivory pillar that curved upward. Its surface was grooved and polished smooth with age.
It wasn't a pillar.
It was a rib.
And it was enormous.
The skeleton surrounding me belonged to something colossal. Its bones arched overhead like the collapsed beams of a cathedral. Strands of blackened flesh hung in rotting curtains from the cage of its chest.
At the center of that hollow cavity dangled a shriveled organ the size of a barrel.
A heart.
Long dead.
And I had just crawled out of it.
I looked down at myself.
I was small. No larger than a house cat. My skin was pale and semi translucent. Faint networks of veins pulsed beneath the surface.
At the center of my chest, something glowed.
A dull, sickly light beat in a slow rhythm where my heart should have been.
Beyond the broken ribcage stretched the world.
It was wrong.
Massive trees towered into the sky. Their bark was black and weeping like melted tar. Their branches sagged under gray moss that looked like funeral shrouds.
The roots didn't dig into the soil.
They crawled across the surface like a mass grave trying to claw its way back into the world.
The sky hung bruised and purple.
The Rotting Forest.
The realization settled over me like gravity.
Physically, I weighed almost nothing.
But a dense pressure radiated from the glowing core within me.
The weight of a soul that had no right to still exist.
A shadow passed overhead.
The violet light vanished.
Heavy wings beat once.
Twice.
A creature landed on the shattered spine above me. The bone cracked under its weight.
The bird was enormous.
Six feet tall. Its frame looked like a gargoyle. Rust red feathers clung to its body in filthy mats.
Its head tilted.
Two eyes, black and utterly empty, locked onto me.
It didn't see intelligence.
It saw meat.
[TARGET IDENTIFIED: DREAD BEAK VULTURE (LEVEL 2)]
[BIOMASS AVAILABLE: 12 KG]
The pulse behind my eyes became violent.
The hunger exploded.
[VOID STARVE ACTIVE]
I was eating myself alive.
Cells were dissolving.
Tissue was breaking down.
The vulture lunged.
Its beak snapped down with bone cracking force. The jagged yellow blade slammed into the rib beside my head.
Fragments of ivory exploded.
I scrambled backward.
My limbs were weak. My joints were soft and unfinished. I slipped on the slick surface of the ribcage. My claws scraped uselessly against bone.
The vulture let out a wet croaking sound.
It spread its tattered wings, casting me into shadow.
Cornered.
Pinned between ribs and rotting flesh.
A memory flickered.
Once, in another life, I had been afraid of birds.
That person was gone.
Something older rose from the glowing core in my chest.
Not fear.
Refusal.
My jaw opened.
Then it kept opening.
The skin around my face stretched painfully wide. Translucent flesh pulled thin as paper. Rows of dark needle teeth emerged.
My throat expanded.
Internal valves snapped shut. They sealed into a vacuum configuration.
[GENE STRIP ACTIVE]
The vulture struck for the kill.
I lunged forward.
Not away.
My small body shot across the ribcage in a blur of starving motion.
The bird never expected prey to charge.
My jaws slammed shut around its throat.
Needle teeth punched through feathers and muscle.
The vulture shrieked.
Hot blood flooded my mouth.
It tasted like iron.
It tasted like heat.
The first surge of foreign biomass rushed into my starving body.
Energy detonated through my veins.
The weight of my soul didn't feel like a burden anymore.
It felt like a weapon.