Somewhere is a grey land with no life in sight, the ground was dry and grey it felt like the surface of hardened sand, around it was sparse withered vegetation. On the ground was a black viscous liquid, its colour was vantablack each movement was slick yet somehow slimy. Then a ripple came from the centre, first it was a ripple like a droplet fell into it then it was a splash like someone was drowning underneath the surface. James opened his eyes wide, wider then he ever had them, yet his vision was still black like the abyss.
He tried to look around but it was all the same. 'Is this death? Is this the fabled Afterlife?' He thought to himself, his mind from chaos came calm, being a scientist had its benefits. One of such benefits is that when one has studied many things in their life, one can control the flow of their thoughts so that from the fear, horror, surprise, excitement, and/or sadness; only calmness may show on their mind and facial expression. James waited for something to happen, second became minutes, minutes became hours, and etc. Time passed as he floated on the blackness, then an invisible thread attached itself to him.
A feeling of something slithering in his consciousness like a serpent that found its prey. "Chosen…Create…Chaos…Awaken the CORE…" Voices suddenly came into his mind, overlapping against one another yet the message said was clear as day. Suddenly flashes of light covered his visions as scenes flashed into being in his mind. The first scene, he was crawling on the ground, his hands became claws like a werewolf. It had bone like armour covering the entire arm, it had spikes scattered on the arm. Then the scene shook before it stopped and changed.
The second scene showed him flying in the air. The wind blowing into his face strongly, then a loud flap of wings like the sound of thunder made him look towards his side. He only saw huge wings like a bat, with hardened bones and a membrane to catch the flow of the wind and kept whatever its main body looked like on top of the sky. Then as time passed, he became these creatures unknown to him and felt what they felt. After a long time did his consciousness return to peace with the everlasting quiet to keep himself company. 'What was that? Did…Did I become another life form? No, it was more like, I saw through their eyes and felt what they were feeling.' James affirmed upon the idea he had thought of, and with this new found idea came another in trying to experiment on the blackness.
He mentally closed his eyes not knowing the difference since he was surrounded in black, then after a minute a sensation came to his thoughts. Something tangible, liquid, and may even be sentient was following the will of his mind. James tried to keep this sensation and manipulate it into anything. In his consciousness he saw an arm forming in the blackness, it had tentacles to make up for the arms with spikes all the way up to the shoulder, unlike the arm he saw on one of the scenes this one was flowing black tentacles entangled to look like an arm and clawed hands.
Seeing or envisioning the scene in front of him means that his experiment worked, and so he began to try and continue this creation. The tentacles squirmed and moved, beginning to form the body and head, first the head was covered in a strong bone like armour with no eyes or ears then the mouth was made and split into three distinct bug like appendages with jagged teeth in the main mouth. The body still was made up of tentacles and spikes, flowing and twisting, before becoming firm like hardened muscle; next came the legs, it had no distinction but from the movement it made, it only retracted itself to the upper body before forming another in motion of a normal walking creature. Then the other arm was made with the same design and function other than being a lot longer by a metre. From the back came tentacles twisting separately into 6 extending into tails with hooked barbs like scorpions on the tips.
Then his perspective began to shake making him a little dizzy, and suddenly from the surrounding darkness he saw light, a bright lush shone into him before he suddenly speeded towards it then once he reached the light he slowed down a little then slowly entered it. The first to enter his vision, once he got used to the light, was the grey soil and withered vegetation, then from beneath him came the sounds of water bubbling violently like an underwater volcano soon to erupt. The creature he made from the black pool, bursted out from the pool's surface and screamed a high pitch roar akin to a tire screeching with reverb on a mic. It crawled out of the pool that was at least half of an olympic used pool, once out of the black pool it shot out its left arm and shattered the trunk of the nearest withered tree before sending the other arm to wrap itself on the broken trunk and easily lifting it into the air and slowly moved it into the pool, and dropped it directly.
Once his created monster dropped the tree into the pool, a sensation encroached his mind and a feeling that he could make another one of the creatures. 'Having two of them won't be bad…I guess we all start somewhere.' James contemplated himself before he began to focus on creating another creature. A minute or two later, another one came out of the pool right next to the first, then a sense of fatigue came to him like a bull trampled all over you. He looked towards the two stationary creatures and tried to send them an order through his mind. 'Gather materials and throw them into the pool…Stay hidden ' The creatures moved and began to chop down the trees and grabbed it with their other hand before tossing it into the black pool, once the withered tree reached the poolbed, a mysterious energy entered his consciousness and the sense of fatigue disappeared a little while another sense of being able to create another one of the creatures.
'I need to give them a name…I can't call them by Creature no. 1 and no.2, all the time.' James thought to himself before beginning to contemplate their name. 'How about…just Drones…Yeah that sounds good to me.' James looked towards the drones and watched as one of them uprooted a dried bush and threw it into the pool. The other one ripped out a dead seedling and threw it into the pool, time passed as the drones slowly but surely cleared the surrounding 500 metres of the pool into a clearing and still continued without rest. Then James noticed the sky darkening a little as time passed, he looked towards the grey sky and noticed the supposed sun was now setting to his, or in this case the pool's, right. 'The more that I look to the sky, the more the feeling of homesickness is more evident in my being.' James thought to himself and a heavy feeling encroached his 'heart?' if he even has one.
James then felt like he was full, metaphorically, then his intuition told him that he needed to expand and make more drones. The feeling of ,metaphorically, having your stomach full was a strange feeling and yet he followed the feeling of his intuition. He began to create 20 dozen of them in one go, it'll take a lot of time to individually make them, so he began to split his concentration and started to make 10 of them first before the others. Once he started, James had a hard time making all 10 of them but as time passed he slowly got used to it and also managed to make 50% of the bodies. After another 2 hours, James managed to make all 10 of them and watched as their arms bursted out of the pool and crawled ashore with their tails waving at the air vertically with rhythm. 'Half of you help the first two collect resources and the rest…Expand the pool?' James ordered the last part like it was a question. He wasn't sure if expanding the pool would make this feeling of fullness disappear as well.
After an hour of rest,he started making the next batch of drones. Meanwhile, the drones he ordered to expand the pool split up and started the pool's expansion. Some of them entered the pool again and began to dig the dirt, the moment the dirt was dug, it was instantly absorbed and a little energy was given to James while he rested before he started making the remaining 10 drones. Meanwhile, the drones on the surface were digging the periphery of the pool making mounds of dirt the size of a small hill before another scooped them up one by one and threw it into the pool. This continued for the rest of the remaining day time and James followed this rhythm by creating the remaining 10, once he rested a little, a little while more the sun had already set and the moon rose up to the sky. From the time that passed, the drones managed to make the olympic sized pool into a large lake of 2 and a half football fields and the 12 drones now became 22, all standing still on their spots. James halted them from continuing on their given task.
James noticed that the moon was blood red, making the night sky a tinge of red as well. 'I already knew that this is not my world, but I had my doubts. Now though, there is no more doubting it anymore .' James refuted his doubts with the evidence before him. Then a sudden guttural roar echoed in the west of the pool's direction and following the roar were human screams and shouts. He was surprised by the screams and shouts before he looked towards his drones, he had a feeling he could switch his perspective into their body and follow them around. He focused on his first drone, subconsciously knowing it was the first he made, and wanted to change his perspective to theirs and not a moment later his perspective changed from the surroundings of the pool to the surroundings of the drone like a third person view in a game.
Then a feeling that he could move the drone like his own body crawled over his mind as he subconsciously clenched his fist and the drone did the same. James looked towards the rest of the drones and picked out the first 5 that got outta the pool. 'The five of you follow me, the rest are to guard the pool's surroundings.' James ordered before he moved the body of the drone like he was born with it and ran to the direction of the roar and screams and from behind him, the 5 drones ran a few centimetres to his back with some running on their two legs and some on all fours.
'I hope I'm not too late…'