Nulls forced his eyes open, muscles protesting, and winced as the moon's glare lanced into them, a dull ache blooming behind his pupils.
He shielded his face, but the light needled through the gaps between his fingers, which trembled with a faint, unfamiliar weakness.
His gaze fell to his hands. He turned them over, analyzing the network of lines on the palms, the articulation of each finger. He made a fist, noting the strain in unfamiliar tendons, then splayed them wide. A faint relaxation trickled up his arms, a sensation so pathetic it was an insult.
The scent of petrichor rose from the damp grass. He inhaled, and the clean smell of wet earth cut through the chaos in his mind. His new body's primitive limbic system registered it as pleasant. A simple, chemical reward for nothing.
He drew a long breath, feeling his chest expand, the cool air a palpable presence inside him. His heart rate settled into a slower, more efficient rhythm, and with it, his mind began its analysis.
The sensation was strange. Theos were not created this way. A mutation? No. Impossible.
It was more likely, his consciousness had been manifested into the body of another species. But what species could be this fragile?
The data flooded his mind: bipedal, mammalian, fragile bone density, limited sensory input. It was a human body. A flicker of disgust went through him. He was trapped in a prototype.
Something burst out from a place deeper than his lungs, a hysterical, broken sound that shook his fragile new body. Tears streamed down his face, not from grief, but from the sheer irony of it all. He, who had unmade creation, was lying on his back in wet grass. A dumb, ashen moon stared down at him.
The laughter hitched, morphing into something else, a dry, raspy chuckle that sounded like stones grinding together in the dark. He sat up, muscles screaming in protest. He looked at his hands, pale and soft in the moonlight. Useless. The laughter faded. Silence rushed in to fill the void.
"Xael..." His voice was soft, almost as if longing for their presence. "If only you were here to see this," he whispered, his voice serene. Then it cracked, thinning into a soft whine. "If only they had listened to me..."
He relaxed his body, letting gravity drag him down into the ground. A blade of grass, guided by the wind, grazed his cheek, leaving a cool, damp track in its wake.
There he was again, lying down, arms wide open, looking at the moon. This time, its light didn't hurt quite so much.
His gaze turned inward, to the pathetic circuitry of his new form: the frantic animal heartbeat, the chemical scream of hunger, the dull throb of a body already failing. This was his kingdom now. A prison of meat and fallible synapses. The despair that washed over him wasn't a death wish, but a furious, cosmic nausea. To have his infinite consciousness crammed into this... prototype.
A soundless pressure manifested behind his eyes. Not a sound, but a direction. A pull. It was the first thing that hadn't been nothing.
His analysis of his own body ceased. Every ounce of his will focused on that alien signal. It wasn't an invitation. It was a command. And for the first time since waking, Nulls felt something other than disgust.
Interest.
"Strange..." He whispered. The wind blows harder, not enough to cause discomfort but enough for him to notice it. "I should be just a pile of bones and flesh by now." he added.
Now he can only think about two possibilities; either he is gonna starve to death because there isn't anything to consume, or there is just one singular entity that governs the area of the forest. Both were equally inconvenient for him.
The gush of wind returned. This time it carried a new scent: the dry, sweet dust of ancient paper and crumbling leather.
Soon, whispers of voices manifested inside of Nulls's head, each one a different voice but equally mortifying. It sounded like countless souls had been fused into a single, screaming amalgamation, their voices forced into a brief, horrifying whisper.
With nothing better to do, Nulls got to his feet and followed the wind into the forest. The darkness between the trees swallowed him whole as if he were never there.
Nulls was guided by the voice. Moving to whichever direction they commanded him to, not because he couldn't resist it. But because he, too, was curious about what lies ahead. It could be treasure, or a mountain of gold. Or even better, another organism, preferably humans.
Nulls continued to follow the voice. Occasionally drifting because he thought he had found something valuable. Most of the time it was just a stick. Sometimes, one was roughly shaped like a sword. Rarely, one was perfect.
But through sheer willpower, he managed to grab one of the wooden swords and swing it as if he were under attack by a much larger predator.
He was going to starve, and there was nothing he could do about it. There was nothing to eat or drink. Except...
The wooden sword was a crude thing, but its edge was enough. He positioned it against his forearm, calculating the angle, the depth required to sever muscle without destroying the bone's structural integrity for his next move.
He did not swing. He drew the blade across his flesh.
The pain was a brilliant, white-hot signal flaring up his nervous system. His human body screamed at him to stop. His Theos mind acknowledged the data point, "severe tissue damage" and filed it away. It was just information. Useless, distracting noise.
He watched, dispassionate, as blood, shockingly red and warm, welled up and spilled over. He saw the pale layers of fat, the stark red of muscle. The coppery smell filled his nostrils, and his stomach, this weak, human thing, clenched in protest.
He leaned down and tore a strip of muscle free with his teeth.
The act of chewing was the most alien sensation yet. A primal, wet grinding. His body recoiled at the taste of its own essence, even as it provided fuel. He was both the consumer and the consumed. It was the most efficient, logical, and horrifying thing he had ever done.
He chewed, the act a wet, grinding horror. His mouth was full of his own flesh. "I rank this..." he murmured around the grotesque mouthful, blood trickling from his lips. He swallowed thickly. "...a seven." Another strip tore free. "The noise is... unpleasant."
The voices became louder and more audible. Until finally, he saw what seemed to be a golden shrine surrounded by stone statues that depicted what seemed to be anything but mimicking that of natural or man-made. Each statue was enclosed in a circle by candles.
Nulls walked into one of the statues he particularly took an interest in. It was the biggest and, overall, the most detailed of the other statues. It was a tall statue of a crying angel.
He stopped before the statue. The angel knelt in stone, wings torn but spread wide as though refusing to fold. Above its bowed head hovered a fractured halo, frozen in jagged pieces. In its hands lay a chained book.
Every link was carved with such weight that it seemed real enough to drag the figure down. The angel's posture was not one of worship but of burden.
An air of authority washed over him. Nulls had heard stories about angels in human literature before. Those are the divine beings created by god. Their primary function is to worship and obey Him, and serve as His messengers as well as His agents, protect and encourage humans, deliver His judgment, along with participate in spiritual battles.
He took a step closer to the statue. A sharp rock bit into his bare foot. He flinched but didn't stop. Cold air breezed through his raven hair, as he stepped closer to the book.
He was finally in front of the statue, one more step, and he could reach the book. He took another step, but the statue doesn't advance; he takes another, and the statue advances less than before.
He tried to reach it with his remaining arm, but no matter how hard or long he pushes, his hands don't make any meaningful advancement towards the statue.
"Ahh, I see it now." He muttered.
He took a step back, the mirror of the shrine was tilted by the sudden burst of air, they all seemed to tilt towards one thing, and it was the statue. Just then, a ray of moonlight bounced off the mirror and perfectly reflects towards the statue. Illuminating it.
"Ah," he muttered, a spark of familiar analysis cutting through the blood loss. "A fractional convergence. Halving the distance each time... an infinite series within a finite space."
He lifted a pebble and then throws it as hard as he can at the statue. The pebble was suspended in mid-air. Only millimeters from the statue's hand.
"So it affects living and dead objects." He uttered. Still not wanting to pluck a hypothesis from limited information he began to think.
"The rocks contain germs, does that count as a living being?" He mumbled, the pain from his severed arm began increasing moment by moment. Blood gushed out of it as he continues to think, at this rate he will lose consciousness and die of blood loss.
He put his hand on his chin, he squinted his eyes to focus his gaze onto the angel. "At this rate, I'm going to die in about 3 minutes." He whispered, as he began to lose blood his vision began to gray out slightly. Blood was still gushing out of his forearm.
"Blood? Yes Blood!!!" he rejoiced. He began cupping his blood in his palm, then threw it at the statue.
"This body has only existed in this world for mere minutes; it shouldn't contain any parasites." He declared.
A soft splattering sound akin to that of rain hitting an umbrella can be heard. The corner of Nulls's lips began to curl up as he heard that sound.
Nulls lifted the wooden sword. This would not be a precise cut; it would be butchery. He swung it down onto his shoulder.
The impact jarred his teeth. The pain was a universe of white noise. He felt the blade lodge in bone. He did not scream. He adjusted his grip and wrenched it free, then swung again.
This time, the sound was different, a wet, splintering crunch. He swung a third time, a final, brutal blow that severed the last stubborn connection. His arm fell, a dead weight. He caught it before it hit the ground, his vision swimming at the edges with the shock.
Blood gushed from the stump of his arm. His vision began to tunnel, the edges fading to gray. He had seconds, maybe less. With his new "Sword", he ran the statue. He struck it with all his might. A loud thud was heard upon collision. The statue didn't budge.
He swung it again. This time a small crack was formed in the statue's hand. A small tear formed in the statue's cold stony eyes. As it ran down the statue's cheeks, Nulls struck it again. Shattering the left arm. And again. Shattering the right arm.
The voices grew louder, and his heartbeat went faster, the book was quickly pulled to the ground by gravity. Nulls threw his left arm aside. And began to reach for the book.
"Two hundred seventy-one." The voice shouted.
Nulls with one arm still intact didn't have a choice. His vision became like that of a tunnel. With each passing second the light at the end of the tunnel began to get dimmer and dimmer.
He opened the page as fast as he can, skipping through pages that contain knowledge that would get him a one-way ticket to execution. Finally, he made it to the desired page.
There he found a word that was bolded and written in a font no man can read. He had no choice, he had changed his mind. He didn't want to die anymore.
This was it. The gamble. To reach for even a sliver of his true mind was to risk this fragile skull cracking like an egg. But to die here, in this pathetic way, was a far greater obscenity.
He lowered the final mental barriers. The world didn't just sharpen; it unraveled, revealing equations beneath reality. The word on the page was no longer alien; it was a key. And he turned it.
"Ba'sa halk'Mors" Vi"ta te're bis Yh'oghSot cae'lum et infer" num me'dium viv'ere," He whispered, his voice was comparable to that of an old man trapped in the middle of a death's rattle.
A black smoke enveloped his body. The moonlight was dimmed in an instant. The ambient air was instantly deprived of its remaining warmth. His consciousness still somehow managed to stay intact.
The statue he had shattered began moving towards the book; both of its arms were somehow regenerated. It grabbed the book and then placed it beside him. As the statue finished putting the book beside him, it began to cry and then shortly disintegrated into dust.
Nulls couldn't help but chuckle slightly.
Everything went dark. There was no light of the forest. Instead, there was an empty place, seemingly stretched to infinity in every direction. In front of him was a glowing orb that singlehandedly illuminated his vision.
Nulls's vision stabilized. His left arm was somehow regenerated. He moved his left hand in front of his face. It shook in excitement. He managed to get himself up. Ignoring the coldness of the surrounding space.
He took another step. The space around him began to change. It wasn't a soft transition between the prior space. No. It was instantaneous. No warning or sign.
Nulls's crotch hit a golden table with a large quantity of banquet. The food on the table shook. Nulls flinched slightly at the pain, a small whimper escaped his mouth as he tried to calm himself.
"Still better than having your arm chopped off." He said, just then a laugh seemed to be rising from the end of the table. The table was relatively small, so any movement could be seen and heard by both parties.
Nulls moved his gaze to the other end of the table. A being sat there, wearing the shape of a gothic aristocrat. Two great spiral antlers, like a sheep's, curled from its head.
It tilted its chin, resting on its beige-skinned hand, and smiled. Its eyes were crimson, with glacier-blue pupils that seemed to dilate independently. As Nulls watched, a second, smaller pupil flickered deep within each iris.
"Finally!!!" He exclaimed, his voice was a symphony played on a broken violin. "It's been six millennia since someone found my Codex."