The darkness faded as my consciousness stirred once more—or at least, it should have. I had most likely evolved.
Despite evolution supposedly being difficult to achieve, Advena seemed to allow for minor evolutions if enough genetic material—or perhaps magical matter—was consumed. I suppose that made sense. A slime wasn't made of flesh or bone, yet here I was. Changed.
But what greeted me wasn't the familiar damp silence of The cave.
A suffocating blackness, tighter than any cave, pressed around me. My bare feet touched hard wood. My back leaned against another wall directly behind me. It didn't take much to realize I was in something small—cramped. A closet.
A thin sliver of light cut across the dark, slipping through a crack in the door.
Peering through it, I saw a mundane scene
A man. A woman. Two little girls. All seated on a couch, lazily watching television. Laughter occasionally broke out, soft and warm. They looked happy.
They were familiar. But not entirely.
My stomach groaned—loud, sharp, desperate.
It didn't stop. The sound rolled out of me like a melody of starvation. My ribs trembled with the strain. Tears streaked down my pale, dirty skin. I hadn't even noticed how thin I'd become—malnourished, sickly.
The father—tall, broad, grim—stood from the couch. His expression twisted with annoyance. He didn't look at the others as he walked past the closet and into another room. A few moments later, he returned.
In his hand was a bowl. A small one, barely filled. Leftovers. Scraps.
He opened the closet with a violent yank.
Light flooded in.
Then came the bowl—tossed carelessly, its contents spilling over the floorboards. Some landed on me. Most didn't. His eyes met mine with pure, seething disgust before he slammed the door shut again.
Darkness returned.
But not silence.
"Where... was I?"
"Is this me?"
"Who... were they?"
The questions swam through my head like ghosts, overlapping with a faint mechanical hum growing louder and louder until—
[Evolution was successful. You have evolved into an Ominous Raven.]
Cognitus's voice snapped like a wire pulled too tight.
And just like that, the closet fractured. The house, the family, the warmth—they all cracked, splintered, and crumbled into nothing. Even I shattered with it.
And then—I finally awoke.
Into reality.