I see a faint red light dancing, swirling. It is no more than a speck, but it is the only light to be seen. How fast is it?
It's quite slow.
It is the only light here, or the only light that should exist here at least.
Drifting, wandering, how much time has it been? I do not remember.
The round, fleshy objects embedded in my face, called eyes, do not recognize anything. I see nothing, hear nothing, and feel nothing.
The red light beckons to me. I must venture to it.
I float and float for years, decades, if not centuries to come, as I approach the light, it stings me, my eyes burn, and I blink for the first time in my existence.
The red, ball-shaped light drifts and circles around something—an ovular object much larger than the light itself, and millions, if not billions, of times larger than me.
As I approach the object, I feel a pressure bind me. I try to flee but it is useless.
My body is pulled towards the giant object, it appears to be a titanic rock of some sorts. I do not know why it calls to me, but I cannot resists.
Approaching it, only a singular thought arises in my mind.
This world is vast, yet bland.
There is nothing to mention— nothing intriguing, nothing lively. All that spans before me is an orange desolate landscape devoid of color, with shallow depression that were once rivers, huge landscapes that could have been snowy mountains, flat burning plains that can be forests.
They can be?
No.
They must be.
Abruptly the color of the landscape bleeds into red.
No.
That is not the planet.
My eyes burst into pieces.
I fall faster with each passing second, several red sparks submerge me. I lose my skin to the heat.
The blood in my body begins to evaporate as the heat racks up, my nerves incinerate into ash, my flesh succumbs to the raging fires, my organs swell and rupture.
Useless. This body of mine.
But.
I am lucky.
Indeed, very lucky.
Fortunate, very fortunate.
What remains of my body are the bones that scatter upon colliding with the ground, enough to cause a crater to be formed in its wake.
The burning stops and I feel at peace.
I feel tired.
I want to rest, drift off into a slumber.
I want to, but I suppose it is too late.
The bones of my lower torso are already standing straight in the middle of the crater.
This is already too early, but I have no reason to refuse.
The bones suddenly begin to move and clump with one another, they drag across the floor of the planet, appearing as if a mysterious force pulls them together to be one again.
My head feels heavy, my senses gradually return. However, I realize that it's not a few senses returning; I can only see my surroundings—only my eyesight has regenerated this time.
Why is it rushing?
I have no idea.
Oh.
Perhaps it is time.
I am overcome with a sudden sleepiness, a droopiness that renders me unable to keep my eyes open. I drift off into a long slumber. A long, long one. I hope I can see this planet again, and when I do, may it be better.
My eyes fall off my socket and onto the rigid floor.
My bones are cracking, yet still stand.
A mass of black substances emerges from me, with strands attaching themselves to the ground one by one. Instantly, hundreds of millions more arise from my body and root themselves deep in the soil. They continue to burrow deeper, not stopping until they reach the core of the planet.
Once at the core, they surround and absorb all the energy it gives off and supply it back to me. Pumping it like living pipelines, they have no mind of their own yet they work with superb efficiency, after all, it only took them about four decades to complete their task.
The process is almost done.
All that is left is...
Strings combining with one another, forming a thick liquid that stretches outward into the sky. It travels with incomprehensible speed and stops, just shy of breaching the atmosphere. As the sight settles in, black sticks numbering hundreds of thousands protrude into existence. Such a beautiful sight to behold, a mountain of green leaves and branches take their form.
A tree that will shape the world anew, and most importantly, harbor life for this planet.
Requirements have been completed, and the only thing that is now required is the passage of time, and that so passed without a hunch.
Time blended from seconds to minutes to days to months to years to decades to centuries to millennia.
The rumblings from the outside stifled my still heart and I started to yearn for what laid outside.
Eventually, I finally had the chance to. A gaping hole forms behind the unsurmountable tree and from it emerges a being of drippy flesh. The only way I could have described myself was an amalgamation.
But I cannot venture further with such a form, luckily enough, a being walked up to the tree, seemingly from curiosity. Hoping for them to be an inhabitant, I appear before them as they try to reach for behind the tree.
What I perceive is a lone creature with skin as white as a pearl, a face with big round eyes and a large black beak. And red ears reached from the side of their head all the way to their slumped shoulders. The creature's eyes were laden black with a glimmer of white shinning across them.
Found you.
Before the being could escape, a black string materializes from behind the pierces them in the chest.
What follows is the scene of the amalgamation of my flesh crawling towards the creature that stood still lifeless, as I consume their remnants, my flesh warps and changes to imitate this race.
As the transformation ends, I get no time to turn back as something grips me from the behind at my waist. Without any efforts wasted, I immediately turn back to find a similar organism, though smaller and darker in its appearance.
It gnaws at me, but not with anger or confusion, but a delighted expression as if it were enjoying itself.
It picks at my fur and beckons me. As I follow it, it leads me to a group of individuals similar to myself in structure, but differing in the color of their furs, one of them, with fur the same color as the smaller being approaches me and plucks at my fur, this too, in a loving expression.
Getting used to the daily activities of this species was rather easy. Their lives uneventful, and their language primitive. They were mammals as well.
But as the days rolled on, the ordinary became extraordinary, the banal life became interesting, I grew closer to the loved ones of the individual I had overtaken and lived in peace.
But even I was aware that this peace would be rather short.
Because for how long would they allow me to exist? This fragment of a life to drift and bring harmony to a new born civilization. And surely, my guesses were correct, they remained hostile even after thousands of years.
It all started with a drop.
Rain does not occur here.
Yet there echoed the sound of a single drop throughout the planet.
A single drop of black descending on the planet, and submerging all of it.
It raced through the atmosphere, spreading like wildfire in all directions.
Vicious, terrifying, end, the end.
That is what the complex emotions of all beings living on the planet concluded to.
All of them were going to die.
I stood there gazing upwards as the sky and the red light disappeared.
Perhaps, it is too late.
I'm sorry.
I'm truly sorry.
The small black creature, now much taller, glances to their sides. They are looking for me.
How do I tell them? I'm already gone.
Away from the planet once again, drifting in the void endless, gazing at the faint red light. This time, not with intrigue, but with sorrow
It is too late indeed.
In a sudden turn of events, the dark mass spreading across the sky shrinks and retreats from the point where it started, the zenith was visible once again and faint red light lit the faces of the individuals who stared up in despair.
But that would have to be the least of their worries.
I open my beak as much as I can and force my hand inside my mouth, it traverses through the body, organs, nerves, fur, bones.
It reaches for each one of them, pulling them out one by one. The esophagus not different from my previous body, an oddly shaped heart, a single round liver, black pearls for eyes, the beak too was rigid and durable.
I keep on clawing at myself, shredding my being.
Until there is nothing left.
Bleeding.
Bleeding white.
The body dissolves
The creature ceases to be.
What rises is unfathomable
This is the end.
Relief is short lived for the residents of the planet, as large shadows overwhelm the entire planet, what they see in the far distant are large bony structures in the sky that collide with one another. The sky and the faint red light disappear and they are submerged in darkness.
A silent crunch, the planet and everyone living in it. Shredded and crushed again, and again, blood and dirt mixed together at once, again and again.
Death and destruction.
A cosmic being spanning billions of time larger than the planet itself, devouring it like a speck of dust. It is comprised solely of bones, with a protruding rib cage seemingly protecting something. A crown on its head and trodden and unsightly teeth ripping apart the planet in all but a single bite.
Is that all I am capable of?
The body shrinks once again taking back the form it started with, a man of flesh and bones, drifting in the void, alone once again. This time, without even the red faint light to gaze at.
I will move again, my task here is done.
The hivemind beckons me to move again, the void calls out to me.
Billions, trillions, quadrillions. How much more shall I consume before I stop?
I don't know. I do not wish to know.
The sky I once used to gaze upon, now empty.
Only the darkness seen everywhere.
In the heart of the Boötes I reside still.
For this emptiness, I am the sole reason to blame.
Thousands and thousands of years from now, I must arrive.
To a place already harboring life.
With creatures and beings so fond of another.
With rivers and mountains glistening in the sunlight.
A blue orb drifting in the sky, unreachable yet for me.
Hunger.
I need to swallow more.
Devour more.
More.
I need more.
More. More. More. M̴o̶r̴e̵
I must swallow more.
M̴o̶r̴e̵M̴o̶r̴e̵M̴o̶r̴e̵M̴o̶r̴e̵M̴o̶r̴e̵M̴o̶r̴e̵M̷͕͒̋ö̷̭̭́̒r̷̝̂́ȩ̸̐̇
A blue planet drifting away from me.
M̷͕͒̋ö̷̭̭́̒r̷̝̂́ȩ̸̐̇M̷͕͒̋ö̷̭̭́̒r̷̝̂́ȩ̸̐̇M̷͕͒̋ö̷̭̭́̒r̷̝̂́ȩ̸̐̇M̷͕͒̋ö̷̭̭́̒r̷̝̂́ȩ̸̐̇M̷͕͒̋ö̷̭̭́̒r̷̝̂́ȩ̸̐̇M̷͕͒̋ö̷̭̭́̒r̷̝̂́ȩ̸̐̇M̷͕͒̋ö̷̭̭́̒r̷̝̂́ȩ̸̐̇M̷͕͒̋ö̷̭̭́̒r̷̝̂́ȩ̸̐̇
I must reach it.
M̷͕͒̋ö̷̭̭́̒r̷̝̂́ȩ̸̐̇M̷͕͒̋ö̷̭̭́̒r̷̝̂́ȩ̸̐̇M̷͕͒̋ö̷̭̭́̒r̷̝̂́ȩ̸̐̇M̷͕͒̋ö̷̭̭́̒r̷̝̂́ȩ̸̐̇M̷͕͒̋ö̷̭̭́̒r̷̝̂́ȩ̸̐̇M̷͕͒̋ö̷̭̭́̒r̷̝̂́ȩ̸̐̇M̷͕͒̋ö̷̭̭́̒r̷̝̂́ȩ̸̐̇M̵̳͉̯̞͍̘̊̓̾͘ō̴̰̪͎͎͕͎̽̾ř̶̝e̵͂̀͑͆ͅ
I care not that it causes death and destruction.
M̵̳͉̯̞͍̘̊̓̾͘ō̴̰̪͎͎͕͎̽̾ř̶̝e̵͂̀͑͆ͅM̵̳͉̯̞͍̘̊̓̾͘ō̴̰̪͎͎͕͎̽̾ř̶̝e̵͂̀͑͆ͅM̵̳͉̯̞͍̘̊̓̾͘ō̴̰̪͎͎͕͎̽̾ř̶̝e̵͂̀͑͆ͅM̵̳͉̯̞͍̘̊̓̾͘ō̴̰̪͎͎͕͎̽̾ř̶̝e̵͂̀͑͆ͅM̵̳͉̯̞͍̘̊̓̾͘ō̴̰̪͎͎͕͎̽̾ř̶̝e̵͂̀͑͆ͅM̵̳͉̯̞͍̘̊̓̾͘ō̴̰̪͎͎͕͎̽̾ř̶̝e̵͂̀͑͆ͅM̵̳͉̯̞͍̘̊̓̾͘ō̴̰̪͎͎͕͎̽̾ř̶̝e̵͂̀͑͆ͅM̵̳͉̯̞͍̘̊̓̾͘ō̴̰̪͎͎͕͎̽̾ř̶̝e̵͂̀͑͆ͅ
I will devour.
M̵̳͉̯̞͍̘̊̓̾͘ō̴̰̪͎͎͕͎̽̾ř̶̝e̵͂̀͑͆ͅM̵̳͉̯̞͍̘̊̓̾͘ō̴̰̪͎͎͕͎̽̾ř̶̝e̵͂̀͑͆ͅM̵̳͉̯̞͍̘̊̓̾͘ō̴̰̪͎͎͕͎̽̾ř̶̝e̵͂̀͑͆ͅM̵̳͉̯̞͍̘̊̓̾͘ō̴̰̪͎͎͕͎̽̾ř̶̝e̵͂̀͑͆ͅM̵̳͉̯̞͍̘̊̓̾͘ō̴̰̪͎͎͕͎̽̾ř̶̝e̵͂̀͑͆ͅ.
The hivemind calls me.
M̵̳͉̯̞͍̘̊̓̾͘ō̴̰̪͎͎͕͎̽̾ř̶̝e̵͂̀͑͆ͅM̵̳͉̯̞͍̘̊̓̾͘ō̴̰̪͎͎͕͎̽̾ř̶̝e̵͂̀͑͆ͅM̵̳͉̯̞͍̘̊̓̾͘ō̴̰̪͎͎͕͎̽̾ř̶̝e̵͂̀͑͆ͅM̵̳͉̯̞͍̘̊̓̾͘ō̴̰̪͎͎͕͎̽̾ř̶̝e̵͂̀͑͆ͅM̵̳͉̯̞͍̘̊̓̾͘ō̴̰̪͎͎͕͎̽̾ř̶̝e̵͂̀͑͆ͅM̵̳͉̯̞͍̘̊̓̾͘ō̴̰̪͎͎͕͎̽̾ř̶̝e̵͂̀͑͆ͅ
The end is near