I am me.
That is the simplest way to introduce myself. Honestly speaking, I don't know what I am. Am I a consciousness floating in the cold, quiet dark of the endless space? Or the endless space itself?
I don't know.
For millennia, the only thing I knew was the drift. The slow, inexorable pull of distant stars, alongside the gentle silence of the void, always comforted me when I thought I was alone, unwanted.
My journey shifted when I took a wrong turn into a black hole. Well, perhaps not a wrong turn. I just wanted to do something that wasn't monotonous.
That was the best decision I had made since my formation.
There was no sense of falling. There was only a sense of wrongness. Space, the one thing I understood, twisted. The rules broke.
Then, there was noise. And heat. And a sudden, violent stop.
For the first time in my existence, I was still. And I was confused. It took me a great amount of time to understand that I was inside a rock—or rather, that my consciousness was now bound within one.
The world around me was a storm of sensation. The ground shook with heavy, rhythmic impacts that reverberated through my entire being.
There were loud, sharp sounds I had no name for. Screams, I would later learn they were called.
A great shadow fell over me, and the vibrations grew stronger, more focused. A single, immense foot was coming down directly on top of me.
I, a being whose knowledge was limited to the stillness of the endless, dark space, was utterly without context. I had no body to run with, no voice to scream with.
But I understood a new, primal truth: if that foot crushed me in my current state, I might cease to be.
I could only wait for the crushing weight to end my strange new stillness—anxiously, fearfully, helplessly. Then, the impossible happened.
A different vibration, quick and light, approached.
A two-legged creature, small and fragile, stood between me and that giant foot. It held up a hand, and a wall of strange energy shot out of the ground, humming with a power I had never felt before.
The monster's foot slammed against it. The ground cracked, but the energy wall held. The great foot pulled back.
My tiny, rocky form was lifted. The sensation was alien—not the gentle, indifferent pull of gravity, but a deliberate, focused grip.
I was moved quickly. The loud noises faded. The shaking stopped. I was placed gently onto the ground in a quiet place, and for the first time since my violent arrival, I was safe.
[New species found…]
My mind, which holds a catalogue of every species in every known galaxy, finally gave me a word for this creature.
[Human]
Small. Weak in body. And yet, it had shown a strength I did not understand. It had saved me. Without me even asking. In that moment, a new feeling sparked inside me, something warmer than a star and stronger than a black hole.
I watched as the human patted the dust from my surface, bringing me closer to its dark pupils. It checked me up and down, a gesture that confused me until its meaning finally clicked.
It was checking if I was okay.
I projected an affirmation, but it couldn't hear me. After a moment, it threw me, a sudden act that confused me yet again.
In mid-air, I saw the human who had rescued me take the place where I had just been. In that instant, a multitude of sharp thorns erupted from the ground, piercing the human's body and leaving a ruin of countless gashes.
The reason for being thrown was suddenly, horribly clear.
That human, that small, pitifully weak being, had saved me again, without caring to save itself.
My new senses hardened. I became angry, imprinting the image of the monster that killed my benefactor.
I remained where the human had thrown me, a simple stone on the edge of a budding city. For a long, long time, I watched.
I watched as more humans came.
They picked up other rocks, my silent kin. At first, I felt a small sadness as they were broken and shaped. But then I saw what they were doing.
They were not destroying them; they were bestowing upon them a purpose. They placed the stones together, one by one.
They took creatures like me, who had only ever known the lonely drift of space, and made us part of a home.
A beautiful structure.
My own stone form was eventually picked up and placed carefully into the foundation of a great building. From my new place in the wall, I saw everything.
I felt the vibrations of their laughter through the stone. I saw small, new humans learn the strange shapes of their language.
I witnessed arguments and agreements, tears and smiles. I watched their city grow around my small building, sprouting metal mountains that scraped the sky, where countless millions of humans lived together.
It was a chaotic, messy, beautiful dance.
I, who had come from the perfect, ordered emptiness of space, adored the beautiful chaos.
I loved their flaws. I loved their courage. I loved their ability to create such wonderful things in their short, fragile lives. I did not just love them; I absolutely adored them.
So, when the time for my cosmic evolution arrived, the choice was easy. It came as a deep hum from within, an energy I had been gathering since my arrival.
The universe was calling me to fulfill my purpose. I felt the pull of my true nature, the song of my birth.
I could become a star, a being of brilliant fire and gravity. Or I could become a nebula, a vast, beautiful cloud where new stars would be born.
But I looked out from my place in the wall, at the city of lights and noise and life, and I heard a better song.
No, I decided. Forget the stars. Forget the silence.
I chose them. I chose to be like them. I chose to be one of them. I chose to protect all of them.
The day I finally became me, they became my purpose.
Humans… I will protect you all.
"Child, are you really sure about this purpose?"
Yes. I am absolutely sure!
[You have successfully bound with your purpose.]
[You have found your path. The path of endless space.]
[Congratulations! You have awakened the first skill of your path. Rescue Jump.]
[Rescue Jump]
Mana: 10
Trigger: When an animated or inanimate object is in a state where it may suffer a change in its resonance, you can pull and tear through space to it.
Weakness: If the said object does not change its resonance, the skill cannot be triggered.
A tremor went through me. The stone that had been my body for centuries cracked. The walls around me turned to shake. The entire building I was a part of began to tremble.
Inside, my own form twisted.
Energy and matter compressed and expanded. It was a pain unlike any I had ever known, the pure agony of creation. I was reshaping myself, following the blueprint of the creatures I had come to adore.
I formed a heart to feel what they felt. I formed lungs to breathe their air. I formed legs to walk their paths. Then a brain to accept every signal from these new parts of mine.
The wall around me could no longer contain me. With a groan of stone and wood, it broke.
My new body emerged from the foundation I had called home for so long. I stumbled and landed on a path made of the same flat stones the humans used to walk on.
For the first time, I felt the cold, hard ground not as a rock, but through the bare skin of two feet.
I stood up, clumsy and unsure. I looked down at my new hands, with their five strange fingers. I touched my face. I ran my fingers through the dark blue hair that had just formed on my head.
The cold air brushed against my skin, sending a chill through me and lifting my new hair as if the world itself were offering a whispered welcome.
I was no longer a rock. I was no longer just a consciousness. I had a human form.
I am human now. And I am here for them.
As their friendly neighborhood alien— No. Human.
Suddenly, there was a pull inside my mind. I stared into my spirit and saw my path skill trigger into activation.
There were countless threads extending from the distance, each wanting my attention and possible help. But among them, a thread vibrated in deep red.
I pulled on that thread as my body was yanked backward, tearing through space and away from the bustling city to a canopy of green.
A human stood frozen on a tree branch. From above them, a multitude of sharp thorns were raining down.
If they were hit by them, they would die.
I reached them in an instant, then my eyes locked onto another thread that was some distance away from them and the incoming thorns.
It was from the ground where a torn tree trunk was falling. If the tree trunk hit the ground, the soil beneath it would change its shape and thus its resonance.
This was what my brain instantly fed me after analyzing my path skill.
I wasted no time pulling on that thread, and both of us teleported to that ground. I raised my hands above the human's head, successfully blocking the incoming tree trunk.
"You… what are you?"
I turned around to see the human staggering back from me.
'Are they scared of me?'
Their cheeks had taken on a vibrant red hue, which I had no idea had appeared. As far as I remembered, they were white-skinned.
Did they find out about my identity—that I wasn't human?
My heartbeat quickened in panic.
Would they think of me as one of the monsters from the dark? No. I didn't want them to consider me the same as those disgusting darklings.
So, trying my best to imitate a friendly face, I spoke.
"Hello, human. I am a human too."
Wait. Why were they more scared now?
"I'm not lying. Really."
They panicked again and ran away from me.
My brows furrowed in confusion as water droplets formed in my eyes.
My new heart clenched with a sudden ache, and before I could understand the reason for the pain, the water droplets in my eyes started streaming down my cheeks.