The hunger burned first a sharp, twisting flame in his chest that no human stomach had ever known.
Atsuya's mind, analytical even in this alien shell, activated. Observe. Understand. Adapt.
He turned his gaze inward, or rather, the equivalent of inward for his translucent, fragile body. Eight limbs sprawled, curling and flexing independently, each tipped with tiny suckers. Tentacle movements rippled through the water as he experimented.
A twitch. Electric pulse. The suckers responded. Small sparks of sensation leaped across his limbs. He flexed again. More feedback. His body was… a machine of alien design, intricate and responsive.
His skin shimmered subtly, almost imperceptibly. He focused, attempting a conscious shift. Greened slightly. Then violet. Color was control. Camouflage. Communication. Defense.
But instinct overrode thought.
A swirl of plankton drifted near. Tiny, delicate, inconsequential. Yet the hunger the primal, alien demand was insistent. He struck. Tentacles wrapped, suckers clasped, feeding reflexively.
And then the voice.
> [Assimilation Initiated.]
Not sound. Not vibration. Not thought in words. A feeling. A pulse that resonated through him, through every muscle fiber, through the alien neural pathways that had replaced his human mind.
Panic flared. Who speaks? Who commands?
No interface. No entity visible. Only the pulse, the awareness, the whisper of something watching. Something alive. Something patient.
He trembled as his body reacted without thought. Muscles thickened subtly, fibers interlacing. Strength, density, adaptation manifestations of the abyss itself shaping him.
The current shifted. Tiny, impossible vibrations tickled his newly sensitized nerves. The Abyss is watching.
He paused, tentacles curling around each other instinctively. Fear, recognition, awe all melded in a singular sensation that had no human equivalent.
I am observed. I am prey. And I am learning.
For the first time, Atsuya Kurose the mind of the human trapped in this alien form understood a fundamental law of his new existence:
The Abyss did not just surround. It studied. It shaped. And it would not allow weakness to survive.
And from that understanding came the first spark of resolve.
If I am prey… I will evolve.