Work ended the same way it always did.
Late.
My phone buzzed with another message from my boss as I stepped off the curb—something about "team commitment" and "just a little extra effort." I didn't bother opening it. I was already imagining my future headstone.
Died of overwork. Again.
That's when I heard it.
Not a horn. Not brakes.
Just the sound of something big moving very fast, where it absolutely shouldn't be.
I looked up.
A truck.
Too close. Too fast. Coming straight at me.
Adrenaline hit like a hammer.
I jumped.
I don't remember deciding to do it—my body just moved. I cleared most of the street, felt air rush past me, thought for half a heartbeat that I'd actually made it—
Pain exploded up my leg.
Something heavy rolled over it. Bone gave way. I screamed, the sound tearing out of me raw and animal, and I hit the pavement hard enough to knock the air from my lungs.
The world tilted.
Through the pain, through the shock, I saw the truck slow just enough for the driver to lean out the window.
Middle finger up.
Wrong side of the window.
Left seat.
This is America.
Then the pain became everything, red and blinding, and I felt something cold spreading under me.
I blacked out.
I don't know how much time passed.
There was no sense of time when I woke up—only sensation.
Pressure.
Warmth.
A strange, constant flow around me.
At first, I thought I was underwater. Panic flared, instinct screaming breathe, but there was no chest to burn, no lungs to fill. The panic faded as quickly as it came, replaced by confusion.
I tried to look around.
There were no eyes.
And yet—I saw.
Not images. Not shapes. Something else. Gradients. Movement. Chemical traces drifting through a vast, translucent world.
Organisms floated nearby.
Simple. Pulsing. Exactly like the way cartoons animated single-celled life—little blobs with jittery motion and exaggerated nuclei.
That's funny, I thought distantly. I must still be hallucinating.
Then I noticed myself.
There was no body.
No arms. No legs.
Just… me. A single, shifting mass, responding to thought more than command.
The realization hit slowly, like a rising tide.
I wasn't in this place.
I was this.
The perspective pulled back—not literally, but conceptually—and the truth settled in.
I was a single-celled organism.
In a pond.
A real one. Vast beyond me, layered with currents and invisible life, sunlight diffused from above like a distant ceiling.
I didn't scream.
There was no mouth.
I drifted, stunned, trying to process how I could think without a brain, remember without a body, exist without… me.
Something moved fast.
Too fast.
A shape surged toward me—another cell, larger, its membrane rippling with intent.
Instinct took over.
I didn't know how I knew what to do. I just did it.
One side of me hardened, sharpened, my form collapsing inward and then extending like a spear. The moment we collided, I drove that edge forward.
Straight into its nucleus.
The other organism convulsed once—then went still.
Relief flooded me, sharp and primal.
Without hesitation, I absorbed it.
It wasn't a choice. It was hunger. Fulfillment. Energy spreading through me in a way I felt more than understood.
Alive, something inside me whispered.
Then pressure built.
Too much mass. Too much energy.
I felt myself stretch.
Split.
For one horrifying instant, I thought I was dying again.
Then—
Two.
Two points of awareness.
Not separate. Not divided.
Just… wider.
I could sense from both positions at once, overlapping, dizzying, like seeing double without eyes. Control wasn't lost—it was expanded.
Disorientation gave way to awe.
I was still me.
Just more.
The shock faded, replaced by something unexpected.
Excitement.
If this was possible… then so was more.
I let myself imagine it.
A disease no scientist could cure.
A paradox plague no AI could model.
A living nightmare that spread because it understood how to survive.
Or—
If this world had magic.
If this wasn't science at all.
Then maybe something better.
Something bigger.
A dragon.
The thought felt right.
I steadied myself—both of me—and set my priorities.
First: figure out what kind of world this is.
Second: survive.
Third—
I smiled, or would have, if I still could.
Become something impossible.
The pond drifted on.
And so did I.