Born a Monster

511 Ascension

It is said that one of the first things you become aware of when you awaken is whether you’re in your own bed or not.

I was NOWHERE near my bed.

But the sunlight, from multiple angles, worked its way past my eyelids.

“Bwaa!” I said, finding the sun (well, A sun) in my eyes. I turned away, only to find another sun right there. “Merciful Gods!”

“Truer than you know, kid.” Manajuwejet said.

“Awaah!” I said, having discovered suns three through five. “Where am I?”

“Yeah, um... so, I’m going to answer that. But if your appendix hasn’t burst yet, we need to get you back to the mortal world.” He scuttled a few steps closer to one of the suns.

“Ugh.” I said. “We have to walk into that?”

“Well, running might be better. If you think you can do that?”

.....

I failed to rise. “It feels like there’s a lump of lead in my stomach.”

“Kid.” he said. “Get up anyway. That pain in your core?”

“Yeah?”

“That’s you about to DIE. I’m just a dream guide; I can’t carry you.”

With a wordless moan, I curled up on my left side.

“How did I even get here?” I asked.

“Kid, if you can’t walk, then damn it, crawl this way.”

I got a leg “beneath” me in the light fog. I mean transparent fog. Enough that I could see three suns and countless stars beyond the not-floor.

“Don’t sight see NOW! Move, move, move. Mortality is back THIS way.”

I vomited, and it just passed through the mist, curling as the currents directed.

“Oh! Aaawaa!” I tottered on my feet. “Am I sinking into the ground?”

“This way! Solid ground is THIS way!” Manajuwejet urged.

“Fine, fine.” I said, trying to step forward. I slid to an angle not possible without falling in the waking world. “Crap.”

“No, no. Keep coming. It’s not far. Fall this way if you have to.”

“You promised... buh... to tell me where I am.”

“You’re kinda... between worlds. Yeah, that’s good. A dozen more like that, and you’ll be alive again.”

“Wait. I’m dead?”

“NO!!! No waiting, and no, you’re not... exactly... dead. But yeah, you’re not alive.” He waved a beckoning claw at me. “C’mon, this way.”

“We’re walking into the sun!” I said.

“No, no. It just looks like one from the outside. Trust me. This one is the world you were born in.”

“So... each of these suns is actually a world?”

“Some are more than one.” he said. “Don’t stop, kid. You’re doing great. For example, your own world is MUCH bigger than the one planet.”

“What’s a planet?” I asked.

He blinked at me. “You know what? Get back alive first, and THEN I’ll answer any three questions you want.”

“Only three?” I asked.

“Well, two now, dumbass! Keep those feet moving. You’re halfway.”

“It feels... hey, there’s no heat!”

“Because that’s NOT a sun. Keep it coming. Good, good.”

There was no heat, but I was sweating profusely. However little I moved, it felt like swimming through granite. Or maybe marble. What I remember is that my limbs didn’t want to move, and it felt like I was moving a chunk of the world in my abdomen.

I screamed as my spine [Dislocated].

“No, no! Not that way! Over here! Follow the sound of my voice, kid.”

“Ngyah.” I said. “How did I get here?”

“Blame your dad for that, kid. When Sobek and the newborn came through here, you got caught up in the wake. Problem is, you’ve been too focused on your mom’s side of your bloodlines; you can’t survive here yet.”

I reached out, grabbed nothing, and pulled myself forward.

“HOLY!” he said. “I mean good. Good. Keep getting closer. Any way you can. Closer. Two tugs and you’re here.”

It felt like my arms were on fire. My legs too, for that matter.

[Titanic Swimming now active.]

I slid forward like a slug or snail would, trailing blood through the air.

“Great! Now reach out and touch it. Just.. Touch...”

[You have arrived.]

[Reconstructing Body: 0/120 complete.]

[Reconstructing Mind: 0/80 complete.]

[Reconstructing Spirit: 0/40 complete.]

[You will be unconscious until process completes.]

“A six day timer?” I asked. I wasn’t awake long enough to hear Manajuwejet’s response.

“Six?” I asked, sitting up quick enough to make my head spin.

My System must have found a way to speed the process up; it was mid-day when I recovered.

“Oh.” I said, falling back down facing the river. I coughed up a lung and a half of what looked like clay silt mixed with blood, and didn’t taste much different, either.

“Bwuh.” I said, extending an arm towards the river.

After a few minutes of ungraceful dragging, I was there. A breath of water in, a fit of coughing until the edges of my vision were red and black, then repeat. The damages...

There were no damages. I had full health, full sanity, full serenity.

Nothing resembling a point of nutrition, but with my hydration meter rapidly filling, I began to feel capable of outrunning some foliage. I had drifted far enough downstream to realize the Kamajeen had moved on.

The problem was that I knew the rough direction in which the new camp had to be, and my System nudged my feet that way.

Stupid Truthspeaker oath! Let me EAT!

And it did, after a fashion. Where there was food, I could detour toward it, so long as I ate and digested while walking. It never required me to run, but I soon learned that doing so anyway allowed me time to forage.

For a path that some three hundred people had walked along, there was a LOT of forage.

Now wait, I hear you saying. Even with six stomachs, each digesting a few points of nutrition every fifteen minutes, it still takes two hours of just digesting to provide a day’s nutrition, right? This is true, and it took near an equal amount of time to find the food.

Still, I was making good time, finding fresh spoor before nightfall. (For you urban types, spoor is what falls out the backside of an animal when it’s done with food.) Say what you want to about mass migrations, but fast is something that’s relative on that scale.

I got a small fire going, fried some nuts and seeds, and then realized I had absolutely zero mana to infuse them with. I mean, I used fatigue, but it’s like using chalk instead of salt in your recipes. The drop in quality was noticeable.

And, having seen no trace of hostile critters, I decided to put in my new moon visit to Sobek early.

The dreaming was chaotic, blurred, like it was trying to move at four times speed while staying absolutely still. Those of you who visit know what I’m talking about. For the rest of you, I’m sorry that words don’t quite fit what was going on.

Or NOT going on... but anyway, things were both more and less active than normal. It stood out.

With the dream itself blurred, it was much easier to pick out the spirits and my fellow lucid dreamers. Even racing along at speeds normally attained only by new babies, unburdened by... wait...

[You are zero years old.]

But a quick check revealed I had all my mental and emotional baggage. My brand new self, somehow still with my old System, which I couldn’t quite perceive as an entity.

In record time, pun not intended (but noted), I was among the Sands of Ages. I set about to gather my mana... and yes, found none.

Absolutely none.

“Delicious.” came the voice from (yup) behind me. “A visiting and unarmed...”

She rolled backward as I turned, the [Jaws of Wrath] ready and at hand.

“Huh.” she said. She was mostly shadow, with enough blood to not be purely black. She was part slender woman, part serpent, and part spider, She blinked the pair of human eyes at me, orange of iris. “Not quite so helpless.” she said in an approving tone.

She made a non-committal noise. “Give me a piece of fruit, and I’ll forget I found you.”

A form hidden in her shadow cleared its throat.

.....

“My master and god.” she said. “I was going to render the proper offerings.”

The tiny speck of black exuded [Mirth]. “You always do, my child, and know that it brings you much favor in my eyes.”

“Favor?” she asked. “I don’t... I mean...” Two pairs of silver orbs blinked. “It is a trick!”

“A trick to make you happy, and yet aware of my presence.” He said. “Did it work?”

Two other sets of eyes blinked. “No, it... wait...”

“I know it did.” Anansi said. “Most of my tricks work, without need for further embelishment.”

“What do you want, lord and master?” she asked.

“This one is going to be mine in a few decades.” he said. “Might I offer you an orange mixed with a strawberry in exchange for not eating him?”

“Done!” she said, snatching the fruit from him, and noisily sinking her fangs on either side.

“I know it is not yet my time.” he said, “But we must talk, you and I.”

Yes, the fruit was about eighty times his size, yet easily held in one hand, because dream logic.