As darkness slowly consumed my consciousness, the feelings of my body quickly disappeared. I felt detached from the world, that I became acquainted with. I found myself in a strange state. I had no perception of time or matter. I did not feel anything; no quickening heartbeat, rapid breaths, sweating, or trembling limbs.

There was nothing of the sort. Only darkness, and my own thoughts, it was a very weird experience, to say the least. My thoughts were already panicking, yet there was no body to react to the mind's signals, and therefore I couldn't even panic properly. Feeling this panic, or maybe the lack of it scared me. It was a terrible state, an unknown state that was simply unnatural. After the initial shock of leaving behind my bodily senses, my curiosity slowly began to rise. I tried to figure out something about this place, but I could not gain information from any source outside of my mind. Coming to this conclusion, I buried myself in my own memories and thinking capabilities. Soon I learned that being entirely alone with nothing but my own thoughts wasn't that bad. I could easily focus on my thoughts. They were clear and logical. Without the constant distractions of my bodily needs and continuous need to process information that was provided by my senses.

I could easily focus on one track of thoughts eternally. Understanding this, my mind slowly calmed down. Now I was ready to experiment. First of all, I tried to feel my missing body somehow, but I couldn't connect with it. After this, I tried to concentrate on one of my missing limbs with the same result. I wasn't dispirited, as it was an expected failure. Thinking about my situation in a new orderly manner, I decided to call upon all of my senses one by one.

Heat, sound, vision, touch, and scent.

Sadly, I felt nothing, only this haunting emptiness...

Some time later...

I was in this unenviable state of being for an indefinite amount of time. It could have been a minute or years since I appeared here. I had no anchor to the physical world. I had long lost any perspective of time. That was actually one of the only positive thoughts in my head, and in a peculiar way I had become a timeless existence. Time had little to no meaning over something that had no connection to physical matter.

Well, obviously I had no idea, what had happened to my body. For a time I was convinced that I died, yet after a while, I started to doubt this, I mean, my mind should not be intact if that was the case. I was able to remember very clearly all of the memories that happened to me in my life, which was admittedly not much. One time, when I was reliving my memories, I found an anomaly. As I replayed my disturbingly short memories, probably to the thousand times, I realized that I was suddenly able to conceive a new perspective.

That discovery made my spiraling thoughts stop for the first time since I found myself in this condition.

I was seeing myself walking mindlessly into the tunnel where I found the hydralisk. Yes, for some reason I became aware of this creature's name. I considered that I had likely known it all the time and that would explain why I felt so threatened by its presence. Anyway, in this case, the strangeness was not me seeing that beast on the other side of the corridor as I was now used to. Instead, as I turned at the curve, I suddenly was seeing myself from a third-person perspective, through the eyes of someone else or maybe something else.

I became horrified by this revelation. I was watching myself through the hydralisk's eyes. I had no time to understand the meanings behind this finding, which I find funny, especially in my newfound undying existence. The moment I saw myself trembling and collapsing on the floor, pathetically hugging my knees, curling into my childlike form. My mind's eyes immediately stuck to that image. I could not will away the pictures projected by my own mind. I watched that scene, again and again. That defenseless pathetic form. I saw myself, no, that creature without the power, or will to defend itself. Covering like a fool, hoping for mercy, which this world had none. I wanted to slap that fool, shout in her face to fight! I just wanted to show that coward how much of a fool she was, show the world that stamped on me the same world that made me feel so insignificant!

I wanted to...

I want to...

For a second I became aware of the burning, rage that was suddenly seizing my whole being. By consciously noticing this unnatural hate flowing into me from the very darkness that surrounded me, its power over my mind weakened drastically.

I still saw myself trembling on the floor. It made my anger boil again. I wanted to eradicate everything that was witness to my weakness. It felt so easy to let myself be consumed by this rage. The urge to destroy was oppressive, but it felt wrong at the same time. I know that I did not hate the world. Why should I try to ruin it? There was something more, following this track of thoughts I figured out that I felt only curiosity towards the world. I just wanted to understand it, to find the root of the pulsation, to learn how to control my appendages, to be able to protect myself. Deep in my mind, there were memories lifting into my consciousness, that I did not recognize, pictures from faraway lands, flickering white dots on a dark sheet, blinking in and out of existence. Stars, I found the word meant to name them, even if I had never seen any until now. They were beautiful! I really do not want to ruin this beautiful world, and even if I did I have no means to logically achieve something this surreal.

The moment I had come to this decision, I had felt the plight of apathy that I was the victim of slowly disappear. I thought I felt something. Yet it was a foreign and also an overwhelming feeling after this long state of pure thought. The forgotten feelings from my body rushed over me as my mind capabilities started to redivide themselves back to information gathering and other subconscious functions. In line with these happenings, my clarity was frustratingly compromised.

I was trying to hold back some of that intellect, for naught. My concentration slowly started to slip away, but thinking back to all the time I spent here in this darkness, I remorsefully let go of it. Continuing this would be a futile effort.

All of a sudden, without any transition, I came back to my body, finding myself engulfed in some kind of cocoon, submerged in a green liquid, that I could breathe in somehow. My thoughts were interrupted here as I was assaulted by powerful nausea, headache, and a wide diversity of pain that I had not felt before. In my suffering state, I saw darkness at the edge of my vision start to consume me again. However, I already knew how to break free from a cocoon, before it could have any chance to succeed. I had thrust my clawed fingers into the walls of this cocoon, ferociously ripping it apart, followed by an animal hiss, which I believed to be my own.

When I damaged the membrane containing the liquid and me, a powerful contraction of the living walls around me, managed to push me out of this container just like before. I was thrown onto the meaty floor with a splash of green liquid. It was a breathtaking experience, in more than one way. As I laid there on my stomach, happy with the achievement of getting back my body. I was  overwhelmed by the pain of the fall and the ever-stronger tingles all over me.

I felt relieved, now, I know without a doubt that I was alive. I wanted to think more about these things, but I felt unbelievably tired. The darkness started to take my vision once more. Now I didn't fight back. I happily let it consume me. This time it was a rewarding sleep, with bizarre dreams of creatures surrounding me while keeping a certain distance watching as I slept on the creep. I did not care about them. I only wanted to regenerate, and be left in peace... I didn't even want these dreams. I just wanted to sleep! As if on command, I stopped dreaming and lost consciousness.