With food, water, and exhaustion as an afterthought, time passed Reed by as he sat atop the platform. The unchanging red-orange glow of the world continuously filtered through the window beside him, giving no indication as to the passing hours, days, months, perhaps even years. It was of no importance regardless.

Two misshapen masses of flesh stretched through the air above the research room, their point of origin none other than the wiry young man sitting atop the raised platform. The masses that had once been limbs roiled over the room, each one in a state of constant transformation independent of the other. Blood, flesh, and bone dropped from both appendages as they shed materials, only to rapidly grow back in a variety of different shapes.

Eventually, the two masses ceased in their constant morphing. The continuous growth stopped and the limbs rapidly began to unravel, shedding their mass as they grew smaller in size and length. As Reed’s arms regained their original appearance, his eyes that had been glazed over with the appearance of a soulless husk gradually regained their luster. He blinked a few times as if waking up from a long night’s sleep, before steadily getting to his feet. His hands and arms went through the slight motions of stretching as he walked to the edge of the platform and peered over.

The large, open room that had once been located beneath him was no more. Encompassing his gaze instead was a veritable sea of human remains. The desks littered with tools of research were completely obscured from Reed’s sight, and the platform that had risen at least thirty feet into the air was now less than a third of that distance from the surface of bodily remains.

While training his powers, Reed had gained an added boon that he had not planned for. His ability to ignore physical necessities, combined with the insane amount of time that he spent focused solely on training had led to him gradually becoming capable of tuning out the outside world and discarding excess thoughts. It was by no means supernatural and had taken an ungodly length of time to become skilled at it. But, eventually, Reed had gained such proficiency at it that he could only compare it to a monk’s meditation.  It was this warped version of meditation that had allowed him to train for such a length of time that it resulted in the ocean of remains he had produced.

As he gazed down at the mess he’d caused, Reed noticed a distinct lack of the entrance through which he typically entered and exited the room. He entertained the thought of digging through the sea of his own remains for only a moment before discarding the idea. Instead, he turned to face the large circular window that he had spent so much time sitting next to and reached a hand towards it. His hand rapidly extended, transforming into tendrils of flesh as he had seen the crimson-wrapped figure do so long ago. It smashed into the window, sending glass shattering into the stone streets below before twisting around the frame’s perimeter, getting rid of the remaining shards.

Reed stepped onto the empty window frame after discarding the flesh used in his attack and peered at the ground below. It must have been close to a hundred-foot drop. He knew there was nothing to worry about, such a distance wouldn’t have killed him even before his recent improvements. And yet, his feet didn’t move. Reed’s eyes stared at the stone pathway below with trepidation while his index finger rapidly twitched, frantically tapping against his thumb.

A light gust of wind stirred him from the ramblings of his inner thoughts. Reed’s gaze shifted from the distant streets below to the pointed and spiraling tips of the city’s architecture that seemed to reach for the endless haze of light that descended from above. His eyes closed shut and with a deep breath he took a step forward. Air whistled in his ears as he hurtled to the ground, his eyes remaining clenched shut as he tensely awaited impact.

The sound of cracking stone resounded out as Reed hit the ground. He felt the sensation of the force of his fall dispersing into his legs and… wasn’t affected by it. He opened his eyes to see that his feet had penetrated into the ground while the surrounding stone had cracked and shattered from the impact. His knees hadn’t even buckled. 

Reed extricated himself from the street and spared a glance upwards at the now open window far above him. He couldn’t prevent a tired smile from worming its way onto his lips, as his gaze shifted back to the street he stood upon. For the first time, he began to travel beyond the research building, heading deeper into the city than ever before.

Reed’s surroundings didn’t change much as he continued to progress along the road. The imposing gray architecture followed him along on either side, while the destruction of said buildings still appeared commonplace. If anything, it seemed to be getting worse the further he traveled. Corpses of the gray denizens began sporadically appearing along the street and inside some of the ruined buildings. They were all mutilated in various ways, some cleanly bisected or beheaded, others looked to have been viciously killed by an animal of some sort, and there were a few that had been mangled to such an extent Reed could only assume they were of the same species.

Like the evidence of the city’s destruction, the bodies too grew more numerous the more he walked. As he stepped over corpse after corpse, Reed could only wonder what had occurred to cause such devastation. As his eyes scanned the devastation scattered along the street and dotting the structures on either side, a hint of movement emerged in his vision. Ahead of him were two creatures that appeared very much alive.

They were canine in form, although lacking the typical fur in exchange for a covering of bone shards. Jagged teeth sprouted out of their maws in such an erratic mess that the beasts stood no hope of ever closing them. They were the same type of creature that populated the complex of cages Reed woke up next to in every iteration, although larger than even the fifteen-foot-long beast he had seen in there. The two he was currently looking at had to have been approaching two dozen feet in length.

One of the beasts stalked along the street while examining the bodies that populated it. Sitting on the bone plate atop the creature’s back was the figure of a person. Their stature was of a far larger size than the typical denizen and was covered head to toe in something that looked similar to leather armor, presenting the same gray and white colors that the robed denizens adorned. However, the bone fragments that speared through the figure’s body and kept it fastened atop the beast postmortem dispelled the illusion that the creature might be a steed.

The other beast lay on the ground dormant, the only indication that it was not a part of the scattering of corpses adorning the street was in its eyes. The three tendrils holding its ocular organs hovered in the air around the beast’s neck whereupon they were attached. The eyes were scanning in different directions, therefore it was no surprise that it spotted Reed shortly after he did them.

A high-pitched shriek resounded from the beast, alerting its companion as the creature sprang up to its paws. Both canine beasts locked their three eyes upon Reed as they stalked towards him in tandem. Reed stood in place, waiting for the creatures to make a move, but they only continued to approach at a slow pace. As the beasts grew closer, their speed dropped more and more until they were practically moving at a crawl. Rather than continue waiting, Reed decided to take action.

He was just about to rush the two beasts when something slammed into him from behind.