In one of my earliest lives, the 7th, I awoke with the rain hitting my face hard. It took a long-time for my new body to rebuild. I lay there unmoving, feeling everything, nerves screaming as they reconnected, bones grinding back into place, and the unique sensation of water drops hitting your unblinking eyes.
Later, when I could move, I found myself on a muddy battlefield in the pouring rain. Corpses of what appeared to be villagers and badly equipped soldiers surrounded a dark mound of bleeding flesh. The mound was still breathing in fits and starts, its heaving breath sending ripples through the mud. I slipped several times as I picked my way around the bodies lying in the torn-up field, grabbing a spear that had somehow managed to survive intact.
More details of the bloody mound became clear as I moved, keeping my distance and the spear pointed towards it.
-Fuck this thing is huge and gauging from the size of the ripped-up field, its fast too.
The beast was a six-legged, furry reptile. The short thick claws on its hind four feet were caked in dirt, while the longer thinner claws on its front legs were cracked and broken, sliding in and out of its long feet as it pawed the ground weakly. Blood slowly ran from puncture holes and long slashes while it rolled its head weekly in the mud, struggling in vain to get back up. The huge slitted eye finally stopped rolling and locked on to me, the huge slit pupil narrowing down as the long claws extended fully.
“I don’t know what happened here, but there is no way I’m leaving you behind my back after all of this.”-Me
I waved the spear around the beast’s field of vision, and the beast heaved itself a few dozen centimeters towards me then collapsed into the mud again.
“And that just proves my point.”-Me
I forced myself to move my aching joints. Making my way around the beast I picked up several broken weapons out of the wet goopy mud and lined up with the beasts under belly. I could see quite a lot of wounds on Its sides, but there were few on its vulnerable underside. I dug my boots into the mud and threw a broken sword as hard as I could at the beast's soft looking belly.
The creature bellowed at the hit and thrashed around on its side, splashing mud and unidentified bit around. The beast managed to shift itself about a meter closer to end up where I had been standing. When the huge monster had started to thrash, I slipped and slide away in a mad dash through the mud.
-Fuck. Way more alive than I thought it was.
When the beast stopped moving, I moved back and tossed the next broken weapon. This time, as the beast thrashed around it managed to roll onto its belly, covering its obvious weakness. It continued to huff and breathe raggedly, but now it had a whining tone to it.
“Damn, I didn’t think you still had enough energy to roll over. How am I supposed to kill you now?”-Me
I slipped and slid through the rain and the mud till I could get a better angle on a large cut across the beast’s front quarter. The rain had washed the mud and blood out of the wound, leaving a rend through its fat and muscles viable. I spotted a bit of white bone in the wound and heaved a broken axe blade in a spinning ark towards it. The creature bellowed as the heavy axe head slammed into the exposed bone, its clawed front arms sort of spasmed across the ground towards me.
I watched as the beast’s laboured breathing got shallower, it’s eyes no longer able to focus on me as I moved cautiously through the mud. Minutes passed as I approached from another angle, aiming for a slash mark on the creature's neck. I lined up and rammed the head of a wide bladed spear into the slash send a new wave of blood into the mud. The beast weakly thrash it’s head trying to dislodge the spear, sending me flying back into the mud.
-This is more like putting down a wounded animal than a desperate fight now.
I pushed my hands down into the mud, getting up to my feet, and threw myself back onto the broken spear shaft. The beast struggled again as my weight drove the spear deeper into the wound. my legs scrambling in the mud trying to keep control. Finally, the beast stopped with a final long breath out.
With the beast's end, all energy seemed to drain out of me. I slumped down into the mud, no longer able to hold onto the broken haft of the spear. The rain continued to pelt down as lay half propped up against the dead beast, the water washing the splattered blood and dirt off my face.
“This world fucking sucks.”-Me
-You can say that again.
I wanted to yell, but all I could muster the strength for was a whine. I held up my hands, seeing them shake from the adrenaline, or the fear.
Eventually the heavy rain stopped abruptly, the clouds having passed, letting the bright sun through to reveal the true horror of the field. Broken weapons were scattered amongst equally broken people, and an innumerable number of dead monsters. The scene was so encompassing and horrific that it was surreal. My attention was caught by a large droplet of water hanging from a finger, unmoving, the refracted the sunlight into a bright point. I just stared at the point, feeling numb, knowing that the moment I looked away I would have to face the reality that I was so alien to my life. A reality I was desperate to escape.
Motion in the periphery of my vision broke me out of the mindless daze I had fallen into. A dog sized, winged lizard had just landed on a corpse. At a quick look around, I could see more scavengers were appearing out of the dense growth beyond the field.
-All this blood is going to attract predators. I should move.
I remained sitting against the dead beast, watching as more and larger scavengers appeared, tugging and ripping choice bits from the mangled and broke dead. I could feel the disconnection to what I was witnessing settle on me like a thick glass wall molded against my new body.
-It's like what an uncensored nature documentary would look like. Battlefield ecology, narrated by Bruce. Hahaha! “I’m your host Bruce, and today we're here to witness the intricacies of the post massacre battlefield”. I really should leave now.
But the glass was heavy and comfortable, insulating me from the world. The bloody mud, the mashed grain stalks, the lizard/birds fighting over an eyeball, all were safely on the other side of the glass. Nothing I could do about the horrific scene, nothing it could do to me.
-Hey that looks like a wolf. Ha, the small scavengers are scattering when it gets close. I should move before I have to fight something like that.
The 6-legged green wolf slowly walked through the battlefield towards me, occasionally growling at any of the smaller creatures that didn’t move out of its way fast enough.
-It hasn’t stopped to eat anything yet. “The powerful Emerald Hexa-Wolf walks the post battlefield, distaining lesser offerings, seeking out only the most delicious of meats!” I wonder if bits of live reincarnator count as delicious?
As the Hexa-Wolf got closer, I could see that its fur was a mottled collage of greens and greys. Its Paws were quite large with wide nails that ended in sharp flat edges, like the end of a chisel.
-Why would it claws be flat? Sort of like a shovel head? Do Hexa-Wolve burrow, or dig out their prey? What do you say Bruce? “No clue mate, but it looks like you might find out firsthand.”
The wolf had made its way through the mud and stopped a few meters away from me. It sniffed the air while looking at dead beast, then looked back at me. It curled its lips back, revealing its sharp teeth, growling from the back of it throat.
-This shouldn’t be happening! I shouldn’t be here! This isn’t real! Wow, he has a lot of yellow teeth, the nails probably make it hard to hold a toothbrush.
The wolf moved slightly to one side, continuing to growl, eventually letting out a sharp snarl as it snapped it teeth together. The glass seemed to get even thicker, almost seeming to press me out of this foreign body I was in.
-That’s it! It’s not real. You can’t body jump into dead people. I'm trapped in VR. No, a Coma. This is all just drugs and bits of conversations my body can hear while I lie in a hospital bed somewhere.
The wolf barked again, then lifted its front paw to step towards me. I could see the wolf tense up, it’s chisel like claws digging into the mud, and I didn’t matter. The glass seemed so thick and heavy now that I knew that I couldn’t be hurt. Nothing could even touch me, the real me, trapped here till I woke up again.
The wolf growled deeper, its hind end dropping, when the beast I was leaning again moved. I could feel the beast vibrate as a bellowing growl of sound caused the scavengers to bolt in a mad flurry. The wolf’s muscles rippled along it legs as it leapt away, racing in a low streak towards the tree line. I watched as within moments the field was empty again.
-How fucking scarry was this beast when it was alive? It is dead right? Well, It doesn't matter if it isn’t. I bet it’s a representation of my childhood fear of the closet monster, or something like that. “The cunning Hexa-Wolf knows when he is outclassed, fleeing temporarily so he can fight another day.” Shut up Bruce! You're not helping.
The rumbling soon stopped.
-Yep its dead. Take that you stupid dog!
Then it hit me. The impenetrable glass shattered as the foulest, most putrid smell I had ever felt pierced through my face and licked my soul. I retched, heaving whatever was left in my stomach as I scrambled through the mud to flee the corruption that threatened my very core. I made it several meters before I collapsed, looking back to see what Chuthulian Horror was about infest me, or wear me like a sunday broach on its oozing, pustulant skin.
The smell made my eyes water, so it seemed to take forever before I could see anything, but the stinging finally subsided. I could see the beast’s corpse kind of relaxing as a huge pile of dung was slowly pushing the mud away from it back end.
I could hear someone laughing.
Fucking asshole, that wasn’t funny! That smell is indescribable. Wait? Someone else survived?
I frantically looked around, then stopped when I realized that I was the one laughing.
-Ohhh... That can’t be a good sign.
….
It turned out that the previous owner of my 7th body had belonged to some “The cataclysm is nigh!” religious group that had travelled far into unknown lands seeking to flee the coming of “The God Fall”. I never did figure out all of the details.
Unfortunately for them it wasn’t some deific supernatural event that wiped them out. Just time, disease, starvation, despair and in the end, a really hungry giant reptile monster driving a small horde of monsters through their only surviving wheat field.
This body is also the one where I learned that maybe not everything gets fixed when I wake up in it. This life I came to experience Me: Human, Bat shit Crazy.
I spent two years, sort of surviving it the musty hovel this group had built in the forest. A collection of falling apart huts, and a somewhat descent large warehouse/church/town hall on the shore of a large lake. I say sort of surviving, because I didn’t spend much time working on the survival part of being trapped alone in an unknown jungle. I did spend a large amount of time telling Bruce to shut up as I chased monsters to eat and worked on my “projects”
I ran around naked covered in mud and feathers trying to learn how to fly. When that didn’t work, I spent days laying on a raft floating on the lake in an attempt to learn how to feel weightless, communing with the sky. I burnt places that should never, ever get a sunburn.
I talked to Arnold, the fist sized Matis-spider that lived in the roof over the well, till we had an argument and he bit me. It's hard to forgive a friend when your hand swells to a ballon size and several fingers fall off, but we did the work, and our relationship was the better for it.
I burned a giant wooden effigy of Edison that took me two months to build. If the fucker hadn’t invented electricity, I wouldn’t be on life support and stuck in a coma. Yes, I knew it was Mr.’ Franklin who was responsible electricity, but he was such a nice guy, and fuck Edison.
Later I made Drow-Snowmen from the ashes when it rained. They were snobby, judgmental pricks that soon had taken over the town's government. When the coconut tax got raised to the point that Arnold had to take out a second mortgage on the well, we rose up in protest. What we would later call “The Ashen rebellion” drove the Drow-Snowmen into the lake, never to be heard from again. We also never found out why it was called the coconut tax, seeing as there were never any coconuts in this jungle.
Every night, me and Arnold would listen to the nurse that was caring for my comatose body. How she was taking night courses to become a para legal, or when she gossiped about which nurse was sleeping with which doctor this week. We cheered when she told us that her problem neighbor had been arrested for running a counterfeit purse ring and she was able to buy the apartment at the forfeiture auction. We cried when she told us about the life-advice her favorite mentor nurse had given her, just before dying from a fast-acting cancer. We even threw a party when she eloped with the hot, mysterious maintenance guy that turned out to be the super-rich anonymous donor that had saved hospital from closing.
I finally died when the giant catapult I built so I would be fast enough to finally catch the emerald Hexa-Wolf, exploded in spray of blood and splinters. Arnold told me it was a bad idea to carve ACME into side of the catapult, but hell, its traditional.
Thank you for the chapter