They say when you think you're about to die your life flashes before your eyes. As I wait for the inevitable, my heart hammering in my chest as a minivan surges down the rain-soaked road I am tumbling towards, I can confirm that "they", whoever "they" are, are full of shit. Not that it matters, since if I COULD see my life flashing before me, all I'd see is someone who was overly focused on school, until the day he was in a car crash that left him permanently disabled…

All I see as the minivan moves towards me, is its driver. He is wide eyed and every bit as scared as I am! He has big, terrified eyes as he attempts to decide what to do. I can appreciate his thoughtfulness, but it's pointless. I'm not even a driver and I know that trying to do a hard stop on a wet road is considerably more difficult and dangerous than doing a hard stop on a dry road and it's still raining even as he crashes towards me.

His car is moving way too fast for it to successfully stop before it hits me and if he tries to stop it from hitting me I can tell it won't work. He's too damn close to me. The car is maybe thirty feet away, and I can tell that I am moments from getting hit by it.

As the car rockets towards me, a small part of me tries to recall how this happened. If I don't really think about it, it feels like I was just minding my business on the sidewalk and next thing I know I'm suddenly about to faceplant onto the ill-maintained streets of my hometown, but I instinctively know that that's not right. My perception of time continues to slow as I think about whatever weird confluence of events led me here.

The minute that my life changes forever seemed to start off unremarkable enough. I was in my wheelchair, waiting at the end of some street's slick sidewalk, and I could see the traffic light ahead of me. The green light was on, and in the dark and stormy weather I'm currently stuck in the shade of green it happens to looked rather unpleasant.

When I was on the sidewalk there were people around me. I didn't know any of them, but I was on my way to meet a friend for lunch, so my mood was excited. I guess I was too excited and that must have made me careless.

I continue to mentally investigate this beat as the car moves nearer and nearer to me. I spend what feels like a short eternity wondering what the fuck happened until I finally make a mental breakthrough that reveals something vital, in this context, to me.

After replaying the same limited number of seconds over and over in my head like a twisted version of Groundhog Day, I eventually realize that I am not the only person who is tumbling. On what feels like my seven thousandth mental replay of the moments leading up to this disaster I realized that I could faintly feel a hand on my shoulder right before I was moved out of my wheelchair and towards the street. In the present I can also feel someone's body heat on my back which must mean that this figure who pushed me, whether accidentally or purposefully, must also be taking a tumble…

I don't know if I should feel bad for them or not. I guess it depends on what precisely happened to me? If they pushed me unintentionally then I hope that they have enough time to get out of the way, though that's looking more and more unlikely all the time. On the other hand, if they purposefully pushed me then I'm glad we're tumbling together.

After a while of being stuck in this slow-motion hell I find that I begin to become less and less afraid. Being stuck waiting for an end, watching it move towards me at a truly glacial pace, tends to desensitize someone I suppose. At the same time the event somehow continues to become even slower. What must be less than a handful of seconds feels like one eternity and is working its way towards a second eternity.

I don't know exactly when the car froze, but at some point I consciously realize that the thing has not slowed down but has actually stopped moving completely. For that matter, so have I.

I'm not tumbling towards the ground anymore, I'm just… stuck, mid-fall. I can't move, or at least I can't move the parts of me that are responsive on a good day. My arms don't move even when I strain my mind trying to get them to do so, and my legs are somehow even less responsive than they were before. What a shitty situation…

I spend what must feel like a few whole minutes trying to move at all, and only give up when I begin to find it hard to focus anymore. I may not have physical stamina, but I still have some sort of mental stamina and it's taxing for me to try and move my muscles even if it doesn't work.

A few moments after I begin to relax I hear the first sound I have heard in what would surely be several minutes had time not frozen. It's the sound of a car door opening and someone distantly putting their feet on the street somewhere behind me. Something about all of this, put together, is… frightening. It must be the context in which this is happening.

The next sound I hear is the noise of the door they must have opened being shut and them beginning to walk towards me, their soft shoes gently hitting the concrete road I was in the middle of falling towards before time came to a stop. Time is still frozen, the car is still not moving, and I am still stuck, mid-fall, but somehow whoever is behind me is still moving towards me.

I can hear their soft footfalls as their feet contact the wet street I was just falling towards. I'm halfway happy that time has frozen my face and prevented me from physically reacting to things because even though I can hear whoever is behind me walking towards me, somehow, I'm still surprised when their voice, or at least a voice, cuts through the partial silence I was growing accustomed too.

"Looks like I got here in the nick of time. How are you feeling?" The voice asks. It is difficult for me to make out specific details about it, like whether it belongs to someone from this area, or even if the speaker is more likely to be a man, a woman, or some other gender. I halfway attempt to answer the voice, but I am unsurprised to find that I can't. When I try to open my mouth to speak it doesn't work, even when I try to respond to the voice and do nothing else. Eventually I hear the speaker let out a soft chuckle, before they speak again.

"Ah, so you aren't eldritch enough to resist something like this, yet? Hmm… That's a bit unexpected. It looks like you partially awakened your main essence, but I guess it didn't grow to the point that you can consciously use it? If it did, you ought to be able to resist something like this no sweat…" The voice informs me, causing me to wonder what they're going on about. This time they chuckle a bit louder.

"Oh! So you were at least still conscious. Okay, a partial resistance to a sweeping eldritch ability like this isn't half bad. Still, you'd think that your power would awaken enough to allow you to survive that car crash unscathed…" The voice mutters, causing my eyes, mentally at least, to widen in surprise. I don't know if they can read my mind, which sounds absurd but right now as far as I can tell time is frozen for everything around me but whoever is talking to me, so I've already left mundanity behind me.

"Hmm… I was told by Yog-Sothoth to be ready for anything. After all, it's not everyday someone finds Darkness, and ever since you were originally slain your reincarnations have all been so diverse. Still, I guess it's good that this will be easy." The voice continues, seemingly unbothered by anything it can detect coming from me. I attempt to relax and try to piece together what it's saying.

It said it was told by something, presumably someone, named "Yog-Sothoth", that it needs to be careful when it finds… "Me". I can tell that according to it I am someone, or something, or value and of power. "Darkness" is quite clearly what it knows me as, but I can't be sure if that's a title or a name.

The creature also knows of the car crash that robbed me of my ability to walk unaided by some sort of mobility device, which is something it shouldn't be able to tell happened to me with nothing more than a glance. Though I can't rule out the possibility that whatever is behind me is holding technology of some sort and using it on me.

But even then, simple handheld technology probably couldn't tell what it what it knows… Before I can think anymore, my thoughts are interrupted by the being behind me speaking again.

"Well, I guess I'll get on with it. Now if only I could remember the script every time..." The figure says, before pausing. I can almost imagine mental gears in its head, whatever that looks like, turning as it tries to recall some script for it to use whenever it finds "me". The image of that, however amorphous that happens to be, makes me chuckle internally. The thing clears its throat and then begins to speak.

"Hello, creature. I do not know your current name, but you are the reincarnation of the entity known as 'Darkness', a powerful and primordial Outer God slain in the unbelievably distant past. I am a servant of the Outer God named 'Yog-Sothoth'. She was one of your siblings in your first lifetime and she has searched far and wide for you. When you were slain your soul was separated from your body, still containing your immense power. Over trillions of eons you have been reincarnated, and slain, time and time again." The creature explains, speaking rather robotically as it reads off a prepared statement.

"The last time you were found was well over a billion years ago. At the time you reincarnated as a powerful dragon, and were on the verge of conquering a planet when a coalition of divinities banded together and deployed a team of dragon slayers, armed with blessed weapons and armor, and had you hunted down. While you took them to the grave, they made sure you perished alongside them. In the aftermath of that, a plan was made by the greater eldritch gods." The servant of my "Sister" informs me.

"It was decided that when your next reincarnation was found, you would be taken from wherever you were located and put into a new world where you could safely grow and begin to learn to use your powers safely. Now that we have found you, I will initiate our plan." The creature reveals, again causing me to do the mental equivalent of widening my eyes in shock. It's not like I can do much else other than that right now anyway. It also seems that the creature isn't interested in my opinions on this plan…

"The world you're being sent too is a world in another universe, one populated by creatures out of what this world's humans call a 'Fantasy' setting. I will now scan you before I send you off to your new home so that you can mature and adjust to your powers, instead of going crazy when they begin to activate on their own." The voice tells me, before I feel a strange pressure in my chest.

"Scan commencing… By the way, this will restore you to your prime. It'll do other things as well but given your current disabilities I figure that you'd be the most interested in knowing that you'll be able to walk again." The entity behind me explains, quite casually given what it is revealing. Hearing this makes me mentally freeze as shock stills me.

This is… I never thought I'd be able to walk again, unless I amputated my legs and received prosthetics or had extensive surgery and underwent what might well have taken months of physical therapy. Assuming I haven't gone crazy in the wake of seeing a car hurtle towards me, which might well be what has happened, in moments I could be walking again. That knowledge is powerful.

Until now I've been unsure of whether to actually believe that I am hearing a real voice. A part of me simply assumed I was hearing things, and that this is what was happening to me instead of seeing my life flash before my eyes. But now I want to believe in what I'm hearing. I want this stranger's words to be true, if it means that I'll regain full mobility.

"Hmm that's weird. There's three in here. In you. That's NOT supposed to be the case." The voice behind me eventually tells me, causing me to wish I could turn around and flash the creature a curious look.

"Not just 'The Essence of the Unnamed Darkness', but also… 'The Ultimate Chad', and some… 'Orc' essence." The creature continues, before sighing.

"This is going to affect the world you're being sent to, isn't it? Shit. I wonder if this is somehow Shub's doing? Those other essences sure feel like she put her tentacles all over them… Three essences, even if two of them radiate Shub's 'Fertile' energies, means you will be powerful from the start." The strange creature complains. It is not actually asking me the questions it just muttered, it's more that it was simply stating its frustrations out loud.

"And this fucking orc essence, man. For her to shove this thing into the soul of her father… She's weird. Even by our standards, she's weird." The creature complains, revealing that "Shub" is my daughter, somehow. And apparently she's weird, even by the standards of whatever being is standing behind me.

"Gah. Oh well, I'm way too low on the totem pole to do anything but ship you off. Anything official at least. That said, I can at least do you one little solid before I go. You are 'Darkness', an ancient and primordial being who predates most of the multiverse. Your form is whatever you choose for it to be, not whatever some freaky essence says it is going to be. If you find your form displeasing, WILL it to change. It will obey you." The creature tells me, even as I begin to feel… dizzy.

This sudden sensation is the first thing I've physically felt since time froze. While I am left reeling, mentally, from the weirdness of the dizziness I am feeling I begin to fall again. I don't hit the street and instead I fall through the thing, into… the darkest thing I've ever seen.

I fall, and fall, and fall. At first, I try to keep track of time, mentally counting seconds since I've begun to fall, but after I count to three thousand, I simply stop. It is sometime after I counted to three thousand that I begin to feel in control of my body for the first time.

I move my arms and as I do I lay my eyes on them. At first they look normal enough, like the arms that I grew used to, but while I am testing my range of motion and simply moving them around they vanish from view for one second and then reappear, looking different.

My arms were human. They were as tanned as I was, which amounts to a sort of olive-ish level given the fact that I am Hispanic and prior to the car crash that robbed me of my ability to walk I was an outdoor soccer player as a way to stay in shape. When my arms reappear in front of me they are thick green limbs that are powerfully muscled and marbled. This time my eyes don't just wide, mentally, they widen physically.

I look down for the first time since I began to fall, and I am both surprised and not surprised to see that other parts of my body have changed as well. I am no longer the somewhat short person I was minutes ago.

What I see when I study myself is something that wouldn't look out of place in some fantasy show. I possess an inhumanly muscular body and my actual muscles are a dark green color that matches my arms. I can also tell that I am much, much taller than I was before this fantastical transformation.

I am currently naked, or at least I can't see any clothing on my body, and a strange instinct in the back of my mind lets me know that it is when I am in my birthday suit that I am at my best. My body itself seems to delight in the fact that I am currently, as far as I can tell, naked.

I spend many moments studying my body. I find myself easily able to memorize what every centimeter of my new form looks like, and do so with uncanny ease. I feel smarter than I ever did before, though I'm not consciously sure why…

More time passes with me still in this bizarre realm of darkness. At one point I consider trying to keep track of time again, but when I do, I almost immediately dismiss that notion. It'd be weird for me to try and keep track of time when I don't know how long I've been stuck where I am, or even if time is passing in any way that means something.

At some point I am blinded by the abrupt emergence of bright blue sky, which seems to come from nowhere and surrounds me. I instinctively shut my eyes, but it's not enough to block out the sudden change in lighting and so when I can still see a powerful imprint of blue light, as though I've just been hit by a blue flash bang or something. At the same time I feel a touch of the strength, intelligence, and reflexive speed that I previously possessed, back when I was undressed, fade just a touch. I wonder if clothes are back on my body?

My eyes remain shut as my other senses begin to… turn back on. The first sense to be restored is my sense of hearing which informs me that I am atop something that passively emits a tremendous amount of noise, almost like a boat with a powerful engine or something. The noise is all encompassing but after a few moments it begins to quiet down, though I instinctively know that this is a result of my body and not actually wherever I am quieting down. I can also faintly hear voices around me, though none are saying anything that I can specifically make out. Thankfully for every second that passes my sense of hearing sharpens just a little, at least for now.

My next sense to reemerge changed and enhanced for reasons that remain not quite known to me, is my sense of taste. Even only doing something as simple as breathing allows me to begin to mentally map my surroundings, as I can taste the indistinct but memorable taste of metal all around me. This is right before my sense of smell begins to reactivate, and this sense is immensely powerful.

I can smell things and people around me. I loudly sniff the air around me and doing so allows me to gain a specific and somewhat detailed mental map of my surroundings, including the fact that there are people beside and in front of me. But my sense of smell does not stop telling me about my surroundings when it reveals that there are people on either side of me… My nose alerts me to the fact that there are two women on both sides of me, one on each side, and another woman cowering in front of me.

This is odd, and when I realize that there's no way I should be able to tell the gender of the people beside and in front of me based on their smell alone I open my eyes and I realize where I am when I discover that my eyes have adjusted to the bright lights that previously, temporarily, blinded me. My open eyes allow me to realize that I am atop some sort of fancy vessel that is flying high enough in the sky that I can see clouds below the ship in every direction.

The loud noise I was and still am hearing is the sound of the vessel's unique and massive engine which is propelling this gigantic ship through the air, and I am on its deck. Two human-looking women stand on both side of me, and directly in front of me is a frightened woman covered in white fur. She is wearing a helmet that helps hide some, but not all, of her hair which is that odd shade of golden-red that occurs when blonde hair is dark enough that it edges close to being red.

I can see others on the ship's deck in addition to us. Several uniformed women, all of whom are obviously muscled, though not extremely so, walk the range of the deck. These women are dressed identically, in a curious military uniform that makes them look like decorated veterans. They are all doing various tasks, such as cleaning the ship's deck or piloting the ship by carefully steering the vessel's stirring wheel.

"Captain, what do you want us to do with this stowaway?" One of the women, who is dressed in a skintight uniform that hugs her body in a way that edges towards indecency, asks me. She has a sword in her hand and is glaring at the mouse-like girl in front of me.

"Please don't throw me overboard! I just saw your ship and I couldn't help myself. It's so beautiful and high tec, and I'm an airship engineer!" The cowering figure explains. I can very easily hear the panic in her voice.

"I wouldn't have snuck abroad if I knew the captain was an orc, heading into orc territory! I had no idea what you were or where you were heading! I don't want to be eaten, or thrown overboard." The mouse-girl tells me, trying her best to look pitiable. Her last sentence comes out as a cross between a whimper and screech. I shake my head in annoyance at her antics.

"You say that you're an airship engineer?" I ask, surprised when I hear my voice come out of my throat. My voice is impressively, frighteningly low for now. The mouse-girl nods vigorously, but doesn't make eye contact with me. She's clearly afraid of orcs, which has put her in a predicament given that she both knows that we are heading into "Orc territory", and also that now she's under the thumb of someone who is both a member of the species she's afraid of and also going into said species' territory. The woman who didn't speak to the mouse-girl lightly elbows me and when I tilt my head to look at her she turns to look at me.

"Captain we need an airship engineer. If she's what she says she is true…" One of the ship's crew, a woman wearing the same uniform as her more vocal comrade waits for me to silently put together the not-so-subtle message she wants me to take away from what she's saying. I nod, subtly, at the woman, and as I do I suddenly feel my mental attention force me to not focus on what is hand.

My mind goes to and focuses on a corner of a mental abstraction of my brain that is filling with knowledge of what to say next that would work best for befriending this mouse-girl. Some of this information is also about the identities of the women on my crew, and details about my advanced airship. I even feel a short history of the world beginning to seep into my mind, arming me with broad, general knowledge of local history!

"Little mouse, you need to tell me who you are. Beyond being a tiny stowaway, that is." I tell her, speaking again and looking into her blue eyes. She tries to look away, and in doing so as I look into her ocean-blue eyes I can see my own reflected back at me. My eyes are large, scarlet things, and there is a certain dark, brooding, and dangerous allure to the decidedly monstrous look I now have. The mouse-girl stays silent for a few moments before sighing and seeming to both relax and deflate at the same time.

"Okay, I guess if me being honest might win me a friend or two onboard this ship, especially such important ones, I'll come clean." The mouse girl eventually says, sighing in self-directed annoyance before seeming to silently cheer herself up snappily and looking at me excitedly.

"My name is Cee and I really am an airship engineer. I genuinely didn't know that an orc owned this ship, or that it was destined to return to orcish lands." The mouse-girl reveals.

"I DID sneak onboard the ship when some of your crew were doing final, pre-flight checks and stowing away the most fragile bits of luggage below deck. This is the most beautiful airship I've ever seen, it was in town for less than a full day and I couldn't help myself when I saw that it was about to take off. I… I really don't want to be thrown off, particularly as we get closer and closer to the island chain that the orcish clan you're going after has made their home. Is there anyway I can stay on the ship even just short term? I know I can't convince you to abandon your mission, so I'd rather try to endure it as a good lesson, and make my way back home, mollified by that, or at least I die trying to make up the mistake I made when I first got on this ship." She eventually asks, after giving me a long-winded explanation. I silently chuckle and look at the woman who first spoke to Cee.

"I guess… for now, rather than reassigning some unfortunate crewmember to maintenance duty I can have her do it, before letting the little mouse show me what she knows about airship maintenance, construction, and destruction. You mind taking her to below deck to go and get Kathy to show her the ropes and get working?" I ask, "Kathy" being a name that was made known to me through… a means I cannot explain at the moment, but it is a name that I know belongs to a real and specific person onboard the ship.

The woman I turned to, a crewmate named Liz, nods respectfully at me and grabs the arm of the mouse-girl before dragging her off towards a hatch leading below deck. Cee, to her credit, does not complain about any of this.

More and more seemingly psychic information is beginning to flow into my mind and no one says anything to me as they all watch Cee get dragged away. There is a smile on Jade's face, Jade being the name of the other crewmate involved in this conversation.

"Excellent work captain. Showing her the difficulties that will come with being a sanitation person aboard a luxurious, and packed, vessel. If after this she actually IS an airship engineer, working with Kathy, abroad this ship, will encourage her to perform her very best when she's being tested by you." Jade says, happily.

"Still… I'm not a fan of her attitude towards you. She acted like your kind were monsters or something." Jade tells me, looking at me curiously. She has dark hair and brown eyes, and there's a look of concern etched onto her face. I chuckle quietly and the look fades, replaced by an amused one. I can tell Jade trusts "The Captain" of this vessel a lot, but I can't remember her in anyway.

For now, though, my biggest curiosity is where is this vessel heading? I know that it's apparently heading back to "My people's" territory, but that doesn't tell me what I need or want to know about where I'm heading. I need to learn more about this so-called "Orc's Territory" region, or regions, as quickly as possible… Literally all I know, for now, is that there are orcs on an island.

Fortunately, that's when I begin to glow and my decision to look down causes me to realize that I am wearing pants, right as my sense of touch begins to come back to me. I'm not wearing a shirt, which allows my powerful muscles to be seen uncaged by clothing. As I glow, a small orb of blue light detaches itself from me, and flies until it's right in front of my face. In the middle of the orb rests a single being, a creature that looks like a woman but is way too small to be a human woman, and who has super quick wings. A fairy!

"Hello there! I'm your familiar. You seem to be a bit confused, can I help you? I know lots of facts and figures that that would surely be helpful if you have questions about this world." The figure asks, her voice soft and youthful. I smile at her, not bothering to immediately question how she knows my otherworldly nature, and for a moment I simply allow myself to feel how incredible it is to stand upright on my two good legs and not be nervous about the very real, and now former, possibility of my knees and legs giving out me and causing under me to take a bit of a tough tumble.