Hungry. 

Eat.

Rest.  

Cold.

A monotonous deluge of repetitive thoughts and actions blurred together. An amorphouse facsimile of life, left uninterrupted for years. Possibly centuries. It did not know. 

Hungry.

The tiny dust mote continued its life, drifting aimlessly down the dark tunnels and corridors, absorbing ambient mana in the air like a filter-feeder, buffeted about at the whims of the dungeon's occasional breeze or errant breaths of it's larger denizens.  But today, It's erratic path brought it through an ancient earthen vent, depositing it in a long forgotten chamber atop a small outcropping of dull blue crystals. 

...Want?

The idea crossed the Mote's mind, barely cobbled together enough to be considered a cognizant thought. Just raw intent given the barest of autonomy. 

But the mote wanted. And so the mote took. 

Latching upon the dull gem, it felt a surge of power. As if by static, the ambient dust in the air began to clump and stick together, coalescing around the first mote as the weakening crystal slowly grew even dimmer. 

More. 

It sapped away greedily. A small globule of mud now adorned the side of the faceted stone like a tick. It grew as it drained the light from within and the dust from without, but it wanted more. 

No. Perhaps not "it".  

He. 

With that came a sudden epiphany. As if broken from a daydream, an onslaught of cognizant thought jolted through him; sparking to life, setting aflame thoughts and memories. Ideas, years of life, and a world not like this one, all of this suddenly filled every crevace of his newfound ability to think. It rattled the little orb of mud to his very core. 

But finally, after centuries, he was truly awake. 

And the first real thought in aeons finally bubbled to the surface. 

'Where the hell am I?''

------------------------

I looked around the cave In awe. Well, 'looked' around might be an overstatement. It only took me a moment to realize I didn't exactly have eyes. Actually, I'm missing pretty much all the basics. No limbs, body, mouth, or anything that could even pass as a face. I hesitate to even call myself a head, I'm more of a... lump. But despite all that, I can still somehow see. 

Albeit it, everything seems to be in varying shades of gray for me. Maybe I'm colorblind now? "Now" also being a strangely subjective term here. I've been this for more years than lived in total in my last life, it's more like I just finally remembered. 

The memories themselves are... strange. They are cefinitely mine, but they almost feel like something I watched rather than experienced. Like recalling a scene from a movie. 

I guess the fact that I know what a "movie" is, somewhat proves that these are actual memories and not just a little mud-lump hallucinating on some trippy rock magic. 

Hm... I feel as if I'm taking this all too well still. Something in the back of my mind nags me that I should be more bothered than I am... but with another one of those glowing crystals just a a smidge away, I decide I could at least sate my hunger while I figure things out. 

I prepare to step forward off my now dead crystal and towards my new goal, but- 

*spluprt*

I fall with a wet splat to the ground beneath my current perch. Looking down, I have to remind myself:

'Right. No body... Guess we're learning on the fly.'

I sag my shoulder with an internal sigh, my already squished mass spreading even further across the floor at the action. 

'Okay, pull yourself together. You got this,' I encourage myself, both literally and figuratively pulling myself back together, my form returning to a vague orb. 

'I'm going to require some kind of locomotion, Maybe I can inch-worm my way there?'

I try to contort my body to wriggle along the floor, and find myself rolling somewhat haphazardly along the rocks instead. Definitely not in the direction i wanted either. Rather, I sort of just flopped sideways. 

I won't let one failure discourage me though, I'll keep trying!

------------------------

3 hours. 

Or at least it felt like 3 hours. 

That's how long it took me to figure out how to move. Eventually, I realized I could move my mass up and forward, shifting my center of gravity enough to kind of roll around in the right direction. Since I had to had to keep re-adjusting to keep my mass "up" and not just get caught in the spin, I ended up looking like a small wave of mud. With this newfound ability, I finally made my way towards my target! The crystal!

*splurp* - I unceremoniously splat against the side. Moving is hard enough, stopping is a whole different ballgame. 

But I'm here! I latch on like a newborn to a mother's teat and begin to sap away at the light. That same strange energy fills me, and I feel the air around me undulate, before I feel the pull. Its as if gravity is increasing all around me. It's not painful, perhaps a bit uncomfortable though. The main concern is the sudden cloud of dust I find myself in as it flocks towards me! I instinctively try to close my eyes, before sheepishly remembering that I still don't have those. 

A slight grating catches my attention through the swirling dust however. It seems a couple of pebbles were small enough to get trapped in the vortex.

I keep my eye on the skittering gravel as it jolts across its uneven sides towards me, but right when I feel it's about to impact me and potentially knock my loose from my snacking perch, it instead sinks into my body, the other loose gravel following suit.  

The sudden addition sends fireworks through my mind as the extra stone incorporates itself into my being. 

It can be a shield! A core! An exoskeleton! A sudden tidal wave of potential hits me! It seems like some sort of milestones are occurring when I grow, like when I "woke up", but this time, I can feel different directions for myself. Different paths my body can take. 

'Think rationally.' I tell myself. 'What do I need right now...?' 

I pose my own question as I suckle the last bits of energy from the stones. The answer feels obvious enough though, as I look back at the amount of time I've wasted, both as dust and now as a... lump. 

'Mobility.'

I make my decision, willing my body to shift into place. I feel the stones grate and mud bubble as I force the pieces into location, but at the end of it all, I do what I had been hoping to do for awhile now. 

I stand.

Raising up, I look at my new legs. Two triangular gravel rocks make up a pair of makeshift feet, and a couple loose pebbles make up a knee and leg. All of which is housed in a fat cylinder of extra mud, forming a pair of stumpy little legs beneath my tiny orb of a body. 

Finding a new perspective, I decide to take stock of the tiny cave I woke up in. The crystals have been bled dry, and the cave is misshapen and cramped. Some mold has overtaken the moister corners of the room. It's over-all a pretty ugly little room, but it got me this far. 

I give the chanber a small nod of thanks for taking care of me. Though, with no real center joints, it turned into more of a bow. Nevertheless, I turned back to the crevace I came in through and steel my resolve. 

'Gotta be answers out there somewhere.' I tell myself.

And with that, I confidently waddle towards the light, full of hope for the future.