The last thing he remembered was pain.
A sharp, piercing pain, as if his chest had been pierced by an icy spear. Darkness closed in around him, but it wasn't peaceful. There was no light at the end of the tunnel, no comforting voices. Only a presence, something ancient and voracious, watching him from the shadows with a perverse curiosity.
"Are you scared?" whispered a voice that wasn't a voice, but an echo in his mind.
He didn't have time to respond.
His consciousness ripped, and then...
He was reborn.
His first instinct was to breathe, but he had no lungs.
The second was to scream, but he had no mouth.
He writhed, or at least tried to, but his body didn't respond as it should. He wasn't human. He wasn't anything recognizable. Just a weak, throbbing mass, clinging to the cold, damp stone of an endless cavern.
The air was thick, heavy with the smell of mold and rotting flesh. Droplets of water fell from the stalactites like tears of the earth, and each impact resonated through his newly formed being like a hammer blow.
"What am I?" he tried to think, but the words faded before they formed.
Then something moved nearby.
A rasping sound, like claws dragging on stone.
His new senses, primitive but alert, picked up the danger before he saw it. A low creature, covered in a segmented carapace like a beetle, but with overly long legs and a circular mouth full of rotating teeth, was advancing toward him.
It was a Crawler, a vermin of the surface caverns. By the standards of this subterranean hell, it was nothing more than a scavenger. But to him, at that moment, it was death itself.
"Move! Run!"
But he could barely crawl. Her body, an amorphous, gelatinous form, barely responded.
The Crawler sniffed at her, her mandibles snapping in anticipation.
And then…
Something changed.
A primal urge, older than her lost humanity, surged up from deep within her.
"Survive."
He contracted with all his might, throwing his bulk to the side just as the creature's jaws closed where he'd been. The movement was clumsy, desperate, but enough.
The Crawler grunted, confused by the resistance of what should have been helpless prey.
He didn't wait. With an effort that seared every fiber of his existence, he dragged himself toward a nearby crevice in the rock, a place too narrow for the beast to follow.
Darkness enveloped him again, but this time it was a refuge.
He gasped, if anything without lungs could, and then he understood:
He was alive.
And this was his hell now.
He spent hours, maybe days, hiding in that crevice. His body, though weak, began to adapt. He noticed he could absorb moisture from the walls, nourishing himself with the microscopic fungi that grew on the stone. Every tiny particle he absorbed strengthened him, changed him.
But he also heard the sounds of the cavern.
The distant screeches of larger, hungrier things.
The occasional footsteps of something walking on two legs.
And once, the sound of a voice.
It wasn't an animal growl, not a beastly hiss. It was articulate, intelligent.
"Nothing around here. Let's continue descending."
Human. Or something like that.
For the first time since his rebirth, something inside him, something that still remembered being a man, shuddered with hope.
"I have to get to them."
But then, another sound brought him back to reality: the crunch of bones being ground beyond the walls of his hiding place.
This wasn't a place for hope.
It was a place for survival.
And if he wanted to see the sky again, he would have to stop being prey.
He would have to evolve, change, become stronger, devour...
Hunger was a different beast in this body.
It wasn't the familiar emptiness of a human stomach, but something deeper, more visceral. A need that burned through every particle of his being, as if his very existence depended on consuming, absorbing, and degrading whatever was necessary to keep him going.
The pale fungi growing on the walls were no longer enough.
He had spent too long hiding in the crevice, fearing every sound, every movement in the darkness. But now, instinct drove him out. To take a chance.
"If I don't move forward, I'll die here."
With an agonizing effort, he slid out of his shelter.
The cavern air was colder than he remembered, and every vibration in the ground made him shudder. Its body—a gelatinous mass, barely larger than a cat's—clung to the ground, moving with deliberate slowness.
It had no eyes, but it could sense the world around it. Air currents, vibrations, the distant echoes of moving creatures. It was a primitive perception, but enough to keep it from being completely blind.
And then, it detected it.
A sweet, putrid smell.
Decaying flesh.
He followed the trail, creeping through the shadows, avoiding pools of glistening liquid that emitted acidic vapor. The scent led him to a side tunnel, where the half-eaten carcass of a scaly-skinned, lizard-like creature lay.
It was a Skitterfang, a common beast in these shallow caverns. Something—probably a larger Crawler—had killed it, but it hadn't eaten everything.
To it, it was a feast. He approached cautiously, spreading his mass over the carcass. It had no mouth, but its body began to secrete a corrosive liquid, dissolving the flesh and absorbing the nutrients. It was revolting. It was exquisite. Each bite strengthened him, filling him with an energy he'd never felt before. He noticed changes almost immediately: its consistency became denser, its movement more fluid. But then, a crunch. Something was approaching. He retreated quickly, hiding among the rocks, just in time to see another Crawler drag itself toward the carcass. This one was larger than the first he'd encountered, its carapace marked with scars from past battles. The beast sniffed the air, its jaws opening suspiciously. Something had been here. He suppressed any urge to move. The Crawler growled, frustrated, and began to devour the remains.
"I could try attacking her..."
The thought came out of nowhere, impulsive, almost violent.
But no. He wasn't ready.
Instead, he watched. He learned.
The Crawler didn't just eat; she hunted. Her movements were calculated, efficient. Every step, every turn of her head, revealed patterns. Weaknesses.
And then, when the beast was done and gone, he emerged again, filled with a new determination.
He wouldn't just survive.
He would learn.
The days—if there were days in this sunless hell—became a routine of hunting and fleeing.
He discovered he could stick to the ceiling of tunnels, thus avoiding the predators that patrolled the floor. He learned to distinguish between nutritious fungi and poisonous ones, and how to stalk creatures smaller than himself, engulfing them before they could escape.
But most important was the change.
The change within him.
Every time he consumed enough matter, something inside him reorganized. It wasn't just growth; it was evolution.
One night—or what his human mind still insisted on calling night—happened.
He had absorbed the remains of a strange creature, a thing with luminescent tentacles that emitted a ghostly glow. When it was over, something in his body shattered and remade itself.
Suddenly, he could "see."
Not as a human, not with eyes, but sensing the heat, the contours of energy in the darkness. The world became a landscape of shadows and glowing silhouettes.
And then, he understood.
"I can adapt."
He wasn't trapped in this form.
He could change.
He could become stronger.
And if that was true…
"Could I become like them? Like those who walk on two legs?"
The thought haunted him.
But before he could explore it further, the ground shook.
A roar, deep and guttural, echoed through the caverns.
Something big was coming.
And this time, there was no place to hide.