[Evolution]

I had lived a normal life. I remember the taste of pancakes as a child. The chime of my mothers voice laughing in another room. Hushed tones of my father trying to pass on life lessons from a world that hadn't existed for thirty years. Counting shoes to see who had come home before me.

Memories were easy in the void. It was quiet here, warm. Sounds were soft and lulling. There was a steady rhythm to each moment. My own heartbeat. Curious.

When the nights were particularly warm, I used to sit out with her and watch the starlight. The waves brought in the smell of wet sand and fish. And the stars. The stars used to open up across the sky like a symphony only they could hear, twinkling in and out across the cosmos. We used to talk about what it would be like, under those stars. To have a family. Our own.

We had tried.

Did we pray to Mariel then? We had given something in exchange for our greed.

What had happened to that life? Pieces of it fell together. A puzzle and I was working my way around the frame but not looking at the entire picture. I could feel my grasp on it loosen as I drifted towards consciousness.

As I came to there was only one thing I had forgotten.

I was drowning.

In the darkness I breathed in a deep gulp of fluid. I thrashed fresh formed limbs against the walls that had engulfed me. I remembered the cocoons of the dead on the ledge, unable to break out. Unable to survive. I refused.

The heavy fluid muffled my screams against the darkness. I didn't have the claws to catch the thick rubbery flesh. My limbs slid against the surface, no texture to take advantage of. I needed to gouge, to slice! My hands were useless.

There was blood in the water now. My own. I could sense its shape, its source. I had cut through my skin, deep gouges on each arm. Something hard had worked its way out. Something sharp. Blood and poison.

Weakening, I tried to catch the point into the wall. It was difficult to lean my weight to the side in the fluid environment. Every thrust forward pushed me back, suspended in the center. The momentum of my arms absorbed by the flow around me. The sharp point was my only hope.

It caught.

The little bit of leverage became an anchor. The confines of my tomb were my salvation. I could force myself against them. Building pressure on that single point. Pushing forward with my legs braced against the slippery mucus of the walls. They stretched in return, building an elastic tension that exhausted me.

Then the pressure gave out. Embryonic fluid poured into the open air. I was able to wretch out the heavy waste that closed my lungs. The structure collapsed, falling around me like a shroud, withering from the hole I had torn open. The fleshy structure had begun to rot while I was still inside it.

Able to grip now, I tore. Soon I was able to force my body through, free of the suffering heat of the wet cocoon. I had survived my evolution.

My Domain had changed , was still changing. The red glow of the tunnel stone had shifted to cold greys. The cocoon of evolution had destroyed the resting skins, growing over them. It ate through them at the edges. While the core envelope was rotting onto the ground, sections of it still lived, burying the wall. The recess it forced into the domain had the distinct form of an alter, a wide sacrificial surface. It pulsed, fluid circulating from an invisible heart.

Everything seemed dark, sounds muted.

The only constant was the boar's head, still covered and resting on its waxy dried blood. The red looked deeper now that the lights from the wall had changed. It was strange. I didn't expect the domain to have evolved when I did. I had given it the immutable label of stone in my mind. I was wrong. This new black domain spread with a determined hunger. A living thing of its own.

It's new form made the wrath from the boar's head insignificant.

It was difficult to examine my own body. I had no living mirror. No twin. This rebirth I made alone, responsible for my own destiny. Was I still one of Mariel's children? My mind seemed clearer. Waking up my first thought wasn't of my hunger, still deep and present. The memories of the cocoon stayed sharp in my mind. For the first time in my descent I had a name. Abel. Born of a human mother to human form. Wanted.

It was calming to begin resolving my two identities. Natural. Man and Demon. The past of one begat the form of the other. Living, I had known of Mariel. It could not have been a coincidence that I became one of her children. My mind still danced around the mystery of my own person. Would evolving more give me deeper insight into who I was?

My head turned about my body. A proper neck. I was no longer bound to the rigid twisting of my spine. My skin has blackened. Smooth and dark, its ashen tone hinted at the play of muscle below it. My legs had strengthened, fattened to proper limbs. small clawed feet stretched up long ankles. Springs. My arms, as long as ever, were wiry with muscle.

I looked like a proper creature. My flesh had lost its mottled nature. My limbs no longer had the fragile stretch of starvation.

My stinger had changed into a completely new armament.

Separating from my hand it has opened a void into my forearm. Thick chitin had formed plates around the opening, and the tip lay inside, dripping like red glass. Easing new muscles it dropped forward. The resulting organ was thicker and wider than the forearm that contained it. I could feel it swollen with venom. Taut and hard. The chitin plates pulled smooth as it extended. Deadly.

My face pulled apart into a stinging smile. I brought my hands up to investigate the changes.

A mouth, lip less and narrow. I could feel the tiny sharp teeth with a nimble, flat tongue. My fingers were so smooth. Unmarred by nail or claw. Soft. I ran them across my face, trying to envision myself.

I paused when my fingers ran over my eyes. Something covered them completely. Was that why everything seemed so dim? Details were still sharp. To my fingers, I felt only skin, unmarred by lash or lid. Only the gentle hint where it sunk towards the tightness of the skull.

It was pleasant to run my fingers over the skin of my throat. The freedom to turn my head denied to me for so long now within my grasp. Tracing my hands down, I came across a thick scar. An itch. A mild irritant. The deeper my soft fingers pressed into it the more satisfying scratching it became. I pressed harder, working friction into the flesh. Trying to get under the itch.

It was so satisfying when it began to tear open. Blood welling between my knuckles I dug deeper, pulling flesh apart like a zipper. Open! The taste of copper sweetened the relief even as pain blossomed along ragged edges. When I reached the base I fell forward, into my natural resting position. Blood pooled out and down my abdominal. The hole breathed out, separated.

My health dripped down while the fluids clotted.

[Hell has rejoiced in your descent. Continue your fall to power son of Mariel, Madonna of the Shrieking Cliff. Supplicants will now call upon you in her name. Award your blessing and your curse when you answer. Care for the sinner, child. Keres welcomes you where she finds you, bring the lost into her embrace.]

The frame of the Altar reached the ceiling and began to drip. Each drop piled upon the next, a thick black wax. Candles. The altar had begun to build itself candles. The living domain was spreading further, like it was hunting what remained of the stone. With a sharp, blue spark the candles lit. My mind's eye began to see its purpose. Its rites. Smoke began to collect, pooling in soft swirls.

[Evolution successful. Conditions met for organ transfer. Conditions met for a special variant.]

[Name: Abel]

[Active Title: Student of the Last Rites]

[Tier: Lesser Form]

[Caste: Shadow]

[Morphology: Lesser Venomous Devouring Cliff Wraith]

[System Translated Stats]

[Level: 1] [Experience: 0 of 250] [Status: Bleeding]

[Health: 88/150, Mana 15/15, Stamina 130/150]

[Strength: 25][Defense: 20][Magic: 5][Resistance: 30][Speed: 45]

[Native Skills: Follow, Ritual End, Demon's Stomach]

[Your Morphology has access to new organs.][Restrictions on the ability system removed. Advanced abilities and modifications are now available.]

[Your Domain has evolved to accommodate your available Rites]

[You have maintained one vestigial skill and organ.]

The maw survived.