Chapter 1: Awakening

The ground is cold and hard.

I didn't mind though.

Because as uncomfortable as it was, it served as a reminder that I was alive.

Something that shouldn't be possible.

After all, not many people survive getting shot in the head.

I didn't either, I was certain of that.

I had felt the life seep from my body.

It hadn't been a good feeling, to say the least.

So why was I still alive, even after dying? Why was I still capable of thought and feeling? Shouldn't I be feeling nothing?

I didn't know.

'Is this heaven or something?'

It's the only answer I could come up with.

'Not that it matter too much'

The only thing that mattered was that I was alive. At least, as far as I could tell.µ

'I should probably get up'

I had been laying motionlessly for a while now, attempting to find an answer to my predicament of still being alive.

So I sat up and opened my eyes.

The first thing I noticed is how dark it was.

I could barely see anything.

There was only one source of light and the light it did give off was dim.

'Where am I?'

The darkness made it hard to tell.

So I decided it was better to investigate that which I could see first.

It appeared to be some kind of glowing rock. It was laying only a couple meters away from me.

I started shuffling my way over towards it.

Yep, that was a glowing rock alright.

It was a palm sized rock, giving off a blue glow.

Around the rock seemed to be the remains of what I assume was once one of those lanterns, except instead of a candle, it seemed to have some kind of holder for the rock.

The lantern was broken now, which means it didn't really help that much.

'At least the rock isn't broken'

Since the rock was my only source of light, having it be broken would be slightly problematic.

Seeing as I had nothing else to go on for now, I carefully reached out to the rock...

...and touched it.

Nothing happened.

'Good to know it's not gonna blow up in my face... for now'

I had now determined I could pick up the rock and take it with me, that way I could alteast see where I was going a little.

So pick up the rock I did.

I moved my hand around to try and light up my surroundings.

The light, as dim as it might be, did its job.

It revealed a bunch of stone.

'It appears I'm in a tunnel of some kind'

I couldn't really do a lot with that information.

I waved my hand around some more to see if there was anything else.

There!

Something reflected the light from the rock.

I once again shuffled my way over.

When I got close enough to be able to make out what the rock had revealed, my stomach turned.

It was a corpse.

It appeared to be a man in his twenties. He had short, brown hair and was wearing what looked to be some leather armor.

It evidently hadn't done it's job very well, because he had massive wounds on his chest with the armor being torn apart in those places.

The wounds appeared to be from a claw. A claw from something big, gauging from both the size and depth of the wounds.

'I hope I don't run into whatever caused these wounds'

The corpse hadn't been what reflected the light though. That had been the sword laying beside the corpse. It had a few cracks in it, but still seemed to be in usable state.

Not that I knew how to use a sword.

Seeing the corpse and the armor it was wearing reminded me of something.

'I'm naked'

Despite there being no one around, I still felt uncomfortable.

I looked at the armor the man was wearing again.

'Nope, even if it wasn't covered in blood, stripping a corpse is not something I want to do'

I looked around with the rock to see if there was anything else of interest around, but found nothing.

'Guess it's just John Doe and me here'

The more I looked at the corpse, the more a strange feeling welled up inside of me.

It felt like... hunger?

'No, I'm not hungry, this is something else'

Following my instincts, I shuffled forward a little more, and reached out to the corpse.

What happened next was... interesting.

My hand turned a crimson red, as if the skin had been peeled off.

'What'

I was having difficulty understanding what was currently happening, so I did the only logical thing and stopped thinking all together.

Instead I just followed my instincts and put my hand on the corpse.

What happened next was even more interesting.

With morbid curiosity I watched as the same thing the happened to my hand, happened to the skin of the corpse.

And then... I stared absorbing it.

I don't know if absorbing was the right word. It was like the corpse was getting sucked into my arm, like some kind of messed up vacuum cleaner.

I just sat there, completely still, until nothing remained of the corpse.

Even the armor got sucked up.

For another few seconds I sat there. Just staring incredulously at my hand which had now turned back to normal.

'I'm just gonna pretend that didn't happen'

I finally got up from the floor, after sitting there for who knows how long.

And before I even fully stood up, something else happened.

My body started shifting.