- Isekai

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents."

- H. P. Lovecraft

________________________________________

Huh. That's quite a twist.

I thought to myself as I watched the "good" ending of Dredge.

Dredge was a rather simple game where you controlled a boat and fished in the ocean. It has certain horror and lovecraftian themes making the whole game quite interesting.

One of the ending, spoilers by the way, was that you tossed a certain cursed tome into the sea and it ended up being eaten by a big fish. And said fish also ate your boat. And your player character.

Ouch!

I grasped my stomach.

Why does it hurt so much?

A funny thought suddenly intruded into my mind.

Maybe I'm the big fish and eating the cursed tome gave me indigestion. Heh...

Suddenly, black spots appeared in my sights and my vision got darker. Ugh!

*Thud*

***************

Rays of sun struggled to pierce the dark clouds in the twilight. The darkness maintained, resisting the light in the early hours.

Sounds of waves crushing onto sandy shores repeated over and over, a calm atmosphere further enhanced by the slight whistle of a gentle wind.

The screeches of seagulls woke me up.

A churning sound gurgled up my stomach and into my throat.

Cough! Hack! Urgg...

I choked and vomitted sea water and sand.

What the heck?

My mind was dazed at finding myself laying face down on sand.

I got up from my prone position by pushing my hands against the ground and took a look around.

When did I go for a holiday? I remember being in my cozy air conditioned room...

I looked around and found myself in a desolate shore. Clear water in the shallows revealed some rocks and corals but not a single fish or critter. Inland, roughly fifty meters from the water was a thick jungle. In the dark hour, the shadows caused by the foliage seemed to sway and deepen and honestly, shit looks scary y'all.

I don't see any hotels though... Not even a wooden hut nearby. Am i still in civilization?

I looked towards the sea and noticed a shipwreck.

Huh. How did I miss that? An upside down, half broken, wooden sailing ship, with tattered sails and mast. What? Am I in a Pirates of the Caribbean theme park?

Suddenly a terrible headache assaulted my mind. Flashes of memories inundated my brain.

I looked at my hand. It was small and pale. Unlike my big and fat hands.

The heck! I'm a small boy!

While admiring my youthful and smooth fingers, a small decaying and moldy wooden box was carried by the waves and knocked into my feet.

Huh. Looks like a small treasure box. Wonder if there are doubloons in it.

I lifted the unlocked hatch and opened the box. And almost threw the box away out of shock.

What the heck! Is that a human heart?

Hmm... no its too small. And why does it have black and purple veins and eight valves? And it's still pumping! What are you a zombie octopus monkey magic heart!?!?

Whispers suddenly surrounded me but I could not decipher what they were saying. The whispers grew louder and louder until they turned into murmurs. I couldn't keep my eyes of the content of the chest and soon my stomach rumbeled.

So hUnGRy...

I don't know what came over me but it was as if I was being controlled like a puppet my body moved on its own and I picked up the heart from the rotting chest and tossed it into my mouth and swallowed it whole.

As i feel the heart in my throat it seemed to melt into a cooling sludge and spread into my stomach, then the refreshing feeling spread throughout the rest of my body.

First, my sight became hazy and clearer at the same time. I could not see the fingers in front of me yet at the same time I could see every drop of water in the beach individually.

I could hear salt and taste the waves.

A deep, dark blue mist started forming around me and moved in a circle, as if I were in the eye of a typhoon.

The mist converged towards me and compressed into water and I found myself deep underwater. Yet under my feet was another sea... No... An ocean, made up of black water.

The whispers around me start to make sense:

Forgotten slumberer beyond time,

Devourer of stars,

The Depths.

More memories start filling my mind and became clearer.

This body I am in belonged to Arthur, an orphan that stowawayed in a small trader vessel to fulfill his childish misguided journey of becoming a pirate king.

The ship got caught in a storm and crashed in the middle of the sea. Everyone drowned. The shipwreck and victims were carried by the tides and washed away to an unknown island.

And now I transmigrated into the dead corpse of a drowned child. In the middle of bum fuck of all nowhere. What the heck! Why can't I transmigrate into a Japanese harem protagonist instead?

The murmurs continued to get louder so I instinctively got in a meditative pose to try and calm down and shut out the sounds.

As I breathed in and out, the whispers started to disappear and new information filled my mind.

***

Sequence 9. The Stranded Castaway.

I have gained an increased physical strength and endurance, especially in regards to resisting the environments. Dry scorching sun in the desert would feel warm and cold and stormy weather would hardly affect me.

I also gained some survival skills, such as swimming, foraging, hunting, digging and erecting shelters. The skills are rudimentary however, and I suspect I will still need to learn more either from trial and error or from a guide. But I will learn them much faster and retain the knowledge indefinitely.

I also gained an increase to spirituality regeneration when in or near a body of water. Basically water is like a mana boost to me or something...

And finally, to use my new found spirituality, I gained a skill:

Man is an island.

Passively consume spirituality to resist divination and be forgotten. Higher sequence opponents consume bigger amounts of spirituality. Can also resist corruption.

***

Sequence 9? That sounds familiar...

As I tried to recall more of Arthur's memory more and more blood drained from my face.

Fuck! This is the world of 'Lord of Mysteries'! I'm doomed!

I can't help but glance at the sky and notice a dim sillouhete of the moon.

Yep it's mother ducking red. No. Worse... It's crimson.

I had to pause as I felt something within me reduce.

Is that my spirituality? Why is it being used up by Man is an island? OH DAMN I forgot about corruption! Stupid brain! Stop thinking about moon momma! Or Mr Door.

How do you do cogitation again?!?

I entered meditation and tried to empty my thoughts and after a while suceeded by mentally singing the song 'Baby Shark'. My spirituality starts to recover, and pretty quickly too as I am near the sea.

Thank goodness for my skill! Else my transmigrator knowledge will immediately corrupt me into who knows what. Or my head will explode.

Anyway what pathway am I on? I don't remember Stranded Castaway as a sequence 9 of any pathway...

Is my true lord and savior some outer diety?

Maybe Cthulhu?

Iä! Iä! Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu~~~

Nope. No reaction from my spirituality here.

Anyway before I waste time thinking about angels and gods and beyonders, my current situation demands more urgency.

Woe is me~ Stuck as a little unalived realived boy in an island with no food or fresh water. And can't forget shelter. Will need that to survive. And sleep.

Oh holy GOO I already miss my soft fluffy bed. This is gonna suck so much....