five fingers

Chase Legeren woke up...again. His whole body ached more than usual.

[Why does each time hurt more than last? Who knows. Who the fuck cares. It always happens.]  Looking down, he sees that he only has five fingers. No, four fingers and a thumb.

[Damnit, why does it have to be a different species so much? Getting used to new bodies is the worst.] 

[Whatever. Time to figure out where I am, at least once I get my eyes to stop being blurry, assuming I even have them. Everything feels dry and I definitely need liquid.]

Finishing blinking more times than he can count, Chase makes out that he does have eyes and he's in what looks to be soldiers barracks. Cheap canvas strapped to flimsy aluminum to make up beds in a cramped environment?

Definitely military somewhere, either that, a homeless shelter, or refugee camp. Fingers crossed, he hopes it's the first. Based on the smell...it could be any of those.

The type of architecture is rudimentary at best, most likely hastily prepared by a race far behind his original. But at this point it doesn't matter, he's considered one of them now.

[I just wish I had solid memories of this world to work off of. I'd take any kind of help at this point.] Only basic host information had stuck, probably from the host's emotional trauma.

[Miles Carthen, that's my host name. Ledger man for a restaurant and a gentleman's club. At least I have a few hidden cash spots...assuming I can find them.] 

Thankfully for Chase, he's shifted enough times to have learned that in the beginning stages of a shift he can salvage a few of the hosts memories if he lets the body operate on auto-pilot for a bit before allowing himself to do any intensive thinking.

It's a delicate balance; think too much and you flush out the old consciousness before learning anything..but think too little and you risk hibernating in their subconsciousness for years. 

Chase once got stuck as a ride-along in a middle-aged ethereal's mind for 20 years before the host finally died. Not of Chase's fault, the host committed suicide after losing his wife and 3 children in an energy plague. Shivering at the thought, Chase concentrated on the moment. No use thinking of the past- no matter how attached he had gotten to it.

[Alright Chase, this is the critical phase. You've got this. Remember the rules and you'll be fine. This isn't your first rodeo.]

After dying 17 times before this, Chase felt that he had gotten pretty good at shifting. In his travels he developed a few rules to live by, and they've served him pretty well so far. 

Rule 1: Shut the fuck up. Only speak when you absolutely have to. Listen and mimic until you know which actions are socially acceptable to take and which aren't.

Rule 2: Identify which resources you have and what status your host has. If they were a criminal, be ready to hide.

Rule 3: Figure out habit patterns.

Rule 4: Learn if you have to consume to survive, and if so find what's safe to consume.

Rule 5: Keep observing until you're confident.

Rule 6: Try to stay alive.

Rule 1 & 4 are most important. Sadly, he'd learned those in his first life before his first death. Rule 6 Chase had to start implementing on his 8th death. The first few lives, he had been pretty liberal with his newfound lives. But then the pain of death started getting really bad.

Make no mistake- the physical pain from dying was pretty bad. However, in comparison to the pain of shifting it was now like a single drop of water into an ever-growing ocean. 

[Time to observe. Wait, what kind of mess am I in here?] Lined from wall to wall were beds filled with humanoid beings of his new species, many looking pretty beaten up, dirty, and leaking red and yellow fluids from all over their bodies in mismatched places.

[Fuck. Too disheveled for an army, too organized for a homeless shelter. This is likely a refugee camp.] 

Chase spent the next hour discreetly watching how each being moved, acted, and spoke. Luckily for him, language and basic motor skills seemed to be able to be passed from host to shiftling. After listened, he knew he was in the outskirts of a town called Aldersene in the country of Dirsch.

Dirsch was allowing refugees from the neighboring northern land of Khalla in, a land currently being attacked by a dictatorship to the northeast called Vracke. The local Dirschens were pretty kind to the Khallans, but still wary as increased crime follows large amounts of unemployment associated with refugee camps.

While basic motor skills were there, they took some adjusting.

[Just keep moving slowly, keep the clumsiness to a minimum.] After finally getting enough water into his primary face-hole and nearly choking to death, Chase was ready to explore a little.

[Flesh hosts are the worst, I'm definitely going to miss only needing to breathe to survive. And what kind of being both breathes and consumes from the same orifice? That's the dumbest thing ever!] Remembering his days of being an ethereal nostalgically, the reborn shiftling sighed.