Exploring the Known

After sheathing my blade, I gathered the courage to finally walk through my bedroom door, even though a plate of food still sat untouched in front of it (I wasn't hungry). What awaited me on the other side of the door frame was a scene of confusion and anger—a room dedicated to surveilling my every move.

Camera feeds adorned the walls, with giant control panels tucked beneath them. It was a room solely dedicated to monitoring a test subject, and the most perplexing part of it all was that I was the test subject—a guinea pig, as it were.

We remained silent for a moment before I felt a deep sense of hatred building up inside me, fueled by both Ai and myself. During the silence, I couldn't resist the sudden urge to dismantle everything in sight. I began slicing through every piece of machinery inside the room without remorse, exerting a strength I had never before achieved; steel was sliced in half, and the hardened concrete walls chipped away under the force of my sword.

When my rampage finally subsided, I collapsed onto the floor, tears of anger and sadness streaming down my face. "Why us?" my voice sounded grave and rough. "Sadness flies away on the wings of time, they say. But those who say that time heals all wounds clearly have not been locked away for a decade," said Ai, attempting to comfort me, though her efforts were barely effective.

Shakily, I stood up, using my sword as support, and surveyed the destruction around me. Even I would have called myself crazy for the devastation caused by my sword. With the room thoroughly ruined, I hesitantly glanced at my sword, refusing to believe that I somehow remained unchanged.

In the glistening moonlight hitting the blade, I looked at my reflection, feeling fearful. "Not an expected change, but a welcome one," "Huh, you're quite right, Ai. It definitely is a welcome one," I said as I continued to examine my dim reflection.

I walked back through my bedroom door and gazed into the mirror beside my desk while saying, "I guess it wasn't the last time I entered this room after all." My appearance had undergone a complete 180-degree turn, mostly for the better; my eyes, no longer the familiar walnut color, were now completely transparent, as if I had a glass iris. My hair had transformed from a light brown color, which shone in the sunlight, to a black hue I had never seen before, now refracting the moonlight.

Strangely, I didn't dislike the changes that were forced upon me, yet it was something very strange. It was as if I was a completely different person. It really was eerie.

Ai suddenly spoke in a perplexed voice, "I get you're trying to evade the most obvious question here, but it has to be said. How the hell did your complexion completely change from one hour to another?" "Do you really think I know the answer, Ai? Do you want me to give you a completely accurate description of how my body essentially became another? Because I really haven't a clue of the answer," "Of course I'm not asking you for specifics, I'm asking if you have any idea about what happened to your body, you bonehead!", "If that's the case, then no. I clearly have no idea about anything that has happened since you came out!"

We went back and forth, achieving absolutely nothing but annoyance. And after a few minutes, tiredness came over us both, so we stopped arguing over nothingness.

Once again, I stepped through my bedroom door into the now completely destroyed surveillance room. On the far side of the room was yet another wooden door. I silently approached it, opened it, and peeked through.

What awaited me on the other side of the door was a dark room that appeared to be a banquet hall fit for giants; the elongated table in the center of the impossibly tall room was a testament to my parents' extravagant taste for oversized rooms and furniture.

"This wasn't here before I was locked in, did father grow attached to something idiotic again?" said Ai, confused. "Indeed, he did. Now, apparently, the trend is things made for giants," I said, annoyed by my father's absurdity.

"I have another question. Geographically speaking, where are we?" Ai said, "Ever since we were locked in, there have been massive changes to the whole land mass made by humans. We are currently in a region known as Nyrmyth. Where precisely, I don't know. We will just have to figure that out later," I said, while exploring the banquet hall, I could still feel Ai trying to understand everything that I had told her beforehand about the new world.

After searching for some minutes for anything interesting, I found nothing. So, I had nothing to do besides walk through the next door, which was on the far left of the huge hall. It unsurprisingly led to an even bigger room, which I remembered as the living room of the giant house.

"They sure love their big rooms, don't they?" said Ai, criticizing. "They sure do," I replied.

I continued to look for any signs of human or animal life inside the house, yet I found none. Suddenly, loud beeping noises started sounding throughout the whole house. Confused, I instinctively drew my sword in one swift motion and prepared myself for any danger.

"Initiating security scan, please remain still," a robotic voice echoed throughout the room. While those words were being spoken, hundreds of purple lasers shone directly at me from every direction. I remained still in fear.