Hi there everyone, with this iteration of the novel, I'm not... well honestly I'm just not bothered to do the content warnings every chapter. So, I'm just going to do a generic one here for the content that'll likely disturb people in this series.
The series has a whole bunch of pre-colonial mythology stuffed into it, so everything from cannibalism to mind fuckery is on the table.
The main bad ones are:
- Cannibalism, People eating each other out of desperation.
- Murder, of every kind.
- Trauma, Characters are purposefully exposed to things that'll become Traumatic, including child abuse, animal abuse and general shitty behaviour.
- Occasional queer-phobia, some internalised Homophobia from some characters, some more out and loud assholes who push it onto other people, though it is never more concentrated than small doses.
Things that are avoided:
- Mind Control, minimal mental influence will be placed over the characters, mostly just changing memories or controlling people's limbs, nothing deeper.
- Sexual crimes, The most that'll happen in regards to depraved Sexual acts, like rape or sexual assault, is one or two characters threatening it, everything else is consensual.
This'll be the first and last warning!
Also, as a final warning, a good chunk of characters are to some degree are queer, Sally especially. However it isn't too involved in the main theme or story, and isn't directly brought up until chapters 50-75.
—A Troubled Teen—
I was in an empty sky, an endless blue expanse in all directions.
I suppose that I was also there, but not in any sort of tangible way. Like a camera on a filmset, Known but never seen.
I liked it that way, being free to fly without having to worry about anything at all.
***
A fist banging on the door tore me out of my pleasant dream, dragging me to wakefulness with a groan.
“What?” I hoarsely shouted, feeling vaguely like throwing something at the source of the annoyance, but 'twas defeated by the door between us before I could even try.
“Don’t you have something to do this morning?” My Mom retorted, rhetorically enough that I believed she must be in on a joke being played on me.
I spent a few seconds wondering what the hell she was talking about, and a growing sense of unease come over me, like I’d forgotten something important. I looked around my room, full of things that I don’t really care about. From poster frames where I hadn’t bother to replace the stock photos and furniture that looked like it’d been stolen from an Ikea display.
I looked at my desk for clues, the office chair filled to the brim with baggy T-shirts and whatever pants didn’t look too ugly with them. They were stuck in the purgatory between clean and worn once too many times to go back in the closet.
With a groan I rose from my bed, and woozily wandered over to the desk. I pushed around and picked at the scattered pieces of paper, finding notes on all of my subjects. It took a few seconds of blankly staring to remember that I’d been gathering all of the year’s schoolwork to make the allotted two pages for the exams.
Right… The exams…
The extremely important final exams that decided what University courses I could get into.
When did they start again?
I glanced over at the LED display on the bedside table and squinted at the blinking red numbers.
8:43 am, the numbers feeding the quickly rising anxiety in me. I grabbed my phone out of the pocket of a pair of discarded pants and opened it, navigating until I found the website holding the details for my exams. It’s starts at nine… And it’s at best a twenty minute trip there… And I’m supposed to be fifteen minutes early.
“Fuuuuuuuuuuuck.” I moaned in the general direction of whatever force of fate decided to fuck me over this morning. I stood there staring at the ceiling for a few seconds before realising that I didn’t have the luxury of moping about the unfairness of the universe.
I practically dived into the pile of clothes and dug through it, smelling any parts of my school uniform to see if I could get away with wearing it. After spending a few minutes that I didn’t have searching through the pile and the closet, I gave up pretending that I cared and threw on the creased and slightly stained clothes. Not at all meeting the minimum standards the school has, but it’s not like they can punish me for it when I’m only at there for the exam then coming straight home.
After buttoning up the collared shirt and failing to smooth out the creases, I decided to shove all of the paper notes I could find into my school bag and take it with me out the door of my room.
Then I faced my next challenge, the treacherously cramped hallway filled with my parents’ personal museum of all of the tourist traps they’ve fallen for. Each side of the already small passage was lined with idols and trinkets, the crude handiwork was obvious even to a high school student. Unlike the other junk, there was also the shattered remains of a carved pearl. It was a gift from my uncle to my mom before she got married, which I would say was the most valuable thing here, but it’s been separated into a dozen pieces.
I shimmied past all of the shelves and tables filled with woodwork and carved stones, stopping before one of the few things from the collection I genuinely despised. It was a large mirror around the same size as a person, with cheap wooden edges that always gave me splinters whenever I got dragged into moving it around the house.
This thing always seemed to freak me out, making creepy reflections of me whenever I walk by it at night and always highlighting my worst features whenever I looked. Making my unshaven stubble look like dirt and muck smeared on my face, twisting my body ‘till it’s even more lanky than usual and making my face completely forgettable. It somehow made my ‘meh’ looks become ‘ugh’ every time I looked into it, like right this very second.
I stared into the mirror for a bit, appreciating the fact that while I may be ugly, it’s an unremarkable sort of hideous. You wouldn’t notice me in a crowd, but if you did, you’d definitely ignore me. I noticed my long knotted hair and decided to take a minute out of my borrowed time to quickly neaten it up, taking a comb made of ivory that’d been left on a nearby shelf and getting rid of the obvious clumps.
My hair was the one thing about me that I kind of appreciated, unlike my rather thin and gangly arms, legs, chest and well—just about everything else. I didn’t really care about working out and getting muscles, unlike my friends.
“Nah, why’d I want to be a gym rat like them?” I laughed to myself, wondering why my group of friends were obsessed with protein count and other gym nonsense. I really couldn’t understand the appeal of sweating that much for such a minimal reward.
I shook my head, breaking the distracting train of thoughts and refocusing on the bigger problem at hand, failing my final exam of high school. I rushed out of the hallway with a renewed sense of acute anxiety, flying into the kitchen like an agitated raccoon. I ignored my mum who was busy experimenting with some veggie that I’d never heard of, and probably in the process of creating a new and unholy food group that’d be worshipped by middle aged moms everywhere.
“Late again?” She sarcastically asked with a soft smile, like she wasn’t the one who woke me up late enough to almost miss my exam.
“Not my fault.” I quietly grumbled, my Mom giving me a smile that anyone else would assume was kind, but I knew better.
“I distinctly remember you telling me that you’d set an alarm?” She rhetorically asked in a sickly sweet tone, both caring and finding amusement in what I have to begrudgingly call a situation of my own creation. I scowled and flippantly waved a hand at her while trying to stop myself from laughing, still finding the situation as a whole funny—even as she giggled at my misfortune.
“Wait a second!” She called out before I could do anything, walking over to me and giving me a bear hug.
“Good luck out there.” She wished me well, an electric tingle of nervousness going up from where she hugged me and into my brain as she reminded me of the exam I was already late to.
“… Thanks. See ya’ later!” I called out as grabbed a banana for breakfast and ran out the door. I launched myself out into the world, running on cracked tiles with weeds popping through the gaps, until I reached my bike chained up by the fence that lined the front of my property.
Within a minute I was racing down the sidewalk, swallowing the last of my banana and tossing the skin into a passing bush. Unfortunately a traffic light at a busy intersection stopped me in my tracks before I could get any further.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
I anxiously stood there with one foot off the pedals to hold me up, staring at the red little man on the pole across the street, wishing for him to turn green. Usually I’d ignore the lights, but the busy morning traffic dissuaded me. As I stood there, I renewed my resolve to get through this and achieve a decent enough score to get into an okay university.
A sigh leaked from my mouth, and I wondered if university was going to be any different from high school. Currently it just felt like a cardboard cut-out of a life, something everyone told me was right, but just felt hollow and leaving me lacking in any sort of passion or desire to continue doing it.
I did math course because I was good at it, not because I liked it. While there was some gratification in being good, or rather prideful satisfaction in being better than most people, it didn’t make the activity itself anymore enjoyable.
Another sigh left my mouth as I wondered if I’d ever get over the general apathy that left every option feeling bland and wholly uninteresting.
Maybe things would change when I finally got a girlfriend and stopped being so touch-starved, maybe-
I snapped out of my thoughts as I noticed the little red man turn green, unsure of how long it’d been flashing for as I pushed off on my bike and raced across the road.
After a few seconds of furious peddling, I looked back up at the traffic lights and was surprised to see a red man staring back at me already.
That was fast- *HOOOOOOOONK* *HOOONK*
I looked towards the sound of the truck horn in a panic, absolutely helpless as I watched the optimus prime look-a-like barrel straight towards me and-.
And then everything turned to black.
***
Isn’t something meant to happen?
Did I… Die?
All I could see was pure darkness, Up, down, left to right, forwards and back, just inky black. I felt like I was floating, weightless and adrift in a liquid I couldn’t feel, like a sensory deprivation tank.
I let myself drift for a bit, both mentally and—I could only assume—physically.
Could I be in a coma?
I tried to remember whatever details I could about comas from all of the medical dramas I’ve watched. I think being conscious while in a coma isn’t impossible, but I don’t think there could be anything more torturous than being awake but unable to move or open your eyes for months at a time.
But then a strange sense of warmth came over me, and I stopped bothering to think.
***
Is this what dying is like? Surely something more happens than just perpetual limbo. But I can’t really be dead, I shouldn't be able to think about it if I my brain was much… I think? Though, if I was dead, then what would my friends and family do, hold a funeral?
Oh god, would they check my computer? Hopefully they don’t check that. Not that there’s bad or disgusting stuff on there, just some novels and comics that would be really, REALLY, hard to explain posthumously.
I tried to shake my non-existent head of the depressing thoughts. If I was stuck here for a while, I didn’t want to deal with the existential dread of possibly being dead for that long.
***
Though if I died, am I getting reincarnated?
Well if I am, it’s probably the Buddhist version, and I’m going to be reborn as a cockroach if my karma is anything to go by. All of the other ones seem a bit ridiculous, like the isekai tropes, as tempting as the idea was. Like if God appeared and said ‘oopsies, accidentality hit you with a sixteen wheeler, wanna reincarnate with the ability to do whatever war-crime you want?’ I would throw something at them. Whoever let a God senile enough to make a mistake like that and run a reality must be just as dementia ridden, though it would explain the genocides, diseases, miseries, and billionaires the earth had to deal with.
I grumbled to myself for a while—well, at least I tried to, but I couldn’t really tell if I still had a mouth. Or anything else for that matter.
But I couldn’t deny that the idea of having another life with brand new prospects didn’t sound tempting.
But that’s not exactly realistic, and with nothing else to do, I waited a while.
Then a while longer.
And longer.
Longer.
***
At some point, things started feeling a bit cramped, and if I was paying any attention to my surroundings I would’ve realised that I’d been forced into a foetal position. But it was enough to make me uncomfortable, causing me to unconsciously flex against the walls that tightly pressed against my limbs.
But a crack and bright sparkle of white light jerked me back to reality, shocking me out of that weird dreamless sleep. I focused on the holy ray, my thoughts slowly reviving at the sight of it.
Could I really get out of this place?
Before I tried to escape, I considered that ‘going towards the light’ might mean dying, in a permanent, ascension to heaven, kind of way. While I'm flattered at heaven's offer, the other option of staying inside this dark cocoon felt just as tempting, enough that I considering staying.
But all of those thoughts went out the window when I saw the light flicker. Screw it, risking dying and going to heaven is better than this stagnant hell.
I tried to move towards the light, but consciously realised for the first time how tightly my limbs were pressed against my body, and that every attempt to move them was met with failure. And with that realisation I started to panic a little bit, and by a little bit, I mean the all-consuming claustrophobia you’d feel if you’d been buried alive.
A few a seconds of struggling uselessly, I pushed forwards with my head, the only movable part of my body that could control. I could feel the brittle wall around the crack, and tried to force my face through it. I think it worked, judging by the cracking noise that followed, and that my limbs could move, but only a tiny bit.
Immediately used them, scrabbling at the walls with what felt like surprisingly long nails, pushing and pulling bits of the cage around the crack, and widening it with every movement.
At this point I felt a manic energy driving me, a primal instinct urging me to escape this claustrophobic hell. I gave one final push at the enlarged hole and with surprising ease I broke through, tumbling and falling onto hard cold stone.
The sudden bright light blinded me, leaving me only able to feel the floor leaching the heat from me, quickly replacing the warmth of the gooey liquid encasing me.
I groaned, and then squinted with confusion as I heard a pathetic noise come out my mouth. Why did I sound like a whimpering kitten?
With all of the effort that I could muster I tried to stand up, and failed immediately. Something about my limbs wasn't working the same way, and breaking out of that place had left me exhausted. I decided to make do flopping my head into an upright position, and as my eyes adjusted to the light soon after, giving me a surprisingly wide view of the whole… cavern?
It took my brain a few seconds just to parse the idea that I was in cave, and not some sort of building made of carved rocks, but a truly dingy, damp cave. With the dark stone all around me, the only thing separating it from one I’d been in the past was the lack of stalagmites.
How the hell did I get in a cave? I tried to focus my eyes a bit better, blinking a few times to get the gunk out of them, and saw one detail I didn’t notice before. There were two pairs of shiny metallic pillars on either side of me, carved intricately with scales and… feet.
My breathing hitched with instinctive panic as I realised that they weren’t made of stone or steel. I twisted my head onto its side to see where the legs lead and hesitantly looked up, my eyes following the legs up to the two creatures lording over me.
There were two towering silver dragons elegantly sitting either side of me and they looked like felines dressed up in scales. Thin and elegant creatures that resembled lizards with legs, the limbs angled beneath them instead of going off to the side. A pair of thin wings made of a silky membrane were tucked close to the body, so tightly that it might as well have been a second skin. At their tails, the body was long and thin, only getting fatter at the midsection where the legs and wings were attached. Emerging from the body was a long, elegant neck, with a triangular lizard-like head on top, the eyes completely blue with a black slit in the centre, like a cats. I admired those eyes for a moment, appreciating the sparkling intelligence in them before reconciling myself to my fate of getting eaten like a rat.
I don’t know which god was crappy enough to give me a new life, only to dump me in front of two massive dragons, but it wasn’t like I could even get up, so I prepared to get eaten. The one on the left leaned in closer, peering at me with a squinted eye. And in this moment of terror before the end, I showed the dragon every bit of courage I had and squeaked in fright, sounding yet again like a pathetic kitten.
“Well, they’re… loud?” a deep raspy hiss questioned, coming from the giant dragon-y creature on the left, something like a frown contorting its face. However, the one on the right unfurled one of its wings and slapped it on the nose, making it squeak in pain like a chastised dog.
“Well at least they inherited your yelp.” The right one sarcastically said, the voice similar but smoother and a bit less rough on the ears, velvety. Meanwhile on the ground, I looked back and forth between the two in confusion, trying and failing to figure out why I could understand them, and what the hell was going on.
It was right then and there a too-good-to-be-true idea resurfaced, and having already dismissed it before on the grounds that it was ridiculous and stupid. But I decided to indulge the idea for a moment anyways, and twisted my head around to look at my own body.
To my ecstatic surprise, there was nothing human about what I saw. Only a lizardy body covered in those silver scales connected to my neck, with two gooey wet wings splayed out and stuck onto the stone.
A dream come true, de facto reincarnation baby! And into something much cooler than my original body, it was sleek, refined and frankly beautiful to look at. Even this infant form was less lanky than what I had before, less pudgy and most importantly, lacks all of flaws of my human form. No skin that was riddled with acne, and no scratchy hair that grows thick and fast in uncomfortable places.
A giggle escaped through my mouth in my excitement, and I quickly stopped when I heard the chittering noise that came out instead. It felt disconcerting realising that that’s what I sounded like now.
But my joyous thoughts were derailed when the two dragons returned their attention to me, staring at me with unbridled focus.
“Can I check yet?” the one on the left asked, and I decided to name… him? Well, I’m assuming it's ‘him’. I’ll call him Father, mostly because he’s probably the sire of this body, and I’m definitely not calling him dad, given that my one is still alive. And the other one on the right can be Mother.
“Just wait would you? We’ll see soon enough” Mother chuckled while leaning down towards me. Her snout got within a few centimetres of my face, and while the initial assumption that there were going to eat me had been proven wrong, it was still scary having someone so big lean over me.
Then a thick, almost circular, two-pronged tongue darted out and licked me. L-i-c-k-e-d, Sure I was covered in goo, but saliva? That’s so much worse, and I’d take a mysterious goop over the insides of anyone’s mouth. I tried to beg them to stop, but all that came out of my mouth was more miserable mewling. That only seemed to encourage the parents even more, Father joining in and attacking me on a new front with his tongue.
In desperation I attempted to run, putting down one foot before falling onto my face miserably, my legs getting tangled up beneath me in less than a step. How was walking with four legs so much harder than two?
Father let out a chuckle at my clumsiness, moving onto licking my head as I shivered at the warm touch, feeling extremely uncomfortable. Though eventually I let out a sigh and reconciled myself to my new parent’s care, realising that no matter how foul it was, there wasn’t much I could do about it.
But as I tried to distract myself from the disgusting reality I was in and looked around the cave a bit more, not spotting anything new except for a shattered eggshell. It wasn’t too hard to guess whose it was, judging by the trail of egg white leading from it to where I was laying.
So I must’ve been just born then, and that dark place I was stuck in… it was an egg? For how long? Well, it’s better than being born straight out of the womb, that’d be horrifying.
And like the thoughts of dying while in the egg, I promptly stopped thinking about it, the mental image too scaring to even consider. But then I remembered something else I dismissed earlier, if I’ve been reincarnated into a fantasy world with dragons… Then that other thing might also be real.
I held my breath and concentrated with all my might, sounding out a single word in my head.