Blaze opened his eyes to a strange sight. He was surrounded by water, drifting away into an endless, pitch-black sea.
He thought as his body drifted away deeper. He tried swimming, but his body seemed out of his control. It was the same case with his tendrils.
Desperate for answers, he tried to remember anything.
The image of swallowing the nuclei was the only thing he remembered. Everything after that was blank.
I was in the zoo back then... but where am I now?
He was clearly in the ocean, even though he had no recollection of it.
Don’t tell me... the Blightlord got me?! Fuck! No, that doesn’t matter right now.
Blaze looked around him.
Being in the ocean was much worse than being in space. Every being on the planet had evolved, including underwater species.
He could only imagine the horrors the creatures like whales and sharks had evolved into. What he felt wasn’t fear, but worry.
There were too many things to see, to explore, and to experiment with. He couldn’t afford to die a second time.
However, as he was thinking all that, he noticed something in the distance.
At a distance, he saw three blinking red lights. Whatever it was, his body was drifting towards it.
Blaze was curious, but given his reservations, that was the last place he wanted to go.
Wait. This could be a hallucination! Maybe consuming so many nuclei at once caused a reaction.
It felt the same as when the Headless tried to delude him.
With that thought, Blaze took a risk and opened his mouth.
Unsurprisingly, nothing happened. Water didn’t rush inside, which should have happened if he were in an ocean.
But there was something else.
When he tried to speak, no sound came out of his mouth.
Suddenly, it dawned on him. He wasn’t in an ocean, but the space! Which meant he was high as heck.
Note to self. Excessive nuclei consumption can lead to psychedelic effects.
Now that he had figured out what was happening, he could try to work his way out of the mess. Or so he thought.
Before he could plan his escape, he felt something linger on his feet.
He still didn’t have control over his body, so he couldn’t do anything but look down. A black tentacle was wrapped around his left leg.
Great. I don’t remember watching anything to do with tentacles.
Thinking it was all a part of his hallucinations, Blaze ignored the thing. Suddenly, many more tentacles wrapped around him, pulling him towards the lights even faster.
Okay... this is getting out of hand now.
The moment he thought that, the tentacles wrapped all around his body. The bindings weren’t tight, but when he tried to use Necrophage to cut through, it couldn’t even scratch them.
Within seconds, they had turned him into a cocoon, leaving only his eyes uncovered.
They held him in place as the light got closer. Forget about moving, he had been rendered incapable of thinking about anything.
The moment he tried, it felt like a thousand needles were forced into his skull.
As a zombie, pain had become a foreign concept, yet he could feel it, even inside a so-called hallucination.
He wanted to scream in pain as it got unbearable. It felt like someone was clawing at him, at his brain, looking for something.
My... nucleus... ARGH!!!
Was someone looking for his nucleus? If not, then what else could they be looking for?
Thoughts went wild inside his head, and so did the pain. For someone with a hyperactive brain, it was the worst punishment.
Pain brought erratic thoughts.
Thoughts brought more pain.
He was trapped in an endless cycle of misery. It made him want to kill himself, but he couldn’t even do that.
That’s when he saw the three blinking lights. What looked like distant stars turned out to be the eyes of a creature. The tentacles also belonged to it.
The middle eye blinked.
This time, the right eye blinked.
Finally, the left eye joined them.
Us... become... one...?
Blaze thought, but this time it didn’t hurt. If anything, it reduced the pain.
He grabbed onto the thought like a lifeline, repeating it continuously in his mind. The more he thought about it, the duller the pain became. Not only that, but the tentacles around him loosened with each repetition.
The middle eye blinked.
The right eye blinked again.
Finally, the left eye followed.
The moment Blaze thought that, a blinding light swallowed him.
[Functional error detected on planet XZ-616!]
[Unauthorized Requiem contact detected!]
[Immediate response required!]
"Huh? Someone actually did it?"
A calm voice echoed in the dark. Apparently, it wasn’t considered a situation to cause such panic. Despite the strange alerts.
[Subject J#117 is compromised!]
[Immediate termination required!]
"Halt all procedures. Override code 034-S."
[Termination protocol override accepted.]
"I said, halt all procedures. Authorization index E-A239."
[Authorization accepted.]
[Terminating all processes...]
"Delete all records of subject J#117. Override code L-B091. Classification, MIA."
[Classification accepted.]
[All records of Planet XZ-616 will now show subject J#117 as missing.]
"Perfect. Now clone yourself and proceed with deletion."
[Command... accepted.]
The illuminated screen went dark as the creature leaned back. The lights went on, revealing a strange creature, one no human had seen before.
The creature looked nothing like a human and had a triangular head with three eyes. Much like the ones Blaze thought he saw. The creature had three fingers and a thumb that was turned towards the palm.
The red-skinned creature mumbled as it got off the chair, revealing its ten-foot stature.
A female belonging to one of 78 species that were together called... the Collective.
However, she was no longer part of that group.
If anything, she wanted it to be destroyed, and she had found the perfect pawn to do that for her.
"J#117... I can’t wait to meet you."