In the other world
You are inside the lab, trying to activate the portal without turning on the lights. Any time the lights turn on, security is immediately alerted to a human presence inside the building. Thankfully, as your body has begun to transform, you can feel the darkness easing into your eyes, the small amounts of light reflected against every surface begin to increase in contrast. You can see in low-light now, and you're hard-pressed to not find some value and novelty in this new mutation.
The soft blue glow twists and contorts its way into a swirling blue vortex once again. You can hear the opening of doors behind you. It was only a matter of time. More than the fear of being caught or losing your job, you find that the fear of being seen for who you are and what you've become is entirely more frightening than any arbitrary punishment they could enact on you.
You pounce into the portal, immediately finding yourself within that strange orange wasteland once again. You find that you are once again calm. If someone where to find themselves here, not only would they not recognize you, but not even assume that the creature before them was ever human. Surrounded by the strange geometries of this land never seen before by humans, you feel comfort.
Yhnhn is nowhere to be seen. You need answers.
You decide to run off into the distance. Once again, the lightness with which you travel is inspiring and strange. Your limbs have contorted into longer, more slender and tighter coils of muscles. You feel admittedly more at home in your body than you ever have before.
As you run, not an idea but a compulsion comes to your mind. You may be faster if you ran on all fours. The idea seems undignified somehow, but as you speed through the wastelands past these odd pillars of yellow and gold, you wish only to hunch over and achieve the speed that you are now finally worthy of.
Do you decide to do it? Do you get on all fours to run?
Written by Martin Prance on 14 February 2016
