The skeleton waited. The silent stance of death in the white void. The skeletal frame, illuminated by blue neural lights, floated before me—a masterpiece of pain and engineering. But the work was not done. The "dry" part was over. Now came the "wet" phase. Reverse rot. Filthy life.
Tissues began to manifest from nothingness. Not pre-made; I had to craft them. Thin, red, humid threads, dripping with phantom blood, began to float around me like ribbons of bloody silk. The muscles. I had to be the "Weaver." I had to weave the flesh over the bone. I took the first muscle fiber. It was slippery, warm, and smelled like raw meat in a butcher shop. I fixed one end to the scapula (shoulder blade)... stretched it slowly and carefully... and fixed the other to the humerus. "Tighten it well..." I thought. "It must be strong." I pulled too hard.
"SNAP!"
A sickening sound of tearing. The new tendon snapped in the middle, its end recoiling violently to strike the exposed nerve beneath it—a direct "sting." I screamed in silence until I nearly lost my mind from the neural shock. The pain was localized this time, but sharp as a knife thrust. The first lesson in this new world: Flesh is not rubber. Flesh is fragile. Flesh tears. And you must respect its fragility.
I began weaving my body with greater humility. I no longer cared for superhuman strength, speed, or ideal beauty. I only wanted this nightmare to end. Layer by layer. The deep muscles first, those hugging the bone. Then the superficial ones. The smell of iron, rust, and warm blood began to fill the space and stifle my consciousness. I could feel the "viscosity" of creation. The sound of "wetness" when muscle stuck to bone was revolting—a faint, sticky (splash). I wove the thighs. I wove the complex back. I wove the neck muscles. The body now looked like a mobile slaughterhouse. Red, naked, and terrifying.
Then... came the "viscera." Those soft, slippery, disgusting bags that would keep me alive. The organs appeared, floating before me. I grabbed the liver. It was unexpectedly heavy. Dark brown, almost black, oily and slippery like a giant dead fish. It slipped from my mental grasp. I tried to shove it under the rib cage on the right side. The space was tight! My carefully assembled ribs pressed against it, refusing to let it in. "Get in... get in, you bastard!" I pushed hard. It wouldn't enter. I was forced to break two ribs with my consciousness to make room.
"CRACK!"
The sound of my own bones snapping by my own will made me feel spiritually nauseous. I shoved the liver inside violently, then mended the ribs again, trapping it in its bony prison.
Then the lungs. Pale pink spongy bags, appearing so fragile they seemed they would tear at a touch. I placed them in the chest cavity. Then the heart. A muscular pump the size of a fist, silent now, waiting for the spark. I connected it to the main blood vessels. Then the stomach and intestines. An endless labyrinth of humid, gray, foul-smelling tubes. How is this curse arranged? I tried to order them neatly, but they were too long and slipped through my fingers. In the end, I stuffed the intestines randomly into the pelvic cavity, pressing down to settle them. I tied the main arteries and ignored the fine capillaries. "It will bleed..." I thought with cold indifference. "Let it bleed. I'll patch the leaks later. The important thing is that this thing works." I was a terrible butcher, and the victim was my future self.
Finally... the skin. I stretched the last layer. A thin, pale shroud to hide this bloody mess. I covered the muscles, nerves, and bones. A "human" stood before me. Or something resembling a human.
The most vital organ remained. The Crown. The Brain. The gelatinous gray mass full of convolutions. The coffin that would hold my soul, my memory, and my madness. I carried it with extreme caution, as if carrying a ticking time bomb. I placed it inside the skull cavity. I connected it to the spinal cord (another moment of terror). Then, I sealed the bony skull cap tightly.
Now... the final step. The most terrifying of all. Fusion. I had to leave this vast, limitless void and cram "Me" (my free cosmic consciousness) into this narrow, dark, humid fleshy box.
I approached the body suspended before me. It looked like a lifeless corpse in a morgue. Its face pale as death, eyes closed, chest still, cold as ice. This is my new prison. I felt a powerful wave of claustrophobia wash over me. I would be locked in there. Under the skin. In total darkness. Surrounded by fluids, blood, and intestines. I would lose my freedom. I would be subject to gravity, hunger, and pain once again.
"Enter... or you will fade." The internal voice urged me.
I closed my "mind's eye." I gathered my fragments of consciousness into a single point. And I lunged toward the brain.
The moment soul fused with matter... I felt as if I had been buried alive under a ton of wet earth and reinforced concrete. The ceiling collapsed on me. The walls closed in. The weight... the weight was unbearable! Gravity crushed me down with a force I had never known. Fluids filled my mouth and ears as I drowned in my own body. Suffocation was the master of the moment. No air.
"Hegh... cough! Cough! Cough!"
A violent, sudden gasp tore through the silence of the void. Air entered my new, dry lungs for the first time, burning them like fire, as if I were breathing razor blades. I fell to my knees on the hard white floor, coughing violently, spitting a thick black fluid (the remains of the creation process) from my mouth. "Cough! Ahh..." My moan was strange... rasping, entirely non-human.
The air burned my new throat. My eyes... I tried to open them. The lids were stuck with a sticky substance. I opened them with difficulty. Vision was blurred, red, and foggy, as if looking through blood-stained glass. My ears... a deafening ringing, then the sound of my new heartbeat began to hammer in my head like an iron mallet on an anvil. Doom... doom... doom... The heart works.
My body... heavy. So heavy. As if wearing a suit of lead. Every movement required a titanic effort. I tried to stand. "Rise..." I gave the command to my left leg. But it betrayed me. I had assembled the knee slightly wrong, the nerve wasn't tight enough, or perhaps the muscle was weak. My leg twisted abnormally beneath me, and I fell face-first into the pool of black vomit I had spat out.
I lifted my head with difficulty, saliva mixed with blood dripping from my mouth. I raised my hand before my face... it was trembling uncontrollably and violently. The muscles under the skin twitched and rippled with painful spasms because I hadn't distributed the neural electricity precisely. Fingers moved randomly, twisting like dying spiders.
"Is... is th-..is m-..y b-..ody?" My voice came out hoarse, broken, fragmented, like an old machine trying to imitate humans.
I looked around with my tearful eyes. There were no blue screens to congratulate me. No voice saying "Well done." Only me... naked, covered in the disgusting fluids of creation, trembling with cold and pain in an endless, silent white room. I had crafted a monster with my own hands... and the tragedy was... I was now trapped inside it, with no key to escape.