Air... the first thing my shell-shocked consciousness registered was "air." It wasn't a gentle breeze. It felt like icy razor blades slicing through my new throat with every gasp. My lungs, which I had assembled with my own hands moments ago, convulsed violently to expel the viscous black fluid that filled them.
"Cough... ack... cough!"
The sound of my cough was strange—hoarse, deep, as if something broken was vibrating inside my chest. I tried to open my eyes. My vision was a blurred mess; red and white spots swam everywhere. It seemed I hadn't calibrated the pressure of the vitreous fluid inside my eyes accurately; the light stung my retina like nails being driven into the back of my skull.
"Move..." I commanded myself. "Get up."
I sent the signal from my brain to my right arm to push myself off the floor. Instead of my arm rising, my abdominal muscles contracted violently, making me retch again.
[Alert: Neural Synchronization Failure.] [Mapping Error Rate: 18%.] [Warning: Random movements may lead to tendon rupture.]
The words appeared etched in blood across my closed eyelids. "Damn it..." I whispered, blood trickling from my mouth. "I've crossed the wires."
When I was a "consciousness" floating in the void, everything seemed logical. Nerve A connects to Muscle B. But now? Now I am inside the machine, and the buttons are all scrambled. I try to move my hand, and my stomach moves. I try to flex my knee, and my jaw clenches so hard my teeth nearly shatter.
I was like a child trapped in the cockpit of a fighter jet, pressing buttons at random while the plane plummeted toward the earth.
"Zzzzzzzzzzzzz!" A terrifying buzzing sound began to fill the white room. I glanced out of the corner of my blurred eyes; the walls had begun to glow a menacing red.
[Sanitization Protocol: Activated.] [Unstable biological entity will be incinerated in: 3 minutes.]
"Don't... don't screw with me!" I tried to crawl. I had to "reprogram" my brain now, immediately. I had to forget how I used to move as a former human. I had to learn the language of this new body.
I closed my eyes, ignoring the searing heat that began to lick at my skin as the room's temperature rose. I dove inward with my consciousness. I saw the glowing neural network—it was chaotic, a mess of tangled nodes and blocked paths. "This path... goes to the foot." I tried sending a small electrical pulse. My left foot jerked. "Good." "This path... to the arm." I moved it. My hand struck the floor with enough force to pulverize the white tiles beneath me. "The power is excessive... but it works."
I began to crawl. It was a sight of both pity and horror: a naked being, covered in black fluids and blood, crawling with broken, spasmodic movements, dragging a heavy frame toward the door that was slowly opening at the end of the room.
[Time remaining: 1 minute.] The heat became unbearable. I felt my new skin blistering. I could smell my own hair burning.
"STAND!" I screamed with every ounce of will I possessed. I gathered all my mental energy and forced my spine to straighten. "Crack... snap... crunch!" The sound of the vertebrae aligning was sickening. I stood tall. I was taller now. My shoulders were broader. But the weight... Oh god, the weight! I felt as if I were carrying a mountain on my shoulders. The high-density muscles I had woven weighed a ton.
I took the first step. My right knee shrieked in protest; the cartilage wasn't seated correctly. I felt the shin bone grinding directly against the femur. A blinding white pain pierced my brain. I bit my lip until it bled, but I didn't stop. A second step. The tendon in my left ankle was too tight; I felt it partially tear. "Walk... or burn."
I reached the door. The red light filled the room behind me, the heat melting the floor. I reached out a trembling hand, thick with bulging veins, and gripped the cold edge of the door. I lunged outward and collapsed face-first into the dark corridor.
"BAM!" The door slammed shut behind me, sealing the hellfire away.
I lay there on the cold floor of the hallway, panting... gasping as if I had been running for a hundred years. My chest heaved violently, and my new heart pounded against my ribs with terrifying force—its beats heavy and slow like a giant sledgehammer. THUMP... THUMP... THUMP...
I felt my body. The burns were healing at a terrifying speed before my eyes. The skin was weaving itself back together, the scabs falling away to reveal new flesh beneath. I moved my fingers. The neural pain began to fade as my brain started to "save" the new map.
I looked up and saw my reflection in the glass of the second closed door. I froze.
That wasn't the face of the "Rai" I knew. It was a face carved from stone. The jaw was wide and sharp. The eyes were sunken and dark, surrounded by the shadows of exhaustion. The veins in the neck stood out like the roots of an old tree. And the body... it wasn't the body of an athlete. It was a "weapon." Massive muscle groups stacked in an unnatural fashion, designed for slaughter, not beauty. The scars of my self-dissection were still visible—fine lines covering every inch of me, an eternal reminder that I made this thing; I wasn't born with it.
Suddenly, the system window appeared before my face. But it wasn't blue this time. It was a dark, coagulated crimson—the color of dried blood.
[Congratulations... Butcher.] [You have survived the "Self-Slaughterhouse."]
[Performance Evaluation:]
Construction Accuracy: 71% (Acceptable - structural errors present).
Pain Tolerance: Exceeded Limit (Immeasurable).
Willpower: Insane.
[Special Reward for Passing the First Door Unlocked.] [Since you built a body full of flaws and prone to tearing... you will need this to stay alive.]
[Passive Skill Acquired: Rampant Cellular Regeneration]
Type: Passive/Automatic.
Description: Your body does not "heal" like a human's. Your body "gets angry" when wounded. Healing speed quintuples (5x) during combat or intense pain.
Side Effect: The healing process consumes massive amounts of calories and causes excruciating pain.
[Bonus Reward: (The Prosector's Eye)]
Description: Because you have seen your own internal composition, you can now see the "structural weaknesses" in the bodies of others with a single glance.
The message vanished. I stood up slowly, leaning against the wall. I felt hunger—a terrifying hunger tearing at my new intestines. The regeneration demanded fuel. I looked down the long corridor filled with closed doors. This was only the first door... "Know Thyself." And I had known myself. I am no hero. I am a hungry monster... and a poor craftsman.
I took a step... then two. The limp eased slightly. Pain had become an old friend. I looked at the next door. It had a rusted lock, and blurred words that were barely legible:
[Stage Two: ##&@@.. The Hunger.. ##&@@]
I let out a pale smile, breaking the sternness of my new face. "Let's see what kind of hell you've prepared for me next."