The animals on the farm were exactly what you may expect. Amos went around to each pen, or field, respectively and fed and watered the animals. It seemed the only farm animal to have their own space was Plunket, who got a stable all to herself. Amos wished Plunket was here for a pat.
Otherwise, the pigs seemed to be the animals that most desired Amos' attention. He wasn't sure if it was the chin scratches he gave them that made their upturned noses wiggle in delight, or if they were searching for the food bucket he brought with their sense of smell. Amos chose to believe the former.
The cows and sheep were endearing, though they generally paid him no mind. He emptied his feed bucket for them with the idea of refilling the water troughs. The still water at the bottom provided a mirror for Amos, if he wanted one.
Amos stopped and looked down into the dirty water. Certainly, the quality of reflection was greater than that of a busted metal fitting.
Like before, he was able to identify the most prominent features of his new face: The blond hair and grey eyes, the sharp jawline. His hair was quite long. In this position, it fell around his face like a curtain, hiding it from any outsiders. Amos was able to see on his face the pockmarks from a life of farming and the grimy streaks from a day of cleaning.
He tried making a few expressions, stretching his muscles. The smile came easy to him - a toothy grin that made him appear younger than he actually was. When he dropped the smile, his features had a solemnity to them that his old face never did.
Amos started to flex over the water. He was toned, but not exactly muscly. It was a step up from his old body, marked by complacence. He wiggled his eyebrows, impressed with himself.
It was at this point that Amos' egotism was interrupted by an ear-splitting SQUAWK. He whipped around to ascertain the origin of the noise. Surely it wasn't the chickens?
Amos made his way around to the coop. A lone rooster came careening around the corner. Feathers fluttered through the sky. It appeared to be panicked.
"Woah, buddy," Amos said, "why so fast?"
The rooster stopped at his feet. It ran around to hide behind him, like a child holding onto its mother's legs.
"Animals are so weird," Amos smiled at it, "I never used to have any pets..."
He reached down to try stroking the cock, and saw what had scared it so much from the corner of his eye.
It was a beast unlike Amos had any seen. It looked like a chicken that had been exposed to radioactive waste. Its feathers were a sulfuric colour. They were patchy, barely covering the bumpy skin stretched over taut muscles underneath. It stepped forward, carefully at first, with feet that had too many claws. Its bony legs were banded with black and white striations. Its beak was too long and too sharp. It fixed an eye - a horrid eye, placed upon a stalk like a snail's - on the rooster hiding behind Amos.
Amos' knees were locked in place, regardless of his desire to turn and run. The disgusting chicken thing threw back its head on a serpentine neck and, without releasing Amos from its grotesque gaze, released another shrieking "SQUAWK!!"
Is that a fucking chicken in this world?
Why are the roosters normal?!
Two more of the creature's stalked out of the dark coop. Their feathers puffed out and ruffled, seeming to inflate the size of them. They had decided on a path of attack. No longer were they stalking and scratching at the ground. The chickens rushed at Amos.
His fight or flight response managed to take effect, and his joints unlocked. Amos sprinted away, the rooster hot on his heels. He screamed and the chickens responded with their demented screeching. The rooster darted in and out of his feet, searching for safety.
Amos made it all of about fifty metres before the chickens caught up to him. As they ran, they pecked at his legs, trying to trip him up. Amos and the rooster had run from the coop to the cow pen.
The water troughs! I can take refuge on top of them!
Amos spared an apologetic glance for the rooster. He felt a kinship with it, but these chickens seemed to be angry at him only for protecting the rooster from their wrath. If he left it to them, they might leave him alone. Unless they were spiteful animals by nature.
Amos didn't waste any more time thinking it over and jumped on top of the rickety trough, trying to balance on the edges. Whatever dregs of water were left inside sloshed about as he did so. The cows looked on without comment, chewing cud peacefully.
The ugly chickens flapped around the base of the trough for a bit. They tried to peck at Amos with a righteous fury, and when they weren't pecking they were screeching at him. Fortunately for Amos, the freaky chickens from another world seemed unable to fly.
One of the chickens - Amos thought it might be the original one that accosted him - was chasing the rooster around in circles, pecking at it angrily. Amos saw the roosters eyes extending on stalks and retracting as it ran.
Eventually, they gave up on harassing him and turned to return to their coop.
"Ugly, spiteful, bastards!" Amos called out as they retreated. One of the chickens stopped in its tracks. Its eyes rotated around on their stalks without its head moving at all. Amos spat to the side to show his disdain, still standing atop the trough.
In response, the chicken quickly turned and ran at full speed towards the trough. It rammed into the leg with its head. Amos began to fall. He felt a splash as he landed inside the trough, but the resistance didn't stop his fall. Gravity had taken hold and he kept falling.
He fell into darkness. And he kept falling...
And falling...
Until...
...
Gravity reversed itself and Amos broke the surface of the water. He found himself in a bright space. It was too bright to be the orange toned light of the setting sun. Everywhere Amos turned, the horizon extended into eternity, completely flat. A thin layer of water covered the entire floor.
"Huh," Amos said, as he got up, clothes dripping from the familiar lake, "at least there's no chickens here."
Almost nothing had changed since the last time Amos visited this place. The expanse was no less infinite, the water no deeper or shallower, the horizon no more interesting. There were a few key differences. The giant flying fish were nowhere to be found. Amos' reflection no longer showed Bailey's face, but that of the blond farm boy. Additionally, Amos wasn't the only person here.
There was a second figure. Kneeling in the distance.
The water did not ripple around it.
Amos was wary of being flung about again, but he began to walk towards it anyway. There was nowhere else to go, and nothing else to do. As he moved away from the place where he entered the infinite lake, a blackness materialised behind him. Perhaps, more accurately, a point in space that was devoid of light, so that it only appeared black.
Amos was torn between approaching the figure or the void first. He decided the person was tranquil enough not to disturb just yet and reached out to touch the dark sphere. As he did so, he felt an impression in his mind: A water trough. Cows. The farm. He pushed further and felt a slight suction, pulling his entire body. Instantly, he recoiled from it.
This must be a portal!
It seems I can enter and exit this place freely!
Now that Amos understood the portal, he turned his attention to the other person in his personal realm of infinity.
Maybe other people can enter here... This might not be as safe a place as it seems.
Amos walked towards the kneeling figure. He cast minuscule waves in front of them as he stepped through the water. They heralded his approach to the stranger. The waves didn't refract around it, but rather passed through its body, as if it didn't exist at all. If the stranger noticed the waves, it didn't bother to look up to see who was coming. Amos stopped when he felt he was in earshot.
"Hey!" he called out.
No response.
"Hello? Who are you?"
Nothing.
"What is this place? How are you here? How am I here?"
Stillness.
Dread clawed at Amos from below. He cleared his throat. It didn't help.
He felt a pull towards the stranger. It wasn't the same pull as last time - not a physical magnetism. It was the pull of a mystery, of the unknown. The desire to peek into the abyss, l'appel du vide.
Amos took a deep breath. He rounded the figure and came face to face with it.
Oh, fuck me.
The kneeling figure was an exact replica of Amos, as far as he could tell. It looked straight through Amos with glazed eyes, the grey of the iris overtaking the whites. Its mouth hung open like a mask of agony or terror. Its fingers were embedded into the obsidian floor of the infinite lake, appearing to meld with the stone like it was just as liquid as the water resting atop it.
Amos watched his duplicate intensely. It was entirely still, without breath, except for occasional twitches that ran across its entire body - cadaveric spasms.
Amos lifted his arm, slowly. He wanted to touch the replica, to confirm it was real. He reached out, but hesitated just before he made contact with its skin. There was an electric current that ran between the two sitting there, a buzzing that lived behind Amos's eyes and grew in intensity while his hand hovered in the space between them, waiting for something, some sign that this was a good idea.
He clasped the replica's bicep.
Nothing happened...
For a moment...
All was quiet...
The twitching...
Stopped.
And suddenly, Amos' duplicate hissed and arched its back, the smoky grey of its eyes clearing and transferring to Amos, through their touch, sharing with him the visions it was seeing: A modern city, filled with skyscrapers, and the life of a man in its entirety, up until the moment that man died saving two children carelessly crossing the road.
Amos watched his life, his old, true, life, before he had reincarnated, from an omniscient perspective. It flashed before his eyes, over in an instant. The exact vision the duplicate had seen.
It knew his secret.
The replica of his new body shuddered violently. It pulled its fingers from the obsidian floor, but it wouldn't let them go. A sickening crunch resounded through the lake as it pulled with all its force, screaming, screaming, and left them there.
There was no blood.
Amos was still kneeling. The replica stood above him, revived. It was breathing now - panting from the exertion of ripping off its own fingers.
"Where am I?" It demanded, "Where's my family? Who are you?"