The first thing I felt wasn't light. It was hunger. Not the simple hunger of a missed meal, but a gnawing, acidic void where my stomach should have been.
I tried to scream, but all that came out was a wet, clicking sound. I was submerged in something cold and viscous. The smell of rot was the only thing telling me I was still alive.
I pushed. My "hand" - a translucent, three pronged claw -tore through a leathery wall. Light flooded in, blinding and harsh. I wasn't in a hospital. I wasn't even in a human body.
I was crawling out of the ribcage of a creature the size of a school bus. I was currently the size of a house cat.
The world outside was a nightmare of emerald and grey. Massive trees with weeping, black bark towered overhead. Their roots tangled like the limbs of the dead. This was the Rotting Forest. I was at the very bottom of its food chain.
A shadow loomed over the carcass. A scavenger bird, six feet tall with eyes like polished obsidian, landed on the shattered ribs above me. It didn't see a person. It saw a snack.
A blue translucent screen flickered in my blurred vision. It pulsed with the frantic rhythm of my heart.
CAUTION: Integrity at 4%. Void Starve imminent. Target: Dread Beak Vulture detected. Biomass: 12kg. Objective: Consume or Dissolve.
The bird lunged. Its beak snapped inches from my soft, larval skull. I didn't think. I felt a strange heat build in my chest. It was a pressurized, predatory instinct I didn't recognize.
As the beak descended for the killing blow, my jaw unhinged further than any biological bone should allow. The blue screen turned a violent, blood red.
GENE STRIP ACTIVE: Initiating Forced Digestion.