A/N I merged the first 3 chapters. Really nothing else. An archived version of the story will also be created to house the first draft of this story once it gets replaced.

Probably in a few years.

Enjoy

I woke in blistering heat. I tried to groan, but all that came out was a choked croak with how dry mouth was. God, these summer heat waves were getting unbearable. As I slowly became more aware of my surroundings, I smelled smoke. I snapped my eyes open at that thought, and immediately afterwards regretted it as an explosion went off, raining debris down on me. I sat up, coughing and waving my hands around to try and disperse the cloud of dust around me, all the while blinking rapidly in an effort to get the dust out of eyes.

I heard a series of snapping sounds, and - shit!. To my dismay a large beam of wood decided that it would be a great time to squash an unsuspecting human. I tried scrambling out of the way, but my arms and legs felt... Weird, for a lack of a better term. I didn't have the level of control that I was used to, and they were way too short. So, instead of scrambling away from the beam, I only managed to bring my head and chest away from it, leading to me having both legs pinned down.

As I sat there in shock at what just happened, I finally got a moment to take a look at my surroundings, and I almost wished I didn't. I was in the centre of a raging inferno, which explained the unbearable heat, the dryness in my mouth as well as why I was dry heaving like mad whenever I wasn't coughing. What was bad about fires, other then the heat and the flames… Smoke inhalation. What did you do to prevent smoke inhalation again? Wet cloth right? So, I pulled by shirt over my nose and mouth in an attempt to help them out. Some protection had to be better than no protection right? Fuck… I was not prepared for this.

I really needed to get out of here, and what was stopping me? My eyes looked down at the offending piece of architecture.

I tried lifting the beam up, but my body still felt weird, and I didn't have the level of strength I was used to. Coupled with the fact that I wasn't in a position where I could use my strength optimally, the beam barely budged. Which was a glaring issue, as the fire was steadily closing in. To make matters worse, it appeared that the fire had no shortage of flammable a to burn through before it got to me, and that it wasn't going to put itself out any time soon.

A calm settled over me as I thought about my situation. My special breed of panic. Alright, I had to get away from this beam of wood. Why can't I? Because it's weight is holding it down on top of me. I couldn't lift it up, and after some wiggling around I determined that I couldn't slide myself out from under it. I could feel the fire closing in, and by now my eyes were watering. The seconds felt like they were speeding up, and I needed a solution quick or I'd be a crispy, burnt husk of myself. Dammit!I punched the ground in frustration at the fact that I needed out now, only for it to come away… Dirty? And in that moment, I realized just how stupid I could be. Of course! I'd dig myself out from under that piece of woo- what the fuck the end of it is on fire. Refusing to waste any more time, I grabbed a sharp rock from around me, and I started digging. This ground was hard packed and dry from the fire and probably people walking over it, and thus my progress was slow.

And as I dug, I could see the fire steadily moving towards my left leg. This… Didn't make any sense! I was pretty sure that fire did not burn through wood that quickly! However, soon enough the fire was close enough to me to start burning. I had burned myself before, but this - this was by far one of the worse experiences of my life. I could barely think past the pain that my legs were in. My arms were also burning from both exertion and from burns caused by their close proximity to the fire. My few shallow breaths were jammed right in between coughing and even more dry heaving. Thank god I didn't have anything to eat before this whole ideal.

Food… Huh, what I'd do for some water, I was so thirsty… No… I needed to stay focused. My eyes, oh god, it hurt to keep them open. I opted to close my left eye shut and only squint through the right.

And finally, I dug out enough earth to pull my legs out. At this point, I couldn't feel pain anymore even as my burnt skin scraped against the bottom of that bloody support beam. Must have been the adrenaline. I didn't dare put any weight on my burnt legs, so I resorted to crawling my way out of this burning building. At least my arms were usable, if burnt. I winced as I realized that my legs would probably be unusable for the rest of my life. I was sure that I'd already burned way to many nerves for that to be a possibility. Still, I'd rather be alive with no legs then dead. So I kept on crawling, even as smoke inhalation crept up on me and I could feel myself slipping. No… Not now. I was almost out. I could see outside of this burning building, I could do it.

And as I crawled, my thoughts making less and less sense the longer I crawled, I something glint. Something inside me told me to crawl towards it, and I did. I ended up at the feet of someone. Looking up, the only things that I could make out were his silver hair and ridiculous looking glasses. I groaned, and I heard laughter. The man said something, before laughing some more before his hands started glowing green. At this point, I could do nothing to stop him as he brought his hands to my legs. My legs started itching, and the man frowned. But as I watched, I could see the skin on my legs growing back, and feeling gradually returned to them.

What. The. Fuck. Was this… near instantaneous healing? Holy shit! I needed to get my hands on this! In the end, however, the whole ordeal was catching up to me. My eyelids were drooping, so that explained why there were humanoid shapes moving faster than eyes could track them.

I woke up sprawled on the ground. The floor was cold. After further investigation it turned out to be stone. Opening my eyes, I was met with a fog of some sort, obscuring much of my vision and making it increasingly difficult to see. I didn't know if the fog would be detrimental to my health, but nonetheless I fumbled to cover my nose and mouth with my shirt before I realized I had some sort of knife in my hand. I set it down on the ground before hastily pulling up my suspiciously clean shirt until it covered my nose and mouth. What happened to my old clothing? I was relatively sure I wasn't wearing clothing of such high quality as this.

It also seemed liked I didn't have much control over my actions, as my movements were still still either sluggish or controllably fast. Couldn't get fine motor control of any type. On a more positive note, I found my legs to be completely fine. Even though my arms were scarred, my legs were completely without blemishes and the fire seemed more like a dream then anything else. That bogus healing must've been extremely effective for it to work that well. I finally noted that I could feel a warm feeling throughout my body, and I felt a sort of humming inside myself. It ended up with me feeling… energized.

I decided that I'd worry more about that later, and leaned down to palm the knife again. It was a rather short knife - not even long enough to be considered a dagger. It was a rather dark blade, with a hole at the bottom of the handle. Perhaps used as a way to clip to something? Whatever the case, the blade itself was razor sharp, and I swore as I cut myself on the knife. There was a wicked curve on the blade as well, leading me to believe that it was more designed for slicing then throwing or stabbing. I slowly wiped away the blood now sprouting of my left thumb and waded into the fog.

I soon found that the space that I was occupying was maze like, if not an actual maze. The walls on either side of me were 5 meters apart and I couldn't reach the ceiling.

The light was cast extremely confusingly, causing shadows to go everywhere in the fog, causing odd shapes to fly around, and occasionally flying straight towards me. The first few times that happened, I slashed at those rogue shapes. Couldn't be too sure, and I must've been given this knife for a reason. In any case, I continued to walk down the maze, trying to find a way out. I slowly got desensitized towards the shadows, though I wasn't sure whether or not hat was a good thing. If there ever was a real threat, I might not react fast enough. And I had a sinking feeling that there was a real threat, given the freaky healing and bullshit visibility of my new environment.

As I walked, I my still covered nose picked on the stench of rotting flesh. I grimaced. The smell was putrid. After a few more moments, I gagged. If something was rotting, it was probably wise to free up some movement. Thus, I slowly pulled down my shirt, helping free my arms. Making a few slashing motions at more shadows, I happened across the first dead body I'd ever seen. In either of my bodies.

He was rotting out. Flies were swarming around him, probably attracted by the smell and… everything else around him. His eyes were gouged out, and some of his brains were on the floor. His chest was looted of all the meat there, and his calves were completely cut off. His guts were also pooled out on the ground, and I could see multiple missing organs from there. Overall, it was an utterly gruesome sight, not aided by the massive pool of dried blood, the blood being a bright shade of red. There were also some copious white stains next to him. Well shit. It looked like I was sharing a maze with cannibals and rapists. Or necrophiliacs. I didn't like where this train of thought was bringing me.

Thankfully, that was remedied as I stood there for exactly four seconds before moving to the side and dry heaving. Thankfully, I didn't have anything inside my stomach or else I would've made a huge mess next to the dead guy, as well as lose any digestible food there. Then again, having nothing there wasn't necessarily a good sign either.

His blood wasn't even that dark yet (information that required me to lean close and observe with the bad lighting. I almost puked again). IT was fresh. At most 24 hours old. So, it was high time I got out of dodge. Turning around, I started jogging back the way I came. The disemboweled man never quite leaving my mind, for even with the extremely limited amount of information I had a sinking feeling settled in that I'd end up like that if things didn't change drastically.

I didn't know what I was doing. I sure didn't want to walk around aimlessly, but that was what walking around trying to find an exit felt like. I wanted to do something - anything- to try and improve my situation but I didn't know what to do. It was frustrating because I didn't want to waste my time, energy, and possibly run into trouble pursuing something that would ultimately return on investment. I could use a break to really think. My feet were throbbing from walking for hours on end anyway, so I decided to take a short break to relieve them.

I sat down, ]thinking about what I wanted to do next. Initially, I thought that I could leave some sort of trail - but that failed very quickly. I couldn't afford to use bodily fluids such as saliva or blood as I didn't want to lose such valuable resources. Scratching my knife along the wall didn't seem to dull the blade to my surprise, but I quickly discovered the act of scratching the wall with my knife made a sound similar to nails on a chalkboard. The thought of someone potentially finding me after that mistake had me on edge for dozens of tense minutes.

And to make matters worse, escape wasn't even the least of my worries. My water situation had quickly become dire. Starting off with no water at all, I was already becoming thirsty mere hours into this labyrinth. Even if I did manage to secure a source of water, I still had to worry about what I was going to eat. Walking burned calories and my body didn't have much fat to burn.

I had a feeling that if I started burning muscle I'd be the end of me.

So what? Did that mean that… Oh god. Human flesh. Dismembered guy. I shivered thinking about the body I found. Would I have to eat what remained of him? There were definitely humans out to eat other humans, he was simply proof of that. He was cut up and more edible sections such as the calves were taken and probably consumed.

I rubbed my eyes. Was I really contemplating cannibalism after mere hours without food or water? Would I really even be able to eat another person if I killed one? Killing another human… Could I even do it? I'd never done anything close to that before, and taking another life felt like the ultimate violation. Could I really kill another living, breathing person without hesitation should the need arise… Were these the drastic changes that I felt I required?

I tried my darn hardest to never lie to myself. With that in mind, I slowly stood back up and continued walking. Whether I liked it or not, I knew that deep down the answer to most, if not all those questions was a simple yes. And that scared me.

After all this time practising with my new body, I had slowly become accustomed to it. Of course, I was nowhere near as good with it as my old body. Sadly, I suspected it'd take years before I could achieve the same level of proficiency, especially given the fact that I seemed rather young and my puberty growth spurt would hit sooner rather than later. Still, I'd seen massive improvements in motor control and had taken time to move around to try and adjust. I felt comfortable enough to start sprinting, and I was even able to run for extended periods of time without too much hassle.

After balling up my shirt then throwing and catching it I came to the conclusion that my hand eye coordination still needed improvement. That would be worked on, even though I didn't exactly know how to improve it. That was a problem indeed.

Walking was monotonous. That was one way to put it. After hours of walking, even while asking myself important questions, I still felt a feeling of boredom. Completely unjustified boredom, but boredom nonetheless. Granted, I'd rather have boredom over excitement in this context. Excitement meant probable danger, though I probably needed some of that to get out. I found playing with my knife to be the most interesting activity at my disposal, changing how I held it quickly, twirling it around, swapping hands, all matter of things.

Whatever the case, I needed sleep. I'd grown tired, and I just found a perfectly good spot on the ground. Exactly like every other spot on the ground. I shrugged and made myself as comfortable as I could on cold slabs of stone, making sure to lay down in a way that allowed me to easily grab my knife without stabbing myself. That certainly wouldn't be a pleasant way to wake up.

My stomach growled, once again reminding me of my circumstances. I needed food, and I needed water. I had no clue on how long I'd been here, what with the lack of windows. Now that I allowed myself to think about it, I was pretty sure a lack of sunlight could lead to depression. Maybe it took longer to kick in because I sure didn't feel very depressed.

The first stage of depression is denial.

I smiled to myself at my joke. An old joke, associated with fond memories and friends. No maze, no literally and metaphorically edgy knife, and certainly no disembowelled and partially dismembered humans. Simpler times indeed…

I was awoken from my sleep by yells and footsteps. I blinked a few times, wondering where I was before it all washed over me. I was in a maze, potential murderers all around me, and holy shit there's a fight breaking out. I had my knife in hand the moment that thought finished, and I was scrambling to my feet. I was tripping over myself and had to use the wall to help me up. That cost me valuable seconds.

It seemed like the commotion was coming from my right, so naturally, I ran away from it. While I could've gained valuable information, judging from all the cries of pain I was hearing it would be a better idea for me to stay away from the incident and worry about myself first.

I was readying myself mentally as well. If anyone showed up in stabbing range that I didn't immediately recognize and that I could kill or incapacitate within 2 stabs, then they would be stabbed. Stab first, ask questions probably never.

With that in mind, I continued my running. Right into a wall of stone that I quickly realized wasn't in fact a wall of stone but rather a very large and very tall humanoid figure covered in what appeared to me rock plates. After a few moments of shock for the both of us, I reacted first by letting go of my bleeding nose and I booked it, pumping my legs as hard as I could. The rock (why did I come up with these things while I was in mortal danger?) ran straight after me. He was yelling incoherently in what sounded like some sort of Japanese, though I couldn't be sure.

Those plates had to be heavy, as I was running pretty fast when I crashed into him and he didn't budge. And yet somehow, The Rock was keeping pace with me. I needed to deal with this problem now, or I'd be turned into a red smear on the wall. As I turned another corner with the rock right on my heels, I realized something.

The Rock carried tremendous momentum, so every time he rounded a corner he'd either have to skid to a halt and turn ninety degrees or crash straight into the wall and continue running from there. Right? Wrong! That fucker found some bullshit way to round corners while maintaining his top speed without crashing into the wall or breaking his ankles from turning ninety degree angles. Sure, he couldn't round them all that tightly but he could still do it without making a crater with his shoulder.

The only mildly helpful things were my knife, which I was now gripping onto tightly and the fact that the fog was clearing up wherever we ran so that I could see the Rock barreling towards me, getting closer and closer even though I was running at full tilt. Weaknesses, weaknesses, weaknesses! There had to be something! Nothing was perfect after all, there was always some exploitable feature.

And as we rounded another what was probably the twentieth corner in around ninety seconds did I find it. Joints. He had to leave his joints and his pivot points open, otherwise, he wouldn't be able to run properly or move at all. Quick glances behind me proved this theory. He had plates covering his kneecaps, but the backs looked a little undefended. There were gaps underneath his armpits and between the legs where I could slash if need me. His neck was largely guarded by a piece of rock jutting out from his torso to wrap around that area to prevent my blade from sneaking in.

But it also had the end of result of him not being able to see directly under him. Restricted vision. And there I had it. All the pieces required to form a strategy to kill this fucker. I didn't have nearly as many options as I would've liked, but there wasn't anything that I could do about that. I had a plan. A highly risky plan that could easily backfire, but a plan nonetheless. If I didn't execute it, he would catch up to me within the next 5 minutes and I'd be dead, guaranteed. With this plan, I at least had a chance to survive.

So, the next time I turned left, I counted the seconds it took for The Rock to reach that same left and become visible. Ten seconds after I turned. I changed my grip on my knife to a reverse grip. After another right turn, I reached a crossroads. Without hesitation, I took the left turn and instead of continuing to run I waited at the corner right after the curve, out of sight from The Rock.

Lo and behold, nine seconds later and right on time he rounded that corner and I pounced, slashing the back of both of his kneecaps. He screamed out in pain and turned around trying to smash his fists into me, but I wasn't done yet. I got ready to stab while using my much smaller body size to slide right between his legs, slashing his groin as I slid past. With that done The Rock crumpled to his knees and I leapt up and onto him, quickly climbing up to his shoulders and finally pushing his head to the side and slid my knife right into his newly exposed neck. I ripped out my knife and continued stabbing away at his neck, and after a few more stabs I slashed his throat for good measure before finally stopping. All thanks to that impaired vision. And weird turning ratios.

My right arm was covered in a warm sticky goo and I suddenly got another urge to heave. Quickly quelling my rebelling stomach, I jumped off the falling corpse and took a quick look at it. I had no idea how he got this rock shield all around him, but it was a really nice ability. Even if I probably couldn't loot it, and even then it wouldn't be practical. Taking a look over his dead body, all I found was a canteen half full of water. Definitely better than nothing at least. His pants were definitely ruined, and he didn't have a shirt on to begin with. Perhaps he had a knife at some point, but in the thirty seconds of looking him over, I couldn't find anything of the sort. Finally, before leaving I wiped my knife and arms off on his pants legs. Blood was a pretty nasty thing to have drying on you or something you cared about.

I continued jogging after that, making sure to pay extra close attention to my surroundings so that I wouldn't get jumped and/or killed. I had my knife in hand, ready to stab, but I was also poised to run. That encounter with The Rock was a complete mess, and I almost got myself killed for my troubles. Anyone of things could've gone wrong and I'd be his raw uncooked dinner. If I'd slipped up on the slashing of his knees, missed his groin, not jumped up him fast enough. If he'd reacted faster to me climbing him, if he got a lucky swing in when he couldn't see me, heck if I misjudged his momentum and speed rounding that corner the entire plan would've probably been derailed. While I knew that surviving that encounter wasn't dumb luck, it certainly wasn't pure skill either.

I didn't think about the human, the person that I killed. It was self defence. It was justified. There was a language barrier. It was me or him. But still, I couldn't help but think of any hopes, or dreams, or legacy of his, silenced in mere minutes at my hands. I didn't dwell on that. I knew that one day, I'd have to acknowledge my actions but for now, it was easier just to push them to the back of my mind.