Horror's Depravity

This is the only warning you get.

Worm Cyoa v.3 Revised

Standard 5
Pint-Sized 6
Geas (lustful)(greedy) 8
Wanted (jedi)(Hutt)(sith)(galactic republic) 12
Special Snowflake 11
Man of Mystery 10
Apprentice (thaumaturgy+) 7
Apprentice (ninjutsu+) 4
Twins (Panacea+) [power works on self for healing] 1
Wildcard (Horror 10) [create devices and monsters whose central theme is horror] 0

Suicide was not the answer that I needed but it was the answer that I arrived to.

It started on a normal morning on a Monday.

I woke up to find that the company I worked for nearly two decades, since my teens really, fired me on grounds that I had been embezzling funds, which I never had.

A week after that, I found out that my girlfriend was a gold digger and left me a day after I told her I had been fired for something I hadn't done.

A month after that, my parents died in a car crash.

The coup de grace to all of this was the fact that my house and the city I lived in was struck by a freak firestorm, burning everything. I lived with barely a few possessions but homeless, jobless, and on the cusp of depression.

I had no relatives, I had no real friends, and I had no savings after I used what I had to arrange for a funeral I never needed to give my parents because the firestorm burned everything, including their remains.

I was tired.

So, so tired.

But then I remembered that I had a brother and a sister. I hadn't been able to contact them because the fire burned my phone, too, but they lived on the other side of the state. So I drove, taking the fastest route.

On the way, I drove along the edge of a mountain. I stopped - dont know why - at a small open space meant for picture takers. There were some of them there doing exactly that.

I got out of my car and just started out into the distance.

I looked down and saw a sharp cliff with the ocean tide crashing into the cliffside.

It was beautiful… and I thought…

Why … bother my brother and sister? Aren't they better off without someone like me? A friendless, penniless loser? I wasn't ambitious, so I stayed in one position for a long time. Why would I need to be ambitious when, prior to lal of these disasters hitting me, I had everything I wanted? But I was a nobody now.

It wasn't a rational thought.

It wasn't a good thought.

But it was the thought that was dominant inside my mind.

So I stared out into the Pacific Ocean, wondering why I was so … small.

And decided to end it.

I took a step forward and another.

I think someone took notice because they shouted at me, but I was too close to the edge.

I walked off.

For a moment, I was free as I plunged into the sharp rocks and the waves below.

Then.

Crack.

Let me tell you, death was not as instantaneous as I would have liked but it was close enough. For a single moment, I felt a pain unlike any other. So intense, hot, and profound, I achieved enlightenment.

'This was a bad idea.'

And I died.

The series of events that led me to my death also led me to here.

This empty expanse of nothing filled with baubles and trash.

I floated around this empty white places. I didn't starve or dehydrate even though I knew for a fact that I'd been here for a long time since my suicide. It made me wonder.

Where was I?

Was this limbo? If so, then why was limbo filled with trash?

Did heaven and hell deal with suicides like trash? An event that made souls unworthy of either afterlives?

Questions, questions, questions… Not enough answers.

This place, the White Limbo, was interesting at least, so I wasn't bored out of my mind. I collected trash, stacking papers, putting electronics in a box.

I did this again and again and again and again and again….

It was finally clean. After what seemed like forever, the White Limbo was clean.

I don't know why I started cleaning this place, but I cleaned it and felt great to see it so free of debris and trash.

The collected trash stayed in the neat pile that I made them into the-

Zap.

I looked over my shoulder and saw the pile of trash, or what took its place.

A piece of paper.

I grabbed the paper and then pulled it closer to my face. There was a note attached to the paper.

[Thanks for cleaning my house. Can't meet with you personally, but here's a little gift. I'll also send you to wherever you want.]

I looked down at the paper and …

"'Worm CYOA v.3 Revised, customize for interfictional use.'" I paused. "... A CYOA." I giggled madly. "A CYOA?" I giggled some more. "Sure."

I wrote out the options for a new me who was anything but me. I had been shy and content, so I made myself greedy and lustful. I had been powerless, so I gave powers that would make people green with envy.

I made myself immune to supernatural abilities that might interfere with mine and made myself a "man of mystery" because I didn't want people hounding me; I wanted to be free and being a mystery would get me that.

But then I had a point leftover, and I just rolled with it.

I giggled at the word I got before rolling for the power level, and laughed at getting the highest possible number.

Then I chose where I would be dropped.

I didn't want to go to Worm. It was a depressing shithole with a time limit.

This CYOA offered other options like Stargate: SG-1, Star Trek, Honor Harrington Universe, Halo, Mass Effect, and more.

I … chose somewhere that would allow me to get away from it all. A universe where I could build my own little piece of heaven.

Star Wars.

I smiled after reviewing the choices I made.

Then I folded the CYOA paper and my choices written on the sticky note that came with the CYOA, and sent it along.

I closed my eyes.

I opened my eyes.

The feeling was different. The lack of wind in that White Limbo was something I only realized now. It was so quiet in there… but not out here. No, it was noisy with the sound of rustling leaves and the chirping of the birds. The sky was blue and the grass was green.

Feeling great and energetic, I sat up.

And realized that I was tiny now.

"Great," I grumbled as I looked down at myself. "I'm a smol."

I may have been a loner, but I was not uncultured.

I stood up and realized that I was wearing strange clothes. Perhaps they fit in with the local fashion? It was one part flowing and another part loose. It reminded me of Roman and Greek tunic on top and short cargo pants on the bottom. It was breezy and cool, which helped under the star shining down on me.

It was strangely Earth-like, but a lot of worlds in Star Wars franchise was Earth-like.

"So," I grinned as I felt an adventurous excitement I never felt before spark within me. "Where am I?"

I didn't immediately start exploring. Instead, I sat down and went over my options. I didn't close my eyes or anything meditative, but when I thought about the CYOA, the powers granted to me sprung into my mind with gutso. They clamored to be used and be useful.

It was like … not puppies but children eager to prove themselves to their teacher. There was, however, a bit of eldritch feelings. Though I immediately made the comparison between my powers and children, but their expression was more than that; they pushed upon my mind to be used, my skin tingled, and my fingers twitched.

I considered my situation. I was out in the wilderness, no matter how beautiful it was, and I needed a way to find and to enter civilization. Sorry, Horror, but you aren't exactly subtle.

*Squeeee*

"So it will have to be Panacea," I said as I looked around and saw a good source of biomass to alter to my needs: a tree. I stood up, walked to the tree, and touched it with the palm of my left hand.

Immediately, I was assaulted by the whole of the tree, its condition, history, and genetics. I stared in awe, going over everything about this tree.

It took me sometime but I snapped out of it. Then I set to work.

I changed the tree's structure and brought its branches closer. The trunks and branches were hollowed out while outer layers of the trees, those underneath the bark, were strengthened with carbon nanotubes. I gave the tree a simple neural system without a central nervous system to direct it.

Instead, I created a neuro connector at the center of what was going to be the "cockpit." As the roots were cut off and the whole of the tree became lighter and greater, I smiled.

I stepped into the cockpit I created and felt the tree connect with me through an opening I created at the base of my own skull with Panacea's power. And just like that, the plant was now a power of me.

I experimentally swung the giant leaf-feathered wings, and a strong gust blew from the simple flap. Satisfied, I crouched and then jumped. I flapped my new wings and flew high into the sky.

It took me quite a while to find a city, but when I did, I realized exactly where I was.

The view of the grand palace looking over a cliff with a whole city beyond the cliff, and the entire vista was situated at the center of a hilly region. Its tall, domed towers and the spaceport at the bottom of the cliff… It was Theed. I was on Naboo. I grinned. Of all places for me to start, Naboo wasn't that bad of a location.

I broke down the tree into something more mundane. Absorbing the wings, the tree-exoskeleton grew taller. I intentionally grew out the chest and the shoulders to give it a masculine look. I fused some of the leaves together and then converted them to leather.

'Panacea, your ability is too OP but you are not,' I thought to myself, thinking of the mousy girl who was the healer of Brockton Bay before she broke, mentally.

Slowly, the plant exoskeleton finished its changes. I saw a normalish arms, a normalish legs, and a body with leather garb to hide the exoskeleton's crotch.

I mean, it was something I should do, right? Not expose the crotch?

Satisfied with my design, I walked in.

I parked my plant-exoskeleton elsewhere and wondered the spaceport a little. There were a few people wondering about just as I was, and I found a Botan who looked like he was a pilot.

"Hey, mister!"

The botan looked up from where he'd been leaning on the hull of a ship and reading from a datapad.

"Hmm?" he grunted and then saw me. His dull eyes sharpened for a second as he looked over me. "What do you want, kid?" he asked, looking around.

"I'm trying to get offworld," I said with a grin. "If I give you payment, then will you get me offworld?"

"Where do you even want to go?" he asked. "And what are you going to pay me with?"

I reached into my pocket and pulled out some crystals I'd found while walking to Theed. "How about these?"

The botan stared at the crystals for a second before his eyes widened. "... sure, kid. You can wait inside my ship."

"Okay~. I actually have to get something, though, so I'll be back in half an hour. Is that alright?"

The botan grinned. "Yeah. Sure. Whatever. Just be back here in half an hour."

I nodded and raced back to where I parked my plant-exoskeleton. Thankfully, no one found it, and I condensed it. It became really thin but by the time I was done, it was no bigger than a backpack, and I hung it over my shoulders like it was a backpack. It was a bit heavy, but I was fine with that, because I was extending root-like structures through the back of my shirt from the backpack and wrapped the root-likes around my entire abdomen and lower body. Soon, I had a supportive exoskeleton just underneath my clothes.

Then I raced back to the botan and his ship.

The botan was waiting for me with a grin and let me on his small freighter through the cargo ramp. The ramp then closed, and then he led me through his freighter's hallway until we reached a door and he opened it.

Then suddenly, he pushed me in, and I stumbled forward.

The door slammed shut behind me. Blinking in surprise, I looked around.

Inside the room with me were people. Some were crying, others were bruised, and there was even a little girl with a bleeding forehead.

…

Oh.

This was a slave ship, and these were kidnappees, weren't they?

"What a shitty luck I have," I muttered to myself.

… But then again, I was trying to get offworld, and if I made any commotion, then it wouldn't get off. Also, securities will be called in if a ship started shaking violently as I rampaged through it, and with how my plant-exoskeleton would like on the surface, regular people would turn their guns on me.

With a huff, I sat down where I'd stopped stumbling and waited.

Once we were in space…

Well, I would go crazy.

Universe: Star Wars
Species: Human, 10 years old
Time Period: 50 BBY
Location: Theed, Naboo

A/N: From this point on, the story will not be from the SI/OC's POV but rather those who interact with him.