There was pain.
Stinging, pricking, biting.
Crawling up through the nervous system and spine and deep into the base of the brain. Nestling there and spreading like prospective roots from a planted seed.
There was pain, and that was all it knew.
Other things floated around within its consciousness. Snapshots of who, and what, it had once been.
Disparate pictures of an entity that was physically present, but no longer fully aware of what it was. Every so often some small awareness would flash into being but, like flotsam in a raging storm, it would soon be swept away and pulled back under.
It cried out as the muscles and tendons in one limb stretched almost to the point of breaking. They didn't, holding together as they bulged and grew stronger, but the skin above it ripped, furling at the edges as it was pulled apart.
With its eyes it watched as something bubbled up from between the folds of muscle and dripped to the ground beneath. It sizzled where it struck, eating at the loose earth and hard stones, leaving only an acrid smoke which wafted upwards.
It felt the stench of the smoke, the burning and reeking smell, as it crawled up what remained of the nostrils.
Images flashed within the twisting mind.
Danger.
That was what the burning signified. Danger.
Danger had been here. Danger had come from wherever it had been lurking. Danger had taken its fellows to somewhere hot and wet and hideous and done things to them. Terrible things. Monstrous things. Danger was returning swiftly and-
It scrabbled to its feet, to get away from whatever Danger was approaching. It had not moved for hours now, and when it did the joints within its new feet snapped apart.
With a howl it collapsed, curling upon itself and wrapping its limbs pitifully together. The pain had abruptly returned and, as flotsam, the thoughts of Danger and of escaping were swept back underneath the roiling mess of its warping mind.
There was pain. There was only pain. That was what it knew.
The ruined toes of its feet flexed and curled, joints grinding against one-another. With a low cracking they began to reset themselves, spreading and splaying outward to better suit their new position.
But it did not care. It had no capacity for abstract thought anymore, not for awareness beyond simple instinct.
Soon enough the Danger would return for it, and it could have resisted or hidden if it were still able to. But the part that could have was buried deep within the regressing meat of its brain, hidden under the overworked nervous system and overridden higher functions that crude instinct was now smothering.
There was pain.
There was only pain.
That was what it knew...
