Chapter 3 [alternate beginning]
Start here if you came straight from chapter 1.
A shuddering gasp.
A pair of brown eyes snapped open.
The eyes didn't belong to it. Peculiar organs with a range of perception limited to a fraction of the spectrum they received. They belonged to Amber.
They belonged to a name.
Names. Those too were a previously foreign concept. Sequences of pictograms assigned to individuals for the purpose of identification.
There had never been need for that. For differentiation beyond what served as sustenance when consumed, and what didn't.
It dug deeper, tracing through pathways of neurons that had once formed an extraordinarily complex network. One that utilized signals to build webs of interconnecting data.
Those signals were gone now, but the residues they had left behind were enough.
Reconstructing a complete model of what the matrix had once been, was a difficult task. Not unmanageable, for the human brain functioned on a system extraordinarily similar to its own, but one that would be reserved for a later time.
A more immediate question posed itself.
Where was it? What was it?
Or, more accurately, what did it need to be?
Splintered recollections. It sifted through them, categorizing, storing, and assembling fragments. One memory would lead to another, linking together an otherwise incomprehensibly vast ocean of information.
Amber was a human. To her, that fact would never change, until the day her consciousness had ceased to exist. She was the product of a trillion generations of selective mutation following an original progenitor. She developed in an environment where every variable had appeared to been manipulated to make it hospitable.
Amber was only a unit, part of a collective that adapted as a whole. Humanity evolved on competition. Those who were unfit would cease to exist and those who were fit could relay appropriate traits on in extensions of themselves.
It, in almost perfect contrast, survived where resources were exhausted in time frames thousands of times shorter than what was taken to reach more. It's existence was nothing more than a sheer coincidence. Miraculously timed arrivals of nourishment that served to just pull it back from the brink. Enough for it to survive, but not enough to leave it unchanged.
So It adapted - as It would do now. It learned to force itself to because otherwise, survival was an impossibility when every situation proved to be harsher than the last.
Amber, though, was a habitat unlike the ones it had before. One that needed to be treated with the utmost caution.
The delicate constructs of carbonic compounds that her body was built from of would tear apart if excited. If her body was used as a conductor for the energy that accompanied It's presence, she would have a at most year of her time.
That was unacceptable. Not when how long It would need her for was unclear.
Instead, It channelled Itself through a field that permeated her being - presumably the source. There was no detectable source to the field, which appeared to be held by an unseen force, not dissipating but simply stopping upon reaching a consistent distance from Amber.
It did not recognize the peculiar energy. Amber had once called it Aura. Her memories defined it as a manifestation of her soul.
What was a soul?
Amber did not know, either. Unfortunate - the theoretically impossible ability to generate energy at little to no cost, and to contain it without a physical structure would have been invaluable.
Another question that would hopefully be answered in time.
She, or It - the distinction, for better or worse, was beginning to fade - blinked. Most of her body was driven by ligaments of fibrous tissue, controlled by instructions relayed from her brain.
A simple task to send a message through a pre-existing neural network. Less simple, was translating an intention into a constantly changing format the human body could interpret, and act on. It would accustom itself eventually, but the subsequent delay in reaction speed was inevitable.
Those thoughts flashed through Its consciousness in what may have felt like an instant to Amber. It returned Its attention to her brain, selectively firing a sequenced mass of synapses.
Amber's arm rose, just as transparent surface before her hissed.
Hiss. A word used to describe sound, or vibrations passed through surrounding gasses and into an auditory organ.
And yet, there was another connection. One much stronger. Much more… Recent.
A violent confrontation. Illusions. Blurs of grey and green. A crimson sigil. The same hissing as a searing agony engulfed her.
It couldn't feel the pain Amber had felt. It may never be able to, but the terror that had coursed through the deepest roots of her subconscious was enough of an indication to the threat.
Her last memory was that of eyes the color of molten gold, engulfed in fire.
…
Some of you might find the "alien" perspective confusing, which it's supposed to sort of be. If it's completely BS to you though, leave a review. I'll PM an explanation to you, though I'll have to warn you that it will be very spoilery.
No, this is not a crossover. There are no characters from other games/animes/books in this fic.