Pain.

Pain was the first thing I was aware of. There was nothing else. There was nothing but darkness around me and when I tried to move, I couldn't. But I could feel pain in my arms, my back, my chest, and my head. It engulfed my body and made me want to cry out. I discovered that I was unable to make a sound. No one would hear my screams of pain and come for me; I couldn't scream. I lay there restrained in the darkness waiting for some unspeakable horror to befall me. The pain in my head was getting worse. It was as if a thousand voices were all shouting in my head at once. The noise was growing and growing.

Then all at once, the voices stopped. The pain in my head went down from a searing pain to a dull throb. I was thankful to whatever made it stop. I tried moving again and was surprised. It was drowned out by pain earlier but I realised I was blinking my eyes . I tried turning my head but it was also restrained. I reached out with my fingers in the darkness for something, anything. I discovered that whatever I was laying on, it was elevated. I felt a ridge with my fingers. That got me thinking, am I strapped to some sort of table? What the hell was going on?

All of a sudden blinding light illuminated the room. I closed my eyes to block out this new pain. While I was recovering I heard the clacking of high heels on a hard floor. And voices! Maybe they could tell me what was happening.

“How is he?” a feminine voice asked.

“It is rejecting our modifications,” replied a male voice with some sort of clicking sound.

“He, my child, is rejecting our modifications,” the female said. “We must remember this is a sapient creature.”

“I’m sorry, your Highness,” the male said. “As I was saying, for the majority of our modifications his body seems to be accepting them. For some of the others the physical rejection of them is getting violent. I imagine that if could be awake right now he would be in great pain.”

‘Modifications?’ I thought ‘What the fuck? Am I in the human centipede or some shit?’ Panic spread through my body as I struggled against my restraints. I tried to open my eyes but the light was still too bright. The two got closer and I could feel them standing over my body.

“Oh no,” the male screamed. “Is he awake?”

“I want him in a pod immediately,” the female ordered. “And make sure that there’s enough sedative to keep him asleep until the process is finished this time!”

I tried to make a sound, any sound that could get their attention but the only sound that escaped my lips was a groan.

The female leaned down next to my head. I once again tried to open my eyes but the light was still too bright. She leaned in close until I could feel her breath on my ear.

“I’m sorry for what we’ve done to you,” she had a catch in her throat. “But we are out of options.” I felt a sharp pain in my arm and then my consciousness started fading. Her voice grew more distant. “I promise you, I will explain everything.”

***

I don’t know how long it was before I awoke again. I felt sluggish when I woke up but I also felt weightless.I experimented with my arms. I could move around! I tried walking but there was no ground under me. My eyes shot open and I immediately regretted it. I was in some kind of fluid. I closed them expecting some kind of stinging sensation but it never came. Now that I was thinking about it, I didn’t feel any pain at all. Strange. I opened my eyes again and everything slowly came into focus. I was in some sort of tank floating in a green liquid. There was nothing feeding air into my lungs but I could still breathe. The room I was being kept in was empty although there were signs that others had been here recently. My vision flashed green and I began to see different colored phantom images walking around the room. I tried to back up and hit the back of the tank. The phantoms faded with another green flash. ‘I’ve got to get out of here!’ I thought.

I leaned my back against the back of the tank and curled up my legs. I put my hand back and kicked forward with all of my strength. The front of the tank shattered draining it. Without the liquid keeping me up I fell to the bottom. I shoved my fists against the already weakened parts making the hole bigger and cutting up my arms. I climbed out and fell to the ground. I felt exhausted but I forced myself to stand up. I inspected my body. Besides the cuts that were up and down my arms I had a few on my legs. I had large scars on my forearms and up and down my sternum. My body was much thinner than I remembered though. I still had no idea how long I had been here, where here was, who these people were, or what they wanted with me. I was scared out of my mind and I began hyperventilating as I fully realized the gravity of the situation. I fell to my hands and knees and resisted the urge to curl up in a ball.

‘Focus,’ a voice in my head said. ‘Focus and breathe.’

I started regulating my breathing and was able to calm myself down. I needed a singular goal to get me through this. First, I would escape this place. Then, I could worry about everything else. I picked myself and dusted myself off. I walked to the door and took a deep breath. I had no idea what would be on the other side. I would have to be ready for anything. I looked for any kind of door knob or panel but as soon as I touched the door it opened. I poked my head out into the hallway and looked around. No one was around so I tiptoed out.

“Where do I go now,” I whispered to myself.

‘Go left,” the voice said again. It was so familiar but I couldn’t place it. I didn’t want to take advice from voices in my head but I had no other leads to go on. Reluctantly, I turned left and started walking. As I crept through the building, I noticed a few things. One, the design of this place was really alien. It was very reminiscent of a dark green alien hive.

“I swear if I run into a xenomorph,” I muttered under my breath.

The other thing I noticed was my wounds were gone. I don’t know when they disappeared but at some point all of my cuts had healed. It didn’t matter why. I added it to the list of things to worry about later. The voice kept directing me through the creepy halls until I finally came across someone. As soon as I saw them I hid behind a wall. I was terrified all over again. I was definitely in some sort of alien compound. Instead of humans there were giant 4-legged bugs running the place! They were all black with wings and horns and fangs. They were terrifying with their glowing blue eyes. I started panicking again. I sat down and held my head in my hands.

“Ok magic voice,” I thought. “You got me this far. Don’t abandon me now.”

‘Focus on the enemy,’ the voice said. ‘What are they?’

How was I supposed to know that? I’d never seen these things before in my life! But I wasn’t about to start ignoring the voice now. I peeked around the corner and got a better look at the creatures. There were three of them. I studied every inch of them and tried to match them up with anything I already knew about. Suddenly information poured into my mind.

“They’re called changelings. They’re shapeshifters that feed on emotion,” I said surprising myself.

‘They stand between you and freedom,’ the voice said. ‘You must get past them to advance.’

The voice was right. No bug-things were going to stand in my way. Now what did I know about changelings? More information flowed into my mind. They feed on emotion. They passively feed on ambient emotion but also take in emotion directed at them. And some emotions are poison. I started thinking about how I was taken from my home and experimented on. I could feel rage and hatred welling up inside me. I now had something to unleash these feelings on. I jumped out from behind the wall and focused all of my newfound rage on the changelings. They looked at me and before they had time to respond, they started hacking up black bile. The changelings fell to the ground spewing black ooze all over the floor. I had mixed feelings about what I just did. While I didn’t have much sympathy for the creatures that kidnapped me, that looked like a horrible way to go.

‘Keep moving,’ the voice urged me on. ‘and be careful. Changelings are mentally linked together. They’ll be looking for you now.’

I pushed forward through my regret and fear. If the voice was going to lead me out of here, I was going to do everything it told me. It was weird; I was definitely feeling more panicky than usual. I didn’t remember ever having a panic attack before. In fact now that I was thinking about it, I didn’t remember anything at all. I fell to my knees and started hyperventilating again. Who was I? Why couldn’t I remember anything about myself?

‘Get a hold of yourself,” the voice commanded. ‘Breathe. Breathe and concentrate on yourself.’

I let the voice calm me down. I focused on my hands and took slow, steady breaths. “I’m…… Sam!,” I said to myself, my name finally coming back to me. After I remembered my name more information about myself flowed into my mind. “I’m 22. I’m an engineer. I live in…… Maryland. I should be thicker than I am right now. I have two siblings and….”

‘Enough,’ the voice said. ‘You are wasting time. It’s time move on. Every second you waste here brings you closer to being recaptured.’

The fallen changelings had stopped spew black ooze out of their mouths and had started breathing steadily. It appeared they weren’t dead after all. It was definitely time to move on. I stepped over their bodies and moved quickly.

‘Stop,’ the voice told me and I froze. ‘Focus on your senses and locate your enemies.’

I closed my eyes and focused on my breathing. The sounds around me intensified. It freaked me out and I lost my concentration.

“What the fuck was that?” I whisper-shouted.

‘You sharpened your senses,’ the voice said. ‘Try it again.’

I focused on regulating my breathing. In and out. Breathe in, breathe out. My vision started turning black. I could still see but everything took on a dark color. I desperately tried to maintain my calm. I looked around for anything that would stand out. I saw more of those monsters, those changelings, further down the path. Instead of seeing them as I normally would, they appeared to me as outlines each with a bright color. Some shared a color; most of them were yellow. Fear. I instinctively recognized the colors and what they meant. These were their emotions! I could see their emotions!

‘This is the special sense gifted to the changelings as part of their evolution,’ the voice told me. ‘This is how they detect emotion for consumption. It can help them find their prey even when they hide. Now use it to escape.’

With this special vision, even with the changelings looking for me, I could still keep the element of surprise and plan my attacks. As long as I could remain calm, anyway.

‘Be careful,’ the voiced advised. ‘The next set of changelings are armed.’

I crept along the wall, keeping my emotion sight on by keeping my breathing steady. How was I going to beat them? I could overpower them with a concentration of negative emotion like I did before.

‘That will not work a second time,’ the voice said. ‘The changelings you used that on before have shared that information through the link. The next time you run into changelings they will be able to defend against it.’

Well that sucked. What was I supposed to do? Fight armed enemies with my fists? I’d be shot before I even got close.

‘You will not,’ the voice said. ‘Changelings do not carry ranged weapons. All of the enemies ahead are carrying swords.’

Great. Just great. I’ve always wanted to be sashimi. I smiled humorlessly at my dark joke. It appeared finding a sense of humor would keep me from having another panic attack. Whatever works. The voice seemed confident that I could win against swords with my bare hands and it hadn’t led me astray so far. I stood around the corner about to face the changelings. There were four of them and they all had swords at their side. If I focused on them…. More information came into my mind. The weak spot on a changeling’s body was…. at the base of the skull where the head connects to the neck. I could maybe get one of them by surprise. A plan started forming in my mind. If I can knock out one, I can take its sword and use that to defend myself against the others. If I attack physically with the sword and mentally with emotion, it should give me the advantage. Of course the glaring flaw in my plan was I’d never swung a sword in my life and I was going up against, I’m assuming, trained soldier/guard things. Nope. Can’t think about stuff like that or I’ll lose my nerve. I took a deep breath and jumped out of my cover.

I charged at the nearest changeling and punched it in the back of the head. I felt the impact all the way up my arm. I hadn’t taken into account their natural body armor. I didn’t knock it out but I did manage to stun it. I quickly grabbed its sword while it was stunned. It wasn’t that long; in fact it was just longer than my forearm and hand. It looked incredibly sharp and was pure black with a simple design. I jammed the sword into the back of the dazed changeling as it started regaining its senses. Its wings sprung out as it hissed in pain and it slumped to the ground. I pulled the sword out of the body and held it up. The other three changelings all had their swords…. Holy shit they were floating in the air! The changelings all hissed and bared their fangs at me as their swords floated next to them. I could smell something in the air. My mind immediately recognized the smell as fear. They were afraid of me? The monsters with hardened skin, fangs, and floating swords were afraid of me? Nothing about this situation made any sense!

Ignoring my loosening grip on my sanity, I lunged forward at the one of the changelings with my sword. I was easily parried to the side and received a kick to my side. Getting back into a fighting stance, I got ready just as one of them lunged at me. I blocked their sword with my own and grabbed the changeling by the throat. I lifted it off the ground and threw it against the wall. I froze in place. I was never that strong. And these things came up to my chest. Ignore it! Just use it and keep going I told myself. Shaking off my surprise I could see I wasn't the only one caught off-guard by my newfound strength. The two remaining changelings looked at each other before rushing at me. I tried swiping with my sword but one of them blocked my attack while the other knocked the sword out of my hand. Both of them kicked me into the wall. It didn’t matter how strong I was if they could just cut me to ribbons. They advanced swords held high. I put my arms up and closed my eyes. I felt the impact on my arms. Then I felt impact again. And again. And again. I opened my eyes to find out what was happening and I was stunned. My arms had turned pitch black. I had to wiggle my fingers to make sure they were still mine.The changelings were hacking away at my arms unsuccessfully. Whatever this black stuff was, it was protecting me. I wasn’t going to let this opportunity go to waste.

I grabbed the blades of the swords and pulled them out of the air. They tried to bite me with their fangs but couldn’t penetrate. Taking the initiative I smacked them both against the wall. Their limp bodies fell from my arms. The color returned to normal.

“Hey, voice!” I nearly yelled. “What the hell just happened?”

‘You just defeated four sword wielding changelings with your bare hands,’ the voice said.

“I know that,” I growled. “I mean all that other weird stuff.”

‘I would advise you keep moving as I explain it to you.’

I grumbled at the voice and walked over to the changelings. I unstrapped two their sheathes from their bodies and tied them on my waist. I then picked up two of the swords and continued down the hallway.

‘The strength you exhibited was a result of the magic coursing through your system as well as the fact that you are much denser than the beings of this world. That, however, is a double edged sword. As your body is much stronger here than on your previous world, it still requires the same amount of oxygen. Since the air here is less dense than you are used to, your body is reacting as if the air is running out, hence the panic attacks.’

I stopped moving and stare blankly ahead.

‘Why have you stopped?’

“I’m on another world?” I dropped to my knees and everything started spinning around me as my head hit the ground.

‘Do not despair. You must continue!’ the voice urged me on. But I wasn’t listening. I was too busy thinking about what that meant.

“I’ll never see my family again,” I whispered. “I’ll never see my girlfriend, any of my friends or anything ever again.”

‘Do not spiral out of control!’ the voice demanded my attention. ‘If you give up now, you will definitely never see them again!’

“What’s the point of fighting?” I said despondently. “Even if I get out of here, I’m on a different planet! There’s nowhere for me to go.”

‘So you would allow yourself to be captured or killed? Is that really who you are? Someone who quits when they can’t find a solution?’

No, no that’s not me. I’m not a quitter. I’m… an engineer! My occupation of choice is problem solver. When confronted with insurmountable riddle, I always find the answer! I shakily stood up. I may be trapped on another world but if there’s a way here, there’s a way back.

‘That’s more like it,’ the voice said. ‘There is hope for your return. The spell that brought you here can be used to send you back.’

That was another thing that shook me to my core. “Magic is real? Is that how those swords were levitating?”

‘Yes, it was a simple telekinetic spell.’

“You said there was magic coursing through my body right? Can I use it?”

‘You can.’

“In the same way they were? Can I use magic spells?”

‘You can.’

That was great. Another tool added to my toolbox. “One last question: does that telekinesis require any kind of prep like an incantation or something?”

‘It does not.’

Perfect. I concentrated on myself and my senses. If the voice was correct, then I should be able to use magic freely. Just like the changelings. I tried imagining one of the swords being pulled from the sheathe. To my surprise my hand was engulfed in green flames along with the sword as it clumsily hovered in front of me. I wasn’t going to be performing surgery but it was going to be very useful. The flames gave me another idea though. I put the sword away and focused on the flames. I aimed my hand at the wall and imagined launching a fireball from my hand. A bright green fireball flew from my hand and impacted the wall with a blinding flash of light. After the light faded, I inspected the wall. There were no scorch marks and the wall was lukewarm at best. So I wasn’t going to be burning anything but at least now I had a distraction.

I ran down the hallways with a newfound sense of purpose. I used my emotion vision to keep track of the changelings as they moved to intercept me. The voice guided me through, letting me know when any enemies I might have missed were attacking. Whenever I encountered a group of changelings, my body would armor itself automatically. Now that I knew I could win, I made quick work of any I came across. My strength was too much for them and I could feel myself learning how to use a sword every time I fought.

‘The last fight is coming up,’ the voice said. ‘The changelings are there in force and they are ready for all of your tricks.’

“Not all of them,” I said to myself. I viewed the room with my emotion vision. There had to be at least fifty changelings in a very large room, all guarding an enormous door. That had to be the way out! This was it. Just this last fight and then I was free. I steeled myself and took a deep breath. I stuck my hand out from around the corner and fired one of my fireballs into the center of the room. I heard it detonate and I rushed out into fray.

While the majority of the changelings were incapacitated I swung my swords wildly watching their greenish blue blood fly everywhere. My body armored itself and I was pitch black. The blinded changelings recovered and rushed at me. I tried to catch them with my sword but I was still too inexperienced. Their quick maneuvers knocked my swords from my hands. I starting throwing wild punches and landed enough hits to make them back off. They came at me in a more coordinated manner and I rushed blindly at them. I charged up another fireball and let it loose I was eye to eye with the changeling. The impact knocked me off my feet but I was quick to recover. The remaining changelings weren’t so lucky. I saw my swords and pulled them into my hands. While the monsters were recovering, I hacked away at them. Their exoskeletons split apart and their cries of pain filled the room. By the time I was finished I was drenched in changeling blood and dead tired.

I dropped the swords and hobbled over to the door. With the last of my strength I jammed my hands into the solid metal. I pulled with all my might and the door creaked and moaned. I yelled out and yanked and the door finally came free of its hinges. Taking one last look back at the changelings I scanned them with my emotion vision. They were a strange mix of happiness, pain, and contentment. I switched to normal vision and walked through the doorway.

I walked through a dark tunnel towards the light at the end of the tunnel excited and tired. I had to grapple with the fact that I’m a murderer now and I just fought a battle… and won. No, I would only make myself crazy thinking about it. Once I got out of here I could try to come to grips with everything that happened. For now, escaping needed to be my only objective. My pace got quicker the closer I got to the light. It was so bright and so inviting. I felt a stupid smile on my face as I finally ran out of the tunnel.

My smile faded as I saw what was before me. Hundreds of changelings buzzing around a huge underground city. I fell to my knees as all the hope I had died.

“Don’t feel bad.” The voice! I could hear it! But it wasn’t coming from my head. I slowly turned to find the source. “If it makes you feel any better, you have exceeded all of my expectations.” I felt tears streaming down my face as I came face to face with the voice’s owner. It was a changeling. Larger than any of the other changelings we stood at the same height. It was clearly female and it had a long pale blue tail and mane. She had a crooked horn jutting from her head and a crown that sat behind it. Like all of the other changelings she had fangs and holes in her legs. Wings stretched out of her back and she had a green carapace. She walked closer to me and I lowered my head in defeat.

“Giving up again? What happened to that savage warrior that laid waste to my soldiers?” she gently teased.

I managed to lift my head up to look her in her eyes. They were green and had slit pupils. I moved my mouth to form words but no sound came out.

“You want to know why?” she said. “Very well but first you need to rest. You are our last hope after all. And with all of the time, effort, and sacrifice that went into making you, I would hate to see it all go to waste.”

I felt a sharp stabbing pain in my neck. I looked down to see a changeling biting down from behind me. The world started going dark.

“By the way, little nymph, my name is Chrysalis.” Her voice grew distant. “I want him in a pod and prepped for fine tuning. Make sure his recovery is complete before you start. I don’t want anything happening to him. This was a successful test, wouldn’t you say? Beware ponies, your days are numbered.”

Author's Note

So this is a new story that's been rattling around in my head for a while. Tell me what you think!