1 Awakened and Starved

'Eat. Must. Eat. I need. More.'

Arlo awoke, senses overwhelmed by an insatiable hunger gnawing at his very core. It consumed him, reducing his thoughts to mere instinct. He felt like a feral creature, driven solely by the desperate need for sustenance. The absence of food had nearly extinguished him, leaving him feeble and vulnerable.

Blinking his eyes open, Arlo found himself disoriented and weak. He surveyed his surroundings—a dilapidated room cluttered with discarded armour and scattered weapon pieces. Cobwebs shrouded every corner, testifying to years of neglect. Rotten, broken wooden objects littered the floor, as if they had long given up hope.

Amidst the debris, a rat-like creature scurried from under the table, its beady eyes darting about in search of food. Instinct took over Arlo, and without a second thought, he lunged for the rat, driven by a desperate hunger.

But the creature proved elusive, slipping through his grasping fingers and disappearing back under the table.

'No!' Arlo's internal scream echoed silently, frustration and desperation welling up within him. However, no words escaped his lips. He was trapped in a voiceless state, intensifying his panic.

In his distress, Arlo turned his attention to his own hand. To his horror, it appeared unusually long, with sharp claws protruding from his fingers. The entire limb was charred black, a grotesque transformation that bewildered him.

'What in the world is happening to me?' Arlo's panic surged, his mind racing for answers that eluded him. Even his attempts at speech were futile.

Summoning the last vestiges of his strength, Arlo reached out for an iron sword atop the table, hoping to find one untarnished by neglect. Though his body felt paralyzed, his elongated hand extended further than expected, defying his own comprehension.

Fear mingled with confusion as Arlo's trembling hand seized a relatively clean-looking sword. Holding it up sideways, he sought a glimpse of his altered reflection, dreading what he might discover.

With a resounding clank, the sword slipped from Arlo's grasp, crashing onto the stone floor. The sound reverberated through the desolate room, marking the climax of his revelation.

At that moment, Arlo's eyes widened in horror as he beheld a gaping, salivating maw lined with enormous teeth emerging from a colossal chest. Two immensely black arms sprouted from within, contrasting sharply against the grim surroundings.

The realization struck Arlo like a thunderbolt—this grotesque creature was an extension of his own being, a nightmarish manifestation of his transformation. The implications were as terrifying as they were incomprehensible.

"What have I become?" Arlo's voiceless sob echoed through the room in the measure of some sort of shrieking, finally blending with the eerie silence that enveloped him.

The journey that lay before him now teemed with unforeseen perils and unanswered questions, a harrowing odyssey into the unknown...

He was in a state of shock, for he didn't know how many hours had passed. He devolved into a maniac as he looked at his charred hands from time to time.

After what felt like another day, he felt a grumble from deep within the chest; hunger pangs intensifying even more. With the rat gone, he felt even more hopeless.

'I was just minding my own business, drinking some coffee, wasn't I?!' Arlo yelled internally once more. 'What happened?!' He then quickly grew unsure. 'Wait, what coffee?'

As much as he wanted to investigate further, the truth was he couldn't think clearly due to his unending hunger for fresh meat. He needed to leave this place! He needed to find food!

Just as these thoughts crossed his mind, the chest grew stubby little feet underneath itself, and he found himself standing.

'What?!'

'I grew feet!'

Although he felt momentarily elated, his frail state escalated further, and he crashed on top of the large table. One of the swords on the table stabbed the top side of the chest.

It was clearly the sound of wood being pierced, and that's how it felt, too. But black blood soon started oozing out, while a sharp pain radiated throughout his new and grotesque body.

Arlo painfully learned the lesson that transforming into other things made him even weaker. It used even more energy than he figured, and at the moment, he didn't even have the energy to sustain his long arms.

His feet disappeared back into the chest, followed by his long arms. He desperately wanted to thrash around but couldn't move at all. In a matter of minutes, he was a chest with some sharp teeth sticking out. As his teeth slowly disappeared, a feeling of tiredness washed over him.

'Ah, I remember,' Arlo thought to himself, understandingly. 'This was what I felt when I died, too.' He then caught himself again. 'Wait, when did I die?'

His mind was suddenly flooded with incomprehensible images of a coffee shop in a ruined state, as if a bomb had gone off. There were the sounds of sirens in the air as he closed his eyes.

'Is this some sort of punishment?' Arlo thought to himself as the teeth of the chest disappeared, leaving a hunk of ornate wood behind as he closed his eyes...

"I swear I heard some sound here!" someone said. "See, they looted this chest!"

Arlo was woken up by the sound, and he came to himself momentarily.

'No! I won't die no matter what!'

The chest once again grew sharp teeth and bit forward. A fountain of blood sprayed the air, followed by the shriek of an unknown creature.

"It's a mimic!" a different voice yelled, followed by footsteps rushing outside the room.

'Ah, food! Blessed food,' Arlo thought to himself.

He never knew eating could feel so good and fill him up with such joy. He could finally open his eyes, which were hidden as slits of the chest, hard to spot by anyone.

He saw a small, green creature holding a torch towards himself with one of his little arms gushing forth with a lot of blood.

"Let me go! I will give you gold!" the creature yelled. "All of my gold!"

'I am... Just so hungry!' Arlo thought again as his charred, long arms spilt forth and lunged at the small creature. Moments after, there was nothing left on the ground but a puddle of blood.