My Sudden Monster Convergence

After playing for a couple hours, I looked over at my computer. Maybe I should do a little more research, I don’t even know if I'm in the US or even on earth for that matter. walking over to my computer and turning it on, I was hit by the one question everyone feared. Is the password even the same here?

typing in Deluxmaaan42 and waiting, the computer rejected the password. right…I rolled my eyes at my stupidity, didn’t start using that one until after college. It’s not… surely it’s not. typing in Truv0id2, the computer took the password, greeting me with a wallpaper of three golden giants with large glowing eyes.

“Damn it. even in another world young me has bad tastes in passwords.” I grumble to myself. “I’ll change it later.” 

booting up my web search, a page called Warrior opened up. so the search engine isn’t go-

“One man! One woman! And a bedroom ready for some action!” Shouted an announcer from an autoplay video. “How hot can it ge-” Instantly hitting the mute on my keyboard as fast as possible, silencing my pc before my mother ‘walked in’ on me.

Shit, what the hell is wrong with me! On the screen, the video showed a pink girl with horns as she made a panting face like she's…. why does this version of me have porn pop ups?! leering at the screen, I quickly found a way to remove it from my home page. before another option to have one called Monster shack pop up. reading it, it seems like some bachelor type show but with monster singles and partners….I don't know, that spider girl was kinda scary, what if there’s a monster that takes phobias to the next level? like living darkness?! you can only see them in the dark, the thought of something like that popping up behind me as i turned off the lights sent shivers down my spine.

closing the pop up, I began typing up one of my curiosities. what was this world called, It could be called gia or terra or some other way of saying land or dirt. 

The page popped up with the name of the planet, earth, so then some things are similar? Maybe a different evolution? but that doesn't explain magic, like what type of magic are we talking here? end the world levels or more mundane type magic limited to items? Searching what magic is brings up several sites with theories, wands on sale, dowsing items to find mana and a gif of a rabbit with antlers breathing out a white mist and breathing in a red and green one.

One showed a video of a kid shouting some weird words before the wand he was waving around flashed red and a torrent of fire flooded the dummies he was aiming at. the kid made a literal river of fire that swallowed the dummies, once he was done the dummies were either black ashes or just gone. Okay, magic is on the higher end here….I was both amazed and spooked at the kind of power a kid no younger than thirteen or fourteen had.

Deciding to look a little further I found one article that explained the bare bones basics of magic, it wasn't too hard to find if you ignored the things on sale. And the videos showing how powerful magic was.

‘To understand magic one must understand the power behind it. Mana acts as its fuel source and all beings have their own personal supply. although it is limited and people can only take in and hold certain amounts. take in too much and they go into mana frenzy, use too much and they faint as if they were awake for a week. Mana is produced by a certain organ that all living creatures have, plants included, this organ called the resculus. A organ that produces and even filters out mana from the body, the process behind this believed to happen when we eat or breathe in anything with mana in it.’

So there’s a new part of me that makes mana? looking deeper, I found a picture showing a small little snail shell shaped organ. it was no bigger than a bottle cap and seemed to be sitting above the heart but from how it looked, there didn't seem to be any veins attached. finding another picture, this time little beads were shown inside the organ.

‘The resculus, acts as the filter, breaking down both excess and influenced mana that doesn't belong in the body. The stones found inside attract the mana inside the body, these are commonly referred to as mana stones. like the organ, these stones occur in everything living.’

So I have the equivalent to magic kidney stones? Or is it more like those animals that eat stones for digestion? I mean all it does is attract mana in the body to be broken down somehow and then…. looking deeper into the article it explains that mana brought to the resculus is recycled and attuned to the body. apparently then it can easily flow around the body without being attracted by the mana stones.

‘Although the mana is attuned, it is more like the organ cleans the mana it keeps and turns it into neutral mana. The only difference is the purity of mana produced between all living things and the size and or shape of the resculus.’

looking down at my chest, I poke a spot where my heart is, only feeling muscle and bone underneath the skin. It doesn't feel any different from my old body, I didn't notice anything different when I woke up. “Guess it doesn’t work like teeth when you think about them.” I say to myself, remembering that the more you thought about your teeth the more you felt them.

‘All mythos from the many pantheons all bare similarities to the origin of mana. Mana came from the stars above, in some it fell as tears, in others a warm breath filled the world and more state something the gods worshiped. an existence above them, gave a portion of their power before disappearing, dying or splitting into two gods.’

Makes sense that religions would say it came from a higher power but it is odd to say it didn’t come from their own god. wait, it said pantheons what did it mean by that? Looking it up gave me an answer.

‘All gods fall into at least two pantheons. one tied to their origin or family and another tied to their virtues, any other pantheons a god is in, tend to be based around what other gods do. Some may challenge a god to improve, reflect an aspect of their virtues or even look out for each other. An example is the god of smiting, Shamil, and the god of iron works, Aicusa. One forces on making tools while the other is enthralled by the many pieces she can make out of iron. Aicusa would pester Shamil to make something fancy or new tools for her art while Shamil complains about the iron taking space in his workshop but he never throws any of it out.’

Ok, that was kinda cute, the whole gruff workaholic and the young dreamer aspect was super sweet. Though I guess there isn't a single god above everyone. even some gods the humans worshiped seemed to be saints and holy knights tied to gods of peace or balance.

After all that info I decided to look up one of things that worried me most. did they have a concept of reincarnation or transmigration and how did they react to them? 

Not so surprisingly, a lot of movies, shows and books popped up. anime on returning from another world, waking up as an object or as another monster to books of other world crossovers and battles. There was one where a girl created gunpowder and even enchanted mega-guns that pretty much out did everything she ran into. but the oddest thing was, I couldn't find anything that wasn't older than fifty years. Checking mythology gave me nothing beyond rumors about burning birds coming back as chicks.

so I looked up, people acting different, stuff on friends acting like another person and people forgetting their past. And what popped up scared me.

beyond depression or other mental illnesses, one thing kept showing up.

Wights.

One article read as;

‘My cousin was acting like he was drunk. bumping into things and even slurred speech. then one day I came home to find the house torn apart, blood everywhere and chewed up fingers littered the floor like neglected chip bags. I was so scared that something happened to my mother, brothers and cousin that I ran inside only to find my fucking cousin hunched over the body of my younger brother! He was eating him!’

Another read;

‘My girlfriend suddenly acted like she didn't know me one day. thinking that maybe she hit her head, I took her to the doctor. but the moment they tried to have her brain scanned, she sat up and threw the nurse through the wall! she looked me dead in the eyes but hers were pure black! Her mouth stretched open like rubber as she screamed-oh god her scream still haunts me at night!’

Apparently something they called a wight did this but it didn't seem like they knew for certain. All the info I could find on them stated they were existences that defied all logic, living with and without mana, killing everything they saw. Pretending to be people in some cases and in others, pretending to be the voice of one of the gods, driving people to murder, theft and arson. children stories of wights eating them if they lied or killing their families if they only cared for themselves. stories of strange howls or noises at night.

The only thing it suggested was to have the person examined by specialists, if they were to be found as a wight then they would simply kill it. A video even showed a mob in a forest, shouting as they shot fire, stones and green blades at a person. whose body was stretched to be taller than what was natural, limbs were broken into a whip like tentacle and a face growing where their stomach was. It had the face of a baby but instead of normal eyes they were pitch black and leaked a black Ichor and wore a smirk, the kind that showed joy in what happened.

The thing made my body shiver, it was as if a movie monster was brought to life! there was no way this thing was fake considering it didn't look like cgi and the way it’s pale skin looked, too human to be fake. my mind played the sound of chewing, bone breaking and flesh being pulled apart. more thoughts of a person looking like me except there wasn’t any teeth, muscle or eyes in his sockets!

“C-could I be…? …No…I-couldn’t…” I mumbled to myself as my body shivered and trembled. I felt like I was dunked in water so cold that my body was being squeezed, pulled and hit. I couldn’t believe that such a thing could exist!

Getting up, I quickly closed the page and stepped away from my computer like it had fleshy eyeballs and long human teeth. NOPE. JUST NO. I turned to my console and began looking for a game to help me forget the fear I had before it got too dark. But like it or not, I’ll have to be careful…

Blinking lazily, I rubbed the blurriness away, cold air licking the edges of my skin. Looking around, I spotted jagged stone peaks perching through a thick blanket of clouds as the wind began growling. The noise growing louder as it began howling an eerie warning, looking down, my feet on the cliff’s edge, my feet pushing against the deluge of wind. My toes were clenching the ground as the howl grew violent, crashing into my shoulders and back, clenching my teeth as I felt my back ripping apart. My skin was being pulled apart, the burning sensation raked my mind before the wind shoved me in the lower back. Flinging me over the cliff into the sea of clouds below, screaming as I was lost in pain and fear. As the clouds greeted their newest offering, a voice at the back of my head shouted, “I need to fly!” fly! Need to fly to escape the maw below! On instinct I stretched my arms, trying to catch the air in my palms but the air flew between my fingers as the wind rammed into me. The cold wind lashed at my body, squeezing me and punching into me. Sending me into a spiral as I raced into the sharpened rocks, boring into me.  

"I Know what you are."