Rain World: High Voltage

6.5: His New Purpose

Helpless to do anything, the tentacled creature dragged Pal by the arm headed straight towards catastrophe.

The feeling was like ice ripping across his skin, and suddenly, his vision went dark. With impared vision, he could only sense the burning smells and smoke and feel as pain rocketed from head to tail, where it gathered and grew steadily warmer. Despite the situation, he began to focus heavily on the unfamiliar feeling of hunger. 

He was absolutely starving. He felt so empty. He was starving and burning alive, and the smell of burning flesh was almost... disgustingly appetizing. 

But the heat in the end of his tail still grew, and grew, until he felt the urgent need to let it all out. It would be effortless.

That was when the little vision he still had became swamped with blue, then white. Thoughts echoed through his head, begging for attention, but he didn't have the conscience to think. He felt dreamy as dark and silence enveloped him.

JOLT.

What? When? Where?

He still felt so light, as if he were still in that dream. 

He was afraid to try opening his eyes, like he will still see encroaching darkness and dim lights. He felt chills prickle along his arms, quickly followed by a burning feeling on his tail. That sure wasn't part of his dream.

And as much as he wanted to return to being suspended in a murky dream, his will to make something more of himself resurfaced.

What was outside the glass? The blinking red lights? Those tiny thoughts surfaced as he floated in the dark, the bubbles tickling his sides and swimming upward past him. The wonder would sink back down as the warmth and blissful carelessness wrapped itself around his limp form.

What about the faces? What do they think when they look at you, what does it mean when they twist into different shapes as they observe you? What are those big eyes seeing, and what have they seen? 

A twitch. That was new. So he could do things.

He wanted to know what else he could do. He wanted to know what those shapes meant.

The shapes, the colors, the sounds. They changed so often, but he himself never changed. Curled up in his own world, surrounded but uninvolved.

The pain intensified. It was like nothing he had ever felt before. He thought he was ready, but he was so scared. This was so unexpected and so, so new.

The lights got brighter. The shapes were reshaped. He was still being watched. He could feel its concern, worry, and fear and it hurt him inside.  He shied away from it, wanted nothing to do with it.

But there was something else this time. Something that touched him deeper inside. It was a warmth that grew inside of him. Not harsh like the searing pain that he was feeling, but something else. This was also new and unexpected. 

For the first time, something from the outside had finally broken the surface of his bubble of indifference. It enticed him, reassured him, and invited him.

The pain scratched at his exterior, sinking into his flesh. If he could just reach that tendril of warmth again, he wouldn't mind the thorns that ripped at his sides.

He opened his eyes.