Dream 0992 - The Crab [ENG]

No idea lol :)

I was a crab with magical abilities - and it all started in the sulfur mines where my father worked.

A future, probably a few decades after our time. Antarctica is one of the main targets for commercial resource extraction, as the rest of the world is now too densely populated. Large corporations have taken over the power of the world and actual governments are barely relevant. While the adults were mining the sulfur out of the sea, we working class kids were always around, sitting in the extraction areas and watching. These were usually encrusted with sulfur deposits and toxic fumes wafted, but in Antarctica the production areas were the only places warm enough to walk around without thick protective clothing. I was one of the smarter kids - tried to stay away from sulfur and chemicals as much as possible. But one day it happened, and I fell into that pool of sulfur and chemicals, the borehole. What exactly happened - I never understood. Whether I died instantly and my spirit was caught in a crab, whether my body was distorted, I could not tell. Maybe I was just a crab that thought it had once been a human being.
I just remember pulling myself out of the water, rejoining the children who were still happily bobbing their legs, seemingly oblivious to my fall. I noticed immediately, it's hard to move with six legs on the ground and still think you're human. I didn't know where to go, so I sought out my father first, waiting for his shift to end.
The bell sounded, but my father turned to go home, had he forgotten me already? A slight hesitation, a last glance in the direction of the borehole - and he turned towards the road. And that's when it hit me, how long had it been since I had fallen? To me it seemed only hours ago, but, looking at the others, it must have been a long time. Gray hairs showed on my father's head, gray hairs I had never noticed before. He looked old, less like physical age, more like an aging inside, like a heavy loss.
He looked down at his feet, saw the little crab bouncing up and down there in front of him. His gaze - still expressionless, empty. But as if out of reflex, as if he recognized me deep in his heart, he went down on his knees, stretched out his hand. Picked me up, and carried me home.
The next few days - or weeks? The sense of time was so different as a crab - I had a good life. My family, my father, my mother, and my little sister, too small to come with me to the borehole, they had all adopted me somehow, as a kind of pet perhaps. It was almost like always, but there was always something sad in their expressions. Although life here was beautiful, I realized it wasn't right, not for me. Something drew me away, away to the big cities beyond the Antartis where I grew up. In my mind I said goodbye to my family and waited for the moment when my father opened the door to go to work. I quickly scrambled between his feet, but not unnoticed. When I turned around once more, he looked after me, even sadder than usual. I would have loved to tell him what he meant to me. Thanked him that he had taken me in even now. But I couldn't, how could I speak as a crab, I didn't even have a tongue. And so I did the only thing that was in my power. I lowered my scissors and wrote a word in the sandy ground. Thank you.
My father fell to his knees, and tears rolled down his cheeks. He had understood. He had understood who I was. He had seen his son again for the last time.

On the way to the Continental Express, I went back to the borehole and stared into the water that had changed my life. Somehow it captivated me, days I must have sat there. But when I stood up again, I understood something. It may be that I had looked at the world from two such different perspectives, but I now understood something about this universe that had remained hidden from me until then. An understanding, which probably eluded the human spirit. The water in front of me, it flowed in my head. As still as on in front of me, but it was as if I were connected to it, as if a part of my brain was the water in front of me. And I took that thought, that understanding of the water and gave it a little push. And as if a little drop had fallen, the water rippled in front of me. And I smiled.

Years, decades perhaps, passed and my power had increased immeasurably. Confronted with the vast amounts of technology in the megacities of the mainland, I quickly learned to understand, use and manipulate this technology. I learned many skills and arguably one of the most useful was that of telepathic communication. After years as a crab, I was finally able to contact the people around me. But there was a little problem. Because people seemed to take the sudden voice in their head, my appearance as something superhuman, as something divine. I didn't make much effort, my pity, my humanity perhaps, after all these years, people were no more important to me than the crabs on the stones next to me once were. But pratkish they were, these people. They quickly understood what I wanted.
More power. The power of a god. Immortal power.

And so it happened one day that one of my followers told me about a secret project of the mega-companies. A hypermodern space station, a ship, ready for departure to distant worlds. And I realized that this was my chance, my chance for immortality. My body had aged, and even though my power had made me older than any crab of my kind, I felt this body fade away. I saw the chance to connect with the technology of the ship, to transfer my spirit into it, to set out into strange worlds.
And so I set out with my disciples to steal a space shuttle, which actually turned out to be not even that difficult. Thanks to orbital farms and commercial space use, there were plenty of them, and it was enough to bring the crew under my control. And as we lifted off, I said goodbye to Earth, looking down at this sphere of gray-blue below me. A golden glow opened up before me, and a massive construct of glassy ceramics and golden metal rose from the shadow of the earth. My destination.
A message arrived, an order to turn around immediately, a threat of shelling. Nothing could be simple for once. I concentrated, pulled the air from the rear rooms, sucked it out into space and layered it around the shuttle, a shield just for the approach. The strafing wasn't long in coming, and the shuttle's hull groaned despite my shield. My followers rallied around me, their god, fearful. But we were inexorably approaching the station of gold and glass, and when I was close enough to feel it completely, I pulled the space between us together, let go of the shuttle inside, and was sucked with my people straight into the command rooms of the station. A fight broke out against the heavily armed troops of the station, but I ended it with a mere thought. However, more soldiers moved in, began to break through the door, the walls. I was trapped, while death was approaching from all sides, I kept it out with difficulty, but unable to stop it. One of my highest clerics brought me a cable connected to one of the consoles in the room. And I connected. Not to the ship, I wasn't able to do that yet. But to the monitoring system. And that was more than enough. I understood the outside world, I felt every single corridor. And with understanding came power. My consciousness spread through the cameras and I saw myself as a small dot in the middle. And I focused my power and breathed new life into the dead enemies. Not real life, I just made them forget death. And gave them rage. Steadily I supplied them with my power, with my anger at those who wanted to prevent my immortality. And with my power over the corridors I maintained the troop of stolen lifetimes, let them march against their former comrades. I saw their numbers, felt them rise as one by one their former victims joined them, their frenzy. And felt them die irretrievably when they were surrounded and shot. There were just too many. The door burst and bullets flew in the control room as my faithful rushed at them and all died. And I remembered a single place, the place of my childhood, a place I understood so much, a refuge....

And emerged from the borehole. In the meantime, it had probably been shut down and a new start had been made elsewhere. I swam to the edge and looked up into the sky, into the dirty clouds above me. I had been so close, so close! My cult - extinguished. But I had learned a few things. This time I was prepared. On the Continental Express to the next town and on to the second try. This time I would win.

I boarded the train. This time I was not going to be the waiting passenger. This time I would create an army of the dead and take them with me into my battle. I gathered water around me and poisoned it with the seed of ultimate obedience - an aspect I had understood in my battle at the station. The droplets floated the air and a stunned sound rose from my fellow travelers before the droplets slammed into them all like projectiles. And let them wake up anew.
With a crunch, the doors at both ends of the carriage opened, and metal figures approached from both sides. Crosses of man and machine with a corporate logo that looked all too familiar, a journey beyond this planet. I focused the air and hurled this blade at the one creature, but barely a scratch remained in its gleaming chest. Already they were above me, hitting me with inhuman force, and despite my shield of air, my armor began to crack. The passengers - my dead - rushed at them and were crushed under the blows and kicks of the metal men. Once again I focused all my power, but it barely shook them as the barrage of blows against me continued. It pushed me to the ground and I almost sank in the effort to even maintain the shield, to even delay my own death. Was this the end after all?