Poisoned Rationality

When I opened my eyes, I found myself in a warped area resembling the forest outside the town.

“… Is anyone there?” I asked out loud, sitting up. I listened for a response, but the forest was silent.

I stood up, dusting off my clothes, noticing that I was barefoot. Where was I? This place was weird.

All the trees and plants had a dark purple hue, and there were tiny vines made of a dark black material covering everything.

I walked over to a tree and knelt to look closer at its roots. Now that I was close up, I could see the shimmering surface that seemed like it was squirming around like a living thing.

I gently poked it with my finger, and it reacted instantly. The thin vines covering the tree retracted from it, forming a small ball of black goo that squirmed along my finger.

I yelped and pulled my hand back, but the goo continued to flow up my arm. There was a burst of energy that flooded my body as it sank into the skin around my chest.

The fuck?

These vines were made of some kind of void. Testing it again, I poked a bit of the vines on a small bush. The goo ball formed, and as it was about to slide up my arm again, I grabbed it with my other hand.

The ball squirmed around in my hand for a bit before it stopped. I squeezed it, and the whole thing sank into my palm. I felt the energy rush through my body, settling in my heart.

This was really weird.

I stood up and continued walking through the forest, looking for anything else out of the ordinary.

There was nothing, though. It was just an endless forest covered in vines made of void.

All of a sudden, I stumbled on a path. It was covered in vines so much that it looked like a carpet of void.

I followed it, watching as the vines were absorbed by my feet as I walked. The path was winding and wasn’t flat, leading me around and up and down and all over the place.

Soon enough, though, I came upon a clearing.

Sunlight streamed through the leaves, tinted blue by the vines and speckling across the ground.

Supported by a twisted pillar of vines was the visage of a heart, cracked into hundreds of pieces and only held together by more vines.

Surrounding it were half-circle-shaped shelves with hundreds of decaying books, except for a small portion of tomes in pristine condition.

Upon seeing all of it, I realized what this place was supposed to be.

My soulscape.

A beautiful forest covered with the darkness of void, with a shattered heart and missing memories.

It was startling to see my internal self in such a sorry state.

I reached out and placed my hand on the heart. I felt a surge of energy ripple through my body and out into the vines encasing the broken pieces.

A tiny piece of the void fell away, leaving behind a seal between two of the broken pieces.

Then suddenly, a shadowy, glimmering picture appeared in my vision. It looked a little like the status menu, but it was more abstract.

I looked through it and found that pretty much everything was greyed out or covered in unreadable text.

There was a page titled [Abilities], with a long list of small boxes that were greyed out and had unreadable text on them. The very top one wasn’t, and said [Morph] on it.

There was a second page, which was titled [Morph Shapes], that had one thing on it. A shimmering see-through picture of the [Devil Leopard] I had killed that one time. A small ‘1’ was just underneath it.

I guessed this strange menu was showing me the special void-related things I could do. And [Morph] sounded like the ability to shapeshift.

Focusing on the image of the leopard, the world shifted as I felt my body changing. I dropped onto all fours, but my height still increased.

After the change was over, I looked at myself.

Instead of the tall and slender wendigo body I was used to, I was a massive feline with rippling muscles and massive paws.

I focused on my original body and found myself back in it in seconds.

Then the world itself shattered, and the pieces started falling away, leaving behind overwhelming darkness.

Then it faded, and I fell into a deep sleep.