"What the hell have I become? What am I supposed to do with this?"
But then, something.
A feeling. Like an awareness spreading through him.
He couldn't move. He couldn't speak.
But he could sense.
It was like a vision, but not through eyes. A knowing. Like a map of himself in his own mind.
All he sensed was cracks all over himself. Full of cold dead stone.
The sensation was there, but only the sensation. He couldn't change anything.
And this damn cold and thirst, still eating at him, still there, no matter what he thought or felt.
"HELLO!!! Is anybody there!?"
Silence.
Of course there was silence.
He almost laughed. He wanted to laugh at his fate. He is alive but this is one big joke of finding himself in another body who was also abandoned like him.
And best part now, this fate is worse than death. He laughed at himself worrying or feeling terror about death.
There are other fates worse than death. He chuckled finally understanding this universal truth.
Who the hell would answer a dead rock drifting in nothing? He has no mouth so even if he calls out, no sound would escape.
Also, no one can hear you scream in the cold dark void of space.
Then, something.
A flicker.
Like a thin thread of thought brushing up against his own. But it left a searing sensation.
[...Cognition...detected...]
His mind jerked like he'd been shocked. Like he touched a live wire.
"What was that? Who? Who the hell are you?" He clearly heard someone. Or something which sounded like a machine or computer notification.
"Is this hallucination? again?"
Nothing answered. Just that flicker again, faint trickle over his awareness.
A shape that wasn't a voice. A presence that felt like old machinery and hunger mashed together.
No, it was real. Not a hallucination.
[Host...improper...incomplete...]
And that answered his doubts. It was no way a hallucination. Something is crawling inside him.
"Host? Stop! Get out of my head," he snapped. He tried to push it away, but he didn't even have hands to push with.
[Vital...function...restoration...requires...anchor...]
He felt it probing. A cold searing line which also felt like a hot searing line moving across his thoughts. Like it was searching for something soft to dig into.
"Answer me! Who are you? What are you?"
No reply. Just emptiness stretching around him, deeper than any void he'd ever imagined.
The cold line dug in harder. It didn't just sit on his skin; it slid under it. Into the cracks. Down to the core he didn't have anymore.
[Inquiry...acceptance...?]
"What does that mean? Stop using riddles. Talk like a person!"
Silence again.
Then the presence seemed to shift, fumbling around, like it was digging for the right shape of words.
[Permission...to...link...? Support...protocol...can...restore...basic...function...]
Link?
The word felt like a cold or burning hot drip down his spine. If he had a spine.
"NO! I don't want you inside my head," he hissed. "Tell me who or what you are."
That cold line didn't care. It kept pressing. Kept waiting.
He thought about just accepting this fate. Letting everything fade. Maybe that would be better. Maybe that would be clean.
But the thirst was still there. The emptiness. The certainty that he was nothing but a husk with nothing to do.
What is he supposed to do anyway? Just keep on drifting? There is nothing to see or hear. Just let this end this way would be better. He already accepted his end earlier in that junk pod.
But there was something, an ugly part of him, a part that refused to die, that didn't want to disappear in this cold dark void too.
"Rage against the dying light." He murmured an old proverb, scratched onto one of the walls of the ship. He used to read that line everyday and used to wonder what it means.
Now he felt like he understands this line perfectly.
If this is a trick, then fine. I'm already nothing.
This feels like a gamble but this is better than empty void.
He pulled in the only breath he could imagine.
"...Fine," he thought. Or maybe he said it. He couldn't tell the difference anymore.
[Linking...]
A pulse rolled through him. Not warm. Not comforting. Just... there. Like something plugging itself into a dead socket.
He felt it settle deep. Heavy. Old.
And one last whisper crawled into his mind, soft as rot:
[Fragment...discarded...Fragment...awake...]
Suddenly he felt something which he thought he never had. A sense of aliveness. Sensation of the body, like nerves getting connected and feeling your limbs back on.
But with that aliveness came what everyone forgets. PAIN!
So much pain!
He wanted to scream. But there was no mouth. No breath. No voice.
Just the cold and the knowing that whatever this was...
It was inside him now.
The pain didn't stop.
It clawed at every part of him. A deep, grinding ache that felt like it was sawing through stone and nerves all at once.
Make it stop. Make it stop.
But nothing listened.
It wasn't just pain. It was the sensation too, a storm of cold and burning sensation all over his body. His whole existence lighting up like a broken circuit getting connected, point by point, mending every fracture and every fracture brought screaming.
I shouldn't even feel this. I'm not supposed to have nerves. I'm not supposed to have anything.
The cold wasn't just around him anymore. It was inside. It moved in the cracks, settled there, like a disease spreading through rock.
He couldn't thrash or curl up. Couldn't even clench a fist. He has nothing, he is no longer a human anymore but a planet.
All he could do was endure.
Is this what being alive means now? This? This pain?
No answer. Only the silent, crawling awareness of that thing he'd let in.
It didn't speak. Didn't explain.
It just worked.
He felt it moving under the surface, something burrowing through the dead stone, making it alive, making it his flesh. Mapping it. Touching each broken vein and fracture.
Every contact sparked another jolt of pain.
STOP. PLEASE.
But it didn't stop.
A flicker came then. Not words, just a raw impression:
[Stabilizing...Primary Structure...]
Then another:
[Deficiency...Detected...]