I awoke with the strange sensation of falling. I can't remember what I had been dreaming about, but it must have had something to do with falling.
I opened my eyes or at least I think I did because everything was still pitch black. An icy wind blew up around me chilling me to the bones. It was then that I realized that I felt weightless.
Memories flooded back into my head like a tidal wave.
I fell down a hole on the surface of the planet that I was exploring. I was on a lone man exploratory mission and it had brought me to the desert like surface that I had been standing on.
I must have passed out for a few seconds when I fell into the hole. Without a chance to think about what would happen when I hit the bottom of the hole, my body impacted with a surprisingly soft and not at all painful surface.
I felt around and hypothesised that I had landed on some kind of nest. My landing pod had detected signs of life under the surface of the planet.
I stood up and found the switch for my helmet's headlamp and flipped it on. My eyes took in the cavern that I had landed in.
The walls seemed to have been hollowed out by a large creature of some sort. I estimated the cavern was about seventy feet wide and around a hundred feet tall. The floor did indeed appear to be some sort of nest judging by the giant shells in the middle of the cavern and by how it was entirely covered in a thick layer of what looked like feathers.
I bent down and pulled a feather out of the pile. It was about a foot long and was a dark emerald color.
Suddenly, a loud noise echoed off the walls. I pushed my back against the wall and stared in awe as a giant emerald bird-like creature descended through a hole in the roof of the cavern that was previously unnoticeable.
I gaped as a figure slid off the neck of the creature. It walked towards me and I felt something wrap around my wrists and held me against the wall.
"Hello, Traveler."
The voice came out soft and melodic. The figure stopped a mere inch away from me. It reached a hand up and ran it down my chest.
"Take off your helmet so that I might see your face, Traveler."
I found myself compelled to do as the figure asked and I felt the bonds on my hands disappear. I reached up and disengaged my helmet from the rest of my suit.
As soon as it was off, the creature before me pressed its mouth to mine and breathed into it.
As it pulled away I found myself able to breathe the air that I knew should have been impossible to breathe. I also realized that I could see through the gloom of the dark cavern.
"What have you done to me?"
"I've made you perfect."
I felt a piercing pain ripple through my body. I felt as my bones elongated and raised my height by at least a foot. My insides felt like they were being scrambled and thrown around. My senses were all suddenly heightened and everything was three times clearer than before.
"Welcome, Traveler, to the collective," a thousand voices echoed through my mind, "You have been made perfect."
Written by Morgana.
