cool and unusual punishment

stop it with the previous- OOB Preview

I tried to explain this book in my art book and I hated it so now have the first chapter. It's really rough--hard to pull off quirky/cocky without being abrasive--but I enjoyed it

You could travel across the known universe and never, even in the darkest depths of space, escape stupid people.

I reflect on this, in great detail, as I awaken, thinking with great contempt about the handling on the ship, the mingling of our incorporeal forms, the disrespect with which they treated me... I furrow my brows, then realize that I have never had brows before, I do not know anything about brows (save for that they are furrowed), and that my physical form has been altered into something unrecognizable.

A mix of gases shoot through my body, mixed by the terrible pulsing of something in my chest, and I buckle up on two gangly appendages only to fall back down again. I do not receive the sensation directly, meaning this species wears some kind of external covering... it's definitely not an exoskeleton, seeing as it's not attached in any meaningful way. Furthermore, the texture seems to indicate a soft, artificial material meant to mimic plant matter, which leads me to infer I'm one of those awful planets with plants. Plants are stressful. They respire oxygen everywhere, which anyone with half a mind knows is poisonous to most species... plants wiped out a whole planet, once, although I can't even remember which-

My head hurts. It is unclear if I've always had terrible memory or if my current fugue is another part of the multifaceted web that is my punishment.

Punishment?

The body takes in another sample of gas of its own accord (it must be automatic, ruling out a possible escape option). I feel it move through me, its infinite mechanisms for survival functioning without any external input. Flesh cage. Definitely a punishment.

The knobs on the ends of the upper appendages I've been given curl between each other into a mesh which I bring close to my face. The body exhales. I attempt, as a jumping-off point for further action, to remember how I got here. This proves equally hopeless. I can't remember what I was doing. All the details of my old life are vague, disappearing as I grasp them, so I convince myself to stop grasping. I rise upwards again, grasping a tree (well, I at least know what that is), and hold myself against its poorly textured surface. The epidermis of this body is so ineffective that the texture is not only unpleasant but undoubtedly an irritant.

The flesh knobs on my left upper appendage grace my new form, sensing unattached fabric and closing on a familiar texture around my neck. My eyes narrow as I sense the smooth, slick nanofiber of Elglin Lace, used to bind semi-incorporeal bodies to more physical forms. The odds of getting it off on any world that hasn't already advanced past the use of all their sun's energy is poor. Any planet that isn't pruning their trees already is likely a dump.

I remove myself from the tree, loathe to give it any more grim satisfaction from my weakness, and take my first step in my new form. This time, I fall straight forwards onto the ground below, which is littered with decomposed matter and crispy, used tree tissue. By littered, I mean that's all the ground is, and I get a good mouthful before spitting it out. The body seems to intake nutrition through the...

mouth.

I don't know if I should know that.

The knobs on my left hand are flickering with light, a variety of colors across a narrow band of the spectrum (which appears to be all I can perceive right now). From the haze of my head comes a sudden moment of clarity. I spread the fingers (fingers!) wide, certain of both their current purpose and my own, and pull myself up for the second time.

I'm looking for someone.

Though my memories of the trial are still so vague as to be unhelpful, I remember the verdict: I was to come to a planet and assist some adolescents in returning it from the brink of extinction. The idea doesn't sit easy with me, if only because I am currently on this planet and will die in this underwhelming form with few legitimate senses and poor color vision, on a world that seems to be entirely covered in trees.

That, and I have to make physical contact to transfer the power I possess to its new hosts, who will then assist me in whatever endeavor we're required to undertake, which I'm sure will emerge in equally useful intermittent clumps in my mind, likely when I've finished panicking. Panicking. Is this panic? Is the heart supposed to beat slower, the respiration intake more gradual? I'm shaking as slightly as to be imperceptible, which is disquieting for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that I feel weak.

The strength of my old form surges around me, a phantom cloaking the shell of myself, and I am certain that I was more than this, which is the most definite I've been about anything all day. The realization is both an immediate relief and the catalyst for a sickening discomfort. One of the fingers on my other hand reaches up seemingly out of its own accord and its keratin edge scrapes the Elglin, which sends a shooting sensation through my whole body. The hand jerks back, out of instinct and potentially fear, and I take another breath. It would be impossible to get this off of my own accord-- potentially anyone's accord, including whoever I'm supposed to bestow these powers on. I'm stuck.

A choked cackling rises out of the body, surprising me as much as the local fauna, who scatter through the underbrush. The edges of my mouth are pushed up, and I steady myself against a tree. My breath is fast and ragged, teeming with noise, and my left hand curls up on itself.

We have nothing like this where I'm from. Also true. Also certain.

I look upwards, between the spreading arms of the tree, and towards the dome of the sky. It is dark, speckled with pricks of light, which means the stars are visible here. Somewhere out there is my race, my galaxy, and home, even if I am sure, more even than I am sure of my current situation, that they have no interest in taking me back.

You know what you need to do.

Something distant surges inside of me and is lost on the wind. Knowledge that isn't mine courses through my head, providing information on the natives. As I gain ownership over my legs, stealing forwards between the trees to the roads past which they clear, my first human emotion- a great weariness- steals over me like a blanket.The edge of the trees are a threat, even though they promise land full of things that are not trees, which is in and of itself an immediate improvement. I raise my hand, squinting at it, and notice each finger seems to be glowing to a different capacity.

Follow me, they beg. Find me.

I step out onto the road.