Your head hurts. No, your whole body hurts, like you have just run ten miles and all your muscles are sore. You don't open your eyes. Instead, you keep your breathing steady and begin assessing your state and surroundings.
You are lying face-down on a hard surface, but the texture escapes you. A breeze runs down your naked body, indicating you are outside. Not the most normal of circumstances. But you can't feel any pains other than the whole body soreness. That's good. Then you check your memories...
Wait.
You check your memories.
Nothing.
Well, fuck.
You open your eyes to find yourself in a ratty little alley. It's night, but the temperature is fortunately warm. There's also nobody around you.
You get up silently. Then, you look down at your hands. They're albino white, and scaled. Your entire skin is scaly, like a snake's. Tiny scales, smooth to the touch, forming a continuous weave that keeps your heat inside but makes it harder for you to feel textures. Thankfully, you don't think it will affect your grip.
You also don't think, 100% sure really, that humans, which you are also somehow sure you are, are scaly.
You don't remember how you got here. Nor, for that matter, who you are. Or any details about you. Were you always like this? And all these other things you know. The methodical way you woke up, how you knew how running ten miles felt like, the fact that you know what an alley or a window are... How do you know that? Are they clues to your identity?
There's a window a little further away, so you approach it. There's no light from inside and the glass is clear, so it serves as a makeshift mirror. You notice immediately that your eyes are red. Albino then, scales or not. Your nose is flatter than it should be, you think, and your forehead has distinct wide scales. You inhale, the smells of the city suddenly clear to you. Disgusting. Then you, there's no other word for it, flick your tongue out. You can taste the air, like a snake or serpent, and the smells become easier to identify. Exhaust smoke, cigarette smoke, fried chicken. More things you know without knowing. The chicken smell makes your mouth water and you open it to see your teeth. All pointy, but solid, the canines veritable fangs.
Your body is lean. Thin, without a trace of fat. Everything else pure muscle. And on your chest, above your heart, something is tattooed onto your scales. A shape between a U and a C, blocky and black.
That, you are sure, must mean something.
In the meanwhile, you try to remember who you are. Your reflection makes you reasonably sure you are an adult, but between 25 and 45 doesn't give much more of a clue as to who you are. You run down the letters of the alphabet and numbers until 100. No numbers jump out to you, but the 'ke' sound is familiar somehow. So is the 's' sound, but that may be because of the way it insists on leaving your mouth like a hiss.
As you continue your mental exertion to the point where you fear you'll have a headache, you become aware of a strange... pressure, inside your mind. Not the head, but your very thoughts. Like a switch.
You press on it.
And the world splits. There are two of you, on two identical worlds. And you, you are above it, being those two you and not at the same time.
A you remains static, judging the situation. The other you, you decide to have take a step back. Then you fumble for the mental switch and, pressing it again, you find yourself having to chose one of the yous before things just collapse. You decide to remain in place. And then you find yourself being you again, in the same place as before, but knowing exactly what it was like to take a step backwards.
That was something.
The pressure is back in your head and you check if you can use your ability again. You can, one of you taking a couple of steps before you collapse the you that stayed behind. The pressure returns. It is still the same, no indication of growing uncomfortable or diminishing. Just there.
Well, so. Now what?
COIL 53
THE QUEST
[_] What do you mean, you aren't going to write this!?
[_] What do you mean, you already have too much on your plate!?
[_] What do you mean, this is an idea thread so you're perfectly allowed to post ideas you won't use!?
[_] WRITE IT!!