It doesn't like hurt-pain, but nothing makes it go away. So it focuses on the speak-think that repeats endlessly inside its head. HUNT! FEED! *+#%! *+#%! The last two speak-think are clouded in haze-fog, and the hurt-pain doesn't help. That's why it is stalk-hunting the soon-meal. When all else fails, it falls back on the two speak-think it hears.
Its powerful, massive legs effortlessly traverse the many-tree. It curves around them, navigating over roots and avoiding boulders with a grace that does not match its size. The creature it chases is tiring, and it’s been following it for hours without stopping. Endless energy flows through its body, allowing it to stalk-hunt until its soon-meal grows haggard. It is a predator without equal amongst the many-tree, and all will be devoured.
It emerges out of the many-tree into an open clearing. The soon-meal stares back at it, the small-eyes wide, with its teeth-fangs bared. It stands no chance against the beast. The beast has much-eyes and significantly more teeth-fangs, it is bigger, and the soon-meal is dead tired. It doesn't tire, doesn't sleep, and doesn't rest. Behind the soon-meal is a drop-fall into a wall-stone; there’s nowhere for its soon-meal to flee-run. The scent-fear has grown so much stronger than before. Its forked tongue sways in the cold air, tasting the heavy scent-fear.
It rushes at the soon-meal as its night-fur shivers. HUNT! FEED! The think-speak is louder and seems to resonate with what it is doing—the soon-meal freezes, unable to flee-run and too scared-weak to fight. With great power, it leaps at the scared-weak prey, trying to pounce-catch it. It is a deadly predator-beast, but that’s all it is: a predator-beast. It isn't smart enough to understand just how much bigger it is than the prey or how to judge distances well. So it succeeds in the stalk-hunt and crunches the soon-meal before swallowing it whole. But its front legs land over the edge, and gravity quickly takes care of the rest. It falls hundreds of feet down. It tries to reach out to the wall-stone, but there’s nothing to grab. It has no control over its drop-fall, and isn't aware enough to attempt anything smarter. It continues to pick up speed, its massive maw facing down. When it finally impacts the ground, its head explodes while the rest of its body crumples lifelessly in the fresh crater it created.
It dies instantly, without knowing what killed it or what has happened. It takes a while, but eventually, its head will begin to regenerate. It will be hours before the regeneration finishes, hours before it will wake up, and hours before it will remember-learn more of the speak-think. But it will remember-learn, and it will also grow-know more.
HUNT! FEED! PERISH! *+#%!
It knows things are odd-change as soon as the dark-sight ends. It can remember-learn another part of the speak-think. Hunger shakes it from its first aware-deep. It needs to feed; it wants to hunt and find prey. It pushes itself out of the crater, its lumbering form swaying slightly before bounding away. It slowly picks up speed as it runs. It smells nothing; the cold-air has no fear-scent. It will have to venture further, away from the tall-rock and many-tree to find more of the soon-meals.
It wanders far while keeping to a straight line. Past the land it had spent weeks in, where many-tree and the soft-ground change into hard-ground, the color of night. It feels like the trail is familiar, but it can't remember-learn why. Regardless, it continues moving for miles as the bright-sky becomes quiet-cold. But it doesn't need to rest, so it continues until the hard-ground begins to curve slightly. It follows along the trail and sees several sets of the hard-ground, and there are soon-meals on the trail, going both ways.
It gets ready to pounce on the soon-meals, but it will have to be perfect. It hasn't forgotten the lesson it learned previously, and these prey are quick-swift. It waits until it is sure it won't miss and leaps at it. It’s snap-jaw close around the prey, but it is odd-change; instead of soft-squishy, it’s sharp-hard. Still no match for its powerful mouth, but it is still surprised by it. As it continues to crunch, the soon-meal finally releases a sweet, alluring fear-scent. The all-encompassing hunger abated, even if it knows it won't last.
It feels content in the moment of satiation and isn't prepared for the large soon-meal that collides with it. The roar-cry the soon-meal makes as it crashes echoes in its head like speak-think. Chunks of the beast explode out, blood and flesh raining down on the hard-ground. It’s overwhelmed in pain-hurt and drops down to its stomach. It isn't paying attention, and the only warning that more pain-hurt is coming is the sound of several more roar-cries. It is confused. How has the soon-meal hurt it? Soon-meal is supposed to be scared-weak. Soon-meal is always scared-weak. This time, it knows what has killed it. When it wakes, it will grow-know.
It shakes away the deep-aware as the dark-sight ends. It looks around and sees that it’s bright-sky now. Soon-meals surround it, with hundreds of small-softs walking around it. Meal-grumbles come, and the hunger is worse than before. It uses its long neck to snatch up a small-soft. It only takes a single crunch before it swallows the small-soft quickly. The small-softs react immediately with several roar-cries as it starts to stand up. It doesn't matter; it just wants to eat another one.
The small-soft have no teeth-fangs, but clutch odd-change night-sticks. A booming chorus of roar-cries ring out, and it feels hundreds of sharp-hard hurt-pains across its body. It squishes one of the small-soft into a paste before lapping it up with its long tongue. The attacks continue over and over as it heals away the damage. Then it hears a deafening roar-cry as its head is blown to pieces. It dies after only managing to kill two of the small-soft. It is dead, but that state will not last for long.
It dies again as the small-soft forces kill it for the thirtieth time. But with each death, it continues to grow-know. More think-speak returns to it, and it begins to remember-learn piece-fragments of itself. It is smarter than before, evident by knowing how many times it has died. It has started understanding that it is changing each time it goes to the dark-sight. It realizes that it has more than just teeth-fangs and its snap-jaw to eat-kill. The next time it dies, it resolves to try something new. And its next death quickly comes as it gets hit with something so fast that it dies without any hurt-pain.
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It wakes up. No, not it, he. Six is his name. Despite waking, he keeps his eyes shut and lays still. He’s beginning to remember-learn, no, he remembers more. He’s aware of the humans that surround him and that the things they hold in their hands are the reason for his multiple deaths. Six’s head is full of thoughts, ideas, and words for everything. Vague glimpses of memories flash through its head. A feeling of weakness and frailty mixing with a sense of wonder and discovery, distant voices muffled to make their words unclear, excruciating pain and operating tables, and a blinding light with a shadowy silhouette, followed by nothing. The words he couldn't recall have become clear. HUNT. FEED. PERISH. GROW.
I am Six. I have memories of a dark figure speaking to me. I’ve been fighting like a mindless beast, and that's not what I am. I am an apex predator, a plague, an apocalyptic creature created to punish the world. I can do so much more than what I've shown. My stomach rumbles, my jaws gnashing as I salivate. I am hungry and surrounded by food. HUNT. My eyes open, and a nearly 360-degree vision takes in everything around me. Soldiers and scientists surround me. Words for things I know, but have no memory of seeing. There's knowledge in my head of things that I have never seen or experienced. Whatever created me must have implanted the information in my brain.
The soldiers wear black armor with the letters "BNA" on the front. Machines I have no name for surround me while scientists operate them from behind a screen. Where am I? I should be on the highway, but I don't recognize my surroundings. I'm in a laboratory of some kind with catwalks above me. Hunt the strong. Feed on the weak. Perish in battle. Grow stronger with every death. Follow the cycle, Six. The being of darkness's words are finally clear. It doesn't matter what happens to me, I will always rise again.
I start releasing my obscuring fog into the air. Scanners from various pieces of equipment start going off, and the lab becomes a hive of activity and noise. No one seems to know what's happening, but they all know it's not good. Despite the thick mist that fills the room, I can see perfectly. My six insectoid legs pierce through the fog, and each stabs into a different person, killing them instantly. I retract my legs and chomp down on the six people I captured. Not enough. I move swiftly and silently through my conjured fog, my claws shred bodies like they're apparitions. Panicked shrieks and shouted commands disappear as I ravage through the room.
It isn't long before I've killed and eaten everyone. I lap up the blood and guts spilled on the floor with my tongue. I wonder if there's anyone strong here. My massive body lifts off the cement, freely floating as I turn intangible—time to hunt for worthy, strong prey. Passing through layers of dirt and rock, I rise higher and higher. I swim through the ground like a spectral shark searching for fresh meat. Alarms are going off as the carnage I've left is discovered.
I breach the surface after ten minutes of swimming. I am not on the highway or near the forest like I thought I would be. Where am I? It looks like an abandoned town square with all the buildings in disarray. Half-collapsed structures, rusted vehicles stripped for parts, and even the road is cracked and missing chunks. The air is dry and hot with the sun’s rays cooking the sandy environment. I can’t see anyone around. My tongue snakes out of my mouth, tasting the air for signs of life. There’s nothing in the air, no scent on the wind to signify prey or predator. The letters on the armor of the soldiers I ate seem familiar, tickling at a memory that is just barely out of my reach.
I spot a group of seven people appearing on top of a building directly behind me. The seven are all dressed similarly, and something in my brain is telling me they’ll provide me with a challenge. Hunt the strong. I pretend not to have noticed them and keep moving, picking through rubble and shoving my snout into holes in structures. Acting like a curious animal instead of the intelligent predator I am.
“Alrighty, you kids have fun,” said the one in stripes.
“Cut the shit, Andrews, and get in position,” said the larger female one.
The striped one, known as Andrews, suddenly blurs and appears on a different building down the road from the rest. The other six descend from the original rooftop but are making sure to keep their distance. They carefully sneak closer, and some of them have guns. I wait until they’re close enough that I can reach them in a single pounce, and I attack. They react quickly and counterattack, but not quickly enough to save the larger female. My jaws close around her, and a few bites pulverize her to mincemeat. One of them grabs one of my tails. Silly prey. I whip my tail to send him flying, or I try to, but I can’t move my tail at all. The human male is significantly stronger than I thought, but I have a second tail. It wraps around his body, squeezing him until he lets go of my other one.
That’s when the rest launch their assault. The striped one is holding something that resembles a gun, but it's different in some way. From the road come two large hands, each one about half my size. They grasp my body, and before I can turn intangible to escape, the striped one’s weapon activates. A cone of white heat blasts forward and destroys my hind legs and most of my tails. The attack burned my wound shut. The human I captured jumps away, and the others close in on me. Two have guns and shoot at my eyes in an attempt to blind me. I start releasing my mist, blanketing the square. I slip out of the stone hands, pulling myself away, and activate something I haven’t tried yet. Deep inside of me, the mass of biological matter begins to be processed into something new.
From the rocky clusters on my back, little creatures start to grow. Six-winged insects with green and purple striped bodies and long, barbed legs, like those of a spider, are gestating and growing rapidly. Their mouths are a mix of mandibles, fangs, and proboscis, with crimson compound eyes on their oval-shaped heads. They have a segmented stinger that curves downward toward their bodies. While they grow, I notice the mist is affecting me. My body is regenerating even faster. Already, my back leg bones are back. Muscle fibers sprout and wind themselves over the bones. It won’t be long till I’m fully healed. Bursting out of my back come the first of my bugs, and I can see through them. They are capable of seeing through the mist as well as I can.
With a thought, I send the eight of them out toward the humans. A female forms sharp poles out of ice, floating around her, and shoots one at my bug before it can reach her. A large stone shelter grows to enclose three of the remaining humans, leaving only the strong male and the cold female. I move silently through my mist as the strong one kills more of my bugs. His swipes swat them into paste on the pavement. Yes. Those two are worthy of being hunted. Either I will hunt and consume them, or die and try again.
Six’s Powers/Personality Pieces
- Shark/polar bear form creates a deep mist that silences all noise he makes and dampens the sounds of others’ voices/Bloodlust (BIG PHISH)
- Grey skin/Fleshy tendrils that look like fur or a ghillie suit. Can float slowly and become intangible, but not invisible/Playfulness (Phantasmo/Miles)
- Resurrection upon death, and they grow fractionally stronger with each death. Physically tougher, faster, stronger, and even improves his mental faculties/Insatiable hunger (Immortal Bruiser, member of the White Knight Militia Group)
- Hulking humanoid reptilian form with increased regeneration, enhanced speed, and strength/Self-loathing (Constrictor)
- Insectoid appearance and creation of mutant insects/Irritability (Carapace)