I come to with a click, as if by the flipping of a switch. Awareness pours into the empty space I've made for myself. It snaps to the only object of significance.

  The Empty Room is not so empty anymore. Before even assessing my new situation, I become aware of the low hiss of pumping machinery. Something inside of them is moving, slowly.

  Whatever it is fills up the entire room. My eyes seem to blink, and I am finally able to move and think freely.

  Right. I blacked out. Lesson learned. Never going lower than... let's say half of the gauge, as a rule of thumb. For right now it means going lower than five is a big no-no.

  I know four is kind of safe, even if I'd rather avoid those kinds of pangs. Either way, I will try to avoid eating into the newly established reserve when possible, apart from the kind of expenses I need to afford.

  Thankfully, I'm not feeling any pain, or numbness in any of the phantom limbs. What feels a bit odd is that my perspective seems to have shifted.

  It's oriented now, and I can see a... grid-like set of straight white lines going over everything. The stone walls feel a bit bluer, too, as if someone threw a thin layer of paint over them.

  It is a bit disorienting, but it does give me a chance to take in my surroundings in a new light. Quite literally, given even more angry red screens seem to have popped up.

  They cast their color all over the cavernous walls of this grotto I've dug out. The stone up top, close to the odd screens, is cut in random directions, with straight lines all piled on top of each other. The lower you go, the closer you get to the room, the more rectangular the sections become.

  It is darker down here, mostly because the pop-ups are relatively far away. They're half an empty room's length from me. Staring up at the arching vault I've made on top, I can't help but wonder what would happen if I just kept stacking Empty Rooms. Would it increase forever?

  Speaking of. An idle thought has the screen with the number pop back into existence, while my attention remains focused on the now oddly-colored stones.

  Hm. It looks like a whole new place like this. Am I even still where I came to the first time? The cuts all seem to line up with my memory, but it might be different.

  10/11

  Uh. Okay. It was at like, one and a half before I passed out. The fact it's higher means I must be slowly gaining currency now, and some time has passed.

  It does explain why no more pangs are haunting my mind. The only difference from before is the Sap. Oddly enough it's not topped out, but rather it's at the original max. Curious.

  Either way, I have enough to get a new Empty room- oh, it straight up lets me plop it down without having to shift through all the menus. That's a nice little time saver.

  I try to find a spot for it, but the space all around the one already in use is too narrow for it. While that does slightly bother me, I notice the room snaps on the grid if I let my thoughts run idle for more than a few seconds.

  Ugh. I let go of the thought and quickly free up some more space. All it takes is a manual dig nest to the already present room and a quick automation.

  10.1/11

  Hm. Yeah. It's definitely less efficient. However, the quicker I get to plopping down more saps, the quicker the number will rise. I'm not really sure what I want to do with myself, but having a bigger number feels important, somehow. Plus, it feels nice to have something to do.

  As soon as I place down the next room, I feel everything get a little bit smaller, and the pangs are back. By now, it has become apparent they signal to me how low I am on... whatever it is I'm using to build rooms.

  It goes up within seconds, just like the first. They share a wall, one of the small sides of the rectangle. The walls themselves seem to morph out of the stone around them. They're a dirty gray with speckles of black dots, just like the stone.

  5.2/12

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Hm. I could spend some time mining. On the other hand, it seems to be slowly growing on its own. It might be time to actually read all those colored screens that popped into existence a while back.

  A thought has me flowing up to them, high above the two rooms that I've plopped down. There is the one I read before, about the gods being killed, or whatever it's about. I think I'll keep it open, given it's very different compared to all the ones I can make on my own. It feels special, somehow.

  The next set is just as odd. I kind of remember feeling these ones popping up at the periphery of my perception, but at the time I didn't like how they demanded my attention and wanted to mine besides. It's not like I can do anything about the gods either way or whatever issue these new ones are about to uncover.

  What next? Another set of unknown gods have been slain? Because it matters about the same to me. These are not bright red. They're all jumbled up into one another, and it takes a moment to divide them.

  That one just loses color and fades into thin air past a certain point. Hm. There's a lot going on that I do not understand. I opt to put it aside and forget about it for as long as possible, and instead focus on getting as many saps going as possible.

  Whatever secrets these messages hold, I'd rather leave for later. I should focus on growing the number and making sure I don't feel the pangs again.

  Taking a quick look at the number tells me I still have a way to go. It's still stuck there, exactly where I left it off. I move myself around, and rather than keep growing the sphere of emptiness I've made, I opt to instead expand the growing flat base next to the rooms. By the time I've pumped the number high enough, I have liberated about two empty rooms.

  I focus on the other empty room and fill it with another Sap. A silent beat goes by, and I feel my perception of reality warp a bit. Slowly, the room's emptiness is filled, and a whirring rises from the relative silence. It joins up into a choir with the one next to it, but sounds just a touch off.

  It grows to a slight pitch, barely audible, before redoubling down and almost disappearing, turning in a muted buzz. Now they sound exactly the same, and the noise is soft enough to go unnoticed unless I search for it.

  I spend a few seconds staring at it, and notice a little detail. With each passing second, the room's walls seem to get bluer, as do the stone walls around them. I steal a glance at the number.

  3.5/12

  Hm. I think I'm going to keep doing this at least one more time, even if the pangs threaten to turn into full-blown pains. The edge of my vision has also started to lose color.

  As usual, mining some more comes first. This time, however, I want to try and experiment a bit. I do not start to excavate the space next to the rooms but above them. A good chunk of the work has already been done.

  I just need to expand on the circle and make it a bit more square. Doing it by hand, so to speak, means that in the end there are a few crevices left compared to the smooth and straight line left whenever it does it on its own.