Nightmare

Late at night.

A young man opened his eyes, his face twisted in agony. What met his gaze was a low ceiling made of constantly writhing flesh, huge throbbing veins, and vicious, razor-sharp chitinous shells.

"Ah... am I still asleep?" The young man shut his eyes painfully.

He had just had a nightmare.

He had dreamed of a pyramid-shaped monster surrounded by enormous tentacles and clad in heavy armor suddenly linking to his mind. It had called him a once-in-a-billion-years peerless genius, a natural candidate to become the Overmind, and demanded that he join its big family and become its successor.

Before he could even refuse, a red wormhole had opened before him, and a mass of bizarre tentacles had abducted him. They had pinned him in a green pool full of tentacles and subjected him to all sorts of modifications.

He had crawled out, been shoved back in, crawled out again, then been shoved back in once more! In the end, they had wrapped him in something like an insect cocoon.

Inside, he had been unable to move no matter how hard he tried, unable to cry out no matter how much he wanted to. He could only watch as his body slowly melted and reassembled. It had been terrifying beyond belief...

That was where his memory of the dream ended.

He was never playing StarCraft again in this lifetime!

Rubbing his face, the young man felt around beside the bed for his cigarette pack and lighter.

But he could not find either of them.

"Forget it. I won't smoke." It was strange. Normally, he would feel terrible in the morning without a cigarette, but now he felt nothing of the sort—had he finally managed to quit smoking?

The young man walked through the darkness toward the balcony. He was naked, but he had no intention of turning on the lights. It was the middle of the night anyway. Unless someone shone a spotlight on him, nobody would see him even if he was stark naked.

Unable to find his slippers, he stepped barefoot onto the floor. It felt soft and warm beneath his feet, nothing at all like tile.

"I didn't drink last night either..."

Why did walking on flat ground feel like walking on a trampoline?

Muttering to himself, the young man reached through the darkness for the curtains and the handle of the balcony's sliding door. Yet what he grabbed was firm, elastic flesh. When he focused, he could feel it pulsing faintly, brimming with life...

At this point, no matter how thick-skinned he was, the young man realized something was wrong—That nightmare I had... wasn't real, was it?

Just then, the flesh wall in his hand suddenly trembled. It actually began to slowly "swell."

The wall, originally covered in radiating folds, expanded into a bulging ring and opened a "window" five or six meters wide.

As light poured in, the young man finally saw the scene outside.

The window seemed to open a hundred meters above the ground. Outside stood more than a dozen towering organic structures, writhing endlessly as they pierced the clouds.

The plains covered in blackish-purple Creep were packed with a dense sea of insects. From his vantage point high above, those tiny creatures looked no bigger than sesame seeds, while larger units continuously burst out of the ground.

In the sky, all manner of bizarre creatures flapped about, crowded so tightly together that they nearly overlapped. Spore dust permeated the atmosphere, staining the sky a dim yellow.

Most eye-catching of all was the swirling thundercloud overhead, hovering directly above the organic structure he was in. Its aura of destruction seemed capable of tearing the entire planet apart.

"What the hell is that?" the young man had only enough time to cry out.

An incomparably thick bolt of lightning crashed down from the sky, striking straight toward him.

The intense electric light turned the young man's face deathly pale.

At that moment, time and space seemed to slow down. He watched helplessly as the lightning tore through the air and gradually enveloped him. He tried to recall his life, only to find his mind utterly blank.

Come to think of it... what was my name again?

Then, a huge monster suddenly sprang forward, glowing red all over. Its lower body dragged behind it a massive, spider-like insect abdomen, while its upper body was covered in large plates of armor, though it vaguely resembled a human. It threw itself in front of him, drew in its four arms, and pulled him tightly into its embrace.

The wormhole that had swallowed him in his dream appeared once more, enveloping them both.

So hard... was the young man's first thought.

Crackle—

Under the thunderstorm, everything around them vanished into nothingness.

Noon

A young man opened his eyes, his face twisted in agony. What met his gaze were patches of tender green leaves, along with blue sky and white clouds fragmented by the foliage.

"Ah... am I still asleep?" Supporting himself as he sat up from the grass, the young man felt that those words sounded oddly familiar.

He had just had a nightmare. He had dreamed of something surrounded by enormous tentacles... Holy shit!

As he sat up, the young man abruptly discovered a shell-covered, four-armed monster standing on the grass before him. It was the very creature that had appeared at the last moment before the lightning struck and held him.

Only, it was now in an extremely miserable state. Its entire body was charred black. Its spider-like lower abdomen and webbed spider legs were completely gone, and even more than half of its head was missing—its head had possessed a long, xenomorph-like rear cranium covered in huge plates of armor and covered with countless tentacles. Most of that thing had broken off, though its face remained largely intact.

However, its face was covered in armor. It had neither mouth nor nose, and its eyes were glowing compound eyes. To the young man, there was not much difference between it being intact and disfigured.

Yet despite its mangled body, it seemed unable to feel pain. It still elegantly folded one pair of three-fingered claws over its lower abdomen, while pressing the tips of another pair together before its chest. In a calm voice, it replied, "Your mind is active and your consciousness is clear at this moment, Overmind. You have fully awakened."

He had no idea where its voice came from. It clearly did not even have a mouth.

The young man instinctively compared their heights. Even with only her upper body remaining, she was not much shorter than him. After standing there dumbfounded for a while, he finally managed to squeeze out a sentence. "Nice to meet you. What should I call you?"

"The previous Overmind called me Agatha, my Overmind."

"Overmind... are you calling me that?" The young man felt strange now, as though a single thought from him could control everything about the monster before him. Her movements, her words, even... her thoughts.

"Queen of Blades? That is a very ancient title," Agatha said slowly. "She was once the Swarm's most powerful ruler. Even now, the commands she issued remain rooted in the Swarm's underlying consciousness. To this day, the Swarm has been unable to purge all humans from the Koprulu Sector."

The young man had wanted to ask more, but then a thunderous roar suddenly came from deep within the jungle.

From the sound of it, the predator had to be enormous.

"A bear?" The young man found his voice steadier than he had expected. Apparently, a single bear's roar was not enough to make him feel afraid. Still, he questioned Agatha, "Where exactly have you sent me?"

"I can't be certain, but judging by the cosmic background radiation, this should be another universe."

"Another world?"