Chapter 1: 1- Waking Up

"Arghhh!?" I groaned as a mind-splitting headache attacked me, bringing me back to the world of the living.

Everything felt so disoriented and messy, different sounds were blasting around me in a chaotic incomprehensible jumble, there was concerned shouting, angry cursing along with banging and the almost unnoticed sound of birds singing and the breeze flowing.

My senses were a mess and I couldn't comprehend what my body was telling me, the sensations I was getting from all over my body were so disorienting.

Confused and in pain, I opened my eyes a sliver trying to understand what was going on, something I regretted straight away.

As soon as I opened my eyes, a flood of confusing and mixed scenes filled my mind and the horrible headache I was feeling got even worst as my brain tried its best to process what that mess was.

I closed my eyes and let another groan out, and it was only then that I noticed how my voice sounded, it was echoey and seemed as if it was said by more than one person.

My heart started beating fast, and the sound it made as it bumped blood through my vines was echoey and loud, only adding to the fear and horror I was feeling.

I tried my best to calm myself down by attempting to take a few deep breaths, yet that didn't help at all.

With the first deep breath I took, I felt like puking as my head went into a weird messy trip as it tried to understand the scents it was getting.

It wasn't a disgusting smell that made me react like that, even though it was there, no it was how everything felt and how my mind had trouble differentiating the weirdly mixed scents it was getting.

Holding my breath and trying to close all my senses off for a few seconds, I gave myself the time to try and figure out just what the hell was happening.

I started recalling all that I could, and what I was doing before ending up like this.

I started with easy things so as to not tax my mind a lot. My name is Alex Hunter and I am a college student who studied English at a local college, I wasn't the best student there, but I wasn't the worst too, just an average young man going with his life.

Seeing how I still had it in me to remember those things, I felt a bit better and tried to go even deeper and remember what might have happened for me to find myself in this kind of situation.

The first thing that came to my disoriented mind was getting back from my part-time job after another long day at college, I remembered that I started preparing dinner soon after that, but everything from there on was nothing but a blur, just emptiness till I woke up again in this horrible state.

"That... Didn't... Fucking... Help..." I grumbled in a pained voice that still had that same echoey feel to it even then.

It was then that I noticed how I found it a lot easier to talk and think, it was still hard and messy and disorienting, but my thoughts were getting clearer and easier to comprehend.

Thinking that I was ready enough to open my eyes, I cracked them a sliver, which I regretted straight away, everything was still as messy as could be and my brain felt as if it was going to explode.

Despair and fear started taking a hold of me as I closed my eyes again, I had no idea what was happening nor did I know why I was in that kind of situation.

Suddenly, and without any indications all the trembling and groaning I was feeling and making just stopped as I froze for a split second.

My brain got overwhelmed, tons of information just got crammed into my mind and I stood no chance of understanding them all.

The shock I went through because of the unbelievable amount of information that suddenly appeared in my mind didn't last long though, instead, it soon got replaced by a pain so bad that I couldn't even scream, the most I could do was open my mouth in a silent shriek.

The knowledge and information that were being pushed into my mind were so big that I couldn't even understand, and my head felt as if it was splitting, if I could move even for a bit, I would have been trying to bash it against the ground or a wall.

Fortunately, just as I felt that I won't be able to hold on anymore and that I had reached my limits, feeling as if the last sense of myself was going to disappear and the onslaught of that gigantic mountain of information, a memory suddenly got highlighted.

I didn't recognise it really, I had no idea where it came from, nor did I have the luxury to care, it gave me the feeling as if it was going to help me with whatever I was going through and I for sure needed that.

So, without any further ado, I collected all that was left of my scattered thoughts and with renewed determination, powered by the promise of being freed from the agonizing pain, I concentrated on the thought that made itself known to me.

Unfortunately, the hope I got didn't last, as the longer I concentrated on that thought the more I felt that it was probably just my delirious mind getting even more out of control in my last moments. Having nothing to lose anyway I started doing as the fantastical thoughts in my mind were telling me anyway.

I closed my mouth and held my breath as I followed the memory that appeared in my head. It seemed like one of those meditation exercises that I saw a few times before online, whenever I found myself there after a wild hunt for some weird subject, except that what I had wasn't just an abstract idea about meditation, no, it also came with a memory of what the process felt like, as if I had already gone through the process and it worked, with that memory, I found it easier to enter the right state of mind.

Emptying my mind of all distracting thoughts and emotions, including the pain, I tried to send my sight inwards, this step was easy for me as the memory was leading me through it.

Finally having a moment of quiet and peace, I almost cried, but as I lost my concentration I felt the state I was in start to slip away, and the pain rears its head again, so I hurriedly brought my emotions under control again and went on with the rest of the process.

The next step was trying to come into contact with something ethereal that was the cornerstone of this meditation, the previous step of emptying my mind was only so I can enter this special state where I would be able to sense this intangible floaty mess.

Stray, doubtful thoughts were trying to make themselves known again, and I had to make a conscious effort not to let them affect me as I tried following the memory to a tee.

Unfortunately, I couldn't feel this energy no matter how hard I tried, my body seemed to be void of such a substance.

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Panic started banging on the weak shell that the meditation built the longer time passed without me finding such a thing. Just as I was almost overwhelmed, the memory morphed again, showing me a specific place to search for the weird ethereal energy in; it was what seemed to be above where my navel was.

Finally, after spending who knows how much time trying to find this intangible energy, I was able to feel it... Or at least I thought I did as it still wasn't exactly as what the memory showed me, it felt as if it was there yet wasn't, as if I had it in sight and yet didn't.

That was a bit weird but what part of what I was going through wasn't? So I didn't think more about it and just willed the ethereal energy to move, as I grasped it and started dragging it around my body in some illusionary path that the memory showed me. This step also gave me the same sense as before, as if I was holding it yet not, as if I was able to feel it move through me yet not.

Another thing that I noticed was how this step seemed somehow easier than what the memory was telling me

The state of meditation I was in was already doing well for me, but the more that weird energy moved through my body, the better I felt. I somehow had a feeling that even if I stopped meditating I won't be in as much of a horrible state as I was before, but I still continued with the meditation, innately knowing that if I stopped then, I would slowly return to how I was before.

The paths I was dragging that ethereal energy through were continuous and stretched all over my body, from the memory, I knew that I had to do one full cycle at the very least before the meditation would have its full effect, the feeling I was getting was also confirming that idea, as the closer I got to completing the cycle the clearer my thoughts were and the better my whole person felt.

Bang!

Unfortunately, that's when things took a turn for the worst, a loud bang sounded from outside and I almost lost control of myself, returning to the situation I was in when I first woke up in this weird place.

"There you are, you fucking son of a bitch! I've been knocking on that fucking door for the last half hour and you're here sleeping? Get up you fucking bag of shit," as if to make things worst, the loud bang wasn't the only thing I heard, as soon after it the rough voice of a man shouted.

Just hearing the voice made me feel a sense of fear and dread, even while I was in meditation, as if I already knew what was coming.

Yet that sense of fear wasn't the only thing I felt, I also felt anger and disbelief, 'how dare this filth talk to me like this?' Seemed to be what this other feeling was coming from.

Ignoring all of those and clutching at the ethereal energy, I tried my best to pull it through the finish line to complete a cycle. Wanting to at least do that before waking up.

"Didn't you hear me you fucking donkey? I said got up," the owner of the voice shouted again.

Alas, neither that second feeling nor the meditation were able to help calm down or subdue the fear and dread the owner of the voice brought to my heart. Just the sound of the shouting was able to shake me to the core and I found myself about to leave the state of meditation because of it.

I tried to hold on, clinging to the idea that I was so close to the end, clinging to the anger and using it as fuel to bring the ethereal energy to a complete first cycle.

"I said got up!" The owner of the voice shouted for one last time as I was yanked by the arm, breaking me from my concentration and state of meditation just as the cycle was about to end.

Opening my eyes, the anger I was feeling exploded from the other person's touch, from somewhere inside of me the idea that someone touched and yanked me felt like an even bigger insult than shouting at me. the anger consumed the fear that was filling me and I could feel it gash out of me like a flood, as I directed my gaze to the person who was still holding my arm.

Along with all of that was a faint weird sense of as if something finally fell into its right place.

"You are finally awake you fucking pie..." The owner of the voice never completed his words as my glare froze him up and made him flinch back, releasing me in the process.

"Wh... What are you looking at?" The state the other man was in didn't last long as he soon collected himself and shouted at me, and that in turn, along with another thing I noticed, extinguished the anger I felt and lit up the fear I somehow forgot, making me lower my head unconsciously, following an impulse from deep down.

"Yeah, that's what I fucking thought," the man, seeing me pull back, said in a more forceful tone as he took another step forward and stood straighter, aiming to win some ground back, not that he needed to, whatever it was that got to me it had already left me and I reverted to the state from before.

Yet... That also wasn't right, only a part of me was like that, and considering what 'my' eyes were telling me, I had an idea why I had that feeling.

"Your highness, you're finally awake!" The... Thing in front of me said in a language I never heard, nor would I have been able to determine as a language if I've heard it before, let alone understand it as I was doing then.

It was only at that moment that I realized that the language the man from before was using wasn't English at all, yet I was able to understand, just like with the thing floating in front of me.

Yes! Floating, it was floating around half a meter above the ground to my side. And that wasn't the only weird thing about it, nor was it the most frightening, that was the fact that it was, and this is the easiest way to explain what I was seeing, an undead gorgon, with the lower half of its body nothing more than a skeleton, and the upper part a pale humanoid figure that had a dark red scaly skin. the upper part of its body was covered in a long blue elegant robe that only reached to where I guessed its hips would be. Another thing that caught my attention was its arms, they were disproportionately small for its body.

Though an explanation for that appeared soon in my mind along with who the 'man' in front of me was. Alas, I didn't get to look further into it as 'I' was pulled by the arm by the man standing in front of 'me' as he shouted:

"Why are you spacing out? Am I not talking to you?" He growled as he brought me closer to him and looked me in the eyes.

Looking at the man and the thing in front of 'me', and also taking into account the memories that were flooding my mind at that moment, I had an inkling of what was happening...

I was in control of three bodies.