text: "I have no fear, except that which i wield on behalf of the master" -The nameless Pain, or perhaps a feeling of tension. This was my first memory of being born. I was not an infant, but rather, a thought. A conjuration, brought forth by anxiety, fear, and distress. This fear, pulled out and shaped by curiosity and imagination, became my body. my mind was fresh, open to the moderated tweaks of darkness and faceless nightmares. I opened my eyes to see my first sights, a blackness that i could not blink away. My tense body became relaxed in the empty space and the numbness gave way to the feeling of icy coldness and a sort of thick semi-liquid, enveloping my body, restricting any movement to only slow gestures. My eyes finally took to the dark, adjusting and widening, they saw a crystalline window before me, shielding me inside a casket sized cell. I pushed a curious hand through the icy gel and touched the window, it became as ash and drifted outward off of my hand as the climate of my cold shelter shifted to a wet heat. The gel peeled off the back wall and nearly pulled me out of my cell as gravity ripped it into the darkness. I braced my hands on either side and looked outward into the endless dark. I saw tens, hundreds, even thousands of similar crystal cells hanging in a web of deep purple sap. Finally, I glanced downward and saw, far below, a black watery floor, lighted only by luminescent bodies which moved like massive eels, building waves as they glided about the otherwise calm sea. I began to think of where to go next, what i might find, and what i was there for. The curiosity built to a squall, then suddenly, my cell began to tremor as the sap-like gel it hung upton began to tense. My eyes caught movement above me and a new creature came into vision. It Was bigger than myself many times over, it's comparatively small, metallic black body was suspended over eight legs which all became as triple pronged hooks from the knee joint. It had a V shaped head with a dozen eyes set between two horizontal mouths encircled with fangs of varying sizes. It was obviously coming toward me yet i felt no fear. It exhaled a fine mist which paralyzed my muscles bringing a second wave of the displeasing tense feeling. I spoke no words and it briefly paused to look me over, perhaps for injury, then it pulled me onto it's back with more of the familiar webbing. There, I came to rest between a few other individuals in the same situation. The others looked dazed, bored even. But I imagine I looked different, wide eyed, very interested in what might come next. After all, this creature could move much more intuitively than myself, or so I thought. A sudden burst of light, like I had never imagined possible, flashed under the creature from behind us. The creature jolted and somehow lost footing. we were now, one and all, falling toward the sea. The paralysis would make this situation tricky, even though i felt no fear i knew for some reason I couldn't survive well in the depths for long. I fought for control, struggled mentally, screamed within for my body to move, but nothing happened. Whatever the light did to put me in this situation also untethered us from the creature, so i was in free fall along with the other people who were silently falling to their inevitable demise. I fell with my eyes wide open, I would miss nothing in my last moments, perhaps on contact my limbs will begin to move again. But they didn't. I hit feet first and speared into the waters. only a few feet away, the large creature slammed into the sea resulting in an ebbing tide which stirred me to the surface where i drew another breath. My arms felt a sting, a tension fading and being replaced with a burn. Good, I thought, throwing out my arms to shove liquid under me as though climbing out. This did not work, this hot, stinging, liquid was not like my serene icy gel back in the cell above. I tried a new method but only found myself going under again, so i stopped. I reached out with my senses trying to spot something that wasn't sinking into the endless depths and I saw a massive stream of lights coming toward me from beneath. It seemed to be falling up, the only way i could describe it's speed at the time. I felt the water well up as it was nearing the surface, It's mouth began to open showing to me a darkness even deeper than pitch black. I sat still, unsure as to what action to take. Suddenly it shifted upward at an angle and breached, engorging itself with the multi legged creature which I had identified as my determined tour guide. I felt alone again, even if the empty eyed people had escaped. But it was hardly the time to worry, This new guide had broke surface and fell right on me. I may have lost some of the remaining air in my chest but it made my grip all the more desperate. The eel-like creature rose again almost immediately and seemed to slow to a halt, beaching itself. What fortune would have me survive such a trip. I eagerly ran up the belly of the beast to try and see land or whatever it was resting on. I finally came to the mouth and could smell what i would later identify as the inner parts of the multi legged creature. Almost being overcome with a dizziness from the scent, I managed to hop to what I was hoping to be solid ground. Landing, I quickly found that it was merely solid in appearance. I sank to my knees before I could react but I hit a second layer that seemed quite stable. I found it to be adequate for catching my breath, so I awkwardly sat down the rest of the way to the muddy surface. It smelled like the thing before, everywhere. This was easily the first smell I could recognize strongly enough to call my first. This was unfortunate but not as much as the reason for the smell. My vision had to resharpen as the beached thing had been so brightly colored until finally coming to a stop here. As my perception began to focus I spotted mounds of dissected Multi legged creatures, all apparently spat up from these monstrous eel beings. I decided at that point to affectionately refer to the multi legged things as "Line guides" as they traveled on the webs of sap and guided me toward a destination I never got to previously. I felt something new, anger. I felt for the line guide, perhaps because it was the first other living thing i had seen, or perhaps out of pity for their apparent role as a consistent victim of the now vilified water monsters. They were an easy villain in my young mind, they were bright and hurt my eyes, they kill things that I hardly got to know, and nearly drowned and crushed me. On top of all this, they slobbishly park their overindulged, comatose carcass on the banks of the old victims of their overeating. This thought, coupled with my own easily distracted curiosity, replayed the fall. What was that light? Where did it come from? Instantly, I found myself blaming the wicked eels, assuming they had some sort of maniacal weapon to capsize unknowing line guides so they could slurp them up. I was absorbed in this random quandary for some time. But I digress, since my search for answers has only begun.