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The buzz of random, meaningless chatter fills your ears as you browse on your phone, just scrolling through page after page of endless, boring news, about stuff you could care less about. Nobody here’s paying attention to you, and you’d rather keep it that way.
You just wanted to stay home, but your boss just had to make you go on this damn business trip. Sure, in some way, it’s a vacation, but you’re still working, and still with people you have neutral to negative feelings about.
At least it’s kinda nice out here.
You turn off your phone, turning your attention to the woodlands around you and your coworkers. It’s… quite nice, actually. Best part of this trip by far.
You know what? You’re gonna go for a nice little walk in it. Nobody will notice you’re gone, so what’s stopping you from sneaking off into the forest and taking a lovely little stroll?
So, you do just that.
You walk off the beaten trail, and deeper into the forest, your only companions being your thoughts as you hear your feet crunch against the soil, leaves, and grass beneath you.
It’s been a bit since you could just enjoy yourself like this. Just… exploring the world, enjoying life…
It reminds you of when you were a kid, in a way.
You miss those times. Those sweet, blissfully innocent times, before your soul ended up being ever so slowly crushed by the world around you.
You pause for a moment, closing your eyes and trying to remember those good old days, as you slowly breathe in and out, digging up half-forgotten memories.
Oh, how you miss those days. How you miss those safe, peaceful days.
But… it’s not like you can do anything about it. That’s just how time is, and there’s nothing you can do about it but reminisce about how life was…
…Even if it makes you fester on your regrets a little.
You could’ve been so much more.
Had you tried harder, focused on something else, did this instead of that… if you just tried in general, really. It doesn’t feel like you really did, looking back. Maybe thinking that is a sign of how jaded you’ve become, but it perfectly fits how you see things nowadays.
You sigh, reopening your eyes and continuing your woodland walk, guided by the gentle breeze and chirping of birds, with the occasional sounds of steps from other beings in this forest.
You just… try to focus on the little noises around you, and nothing else. Sure, it’s easy as can be, but…
…It just makes you think about your past again.
Your past, which, now that you think about it, you can hardly recall. Everything is just so, so clouded and muddled over
It’s like you just have memories of memories, twisting about in your head like waves on the sea. You can barely recall what your life was when you were a kid, all of those memories just… feel so clouded and muddled over.
All you can really tell with 100% certainty is that you were happy back then.
Truly happy, just living your life, blissfully unaware of what was lying in wait ahead of you.
And now? It’s like you're walking in a thick swamp 24/7, wading through coagulated misery with little dry land for you to rest upon, no way to turn back, and not a single thing you can do about it, even if you tried your hardest.
That’s how life is, it seems. Just an endless, unfun walk through a marsh of misery until you die.
…Speaking of walks, it looks like the forest is getting darker.
Weird. It was bright out a second ago…
Ah, well, you’re likely just getting deeper and deeper into it. Stuff like this is bound to happen when out walking off the beaten trail. It’s kinda pretty, to be honest.
You also notice blue lights drifting about, glowing like fireflies in the twilight sky, and dancing about in the veil of darkness.
Huh. That’s not something you see every day.
As you stand there, looking at the lights flutter about, you can’t help but enjoy the sight presented before you. It’s like something out of a calming, sweet dream. It’s safe. Tranquil. Peaceful.
Like something from your childhood days.
You shake your head, continuing on with your walk as you find yourself, once again, thinking about your younger years.
It was rough at times, yes, that you can remember clearly, but… it was better than this. So much better.
And… being here makes you feel that way again. So, so innocent and carefree, just exploring the world and its wonders in your own little way.
As a blue light drifts towards you, you reach out your hand. It lands upon it, not even moving as you bring your hand closer to your face, staring at the fantastical sight before you.
You… you love this. This childish joy, this peace, this sense of adventure… all of it just makes you feel free, for the first time in years.
You wish every day could be like this.
A few seconds after your mind rests on that thought, a new sensation comes over you.
The feeling that you’re being watched, eyes resting on the back of your body, pondering over your form.
Instantly, you look all around, feeling the hairs on the back of your neck stand on edge. You feel chills run up your spine and your joints go solid as the sensation worsens. It’s like whatever’s watching you, getting closer and closer with each passing second, until…
…the lights around you turn pink.
They begin to drift away into the darkened sky, before you can even think about running away, as a strange sucking sensation seems to crawl around your feet. Looking down, you can see them begin to sink into the soil, as you gasp at the sight, trying to move, only to feel that sensation grow worse and worse, as your body is slowly dragged beneath the pitch black earth.
As your legs are consumed, you frantically grip the grass and dirt with your bare hands, trying to pull your body out of the ever-consuming darkness, but all you do is simply dirty them up, as your body is sucked further and further into the abyss. You try to scream out, to call for help, but it feels as if your voice is just… gone. Not a sound emerges from your throat.
Even as your arms are sucked into the void, you thrash, ever so desperate, as every inch of your body sinks into the abyss. Darkness consumes your vision as your head goes under, and you sink down.
Going deeper, and deeper, and deeper.
You try to swim your way back up out of desperation, only managing to thrash about in the darkness as you fall at a rapid pace.
A pace that eventually slows down.
Eventually, your fall slows to a crawl, before you just stop altogether, merely floating in the… starry abyss?
Looking around, you can see nebulas, constellations, planets, and stars, all floating around in harmony as you stare at the cosmic beauty before you.
You just… silently stare at the sights surrounding you. It’s… just so beautiful.
A single, large, brilliantly cyan star catches your attention in particular, for some reason. You’re not really sure why, but… it just seems to call your gaze and attention towards it. You stare at it, and it seems to stare back silently, with not a word spoken between the both of you. It’s pretty, that’s for sure, but you don’t know why you’re so suddenly focused on this single star, out of the countless surrounding y-
More stars, this time a coral pink in color, suddenly form around the cyan one, shaping into a constellation, shaped perfectly like a human silhouette, with its head facing right. You remain silent as you stare, not just because you have no words to describe any of this… but because you physically can’t open your mouth right now.
Still, you stare in reverence at the sight before you.
And it stares back.
Eventually, the cyan star vanishes as if it was a mere eye closing, as its companions follow suit. As if they saw that divine sight, the interstellar objects around you begin to snuff themselves out, one by one, each one vanishing into the abyss as you had mere minutes prior, until all is dark once again. You are alone in this infinite darkness once more.
…What now, you wonder? Are you going to die and rot here, alone? Or perhaps you’re already dead. What does life really mean, anyway? What is your purpose? Was it the goals you set as a child that you’ve since forgotten in your desperation to survive as an adult? Did they even matter, now that you look back?
More and more of those thoughts creep into your head, until you feel your body tingle and shake from deep inside, causing you to snap out of it and wince.
And, although you don’t see it, your skin begins to lose details. Any little imperfections present in your face are smoothed out, the color shifting to an odd, light peachy shade, with no undertones present in it. The sensation of your flesh smoothing itself out wraps over your entire face, as your nose sinks into it and your outer ears round out, the details across them vanishing, yet your senses of smell and hearing remain.
While you can’t see your head change, you can sure as hell feel it.
And it’s just so… alien. You don’t have a single word for it other than that basic, single word. “Alien” would be the best word to describe… all of the stuff happening to you right now.
Your head rounds out as all detail fades from it, turning into a circular shape as black outlines wrap around the “edge” of it. Your eyes shrink down, lashes and brows falling out as they turn black, the discoloration bleeding into your sclera as they round out, turning into mere little ovals on your detail-free face.
Some of your teeth fall free from your gums, leaving no blood behind as the holes heal over, as the rest of your teeth chip up, cracking a little. Your lips slim down into nothingness, fading away as your mouth slims down to a simple black line.
Starting at the roots, your hair changes color, shifting to a brilliant, bright golden-yellow blonde. As soon as every little strand has changed in coloration, it grows out, extending far past your back, and down to your calves, as it flows freely in the empty abyss.
You grab some of it to take a closer look, noticing that it’s… almost cartoony in appearance.
It’s two dimensional, with a darker colored outline, and utterly flawless. It’s also quite shiny, and you can’t spot individual strands no matter how hard you look. It’s like it’s all this one big clump, yet it flows and acts as if it was just… normal hair.
…What the hell is happening to you?
The discoloration moves down to your neck as it slims down and shortens, evidence of the muscles and bones inside of you vanishing away, paving away for the odd “perfecting” of your body, as that black outline wraps around the edges of your neck. Your shoulders seem to slim down, definition fading from them as they seem to almost go limp, in a way. As a result, your arms kinda… slouch and flop down, just as the discoloration and smoothing begins to crawl down them.
Your arms slim down, elbows and bones thinning down as well, seemingly turning useless as your arms continue to thin, turning almost noodley in composition. Your hands also slim and shrink down, to the point where you can’t even see your wrists anymore. Your middle and index fingers move on their own, cramming themselves together until they are a single digit. Your fingernails also fall out, the delicate skin beneath every nail strengthening themselves up.
As you look at your hands and arms in bewilderment as the discoloration sweeps over them, making the hairs present across them fall away as the little imperfections are smoothed out just in time for the black outlines to wrap around the edges of your arms, you notice light gray metal forming on your left hand, in the form of little plates across your fingers. Your pinky and ring fingers on that hand cram themselves up against one another, following the example set by the middle and index, as they fuse into one digit.
Your palm thickens, rounding out as your thumb moves up your hand, as more metal plates form along your altered hand, then your arm, all the way down to just a bit above your elbow. The plates seem to shift, minute details fading away as the ones around your elbow bloat, rounding out to seemingly form a makeshift joint, as you slowly touch the metal with your right hand…
…only to jerk it away as you hear a sickening slicing noise, followed by an array of oddly fleshy crushing noises.
It doesn’t hurt, but you can feel the flesh beneath the metal wither away, consumed by the steel as wires and gears slither through your veins, taking them over. You cringe as you grow aware of every little cell in that arm, seconds before they die and are consumed by mechanical parts.
For a second, the arm goes limp, before flaring back to life as your head pounds, just for a fleeting moment, before you regain complete control of it.
You stare at your newly formed prosthetic, and in terrified awe, you slowly move it around, clenching the three little digits on it into a fist as you slowly move it and your right arm. While the latter is seemingly more limp, posturewise, with a softly curved elbow, the former acts just like your old arm, minus the fact it lacks two fingers and the elbow has been replaced by a ball joint.
As you stare at your limbs in confusion, you feel your chest flatten as the discoloration moves over to your torso. You feel your front and back thicken out, your stomach thickening out a little as you feel your organs, muscles, and bones moving about inside of you, trying to adjust to the massive changes happening to you.
You can feel as your bones crack as your torso expands outwards, reshaping into an almost tubelike shape, as your insides suffer the brunt of the agony, reshaping to fit your more toony form as your skin merely changes color and loses all imperfections. You can feel your insides twist as they adjust to your changing form, and you float there, without a single thing you can do about it.
But, thankfully, it doesn’t last too long, as eventually, it fades away, leaving you with just weird sensations inside of you from your altered skeletal structure and organs.
Your rear flattens down, as you feel your legs begin to slim down, just like your arms had. The fat and muscle in your thighs and calves are whittled away, stripped from your body painlessly and rendering your legs slimmer than ever, as the discoloration sweeps over them. You can feel and hear your bones adjust and snap inside of your changing form, rapidly morphing to become just as noodly as your arms. While that occurs, you can feel your toes rub up against one another, some merging together, leaving you with three toes on each foot as your feet shrink down, as your shoes gently drift off your body, floating in the endless darkness around you.
As you look at your body in shock, feeling your ill-fitting clothing against your skin, pants barely fitting on your noodle-legged body, you see them begin to glow, fading away into blue light that wraps around your entire body in a comforting embrace. At first, as you feel it cover you, you panic, before relaxing into the sensation as it cloaks you, balling your hair up inside of it
The light seems to reshape a little around your body, moving all over it, before it almost mock-explodes as it fades away, piece by piece. First, on your head, a pure white hoodlike hat with two round little ears appears, perfectly covering up your hair, then, on your torso, a munsell blue t-shirt, and a two-toned lime green circular backpack. On your lower half, denim shorts form, then shoes with a white cuff around the top, either as decoration or rolled-up socks.
Everything is as toony as your new body, so it’s a little hard to tell.
At least, everything is form-fitting, and, now that you think about it…
…you’ve seen this outfit before.
You’re… you can’t recall his name, but you know what he’s from, you just…
“Finn?”
Finn… that’s his name.
He’s from Adventure Time, and… now that you think of it, you watched it, once, when you were just a child. You forgot it as you grew, with memories of it only returning when you heard recent news about it, stuff involving it you never got around to watching.
But… it now feels so… real, to you.
In your head, memories of it begin to flood back, like a tsunami ravaging the shoreside. It feels so… real, to you, all of a sudden. Every little moment feels as if you were there, in his head, taking his actions.
It all feels more real to you than your actual life.
And yet… that fact feels comfortable. Familiar, and safe, as if those memories were wrapping around you, telling you that it’s time to come home in the softest voice imaginable.
“Finnnnn….”
His name… it even feels more fitting than your own. It’s just like those artificial memories, something not your own, but feeling as if they belong more than what you already had.
And… you kinda like that.
A sensation of a handlike appendage touching your face hits you, and suddenly, you see a white light above you, growing and growing.
You reach out your fleshy hand, as you are consumed by it…
~~~
…and awaken in a treehouse, with every detail seemingly as cartoony as you remember, with an orange, cartoony dog creature staring at you.
“You passed out, man.” He- Jake tells you as consciousness claims you, and you remain silent. You’re… you’re not Finn. You’re not his brother, yet he acts as if you are…
“I… did?” You manage to say after a bit of just… looking at him. You’re not Finn… but you are him. You’re really a cartoon character, taking the place of the actual character you transformed into.
You remain quiet as you look down at yourself. Still just as toony as you had become in that dream, still wearing those same clothes, still with that prosthetic. In any other situation, you would be terrified you warped into a goddamn cartoon, but… you feel happier like this. You feel like you belong.
“You good, man?” Jake asks you, breaking you out of your thoughts.
“...You know what? Yeah.” You tell him, bending into the role you found yourself in. “Yeah, I’m good. I was just… thinking about past stuff.”
You’re smiling a little, as you say that.
“...You suuure?” Jake asks you, squinting as he seemingly judges you, making you worry for a second. “You don’t usually think too hard about the past. Especially so hard you pass out.”
“D-don’t worry, dude.” You reply, putting your hands up. “I’m good, honest!”
“Whatever you say, man.” Jake says, shrugging and walking off.
As he leaves, you slowly sit up on your new legs, heading over to the window and staring out at the brilliant blue sky and rolling green hills before you, with frozen mountains looming overhead.
You have a new life ahead of you. Countless things to adjust to and relearn… but you feel comfortable with that fact.
On one hand, changes that are this big are terrifying… but this change is oddly comforting. It’s as if an invisible hand is holding your own, telling you that it’ll be with you every step of the way. That you’re finally safe here, that people here will actually care about you, and all you need to do is embrace this new life and enjoy yourself again.
You think back to your old life, mainly fixating on your childhood days. You always wanted something like this, back then.
You hope you can live up to the expectations you had of the ideal life you had when you were young.
Silently, you thank your past self, which now feels like a distant specter that looms behind you in every waking moment, and head out.
You know what time it is.