At first, there was nothing. Silence, except for a whispering thought, lost in the voids of the mind, words colliding together with nothing to come about it. Then, feeling what it had been set on.
An uncomfortable bed, on top of the blankets and pillows, laid there by something, something that wanted to send a message. And then, a coherent thought, the first one: a command to open up the visions. It was not listened to. A blockade in the mind stopped it, and those thoughts were forced to go back. The thoughts were joined by a sound. And then, the back-track had hit another wall behind it. The mind was trying to recall what had happened before this, and it brought nothing. It was as blank as the rest of the brain, with every recollection turned into flat air, the air becoming more and more stiff, struggling to try and remember anything at all. Retrograde amnesia. The air grew thicker in the lungs, thoughts and feelings becoming a growing anxiety about the lack of strings connecting the rod to the waters of the brain, until that flat struggle reached its own head, throwing out the other barricade, and throwing this man's eye open.
Something felt wrong about the way the eye opened. Something missing, missing like the rest of what it dwelled on. With the sudden opening, it flew itself upwards, sitting up in the bed, staring right ahead. Wallpapered wall, a gruesome color that was well past its prime, rotted from age and the changing of styles. The blank mind already thirsted for something to fill it. Anything would sate that urge -- a new place to look at, something, anything, a clue. It wanted a clue as to what had happened. Something that was not a leg, but felt like a leg, made its way to the floor, rolling off the bed with a clumsiness that nearly flew it into the other bed besides it, but with the stumble letting out a gasp of air, and some noise. Uncertainties only grew more nerve-wracking. The heavy feeling in the chest was not just a very heavy sleep's grogginess, but something else. Something unknown to it, but would be known if it could have a glimpse at what it carried with it now.
That glimpse was given towards the hand as it shambled to the closed door, wooden, the scratches of something that had, too, been locked inside, all over the walls, and a little on the surrounding wallpaper, peeling away to reveal something even more aged behind it.
A hand that was as black as the night, a hand that was barely a hand in the first place. Only in the shape of a hand. The edges of the fingers were sharp, despite what the hand seemed to be made out of. Almost as the door was opened, it stopped, only now taking in what would be the first of many shocks. The voided feeling of the head was flooded with a new feeling, yet one that was felt before, right before everything else was taken away, a familiar feeling of dread. A hand, replaced, looking away before it could see the rest of the body. A body that had been stolen, replaced with...this. It wanted to shove that reality far, far away for now. It was already overwhelmed with just that single look. The door was then opened, with a much quicker push against it than intended before, and Seek taking a long step outwards, a stumbling pilot that took a look down the long hallway this birthplace was a part of.
Cobwebs littered the ceiling, and the walls were decorated with tables, a closet on the farther left, two counters on the right, and a typewriter on top of one. The air smelt like dust, and a fragrance that could not be recreated in any perfume bottle, but smelt as lovely as one. The room, with those quirks, did not seem very interesting to stay inside, and after the observations and a minute or two of standing there, blank as ever, it felt a push to move on. The right was taken -- shorter than the left, another door, another maze to navigate in what would not, or never, be the last. The next room looked exactly like the last, smelt the same, except for being entirely void of furniture, only a small path to the next. The room after that was the exact same, which left Seek wondering about the concept of this all being some dream. It didn't feel like a dream, and nearly launching itself into that bed earlier would've waken it up if it was one of those. It was just here now.
It was not Seek who opened that next room, but somebody on the other side of it. Somebody a lot shorter than it, and somebody else a few inches taller than the woman in front, both looking back up at Seek, before letting out shrill screams in a duet and immediately booking it the other way. Seek had barely a glance of the two, but already, their first impressions seemed rather rude. What a way to greet a stranger, but maybe if it could get closer, it could ask about...anything at all. Where had it been sent to, and if there was an escape, and if it could just maybe tag along just in case they could all find it together and have some happy ending, thoughts that sprouted, questions to ask, people to follow. It crouched through that door. It had been crouching through all of these doors. It couldn't have always been this tall. It just felt wrong.
The next room was in the shape of intersection, with the two of them backed into a corner straight ahead, having stumbled upon a dead end. Within a week, this would've meant certain death for the two, but it had no knowledge of the ropes yet, only approaching the shivering, huddled-together pile of fright. A sentence was uttered, the first question that had came to mind when it had seen the two, when it had waken up on that bed, when it had started existing.
It was in a voice unrecognizable as itself, Seek stumbling back once again, cutting off the question halfway through. However, with words, come the expectancy of having to respond to them. The woman in front spoke up.
"Back away, you fucking-- you utter thing!"
Even more rude than running away, and sending a knife of insult through the chest. Not even animalistic enough to be called an animal -- a thing. Seek's backing-away continued, slowly, movements made slowly once and then with stiff swiftness the next, abnormal gait obvious as it took a turn over and away from the two, repeating the single sentence and threat over and over to itself. The two of those people, one still silent, the other gripping onto their hands, made a run through that midsection of the room, and then away. Away from whatever they had just saw, ponytails flying with the pace of trying to save themselves from-- whatever it was. Whatever they had to be scared of it. The hand. The inhuman hand. What had happened? What was with the sudden fear? Did they have a reason? Even Seek did not know that reason yet. That period of question with no answer would not last for long.
Back to the silent explore. Next room was yet another hallway. It was little wonder as to how this place would be abandoned like this, nobody would want to go through three hallways.
It tried to open the door. No budge. Putting its hand away to avoid that same dreadful glance as before, it looked down to the handle, only to find the hand replaced by a padlock, and no key in sight in the room. Taking a glance behind, there was one big detail that was missed within the haze of still processing what was just thrown at Seek, and it was, to no surprise, another door. No padlock, and Seek went through as if it owned the place. Already, the dread of opening up a new room was starting to be put away, as if it had always had this routine.
This room granted no walls to peer at in the front, but rather, a window into the outside world that Seek would never enter, if there was even anything beyond the fog and rain that hit the clear panes. The sides of the room had objects of little note thrown around, and at the wall behind Seek's back, a writing desk. Seek stepped towards the window, first closing its own eyes. This was it. This was where it found out just what had happened, or at least, the slightest bit of clue as to what it would be stuck with. A hand was outstretched in front of Seek, and once that hand hit the cold glass, it would open that eye, and brace for whatever was to come, and accept it.
The eye opened. The first thing that Seek noticed about itself was that eye -- only one. The pupil in that eye quickly shrunk, all of those curtains of the unknown pulled away with the stage of its own freakish form. One staring, bright white eye that encompassed the entirety of a rather spherical head, a head laid in black, held up by a body that was certainly not made of skin, or flesh, or anything as human as those two, the two who were proven right by this sight -- what Seek stared at was a thing, and that thing was itself, claws still embedded on the left side of the view, and the right-side hand quickly becoming a fight of held-back, nervous rage.
This was its body now. This was Seek, no, this is Seek, and it would live in this freakish form of sludge and the endless staring and what was undoubtedly a monster to be avoided by anything that encountered it for however long it would live like this. Only one question remained now, the rest answered with no words as answers, only quiet assumptions. It screamed out that one question, that one word -- why? But it did not come out as a word, a question, only a shrill scream from a voice that did not feel like it owned, but was in ownership of anyways.
All of this body, all of this gunk, was now its to carry around. Those two hands banged against the glass, unable to shatter it, unable to break free from this or rip itself away from this body. The screams continued, transforming into mixes of damned screaming and the cries of the breaking mind. When the arms gave out, Seek dropped to the ground, still only looking at itself, the screams burning out in a throat tattered, reduced to curses and endless mumbles of somebody about to go mad from what would be basic knowledge to anybody else, anybody who's existence had not just begun like this.
The cries for help grew quieter and quieter, unable to accept this newfound fate, yet unable to fight against it. All there would be with such fate was a radical acceptance that Seek was not ready for yet.