Silhouette

James felt weak and wet.

His mind was still groggy and he wasn't exactly aware of his surroundings, but he still felt like he had just been run over by a truck and left on the side of the road in the middle of a storm. Which, truth be told, wasn't completely inaccurate.

He tried to get up or at least crawl away from the dirty puddle he appeared to be laying in but something felt wrong with his limbs. He tried to focus on his surroundings to see where he was and what could be the problem when suddenly, it clicked.

It wasn't quite like sight, no, it was... Something greater, more complete. He perceived the world all around him at once through all of his senses, except touch and taste, and did so in a way that was much, much more defined than he ever did as a human.

This last point, in particular, helped pull him out of his groggy state.

His body was definitely NOT human anymore, which would explain the new senses and the difficulty to move around like he used to, especially considering what his body was made of : some kind of pitch-black sludge, so dark he would probably have trouble seeing more than a just a blob-shaped silhouette were it not for his new senses, one of which suddenly proved itself TOO effective : his sense of smell.

He appeared to be in some kind of sewer, judging by the stench, the lack of light - which did not impede his new vision - the green yellowish bricks on the walls and floor arranged in arcs and covered in tags and graffitis and, most importantly, the massive canal filled with waste and rubbish that seemed to go on into infinity, the only source of light being what seemed to be a sewer inlet above him, dropping even more water into the canal.

This... Doesn't bode well. Okay, stay calm, focus, and analyze the situation.

For a few seconds, the world seemed calm and peaceful, as though time was paused, the only evidence that it was still ongoing being the sound of running water.

Then came the screeching.

WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO MEEEEE?!!!

For a solid minute, hellish sounds that many would have described as being the result of a banshee being burned and drowned in acid while being electrocuted all at the same time echoed across the tunnel, escaping from the sewers to the surface through the inlets.

The locals' reaction on the surface to these sounds was pretty simple: the initial surprise of hearing some random screaming at dawn, the short curiosity about what kind of creature could possibly make these sounds and, ultimately, sheer and utter indifference.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY BODYYYYY?!!!

No one was stupid enough to hang around a dark alley in the slums, especially after a storm like the one that raged the night before, therefore the people closest to James merely treated his screeching as just more background noise.

Sure, Heroes, Vigilantes and even some Villains patrolled around the city to keep things peaceful, but no one - at least no one sane - tried to do that in the slums. No, it was much easier to keep them contained and to treat them as some kind of independent area in the city. It was, objectively, a reasonable strategy : it was much more likely for something to leave the slums and cause trouble in the city than the opposite.

THIS DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSEEEEE !!!

As such, James got to scream out to his heart's content, the slum dwellers ignored him as they went about their day - after all, why care about some random monster dying in a ditch when a man-eating lizardman or bored Cored thug could suddenly snatch them up and tear their limbs off? When the world was out to get you, you didn't have the luxury to care about others.

What am I... Going to... To do?

When James finally calmed down, he was mentally exhausted - which, for a being conscious for barely a minute since its rebirth, was quite the feat - and was panting even in his own thoughts.

Okay, got... Got all of that out of my system. I'll be able to focus on survival without the threat of a mental breakdown for a while. By the way, no reaction to the demonic screeching?

James listened to his surroundings for a moment, his only companion being the trickling of water.

Okay, either no one heard - unlikely in the middle of a city - or no one cares. People are stupid, I'm sure someone would have come by to check on what was screaming if only to film it or out of morbid - and most probably fatal - curiosity.

He sighed, his initial panic and confusion would not cost him his life - or whatever it was now.

So, screaming implies that I can produce sound but I don't think vantablack blobs of despair have vocals chords, so was it magic, some kind of slime vibration, or maybe instinctive shapeshifting?

He bobbled up and down while emitting a sound that could be described as some sort of sigh.

So, moving around like this is not impossible but... Weird. Losing my limbs is... Quite the experience, to be polite. So, let's try to move some more, maybe something more complex than some up and down.

James focused all of his willpower on trying to understand his new motor functions, something that quickly showed results. He soon began to move his black sludge-like body forward, like some kind of slug but at a slightly faster pace than the gastropod's. As he moved forward, he slowly began to grow small tentacles on his "back" that began to wave and curl in the air.

Okay, I can grow tentacles now. Okay. Those are limbs. Limbs are good. Let's try something less cephalopod-like.

He stopped crawling and retracted his tentacles before curling in himself, his body going from being sludge-like to something akin to a latex ball. Then, he began to grow four tentacles and used them as legs to wamble forth. His gait was clumsy at first but as he took more and more steps it turned into something more effective. Sure, it looked weird, but it was undeniably effective, his speed going from being slightly faster than a slug to reaching a regular human's walking speed. The speed at which he got used to this new body was... Suspiciously fast.

Okay, note to self: the tentacles behave like a real octopus' and have some kind of auto-pilot, which is really useful right now but I should really watch out in case they ever get funny ideas and start messing around with stuff I don't want them to. As for the legs, they seem to work just fine so far so let's try something a bit more... Bipedal.

James put an end to his wobbly gait and stayed still. Slowly, his spherical body began to lengthen and curve, developing some kind of bean-like shape, before slowly rising. He had to take a few steps forward in the process to stay balanced and to avoid falling, his legtacles' tips widening and flattening as he grew taller and taller. In the end, he managed to take on a bipedal form, a very hunched and wanky one with ridiculously long armtacles compared to the rest of the body but it was still a first step toward James' true goal: a humanoid form.

He assessed his weird body, noting how it could probably be used as some kind of low-level monster in a video game, and chose to stay consistent with his behavior so far: test out the form's movements before trying to modify it. However, this time an issue showed up: walking with a wobbly body without joints was fine when his center of gravity was close to the ground but, now that it was much higher, he had trouble keeping his balance. James focused on his "feet" and willed them to widen even more but it simply wasn't enough.

After another try at modifying his body to improve his balance - shortening his arms so they wouldn't flop around as much as they currently did - he tripped on an uneven brick on the ground and fell down. As soon as his face-torso impacted the cold wet stones, his body simply melted into some kind of slime puddle before quickly reforming itself into his sludge shape.

That... Was not expected. I'll definitely have to experiment a bit more with that, it could make a very nasty trick - plus possible fall damage immunity. But I didn't think I could turn into something so... Liquidy. I know I turned somewhat more solid to experiment with the shapeshifting thing but I thought it was closer to tensing my muscles, like an on/off thing, but this... Can I change my consistency at will?

Thus, the experimenting continued. James took on his quadrupedal form once more - he'd probably have to name it at some point, considering it was the only effective one so far - and began to change his consistency rather than his shape.

First, he tried becoming even more solid. It felt more and more like he was actually made of flesh again instead of whatever black goop he was now, until it went even further beyond, going from flesh to bone; from bone to stone, from stone to metal, and from metal to something... More. In the process, James also realized he could apply these changes on different spots on his body, instinctively doing so to keep some range of motion - becoming hard as a rock wasn't really that great if you couldn't move, after all.

Throughout the whole experience, James felt... Weird. Being in his slimy body was unnatural for him but it was normal to actually move with it, whereas being solid felt more... Limited? Uncomfortable? It felt like he was walking around in full plate armor with infinite stamina - sure, he didn't grow exhausted, but even the slightest of movements felt heavy and restricted.

Yes, that was it: being solid was restrictive, and the more solid he got the worse it felt. In fact, he couldn't hold those harder states for long, the best he could stay in without it taking a conscious effort was the flesh one and some of the bone one. Not great, but enough to upgrade his bipedal form once he was done with the consistency experiment.

Done with the solid, James tried the opposite, liquid. It was perfectly logical after all, wasn't slime, goop, muck or whatever it is you want to call it merely the perfect balance of solid and liquid? It was weird at first: if solid was tensing his muscles, would liquid be relaxing? It turned out that no, it wasn't: relaxing meant turning back into sludge apparently. Good to know.

Guess spas are out of the picture. Would they even have allowed creepy holes in reality to be their clients? I would have to buy my own jacuzzi. I mean, judging by how many wet things I've interacted with since I've come here I probably wouldn't dissolve in water, right?

He glanced at the main canal in the middle of the tunnel, staring at the murky water in which some unidentifiable object bobbed up and down from time to time for a few seconds.

I'm not testing that in this filth. Nope. Back to trying to be a puddle.

It turned out that, rather than being a tense/relaxed thing, his transformative abilities were closer to being some kind of internal slider with the sludge form being the middle ground. Knowing that, James began to "flex" his "muscles" the opposite way - and yes, it felt really weird at first - and slowly became less and less viscous until, finally, he had turned into a perfect puddle - which, considering the fact he was pitch black, looked more like a bottomless hole leading straight into the void than an actual puddle of liquid.

And, as you would expect, being a liquid was a strange experience. If being a solid felt like wearing some kind of full plate armor then being a liquid felt like being at the bottom of the ocean. Oh, he didn't have any trouble breathing, he just felt some sort of pressure on him and moving was extremely slow.

Yes, he could move as a liquid. It was slower than normal - though faster than as a sludge-slug - and more clumsy than he would like but it was possible. As he became more viscous during his transition to returning to normal, James he could use a more liquidy foot than his regular sludge one to slide much faster than before as a slug. Good to know.

So, that's the basics of solid and liquid done... That's two states of matter out of three - I know there are more but let's stick to the basics. I wonder, couldn't I...

Something moved in the water.

Don't tell me...

An enormous scarred crocodile the size of a bus jumped out of the canal, some kind of massive catfish the size of a car caught in its jaws.

The crocodile appeared to be covered in more scars than scales, to the point it could have been confused for a dirty albino from afar, its eyes were even bloodshot enough they seemed naturally red. It seemed to be missing its front right leg, apparently mauled away by something long ago. The catfish, on the other hand, was merely stupidly ugly and large.

The reptile then bashed the struggling fish on the tunnel walls until it stopped moving and returned to the water, tearing it to pieces with a death roll, spraying dirty water everywhere as though it was in a frenzy.

It suddenly stopped and looked around. Its gaze wandered until it settled on something on the ground. Maybe a normal crocodile - at least a non-saltwater one - would have been too small to see above the edge of pathways surrounding the canal but this one had no such trouble, at least after raising its head a little. It looked at the pitch-black puddle on the ground and scoffed. As it returned beneath the water, it purposefully sent a massive splash on the black puddle.

Silence reigned in the tunnel for a few minutes before the black puddle raised from the ground and turned into a ball walking around on four tentacles.

Okay, things to note : I do not dissolve in water, I thankfully have no sense of taste so far, turning into a black puddle is NOT a good camouflage, there are giant crocodiles and fish in the sewers and that thing CLEARLY knew I was here, it just didn't bother eating me. What is the logical deduction from all that? I need to find a place to hide, ideally far, far away from the water.

And so James stumbled forth, experimenting on his quadrupedal form on the way to improve its abilities. He didn't know that what he would find would become something much greater than a simple shelter or that this wouldn't be his last encounter with the ruler of the sewer canals in the area, The Marked.