The storm born reincarnation

"Right, right… I have to pull myself together."

I fought to stop drifting, to bring myself back from the brink. Memories flooded my mind—not all of them clear, not all of them good enough to ground me.

How long was I out this time? Honestly, I could've been sleeping for eons for all I knew. No… it couldn't have been that long. Could it?

I began pulling the pieces of myself back together, one fragment at a time. It was hard—painfully slow. The storm still raged around me, relentless, but I fought against its pull. I fought for them. The thought made me chuckle, even as the weight of my struggle bore down on me.

Then I felt it—my core. There was a crack. Slight and superficial, but there. A fracture that could have grown if I had slept longer, if I had given in completely. Without it, I wouldn't have been able to pull myself back. That much, I knew.

Maybe giving in to the flow isn't the way forward after all.

I shifted my focus. I needed to condense my core, to make it stronger, more durable. Maybe one day, I'd be able to create more—more cores, more stability. I didn't know for sure, but what I did know was that I needed to center myself again.

I drifted into meditation, returning to the same ritual: pulling in mana, letting it circulate, slowly condensing it. This time, I was more cautious, more deliberate. I could feel the grogginess lingering, the way I had lost my body—or, more accurately, how it had become formless seemingly to disappear as my sense of self disappears.

But now, I could feel it reorienting itself, slowly returning

I exhaled, or at least it felt like I did.

"Well… what do I

I looked around at the once-lush forest, its majestic canopy now reduced to broken limbs and scattered debris. A slight chuckle escaped me, though it carried no joy. "That's probably my fault," I muttered.

The devastation was undeniable. I scanned the horizon for any remaining signs of life, but it seemed the storm had wiped out everything. My awareness expanded, reaching farther than I had ever imagined possible, but even with this newfound perception, I couldn't sense anything stirring.

"I really need to learn how to control myself better," I said aloud, the weight of my words heavy with regret.

The storm still raged, growing stronger with every moment. If I didn't stop it soon, there'd be nothing left—nothing but the hollow remnants of what once was.

An idea formed in my mind, reckless but tempting. What if I didn't just dissipate the storm? What if I could pull it in—draw the air, the clouds, the storm itself into me to condense this cloudy form into something more substantial? It was a dangerous thought, but there was no other way. I had to stop the destruction, no matter the cost.

So I acted.

I focused all my will, pulling the storm inward. The winds howled in protest as I began to condense the raging forces around me, spiraling them into a singular form. The clouds churned and twisted, spiraling tighter and tighter, shrinking as I absorbed their essence. I became the storm—a singular force of nature, compact and controlled.

What I couldn't take in, I let disperse. Slowly, deliberately, I unraveled the chaos, piece by piece, until only a faint breeze remained.

In the stillness that followed, I stood there, the echoes of the storm still resonating within me. I had done it,

I had grown stronger—probably. It was hard to tell; I had no real frame of reference. In the end, I wasn't even able to absorb much of the storm's energy. Most of it, I had to let disperse. I didn't really have a choice.

But at least there's nothing left around for me to destroy.

After wandering for a while, I climbed to the top of a mountain—or close to the summit, anyway. There, I found a small pond that had somehow managed to survive the chaos.

I stretched my cloudy form and let my feet touch the surface of the water, hovering above it. The ripples spread out in soft, rhythmic waves. I missed the feel of grass underfoot, missed the sensation of touch entirely, actually. It was strange, being so untethered, so disconnected.

Spotting a nearby rock, I drifted over and settled myself on it—or as close to "settling" as I could manage in this formless state.

"Right," I muttered to myself. "Let's list out the problems."

I paused, thinking.

"Number one: understanding what I am now. My best guess? Some kind of elemental spirit. Sure, let's go with that for now."

"Number two: find intelligent life. Or, at the very least, figure out if this world even has it. Who knows? Maybe I've landed in a world of peace and quiet." I laughed dryly. "That'd be fun for an engineer," I added, sarcastically.

"Then…" I trailed off, staring at the still surface of the pond.

"I don't know," I admitted.