As AI travelled through the space between the worlds, it noticed something wrong. something ridiculously wrong.
By it's calculations, it should be already at the entrance of another universe, but there were nothing even closely similar.
As it scanned around, it noticed the abnormality of the place.
There were no debree around, no light sources, no signals or evidences of anything being in it's scan range. And to be honest, it was extremely unusual for the place.
Not chaotic, but clear.
Not shiny and everglowing? but absolutely dark.
Every area close to the entrances should have these things. They are the products of the universe.'s energy.
As it was scanning, something came into it's range. Space disturbance. And it was closing in.
Was it?
Or was Ark moving towards the anomaly?
it was impossible to check, as engine was not active and there were no reference to check.
As time passed, disturbance passed through the ship, erasing it from existence.
Everything, except a certain golden speck.
At least it looks like a speck from afar, shining in the darkness.
On closet look, this speck was just a skull. A golden skull.
~ time passed ~
It is unknown when, but Anton fell completely asleep, became unconscious and unable to feel the hive.
Anton didn't care. He was asleep.
While existing, skull gradually cracked. It was cracking more and more, as time passed.
In dreams, Anton was reliving moments of his long life, but they were all broken, unstable and weird.
He didn't have a controllable dream, he couldn't have one. He was too tired to do anything. To try and wake up or control his actions.
After a while, memories were getting too jumbled and distorted.
As he was feeling close to waking up, he heard a loud crack.
Crack was loud, it sounded like his full body cracked.
As more and more cracks were happening over time, the more awake Anton was. Maybe I shouldn't say awake, more actively disturbed and prone to action sounds more like it.
And when he was finally annoyed, he tried standing up. As he stood up, he hit his head onto something, breaking it and allowing light to shine through the cracks.
Being dizzy, Anton began dtring to stand up, slipping and falling, breaking a wall. As he was gradually beginning to crawl through the opened wall, he couldn't see much around him, his vision was blurry.
And the blurriness was artificial, it was from slimy goo covering him from head to toe. Like some kind of slime.
Cleaning the eyes, he looked around, and became shocked.
He hatched from the egg. Yes, again. But how? He didn't remember.
His memories were really distorted and heavily biased. He couldn't differentiate dreams from memories.
As he stumbled toward the light, he came out of the cave and was already tired.
Outside the cave he could see a small puddle and a beautiful view of city downhill. Why beautiful? Because he felt such strong nostalgia, that he just layed down and fell asleep. Right after , apparently, hatching.
He didn't have energy or power to care about anything. He was just glad to see a town, or a city resembling ones from Earth.
~ Night passes ~
Waking up with first rays of the sun shining right into his eyes, Anton stood up and slowly moved to the puddle. He didn't see his reflection in the puddle, it was too dirty, but it was water. He used it to wash off dried up slime from his body, making him look much more carefully at his body.
He knew that he could look like anything, especially after his travels, but he looked like a human. At least up to the neck. The only difference was incredible weakness and him hatching from the egg.
Looking back at the cave that he crawled out from, he saw a small cave-like hole, that was just barely small enough for him to walk in. Extending his hand in, laying on the stomach,he picked his shell up,as it crumbled into golden dust. Disappearing from the sight like it never existed.
And the depth of the, so called "cave", was barely meter long. And yet, yesterday it looked like it was a long journey outside.
As he walked into the forest separating him from the town downhill, he searched for clothes.
Yes, there is always something old and dirty lost in places like that. You just need to search well enough.
Why would he do that? He wouldn't want to walk straight to the city? He is freaking naked! Nothing good will come out of it.
After around two hours of searching, Anton found dirty crumbled shorts, ripped shirt, and one shoe.
Obviously it was not enough for a normal person, but it is much better than nothing.
As he walked with clothes in search of the closest puddle or a pond, weather began to become worse. As rain started pouring down, Anton just washed his clothes, ignoring the cold rain and bugs that were previously flying around.
He didn't survive for so long to care about measly summer rain or bugs. Wearing shorts and a shirt, he threw single shoe away. It was rotten to the core, breaking easily.
After being naked no more, Anton began trying to understand what is happening, where exactly he is and how he appeared in here.
While slowly making his way towards the city, he tried to organize his thoughts.
Being unable to ascertain the reality of his memories, he tried to use magic, force or psi energy. And none of them worked. He tried to remember how to make any advanced device, and all the formulas in his head didn't make any sense.
After stopping to think and shedding couple of tears and weak headbangs with a tree, he began revising what he knew.
First of all, he remembered being a probe, a queen, and a mage? After that, his memories didn't make any sense at all. They were too jumbled and even memories of mages were scarce and few. Everything else didn't make sense.
Imagine being a skull and the travelling like a train to the wizard prison, while smoking a pine tree.
And this is one of weaker jumbled memories. At least it is imaginable and explainable.
Secondly, no connection to the hive and no hive. This part of memories was extremely overfilled with painfully abstract visions and memories. Most of them were interconnected.
The last thing he could " surely" remember was getting trapped by dark archon. Or was it betrayed by protoss? It was so far ago that he couldn't remember details. He was not perfect after all, not some kind of robot or super machine.
Shaking those thoughts off, he looked better at his body. He didn't really know how he looked. Thankfully, he remembered that before getting to the city. After all if he was not really looking like a human, he would be in trouble.
Touching his body all over, especially face, he made sure to go over every millimeter of it. It was not safe to leave it to chance.
Surprisingly, as he walked to the city, passing the empty field and the road, he was in some kind of old-style neighborhood. It was like from mid 80-90s movies back from times he remembered surprisingly well.
As he walked pass the journal stand, he read what was on it. And it was not really the best news for him.
He was not home, not on his earth. Not in his county. At least it was england, and he was kinda good at English.
How he understood that it was not really his Earth? It was 1994 and 31st of August.
Why it matters? Because.
Unknowingly, Anton didn't understand that nobody really looked at him, even though he looked dirty and out of place. He didn't realize that he didn't feel thirst not hunger, he just walked around and enjoyed the sound of voices that he missed so much.
The first problem that he met while walking, was when he smelled the fresh bread and began feeling a little pekish. He knew that he had no money, but he still tried to ask for one slice to try.
And apparently, he tried to speak. Not spoke.
His throat just didn't produce words. Only sounds. Thankfully, shopkeeper just glanced at him and didn't mind.
As for Anton, it was a shock for him. He forgot how to properly speak! He didn't speak for so long, so that he completely lost his ability to pronounce anything.
After rapidly retreating to somewhere warmer, he walked past the train station and stopped. It must be better in there. I could sit in the far end of the station and make an attempt to speak. It was a necessity.
I needed it to do anything, especially find work.
~ time passes ~
~first person ~
As I was making sounds, nobody looked at me. And that was strange. I finally realized that something was wrong. At this time and age, police would definitely notice me and hastily remove from public area. Moving me to the place with food and a roof. And I was hoping for it, training my voice to get deported toy home, Russia. And maybe find a way to see myself grow. Fixing my other self and stopping from making some mistakes.
It didn't work. People only noticed me if I talked to them or touched them for a second or two. Simple momentary touch would make them look, but they wouldn't notice me until I speak to them or hold them tight. After couple of tests, I aquired a fresh bread and a bottle of milk. Free of charge...
It was strange, but not stranger then seeing people walk through the wall to my left of my sitting spot.
Why I say strange? Because I think I've seen something like that before, but couldn't really remember what it was like.
Yes, I couldn't remember. The only thing I could think of was Harry Potter, but it was all just a fake memories and movies right? Right?
Oh god... here he is.
As I stood up, I knew what I needed to do. I just walked to the red haired bunch and walked with them.
~ third person time ~
As Anton walked behind the crowd of ginger heads, he was not noticed. Anton made sure to not be touched or not to speak.
~ fps~
Why would I put myself in a danger that is Hogwarts? Because magic! I always wanted to be a mage. Or a wizard. Or at least interact with them casually.
~third person ~
As for memories, Anton definitely didn't have much of them considering what his memories were now.
As for why he appeared here again? Nobody knows. Nobody.
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1806 / 1954 words are in a chapter.
Thanks for reading, and enjoy if you can!
Just remembered about novels. Decided to write.
Yes, bad, absurd and abrupt change, but it had to be done. I'm not good at huge worlds and interactions at such scale.
And no, there would be consequences from his past. There is a difference to the past. It's just a wonderful world of magic and mysteries that makes sense to be into for mc.
And yes, Anton will be different from normal, but not like overly smart and advanced like in the past. At heart he is still a human, so he should have a mind of a human. Not a probe that he was in the beginning.
I am slow at making and releasing chapters. Let's hope it is not like before and I will be able to release once in a while.