Mark kept floating around in the small room for what felt like hours, he felt neither hunger nor thirst and other than moving the container lid back into place twice he really didn't do anything other than think. Hundred of thoughts flowed through his mind
'What am I? Did my life on earth really happen and does earth even exist? What if it was all a dream?'
Mark felt it as clearly as he had on Earth, this was real which naturally raised the question on how he had transformed into whatever he was now and how he had appeared in this random asteroid belt. Had he always been this nonhuman thing? Had his 27 years on Earth just been infancy dreams of his current form as it gestated into what he was now? Were there other lifeforms like him?
Mark kept asking these questions as his thoughts swirled around his mind, however at some point when he noticed the lid had once again stopped blocking the hole he had entered from he saw that the light had stopped coming through
'Well, I won't get any answers by remaining here in my own thoughts…'
Mark pushed off the wall and floated over towards the hatch and grabbed the handle, after pulling for a few moments he managed to pull it open, sticking his head though the hatch he found a hallway with 3 other hatches to his left side and one directly ahead of him. However, to his right there were only a half before the hallway abruptly ended as the entire structure had been violently ripped apart, beyond that lay the icy asteroid belt he had come from
'Hmm…'
Mark turned left down the hallway and opened the hatch at the end, beyond it lay what looked like a cockpit, 2 seats with control planes and joysticks, but other than that the cockpit was devoid of anything else
'No, wait…'
Mark pulled himself along and put himself down in one of the seats, from there he checked every surface within reach of the seat until he found a small dent under one of the powered down consoles and managed to open a compartment
"Let's see…"
Inside Mark found what was clearly some sort of firearm, it looked like a pistol but having undergone basic military training and done some sports shooting in his memories he had no idea about how it worked
'Well there's a trigger and this might be the safety… But there's no magazine release or any visible slide either… Let's not fuck around with that for now…'
Other than the pistol mark, found a necklace with a polished metal chain made of some reddish metal with a small metal cube centerpiece
'...The cube looks like the ones in the room where I entered… Let's take this for now…'
Mark stuffed the necklace in one of the pockets of the overalls before he checked around the other seat for another compartment but didn't find any
'Maybe the other rooms have something…'
Mark pulled himself out of the chair and along the ceiling back out into the hallway where he began checking the other hatches along the right side where he had entered the wreck, the first one was storage where he found a space suits along with some other food and water supplies
'The water is frozen and the containers are destroyed… I don't think I need to worry about food and the suit is just extra bulk at this point…'
Closing the closet again Mark checked the other hatch on the opposite side of the halfway and found another closet with the same equipment as the last one, moving on to the room in front of the one he had entered the wreck from he expected another room however when he tried to open the hatch he found it stuck for a moment before a hissing sound echoed out in the wreck
'Air? This room was still pressurized?'
Mark steadied himself for a moment after the room was vented before he pulled it open
"A corpse… Why does it…"
In the bed contraption, Mark saw a mummified corpse however rather than being horrified or disgusted he felt his mouth water at the almost euphoric smell it emitted, Mark lifted the off the ground and floated towards the corpse as his pupils expanded turning the entirety of his eyes black like the void
"Why does it smell so good…"
As Mark reached out towards the corpse and the moment he touched the corpse it happened. Beautiful tragedy flooded his mind and overwhelmed him and as a one two punch it was followed by the slow existential dread of floating in a dead ship with your air and warmth running out, a thin coat of hope that quickly snapped finished this course of misery along with a final slow painful cold that seared the skin
"Holy fuck… Holy fucking shit, that was almost better than a dry-aged Rib-eye"
As he came down from his feeding high Mark had learned 3 new things, the first was about the corpse before him
"I am sorry your life ended in such misery, Carl… You have my thanks"
Bits and pieces appeared, it came to him though Carl's memories, some of which he had consumed and now was slowly absorbing… Adapting into his own understanding
'Terminal, terminal… There it is…"
Mark spun around and quickly located Carl's terminal, it was hardwired into the wall haphazardly in an attempt to reroute auxiliary power to keep the life-support systems running. This had Carl had succeeded in, however it only served to lengthen his misery as he simply died cold instead of cold and choking
'Let's see here…'
Mark touched the terminal, it was a signal piece of a crystal called Ficer, commonly referred to as Fic, wrapped in a thin metal casing. While the inner working of this crystal escaped Mark for now, from the knowledge he had absorbed Mark equated this piece of synthetic crystal to a smartphone, but a smartphone with about 40 times more computing power baked into it and enough language and cultural data stored on it for him to blend in
As the terminal powered on it illuminated the dark room with a dark blue light that thankfully didn't burn his skin or even irritate his eyes for that matter, however Mark was quickly stopped dead in his tracks as he saw a gear icon that was slowly spinning around
'Right, the biometrics… How do I bypass the biometric lock…'
As Mark mulled this over, he held the terminal and tapped the top conner with his thumb
"Oh?"
After his thumb had touched the Fic screen a few times he noticed something, a sensory experience he hadn't felt before, as he put his hand on the screen to increase the surface area he was touching Mark felt it clearly. A mental image of a weak candle flame, Mark showed a smile before he spoke in a coaxing tone
"Come on now little one, help me out here"
As he spoke he extended his will into the terminal and a moment later the orange flame was dyed pure black, a moment later the terminal unlocked
"Thank you, little one"
Not questioning his ability to influence the spirit of the terminal as he had done so with pure instinct Mark began familiarizing himself with the terminal, he flickered through pages of textbooks, images, technical schematics, unconnected chat logs and speed up videos at inhuman speed
Mark was completely absorbed in learning and absorbed all this new knowledge like a dry sponge in water. This, his true nature, required of him on a biological level
-
"And… Stop, Alright"
As Mark had been taking in the information on the terminal he had learned a bunch of useful information, however to apply this information to further survive he first had to find a way out of the icy asteroid belt he found himself in before he starved
And to do that he needed to do 2 things
"Get used to my abilities and find a FTL capable ship… Now then nighttime? No, planetary shade is wasting…"
Mark pushed himself off the end of the hallway and floated out into the void, as he kept his focus he slowly came to a halt in the open void, Mark hadn't found a perfect intersecting point of the icy asteroids gravity wells
"... I think it's called a Lagrange point? Well either way, this ain't it…"
No, his seemingly magical ability was just that, magic
'...Well this is not that strange considering everything that had happened so far'
Tossing away his useless idle thoughts, Mark focused once more before he slowly began accelerating and within a few minutes he was flying through the icy asteroids at the pace of a fat kid running on a treadmill in December to get in shape for prom in spring
'Alright, let's see what there is to find in this endless expanse of frozen water…'
Mark got into a steady schedule, he would research the terminal, bond and converse with the little one while the hateful sun shone past the planet that shaded him
When shade allowed, he would practice his magic and search for anything useful in the endless frozen sea.
Every time he ventured out, he left a tally on the wall
-
"…"
[Mark, you seem agitated… Is something wrong?]
"Well, I have been living in this wreck for… 411 rotations, while the company isn't bad, I am beginning to starve"
[Starvation can cause lapses in judgment, as you are in a survival situation, I would advise you to keep in mind that what is keeping you alive is your logic. Please think everything over twice, if the situation allows]
"I got it, I'll keep my cool as best I can…"
[Alternatively, you could take me along with you so I better can assist you]
"Don't worry about me too much, little one… I will get the both of us out of here one way or another…"
[Affirmative, exploration time stars in 2 minutes]
"Alright, I'll be back before you worry little one"
After telling the little one, who he had slowly nurtured into a self-aware being over the last 411 rotations goodbye, Mark floated backwards out of the room before he closed the hatch and grabbed the sharp metal shard and left his 412th tally
"Alright… Today better be the day…"
As Mark jetted out into the void with the speed of a professional biker on flat ground, he kept his eyes peeled as he headed straight towards the sector he was searching though, however as his time was half up Mark's pupils suddenly expanded and his head snapped to the right
"A sweet scent… Over there..!"
Having finally caught the scent of something tasty, Mark had no hesitation in his heart and as he flew off towards his prey Mark remembered his own observation, the 3rd and final he had made after he had devoured the pain, misery and regret of Carl
His body at the very least had been born in that asteroid belt, incubated in an egg for hundreds of years… But not only that, he was a creature that relied on the misery and pain of others to sustain itself
And right now that both his first meal and egg fat had been completely spent, he was starving