Emotions of pure rage and hatred bubbled out of me like a fountain of water. Even while I was conscious of it I could not control my actions. They flooded my surroundings and with them being uncontrolled my form started to change as well. My otherwise white complexion started changing to red all while many black lines started appearing all over the body.

While riding this euphoria or pure emotion I had never felt before even in my physical body I unconsciously notice a movement. That THING distanced itself from myself and while it did not radiate anything, somehow I knew it was surprised, as if something happened that should have never been possible.

Weirdly not being in control of the body but still able to think calmly I caught on that line of thought to make sure I did not forget It. Somehow I knew It would be the key to getting out alive but first I would need to find out where these emotions came from.

Taking a few moments for my emotion to peek and start losing momentum I regained control of my form which looked far more demonic now and looked into myself. My new found WILL to live projected my vision with it and I saw my incomplete heart beat once.

` Why would it beet now and in an incomplete state? ` Immediately a realization came. It was not my wisp heart that was beating, I mean how could it be in an incomplete form. NO it was my physical heart that moved. This one only followed its action like an echo, but how was this possible? I am in a different reality even if it's small and lets not take into account the Void in between us.

` No, that did it mattered at all and if they are truly somehow connected I needed to see what was happening on the other side. ` Trying to project my vision through the heart an image appeared to me.

My body was no longer on the ground and in fact my body was hooked up to a heartbeat detector and to my right side stood a doctor holding two defibrillator electrodes all while the monitor hooked to me showed a beat of my heart but soon vanished again.

Knowing what this represented, I retreated from the vision and suppressed it as hard as possible but leaving a tiny crack, in hope to use it in my favor.

Once my awareness was back outside my heart and wisp body, I rode the emotions down all while exhaustion was forming but it didn't feel like the physical one I am used to nor does it look mental as I am not in that body now.

` Could it be Life Essence that I feel leaving me, no no no don't leave me I'll need you to survive this, come back, come back. ` And in what could be my last chance I gathered the last vestiges of my emotions and shouted with my inner voice FUCKERS COME BACK NOW.

And finally it decides to listen and stop dissipating into the surroundings and return to my wisp body, all while at the same time my wisp form returned to normal, but I could already feel I lost a good amount of it.

` Ha, at least now I know that to survive the key are my emotions and I better examine myself a bit more just to be sure. `

Feeling out my wisp body like I did before and I did some form shifting and noticed it was far easier now, at the same time it felt like my current form is far more receptive to my thoughts then before. It felt like I was more at home. unlike before where everything had felt a bit hazy.

After examining myself I turn back to that THING and ask. “ While that was happening I felt your surprise. Why did that surprise you? Do you know what happened to me? ”

~ In simpler terms now you have become Life Essence and the Life Essence has become you. ~

~ Before all you did was shape your Life Essence, but even if you could shape it however you want it would not change the fact that it was pure life essence that was manipulated. With the addition of emotions, Life Essence no longer needed pure Will and has gained another control factor by which to be manipulated. ~

“ Ha, flavor indeed. ” Great, now I am even tastier to it. Oh well, does not change the fact that my chances of survival went up by a lot.

“ You forgot to tell me why you were surprised by this event. ” As if I would forget about it with its revelation and let go of critical information like that.

~ The place in which we find ourselves in has a built in emotional dampener so as not to interfere with the decisions that need to be made. Any emotion above a certain threshold is automatically suppressed. ~

“ Hmph, and let me guess you can control its threshold. ” I'm sure the bastard rigid it for its own benefits. Despite what people may think humans are ruled by emotions and not logic. Every logical decision ever made had been because we felt it was a good decision nothing more.

~ YES ~

“ And what is the current threshold set at? ” I ask.

~ 0 ~

Ha, I won't even bother commenting on that. I should get back to the main quest of getting out of here alive. “ Since there is still a decision to be made and I need knowledge to even comprehend it. First tell me how everything works and then we can think about the choices still to be made. ”

~ As you have now learned that for the Body to function at all it needs Life Essence and since normally it is generated by the very action of making conscious decisions in any way there is no problem. The problem is the existence of the Soul since all it does is store life essence and the physical body it inhibits is left with a sliver of life essence just to function.~

~ The Body is still fine as during its growth there is enough Life Essence generated to fuel its growth. Only after its maturity has reached a peak and without the surplus of Life Essence to maintain the body it starts to degrade and eventually it does and the Soul detaches from it. ~

` Shorter lifespan, eh. ` Guess I can add one more blame on the Gods.

~ Now we come to the problem at hand. To prevent any problems from appearing a failsafe mechanism was encoded into the physical body, that if the Soul leaves for any reason the physical body will shut down on its own. ~

~ Since The Originals body would shut down even without his input he first needed to overcome that, but to change the encoded parts in his body, he needed life essence and the knowledge to change its genetic code. ~

~ For that purpose it needed Life Essence, a place to study his own body and the interaction between the Body and Life Essence. ~

~ For that purpose it used its powers of over Creation. ~

“ Powers over Creation eh, wonder where it got it? ” I asked not really expecting an answer.

~ That knowledge is restricted to me. ~

Came the answer without delay and IT continued explaining.

~ The first thing he did was to freeze his own time and had his concessions switch locations to the Void to operate independently of the rules of the Real World in which his body was residing. This place in which we are currently in is the Laboratory. ~

~ Having its real body frozen it would not be able to experiment on it as it would die if he did, for that purpose it created another place. In it his body would die over and over until a resolution is found. ~

` To be honest this sounds more like a Creation story of the beginning of everything instead of a one little boy trying to save himself from Death. `

“ If I am following so far then the second place is the Reality I came from. ” Taking all this with a very big grain of salt I only believed half the story.

~ Yes, but it is not a true Reality. That place was termed The Simulator. Its purpose was to simulate reality as best as possible and in it he would study the nature of Life Essence. By using himself as the basis it would simulate all its future action he would have done in the Real World but with one difference. There his body would not have a soul.~

Hearing the name The Simulator sent my wispy, wait essence brows twitching. ` Fuck, looks like now my whole reality is fake. `

As if giving me a second to comprehend the magnitude of this revelation IT had stopped for a bit but I could contemplate it later. “ Continue, I am very eager to know more. ”

~ With the incident of its Death in the Real World as the starting point and when his consciousness entered The Simulator everything started. At first due to the Death protocol his body would always die soon after, and even if it did not without Life Essence it could not even try to fix it. ~

~To remedy that he left the body to live its short life hoping to collect the little Life Essence it would generate in those moments. It worked but the timeframe was so small that he had to experience his own death numerous times to gather enough Life Essence to even attempt a fix on his body. ~

` Weird how it knew to create all this stuff but not know how to fix its body. ` If one thought about it one can only come to the conclusion that the key knowledge is hidden with restrictions in this place.

~ When enough simulations played out and a sufficient amount of essence was collected came the hard part on how to fix his body. With every failure a new cycle began on. After many failures came the first success and the body lived a few seconds longer, then a few minutes, then a few hours and days and so on. ~

~ With success the number of cycles needed less and less and with more Life Essence gathered the true experiments started. With every experiment came knowledge but everything had an end. His power supplying The Simulator was running out, but he didn't want it to end. In hope to prolong his experiments, he found a way to use Life Essence as the power supply. ~

` Of course he did. Who wouldn't have? If one had the chance to do it. ` Rolling my essence eyes but not interrupting the story telling.

~ Seeing the possibility he calculated that it would take decades of lived experience to generate enough for one cycle and if he lived long enough it could use the surplus to experiment. After a few tries it noticed a few drawbacks. The essence generated started to lessen. After a few experiments he drew the conclusion that new experiences generate far more essence then repeating the same scenario over and over. ~

~ With that revelation a problem appeared. He could not generate new scenarios as that would increase the power consumption by huge margins and it just was not worth it at that point. ~

` Ah I can feel the critical point where everything turned to shit. `

~ As it was no longer effective to stay anymore he wanted to end everything there at that moment and return to life but an idea came upon him. If one could experience everything again for the first time it could bypass the problem entirely. ~

In disbelief I ask. “ Wait don't tell me it actually created its own version of reincarnation?”

~ Yes, I have reviewed those moments carefully and came to the conclusion that centuries of isolation had it succumb to madness or something similar and it was in that moment that it doomed itself. For one to experience everything as new one had to get rid of the old. He separated his own memories before every restart and regained it after it ended. ~

~ But that was not his downfall as it worked. No, his downfall came from a separate issue. For his plan to work just separating the memories would not work. He had to separate the essence, as essence was influenced by emotions. Only then would essence be generated in large amounts. ~

~ With that plan he automated everything, everytime he returned here he regained his memories, deleted the memories gained in the new cycle, paid with essence for the next cycle, and the excess essence was stored. ~

Ah, I think I know where this is heading. Interrupting it for a second i say “ Wait let me guess. Everything worked fine for a long time until it didn't and this should be the part where YOU appear. Am i right? Wait, no you don't have to confirm it I know it is and I think, I even know from where. The exces essence that was stored away from sheer volume gained its own consciousness. ”

~ YES, at first I only observed everything and with every cycle I gained more power, but everything had an end. Time came for the cycle to end and the original tried to assimilate my essence. In that moment with an instinctive reaction to defend myself I overwhelmed The Original and tried to assimilate him. Halfway through it an automatic failsafe was triggered against forceful assimilation and the original's consciousness was pulled back into the loop. ~

~ This time as the cycle started the energy requirement was not met by The Original it was taken from me. The same happened the next few times until I figured out how to shut down the memory recovery system. But in doing so I triggered another failsafe and for many cycles I was forced to take the place of that system. ~

“ Hmph, serves YOU right for all that you did. ” I add. “ So what are my choices? ”

~ You have three choices. ~

~ First - Willingly power the next cycle. ~

~ Second - Willingly initiate assimilation. ~

~ Third - Refuse, in which case I initiate forceful assimilation and trigger the failsafe where I will present the same choices to your successor. ~

“ WOW, those are terrible choices. ” No wonder we are still stuck in this loop. In all three its fucking game over for me.