"What. The. Hell!" He screamed, trying to release himself from the tangled grass.

As he calmed down and regained his senses, he looked around again, trying to notice what was missing. A sharp whistle sent his heart racing. He looked around and saw a creature on his wrist with the message prompt. The beast was hovering above the wriggling tattoo. "The…tattoo is moving?! Horrible this is…."

The message prompt warped and displayed archaic text, "Can. You. Stop moving!". The man's eyes widened, looking from the strange fluffy creature to the prompt. The creature smirked, exposing its pointed, jagged teeth.

"What…?!" The man yelled, "What is this?"

"Shut up!" Came the prompt.

"What the hell is going on?! Who are you?!" Yelled the man, grasping his left wrist.

The creature grinned once more before simply saying, "Shut up." and disappeared into the tattoo.

The man stood up, and his knees threatened to buckle. He cursed under his breath. 'What is happening to me?' he thought to himself.

"That," the creature interrupted his thinking with a prompt, "is what I'm about to tell you.".

A single red eye widened on the tiny creature as it popped out of the tattoo. The man paused, and his eyes widened beyond what he was capable of. 'The fluffy white exterior, the shark teeth, and now a red eye. This creature was a contradiction of itself. Either be cute or be hideous; you can't be both!' he thought to himself.

The creature paused. Its demeanour changed from malicious to murderous. "My corporeal form was no longer enough for me. I needed power...." The creature said.

"An end that serves a beginning serves me."

The man blinked, wary and cautious of the creature.

The creature smirked, "I think you've realised that I can read your mind, my dear host."

"You...you're a mind reader? Then how did you-"

"Simple, I'm inside of you. Don't you remember?" It chuckled.

"What are you then, a parasite?" The man blurted out without thinking.

"Oh, no. I'm much more than a mere parasite."

"Then what are you? You're a creature; you can read my mind; you exist in the tattoo on my wrist..."

"Alright, alright, so I'm a god. Is that better?" The creature quipped with a less-than-sympathetic tone.

"A G-God?!" Cried the man.

The creature's lips tightened, and its eye bulged. Tears formed in the corners of its eye, and crazed laughter escaped from its mouth.

"You're such a fool! Would a G-O-D take host inside a measly human? I understand why you were in the darkness. You're an idiot!"

The creature started laughing again, this time with a more challenging tone. "Just a parasite…" it said sarcastically.

"We are what you would call a 'Soul System'. A sentient one at that. I have been dormant for a while, as you can understand."

The man stood silent and took everything in. The soft, fluffy fur of the creature was rapidly changing texture, and the seemingly harmless creature was becoming increasingly aggressive.

Before the fluffy creature could continue, a message from the system popped into existence.

"Warning! System malfunction detected!

"Restarting in 5...4...3..."

The creature sighed and reverted back to its soft and fluffy form.

"System malfunction no longer present.

"Aborting restart."

The creature looked tired, but more than that, it looked deeply saddened. Before the man could ask what happened, the beast continued.

"The darkness is a lonely place. One where your soul is supposed to be isolated. But when I saw you, I felt hope. Hope and disgust. I was supposed to be the host! But the system's damned instincts kicked in and took root as a tattoo out of all things. The system was designed specifically for this. To feed. To feed you... to feed me."

"You wanted to kill me?! What the fu-."

"Kill you? Not at all~... make you my slave that would do my beck and call would be more preferred. Regardless of that, I failed miserably. I am a slave to the system, and now you are too. Life's system that once provided unrestrained power in your previous life would be a dozen times safer than this one. The system I have been stuck with since my existence would have no qualms about killing you and replacing you with a newer, fresher soldier. Instead, it fused with you, probably out of desperation, and now... we live and die together."

the man stood still. He was confused. Not just confused by what could be considered beyond that. Nothing made sense to him; he was supposed to be dead.

"Was that horror enough of a story, or would you like more?"

"No…no, that's enough."

The man stood up and stretched his limbs. The environment hasn't changed in the slightest. The trees swayed, the aroma sailed the air, and the grass hugged his feet. It was beautiful. But why was he getting an eerie feeling from this place?

"Why did you bring me here?" The man asked, "And where is here?"

"Where? You are in your soul's most conscious state. Within the depths of your mind, you are at your strongest and yet at your weakest."

The man looked around, trying to process what the creature said. "So here is in my mind? Is that why everything is so... vivid?"

"Not just your mind! The deeper you go or fall into this pocket dimension, the more vivid everything becomes. But it starts fading away the closer you get to the shore. I started drifting away almost as soon as I came here. As a result of forcing my existence here, everything started cropping up."

The man looked around, taking in the details of his current environment. "If this is in my mind, then where is my real body?"

The creature coughed and cleared its throat? 'Does it even have a throat? It's using the system prompt to speak, so why... Never mind.' the man thought before the creature looked severe, with its non-existent eyebrow creasing.

"Your real body? That's an excellent question. People living within the world of Darkness must have zero Life Points. You don't have any 'Life Points' per se, but you do have Soul Points. There is a distinct difference, but they look the same from the outside. You were banished from the darkness, and now you're face-planted in a pile of faeces. Not to mention, every bone in your body has turned to dust because of the force of being banished does to a person." The man's mouth gaped, and blood flushed away from his face. "I'm going to die again?"

"Bah! Die? Not on my watch! The system is already doing its thing, clicking you together piece by piece until you're capable of moving... more or less."

The creature paused and took a long, drawn-out breath. Then, staring at the man, it continued. "Well... this is nice enough, but it's time I go. I don't know what's scarier, leaving you here alone or turning you into a walking piece of food. Your choice."

"The system-"

"Will eventually fix your physical body. I'm leaving now. The system is capable of many things, but it doesn't have eyes. You stay here, and I'll keep a watch over your body. Play around with the ether in the air. It'll be good practice for you before you're capable of moving around again."

'Ether...' the man thought, 'why do I feel warmth when I hear that? I don't even know what it is...'