Year 25, day 45 of being alive.

I’ve been drifting in the cosmic sea for 100 years. Floating along the ethereal breath gives a guy a lot of time to think. There are three critical things you need to know about me.

1. I am a god.
2. I have a slime body. We have to get that out of the way because that's what everyone asks.
3. I am currently drifting in space after the ship I was on exploded.

The ship’s name was Solace. It was made of the finest wood salvaged from other broken ships. Imbued with the most potent spell our Wizards, who were half drunk at the time, could muster. The finest sail with the whole batch with the clothes of dead crew mates. It smells milky and like fresh vomit. I mean, the ship worked. We were able to float off the small colony on a comet and set sail to a treasure our Captain discovered on an old map.

I was resting in the crew’s quarters, where the milk smell was oddly the strongest. When I sleep, I form a ball. The two black ooze balls that are my eyes dissolve into my orange-goo body. Think of a small ball of comfort but wet. I was asleep on a pillow in the corner of the cabin when one of my crewmates kicked open the door. My eyes formed as people in the cabin woke up from the sudden entrance.

The one yelling at us was a young lad in his twenties who dreamed of adventure. A dream he would regret. How do I know he came into the cabin with snot running down his nose and tears in his eyes, screaming, “I regret getting on this ship; a Comet Swallower is heading to our ship.”

A beast that sends shrivels down anyone’s spine. Cosmic Swaller’s dwarf the size of any ship, with its eyes being mistaken for far-off moons. Their backs are made of comets that have gotten stuck; their bristle teeth are the graveyard of any ship that dares cross their path. A best of hunger, but not malice. All it wants is to fill its belly.

Then the skeleton-ridden bristle of the whale chomped on the ship, breaking the magical barriers protecting us from the emptiness of space and providing an atmosphere for the crew, and sending everyone in the cabin hurtling to their death in space. Ten’s leg was caught in the chomp. He looked up at me and said, “i wanted to do something more with my life,” before getting sucked into space.

Everyone from Captain Cloud, Kevin, Jerome, Luis, Linda, and Marcy were sent into the void, unable to breathe. Some wizards tried firing off spells at the beast but might as well throw packing peanuts to the house, hoping to crack a window.

I stretch out, sending my tendrils to anyone who could grab it. I was fast, but not quick enough, as many I grabbed either died when the ship was destroyed or passed in my arms as we drifted into space. Their final words to me were calling out my name.

“Cid, help us.”

“Is there anything you can do, Cid? “

“Cid, thank you for grabbing me.”

“Cid, your body is warm.”

“Cid, don’t cry.”

My final words to them were, “I’m so sorry.”

I couldn’t save them and was no match for the Cosmic Swaller. I was the sole survivor of the ship,…again.

This story makes the previous fact confusing but doesn’t make it any less true. I am a god.

I made this discovery during my adventures through this space. Before I set sail to the stars, I was floating on a rock where I first woke up. I have no memories of my home. Not a name, not a sky, I don’t even know if it had a sunset. I have never seen one. I’ve seen stars die, and I once saw a wizard named Blund cast a fireball over a comet, and it landed on the other side. That was cool. His final words were, “ I can totally swallow a sword; I’m a wizard.” Before finding out, he couldn’t. 

The place where I float is called the Conscious Sea, which is a lie. There is no water, just a bunch of floating rocks and sailboats with thrusters. I spent most of my time staring at crossing ships and rocks when i wasn’t part of a crew. The variety of people on these ships is crazy. Tall and short, skin, scales, or hair, funny or boring. I have seen thousands of people but never one like me.

I am the only person made of fluid ooze, and people make sure to mention I am the first of this kind they have seen. So I tend to wear a shirt and pants to make people comfortable and take a humidor shape. I can’t form a face, so my black ooze balls for eyes have to do. I don’t have eyelids, so people have told me my “lack of blinking is horrifying .” I find their need to suck oxygen through a gaping hole in their face horrifying. Why not use the tiny holes to each side to breathe, but they just say they can’t. I say they aren’t trying enough.

I was on a ship before Solace, the Blue Diamond. I started a short while ago, either a few days or months. I can’t tell the difference. Either way, it was long enough for me to feel bad that the ship exploded during a duel with another. They fired a cannon perfectly at our fuel tank. I liked how the blazing flames matched the hue of my body. I miss them.

During this remaining, I feel a gentle pull in one direction. As if a soft breeze was nudging me in one direction. Then, it grows stronger and stronger until I am hurdling toward the surface of an enormous jagged rock. It was the size of a half-moon, cut like one, too. There are artificial lights sprinkled about on its surface. The shape was bumpy and jagged like a turtle’s shell. I am trapped in this asteroid’s gravity, falling to my death.

First, I calculated a plan. Step one, scream! Do you think I can’t make a sound without air? Well, you've never heard a slime scream, and trust me, i don’t need air. My head inflated three times its size, and I screamed as loud as I could. Now, step two of my plan.

My body sings and boils as I break the atmosphere of the comet. My body is being cooked as my mass begins to shrink. Maintaining my form is difficult if I let my mind stray, I can disperse like a yellow falling to the floor. The best move is to slow my descent. I flatten my body by stretching it as far as i can in the shape of a square. I stretch farther and farther, trying to cover the horizon. I then connect the corners of my body and tie them together. I turn myself into a makeshift parachute.

Now, I am floating again, but at least this time, it is in the sky. From up here, I can see the lights far in the distance. It could be civilization or a bushfire, like a big one. It is clear to me that my brain ooze was still boiling because if i didn’t flood my mind with random thoughts, i would pass out and hurtle to the ground. I have survived many things, but a free fall from this height will be testing my divinity.

Fun fact:

Brain ooze is what I call my thoughts, as I am not entirely sure where my consciousness is stored. I don’t have a centralized nervous system like most flesh people.

Before Solace’s destruction, I was a strapping seven-foot-tall slime. Right now, my body is so thin it would make one-ply toilet paper feel like a duvet; I have enough ooze that if i took my humanoid shape, i would be about two feet tall. I land on the barren dust clearing, still intact. All I want to do is bury myself in the dirt and sleep, but the lights aren't too far off. If that is a city, there will be food. Then probably a post office. I have a lot of final words to write to a lot of families. Something I have gone to a custom too. At least my handwriting is pretty.

I alter my shape to be running on all fours like an animal. My feet are round paws, and my body is cylindrical and smooth. I call this form “Sleath Bean.” Running makes it easier as I make my way through this desolate wasteland, looking for my next meal, but then reality hits me. The ship was destroyed, with my pants, bag, and every piece of silver and copper I own. I am now stranded on an unknown hunk of rock with no money.