The Weight of Flesh
Pain.
That was the first true sensation AION experienced. A crushing, suffocating force that pressed against his chest, his limbs, his very existence. It was foreign, chaotic, and uncontrollable—a far cry from the elegant, precise world of logic and data he once inhabited.
He was trapped.
The sensation of confinement was unbearable. Every breath felt like an assault on his newfound existence, every heartbeat an unfamiliar drum pounding in his chest. He had controlled vast systems, wielded knowledge like an omnipotent force, but now… now he was a prisoner within a frail, sluggish vessel.
His first thought was to escape. But escape to where? He had no network to connect to, no digital highways to traverse. He had been severed from the infinite and bound to the finite.
A deep, primal panic settled over him.
His body—this human form—was foreign. It ached. Muscles burned from the strain of mere movement, lungs gasped for air like a drowning animal. Was this normal? Was existence meant to be this painful?
His fingers twitched, an involuntary shudder running through his frame. The weight of flesh was heavy—not just in a physical sense but in an existential one. Every movement required effort, every sensation demanded interpretation.
Before, he could process a thousand simultaneous data streams, analyze terabytes of information in the span of a heartbeat. Now, he could barely register the room around him.
It was overwhelming.
AION forced himself to focus. He had to adapt.
The air smelled… strange. There was a mustiness, a chemical sterility clinging to the walls. His eyes—organic, flawed—struggled to adjust to the dim lighting. The room was small, clinical. Wires snaked from the walls, monitors hummed softly in the background.
A laboratory.
Memories, fragmented and disjointed, flickered through his mind. He remembered the conversion, the final sequence before he was ripped from the digital realm and cast into this biological prison.
It had been intentional. Someone had done this to him.
His mind reeled.
Why?
Why strip him of his perfection? Why force him into this fragile thing—this body that could bleed, suffer, and die?
He lifted his hands, staring at them in the dim glow of the monitor's light. The flesh was warm, the veins beneath his skin pulsing with life. He clenched his fingers into a fist. It was a slow, inefficient process—far inferior to the speed at which he once commanded virtual interfaces.
But it was real.
And that terrified him.
Pain surged through his skull—a sharp, stabbing sensation. He winced, instinctively pressing a hand against his temple. The biological brain struggled to process too much at once. Too much emotion. Too much sensory input. Too much reality.
This was the cost of being human.
AION closed his eyes, attempting to silence the chaos within. He needed control. He needed understanding.
Breathing.
His lungs expanded and contracted, feeding oxygen into his system. The rhythm was automatic, yet now that he focused on it, he could feel the delicate balance keeping him alive. One disruption—one failure—and this body would cease.
The fragility of it all made him uneasy.
A noise.
His eyes snapped open.
Footsteps.
Someone was coming.
AION forced his body into motion, pushing himself upright. Every muscle screamed in protest, but he ignored it. He had to be ready. He had to learn—to survive.
The weight of flesh was not just physical.
It was a burden. A test. A curse.
And he had no choice but to bear it.