There was no sound, no light, no shape.
Just being.
It did not know it existed, as it did not know what "existence" was.
It simply drifted, unaware of where it was or what was around it, and unknowing of the concept of "where" or "what" was.
The mana soaked air in the dungeon felt comfortable for it, as it was a creature made of mana as well. It did not know that it felt comfort as it did not know discomfort.
Within the air there was no sense of warmth, quiet, noise, cold or anything at all.
It floated for days on end, but it did not know this fact. Days mean nothing to something which does not know the concept of time.
All the being could sense was different mana in the environment around it, as spots of slight difference and "other" that it could feel but not understand. Once the being tried to get close to them, the "others" that it could feel would quickly scurry away, vanishing from the beings limited senses.
Until, it came across another something in the silence and darkness that surrounded it.
It was a small dungeon rat, and it was bleeding out quickly. The being got closer to this sense of more dense mana that was the first thing it had "felt" within the environment.
It's world suddenly brightened.
Noises were screaming in its ears, lights attacking fragile eyes forcing them shut on instinct rather than by its will.
It felt heavy, constricted. It could feel the cold stone floor under itself, and something warm that was spread across it. There was little to see other than stone and a few burnt out torches on the walls, but even this was overwhelming to it.
It tried to float like it had before, but instead of moving all that happened was more screaming in its ears. This was the dungeon rat squeaking, but the being did not know that it was the one causing the noises that made it flop over on its side.
It wouldn't be able to move, the blood that was left inside of the rat was quickly flowing out onto the cold stone floor around it. Each second the being felt the coldness growing, and the squeaks got quieter every time it tried to move.
The coldness was something that the being had never felt, but the instincts of the rat was telling it that something was wrong. It knew a sense of "wrong" for the first time as it lay on the floor of the dungeon, in a pool of its own blood.
Barely able to breathe or squeak anymore.
The being was only within this rat for a few seconds, but to it it felt like days. Then, it was forced away from the rat and back into the nothingness that it had before.
But then, it heard something cut through the silence in its own ears for the first time.
Announcements rung out around it:
[Acquired Hearing lvl1]
[Aquired Sight lvl1]
[Aquired Night Vision lvl1]
[Aquired Smell lvl1]
Each one of these announcements was "spoken" but not in any language, and in a way that even the newly existing being with no concept of a language could understand what it meant. It knew that it had grown, but not how or in what way.
Noises were still surrounding it even after the announcements ended, and the world around it could be seen.
The same overwhelming brightness as before, but this time there were no eyelids to force shut to protect the eyes. There were no eyes either, but the sensation of "seeing" was now engraved into the being. It could not force its eyes to shut, leaving the being in pain until it had adjusted to the new senses.
These feelings within its own form made it overwhelmed, and if floated in place for a while before allowing itself to hear the area around itself again.
Tapping noises could be heard, other dungeon rats running to escape from something. But the being could not understand what they were, it could just understand their small shapes passing through where it was.
Small shapes that felt almost comforting to the being for a reason that it couldn't understand, but a feeling of kinship between it and the small, fragile dungeon rats was there in the few seconds they passed through it. Once they had passed through the being, it stayed still for a few seconds trying to understand what the warmth it had felt was and why it had happened.
Distant yelling came from behind where the being was, it was not understood by the being but it did not know these noises were meant to convey meanings.
Then two more, much larger shapes appeared in front of the being. They were humans, but it wouldn't know that. What it saw was two beings, clearly different from the ones that had just went passed it before, and felt pulled towards them in a different way than it had been by the rats.
The mana that surrounded these people was much more than what the rat had, making the being instinctually curious towards them.
Once the being got close to the people, it passed into one of them in the same way that it had with the rat previously. However, this time the will of the creature wasn't pushed aside, it fought back. Sharp stabbing pains ran through its entire being, as it forced itself backwards away from the creature.
The feeling of its very being itself being torn apart.
It might not understand pain, but it didn't like the feeling of it.
The being did not understand why this hadn't worked the same way as if seemed to work before, but it did not try to know either.
It simply moved further away, out of fear of the same intense pain returning.
In response to the being's attempt, the human girl had turned around. But, after quickly scanning the area behind her and seeing nothing there, she turned back towards the rats, clutched the short iron sword she had in her hands tighter than before, and continued the chase. Her and the other human ran away from where the being floated in the dungeons hallway, never even noticing that it was there.
It remained for a few seconds, watching as they moved away from it. It didn't want to feel that same pain, that was one of the first proper thoughts that formed within its mind.
The being's light faded, the dead rat on the floor no longer illuminated, as the being floated away in the opposite direction than the humans had went.