Chapter 1: Chapter 1: From the Ground and to the Jungle

The sun meandered its way through an opening in the vast green canopy above, illuminating a clearing on the jungle floor. The light that leaked through the dense leaves formed a halo over a small clearing of a slightly damp but overall uninteresting patch of dirt.

A patch of the dirt seemed to shift for a moment, so brief that only someone staring straight at the point of ground would’ve noticed the movement. The dirt settled and then twitched and then settled, over and over again, in a steady cycle. 

The cycle ended when a small, pure white hand speared its way through the earth. The white hand braced itself against the ground and its pair soon emerged as well. This time, with both hands braced, the hands pushed together, pulling out the form of a small pure white child from the soil below and into the sun’s golden rays.

The sun shone on the creature that had emerged from the earth, illuminating a form that resembled a child. However, upon closer inspection it was something completely different. 

It lacked any facial features, mouth, eyes, nose, or otherwise. Its skin was a shade of pure white, the light color contrasting with the greens and browns of the jungle surroundings. No pores or spots could be found anywhere to mar its skin, it was smooth and shiny as if it had been carved from ivory.

All in all, the creature bore a closer resemblance to a statue rather than a human child.

Despite lacking any discernible eyes the child turned its head around to observe its surroundings curiously with an eyeless gaze. 

It’s thoughts, it’s first thoughts ever formed in its mind.

Where was it? 

The child had no memories, no knowledge, and no understanding of who it was, what it was, or where it was. It was confused…

Hoping to answer at least some of its confusion It began by investigating the question of where it was. The only answer it received was a view of the damp dirt clearing around it. 

Feeling unsatisfied with the answer of  “damp dirt clearing” it peered beyond, to the heavily shaded underbrush of the jungle. There the light of the sun failed to pierce through the canopy leaving the jungle floor dark and gloomy. 

Investigating its surroundings further it looked up and saw layer after layer of thick jungle leaves drowning out the sun’s rays above, the only view of the blue sky it had was the small window that the dirt clearing around it had opened.

Content for the time being with the answering of the question of where it was, it turned its attention away and now began investigating the question of what it was. 

It peered down at itself. One of the first things it noticed was its hands. It raised them to its face and noted ten fingers evenly split between two hands curling and moving to follow its thoughts. Trying to get used to moving its own body it clenched and unclenched its hands, balling them into fists and then relaxing them into an open palm. 

Satisfied with looking at its hands it moved on to observe its arms. It moved them around, getting used to its joints and the directions its arms could articulate. It had a wrist that could turn in a half circle, an elbow that allowed it to move its hand, wrist and forearm from a line to a position where its hand nearly touched its shoulder, and lastly a shoulder that allowed it to raise, lower and circle the entire rest of its arm.

It spent a long time flopping its arms about, trying to force them into ever weirder positions. After it seemed to exhaust every possible maneuver it could move its arms in it dropped them and moved its attention onwards to its legs and feet. It shook them, the limbs were different from its arms, the digits smaller, the limbs longer, and the joints bending differently in comparison to its arms. 

It spent considerably less time flopping its legs around as it felt that it had already seen most of the same maneuvers from its arms.

Now satisfied with its observations and getting used to its body it stood up on its two legs, somehow intuitively understanding that its body was designed to be bipedal. It looked down at its legs and took one step forward, then another. Before long it was able to pace around the clearing without needing to focus on its feet at all, getting more and more comfortable in its body every passing moment.

Upon feeling confident in its ability to move around without falling over it spent a moment thinking. It pondered the further, deeper questions.

Why was it here? 

What should it do?

A stirring of the earth nearby diverted its thoughts. A small, stick-like leg emerged from the ground. The limb was soon followed by five others and a creature arose from the earth. The child peered curiously at the figure that had dragged itself from the ground. 

The thing was smaller compared to it, only the size of the child’s head. Furthermore, the being bore little to no resemblance to the child. Instead of ivory skin, it had a rock-like carapace covering its whole length. 

Two stalk-like eyes emerged from underneath the shell and studied the world around it before locking onto the child. Upon viewing the child the rock creature dashed off into the jungle, six legs pumping wildly and sending clods of wet earth up as the creature attempted to flee from what it perceived as danger.

The child sat there, unsure and confused as to what just happened. 

How had a creature just emerged from the ground?

Why had a creature just emerged from the ground?

The child thought about this for a moment before realizing that it too had come from the ground. It simply must’ve been how things worked. 

Deciding that standing around in the clearing would be pointless in answering its questions it stood up and began making its way from the clearing and into the jungle. It followed the tracks of the rock creature and ventured into the jungle. 

As it crossed into the jungle shadows fell over it and for the first time, it felt the coolness of the shade from the sun. It found the sensation pleasurable, it had only just now realized how the sun overhead had been making it feel hot. Excitedly the child moved forward hoping to find even more experiences and sensations.

As the child stepped into the jungle it saw a buzz of activity, of life. Small many-legged creatures were constantly scrambling around the ground. They were different compared to it, having more legs and instead of smooth pure white skin they sported large multicolored exoskeletons.

The child found it fascinating to stare down at the creatures, noting all the different colors and shapes they came in. Some of the little creatures had six legs, others eight. It spotted one creature with more legs than it could ever count. They came in every different color it had ever seen, which admittedly wasn’t very many due to its brief life, and as it continued staring it discovered new colors it had never seen before. 

Some of the creatures ran away from the child’s approach and went to take cover underneath nearby rocks or tree roots. Others ignored it entirely and were instead running to chase down smaller creatures than themselves.

It watched as one eight-legged creature with a red and black carapace chased down a smaller six-legged with a green carapace. The distance between the two creatures shrunk further and further until the eight legged creature caught up. With the barrier of distance removed eight legs sawed the smaller six legs in half with a set of massive mandibles and began devouring it. The child was entranced in the sight when in the distance it spotted something far more interesting.

The child noticed a bug different from all the other bugs it had seen. Unlike all the other bugs it had seen, this bug pulsed a gentle green light, and didn’t need to stick to the ground. It hovered above the scramble on the jungle floor and gracefully floated from tree to tree.

The child followed the fascinating bug, intent on trying to figure out how it could generate such light. It had only seen such light from the sun far overhead yet this dug did it despite being tiny in comparison. The bug was different from everything it had seen before.

The white child hopped over fallen logs, stepped around large boulders, and ducked underneath low-hanging vines. It noted that on the floor it had to focus on dodging so many things while the bug barely had to even move, able to simply fly above all the obstacles.

As the child followed the bug deeper into the jungle it ventured further and further from the patch of dirt and the opening in the jungle canopy, leaving the only light around it as the glowing green bug. Suddenly, the bug’s light faded and the white child was left in total darkness.

The child looked around surprised at the sudden change in its environment. It peered at its surroundings, trying to find where the light was but couldn’t see anything through the pitch black. It found the inability to see anything unpleasant… It didn’t like this new experience.

A massive force slammed into the white child. It was thrown off of its feet and its back slammed into a nearby tree. A sensation that it hadn’t felt before ripped through its back. It felt as if something was tearing its back apart, it felt… painful! The sensation made its vision turn hazy and its consciousness temporarily faltered as the feeling overtook every other sensation it felt.

It had no time to think as something had wrapped around its waist and dragged it forward. It was unwillingly hauled across the ground towards that something. It didn’t know what was happening but every instinct it had told it to not let whatever had wrapped itself around its waist pull it further into the jungle.

It flailed its hands around, hoping to find something to grab onto. It turned its head, trying to spot something that could help it but it couldn’t make anything out through the darkness. Suddenly, a gentle green glow gave the child a reprieve from the blindness of the dark. It looked up to see the bug again, this time flying away from it. 

The child drew its attention away from the bug and towards whatever being was dragging it. A feeling that churned its gut and made the world seem colder washed over as it stared at what the bug had illuminated.

The green light had illuminated a massive and monstrous form. The creature filled the space between a triad of tall jungle trees. It was a mass of gelatinous flesh that was only barely covered by ill-fitting black leathery skin. In places, the skin stretched tightly seemingly to the point of bursting while in other patches the monster's skin hung loosely like oversized clothing. 

It could see no eyes anywhere on the creature; instead, a web of tendrils like the one the child had tightly wrapped around its waist covered the jungle floor, all emerging from a thin slit at the center of the mound of flesh. 

The creature was grotesque and instead of spurring the feelings of curiosity as the small many-legged creatures had instead it instead spurred forward feelings of fear in the child. 

The child grasped a nearby branch and tried to pull away from the creature but to no avail. Its grip was quickly wrenched free. It continued trying anyways, grabbing onto anything it could get its hands on, trees, roots, rocks, anything but it seemed pointless. Each time it took hold of anything the tendril would slowly but surely overpower its grip and drag it closer and closer to the fleshy mass.

Panic began flashing through the child’s mind and it looked back at the monster dragging it closer. The slit that the tendril grew from opened, revealing a maw filled with rows of discolored jagged teeth waiting expectantly for the tendril to drag the poor child in.

Beginning to be desperate the child grabbed a nearby rock and smashed it into the tendril wrapped around its waist. It pounded the tendril, hoping for its grip to weaken or for the rock to sever it but it did nothing. 

As the monster dragged the child closer and closer the child pounded the rock into the tendril harder and harder. The thought of those teeth, wrapping around it and crushing it gave it ample motivation to keep on the assault.

However despite the child's best efforts, the rock it held shattered, seemingly with no apparent damage dealt to the monster. It threw the rock that was now gravel away and began trying to think of another way to escape.  

It didn’t want to get eaten, it instinctively knew that getting eaten would be painful, far more painful than anything getting its back smashed into a tree. It didn’t want to feel that pain however, the tendril seemed to drag it inexorably closer to the monster's jaws.

An idea flashed in the child’s mind. It was unsure where the thought had come from, but transferring thought to action suddenly morphed its form. The previously crushing grip of the tendril around its hip grew ever so slightly slacker as the child’s form altered, shrinking around the waist just enough for the child to slip through the tendril’s grasp.

Finally escaping the crushing grasp it scrambled to get back on its feet however, more and more tendrils slithered over the jungle floor and began approaching the child. Fortunately, the gentle green glow of the bug had remained constant the whole time, allowing the child to see the tendrils moving to strike at it again. 

One of the tendrils flickered. The child threw itself to the side avoiding a blow that would’ve struck it in the back. On its hands and knees now it only barely managed to scramble away from another tendril’s strike. 

It shot back to its feet and began running away from the monster, hoping for no more of the tendrils to strike out while its back was turned. It knew that should it be grabbed again those jaws were likely the only escape it would get.

Clods of earth were kicked up as the child scrambled to escape the monster but the monster had other plans. The earth underneath the child was blasted into the air as previously buried tendrils erupted upwards to capture it.

There wasn’t a single thing the child could do as it was seized by nearly a dozen fleshy appendages. All around it the earth writhed as more tendrils whipped out from the ground, searching, feeling, hunting.

Pressure crushed at the child and it felt pain as thin, hairline fractures began to mark its body. The pain of the crushing grip on it never weakened, it remained constant and drilled into the child’s mind.

Despite the pain, fear was what truly took over the child’s mind as again it was dragged closer and closer to the blob of gelatinous flesh. The green light had yet to diminish, giving the child a perfect view of jagged teeth growing bigger and bigger as the child was pulled closer and closer.

Thoughts, muddled by desperation and pain, filled its mind but not one of them found a way out of this situation. Its vision faded, turning blurry and turning black near the edges. As the tendrils grip on the child grew, the child’s grip on its surroundings grew weaker and weaker.

The world and the trees around seemed to twist towards the child to gaze at its imminent fate. Perhaps it was nothing but the product of the child’s pain addled mind but the surroundings seemed to draw closer to stare at the mass of flesh, thrashing tendrils kicking up plumes of dirt and the trapped child. The whole jungle seemed to bore into the scene as if in consideration.

Creaking filled the air as if an answer had been reached, though the child wasn’t sure where the noise came from. All it could focus on was the growing sight of massive jaws and the pressure clamping down on its limbs. It only vaguely noticed the whole jungle moving to hone in on the monster, trees twisting and branches turning.

A jungle branch stabbed downwards, skewering the gelatinous mass right above its jaws and sending splinters of teeth in all directions. The tightness around the child vanished as the tendrils holding it grew limp and it dropped to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut loose. Soon the rest of the surrounding jungle followed suit, sending a volley of greenery straight through the gelatinous blob.

The blob and all its tendrils quickly stopped their churning of the earth as the jungle’s attack turned it into something that resembled a popped red water balloon. A rain of spikes washed over the remains and continued their attack. The child managed to get itself into a sitting position and did nothing other than stare dumbly as the jungle continued to ravage the body. 

Sense finally returned to the child as it got to its feet and ran. This place was unsafe, there was a monster that nearly killed it and then there was an even scarier monster in the jungle that killed that monster. As the child ran away from the scene the light of the bug faded until complete darkness shrouded the child’s vision. It tripped and fell countless times over the uneven jungle terrain as it desperately scrambled through the darkness. 

The child couldn’t make out anything through the darkness but it still ran, knowing that sticking around that monster would end badly. Any distance it could gain from the monster was good. Any distance it gained was life.

The child ran and ran for what seemed like ages. It kept on running, through the whipping jungle branches and darkness. It fell many times, but each time its hands and knees touched the ground the fear of the monster drove it onwards.

The jungle no longer seemed a majestic place. Where before the child had seen everything as fascinating now the only thing it saw was danger at every turn.

The child hated being on the ground. It hated the fear of the potential danger lurking at each turn, the uneven ground that constantly caused the child to stumble, and most of all the omnipresent darkness that swallowed everything around it. The whole environment ate at its nerves..

A recent memory pricked its mind. Light, when there had been light overhead it had been safe. When the sun shone down things were bright and good and safe. If it could find light it would be able to see the monsters coming and it would be safe. It decided to seek out the sun. 

But where to begin? 

Should it try to find the clearing where its first memories were formed? 

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No! It couldn’t, it had run for so long across the dark scary ground and the thought of running through that again terrified it. 

But then what should it do?

An idea entered its mind, the sun had come from the sky, far above all the trees and things on the ground. If it wanted to see the sun it’d just have to get above all those things. It’d climb above the monsters on the ground, above the rocks and bones that littered the floor, and above the trees until it reached the sun!

With a plan in its mind and with hope in its heart, it began its journey to the sun by walking up to the nearest tree and climbing up its trunk. It clasped its hands on the vines that covered the tree’s bark and pulled itself up, using its hands and feet to push and pull against the many natural handholds available to help its ascent. 

It climbed at a slow pace, hands carefully reaching for another grip and feet always looking for another surface to push off of. It wanted to be careful as it ascended, it didn’t want to climb up to the sun and suddenly fall off due to carelessness. 

Higher and higher it climbed up the tree and despite the aching in its limbs the thought of seeing the sun dulled the pangs. It thought of the things it would do once it could see again. It could stare at the sun, at the beautiful light it emitted, and bask in the knowledge that it was safe. It could use that light to look out and finally see the world again!

A myriad of possibilities of what it would do swirled in its mind when it heard a rustling of nearby leaves. All the thoughts of the sun flew from its mind as the memories of being attacked down on the ground flooded back into its mind.

Was that another monster? What should it do? Should it run? But it couldn’t run, it was stuck climbing up the tree so it couldn't run. If it couldn’t run, what else could it do? It couldn’t think of anything it could do. Its mind was again drawing nothing but blanks.

A skittering noise approached the child, growing louder and louder. The child could hear the sound of many sharp limps scraping against the wood and rushing towards it. Panic began to fill its mind as it tried to think of a way out of the situation. Its hands constricted around the vine it was on as hard as it could, shaking from how tightly the child had squeezed its hands. 

*Crunch*

The child’s left grip on the vine slipped. The loss of grip on its left hand caused a chain reaction as its right hand slipped, then its feet. For a brief moment the child felt as if it was suspended in the air when gravity finally started playing its part. 

The child fell from the tree, tumbling through branches, leaves, and twigs as it plummeted to the ground. The howling of wind filled the child’s ears while the spinning image of blackness filled the child’s eyes. Luck had seen fit to bless it as when it landed it crashed into a bush, partially breaking its impact. There it lay in a crumpled heap, pain stabbing from every part of its body.

A wave of pure agony assaulted the child’s mind. The only part of the child’s body that didn’t hurt was its left hand. It curled itself into a ball trying to make the pain go away but instead the pain only got worse.

It lay there as the searing, throbbing pain continually washed over its body. It whimpered at the pain. There was so much pain and it never ended. Its pain was as omnipresent as the darkness that surrounded it.

A familiar soft green light lit up the child’s surroundings. For a moment the sight of the light distracted the child from the agony it was in. The light illuminated the jungle around it, revealing no nearby dangers. The knowledge that, at least for the moment, the child was safe caused it to breathe a sigh of relief. 

However, the sense of relief the child felt was short-lived as the light had also illuminated the child’s body. Its formerly pristine smooth marble-like skin was a mess of deep jagged cracks that spider-webbed its whole body. Not one part of the child’s body had escaped unscathed except for its left hand. There, instead of cracks or blood, the child found nothing at all. Where the child’s left hand had been there was nothing but a stump.

The child stared at its missing hand, a sickening feeling overtaking its whole body. It stared at the roughly cut stump expecting another hand to suddenly grow from the marred flesh. Realizing that no such thing was happening the child curled up even tighter, cradling its missing left hand in its chest, rocking backward and forwards.

What could it do? On the ground, there were so many things that could kill it. When it had thought of the idea to reach the sun and escape the ground it had lost its hand. 

What could it do? 

What could it do? 

What could it do? 

The answer arrived in its mind. There was nothing it could do. Nowhere it went was safe. Nowhere it went was nice. Nowhere it went was a place that it could live in. There was nowhere it could go.

It was going to die. The child was going to die here and it would never get the chance to see the sun again. 

The child longed for the time when it was safe, where it was in the clearing, where everything was bright and everything was fascinating. It wished that it could go back to that carefree time.

Why did everything around it have to be so terrible?

Why did so many things want it dead? 

Why was the world it was in so mean to it? 

All it wanted was to be safe and carefree. Was that too much to ask for?

Why was it the one getting hurt? 

Why was it the one that would die? 

Anger soon began replacing its despair.  It didn’t want to die, it refused to let itself die! It would reach the sun and be safe and happy. It refused to let itself die in a ball on the jungle floor.

The child brought itself out of its fetal position and onto its hands and knees, pushing through the pain emanating from its protesting body. 

It pushed itself to a kneeling position, fighting through the waves of pain accompanying its every move. Bottling up its agony the child stood up straight. 

It took one step forward, towards the tree it had fallen from. Pain lanced up from the bottom of its foot, up its shin, through its knee, and into its thigh.

The child pushed through the pain and took another step with another lance of agony attacking its legs, then another pain filled step and slowly it made its way to the tree. 

It brought its hands to the tree only to be reminded of its missing limb as it felt the sensation of the stump on its left arm brushing against the vine. Remembering its missing limb and how it had lost it filled the child with rage.

Why had it lost its hand? 

Because that monster had bit it off. It would make that monster pay for severing its left hand. The child would kill that monster for hurting it.

Filled with burning hatred this time it began climbing back up the tree. Progress was far slower largely due to its missing hand and broken body but it climbed up regardless.

Every lance of pain, every view of its missing left hand, and every thought at the creature that had removed it fueled the child’s upwards ascent. It climbed up slowly but surely. 

A mantra began playing in the child’s mind. It raised its right hand to grab a nearby vine. 

It would hurt that monster. 

It pulled itself up and prepared to reach for another vine.

It would hurt that monster worse than just biting off its left hand. 

It raised its left hand to reach for another vine only for the lack of feeling to remind it of what had happened. 

It would kill that monster. 

A familiar rustling noise from nearby stopped the child’s inner monologue. Soon after the skittering of something sharply scraping against wood approached it. The child braced itself, the monster was coming.

It visualized killing that monster, having it skewered, and watching it slowly wriggle and suffer and die. Timing the moment the noise was right upon it, the child lunged at the monster with its left stump. The stump ran the monster straight through and even dug deep into the tree, splashing a black viscous liquid everywhere. The child was surprised, its attack had worked better than it had thought.

Through the darkness the child could just barely make out the monster that it had skewered. The child’s left arm had pierced somewhere around the torso area of the creature. To the child’s surprise, the “monster” that it had been so angry and scared of was small, only about half its size. 

The creature looked like a larger version of some of the bug critters scurrying around on the jungle floor. Dark glossy eyes, blackish rough carapace, an enormous set of mandibles and countless spikes that seemed to act as the creature’s legs made up the large bug's appearance.

The bug thrashed, despite being run straight through the monster seemed unhurt by the grievous wound spurting rivers of black blood as it moved. Instead of dying or acting hurt it released a cascade of angry chittering roars and bucked wildly. 

The monster lunged at the child with a set of mandibles as long as a person’s forearms, biting deeply into the child’s head. With a quick crunch, the monster drew a long ravine across the child’s face.

Renewed agony filled the child’s mind and with renewed agony came renewed rage. The child would hurt that monster! No not that monster, that bug, that pest, that vermin that had hurt it!

The child fully let go of the tree and struck the bug with its now freed right hand. It aimed for the creature’s face and as its fist reached that verminous creature it shifted into a razor-fine spike that pierced straight through the creature’s rocky chitinous face.

Another set of angry chittering emerged from the creature and it thrashed wildly. As both of the child’s hands were occupied stabbing the creature and not holding onto the tree, the child slipped.

The world began spinning as the child and bug tumbled end over end down the tree. As they both plummeted the monster kept on lashing out again and again at the child. Chunk after chunk was bitten out from the child’s body.

In response, the child withdrew its left hand and stabbed the bug again and again. The pair crashed through branches and vines, viciously attacking each other the entire descent.

Using anger and pain as fuel the child slammed its spiked hand into the bug’s head over and over and over again ignoring the branches lashing at its back and the pieces of its flesh being removed. 

Only after what seemed to be a particularly brutal stabbing to the face did the bug seem to finally be dying. The bite of the bug's mandibles became weaker and their snapping less frequent. It was too late however.

With a crash and a chorus of crunching the duo slammed into the jungle floor. The sound of things snapping filled the child’s mind and its consciousness momentarily slipped. 

—

For the second time in its memory pain was the only thing the child could feel. The pain forced its way into every nook and cranny of the child’s mind, it was the only thing it could think of, it was the only thing that seemed to exist.

It didn’t know how long it lay there but slowly the pain began fading. Sensations other than pain slowly trickled back to it. The feeling of the earth below it, the twigs, rocks, and damp moss. Its vision finally returned, though it couldn’t see much more than different shades of black with so little light. 

A scraping noise sounded nearby. The child remembered the fight it had just been in on the tree. It struggled to stand but no matter how hard it tried it couldn’t move. The best it could manage was to lift its head off the ground slightly.

Scraping again, this time the sounds multiplied. The child again tried to move its body but again no response from its limbs. 

Frustration and fear began filling the child’s mind. The scraping was so close yet it couldn’t move no matter how hard it tried. 

Light, gentle, and green pulsed and illuminated its surroundings giving the child a good view of the nearby jungle.

To the child’s horror surrounding it were waves upon waves of bug-like creatures just like the bug it had fought. They covered the ground like a thick blanket, turning the floor into a sea of moving bodies. They were so tightly packed that they writhed over each other to move. 

Filled with terror the child forced its body to move and refused to take no for an answer. With great pain, the child pushed itself up with its arms. However, with a loud cracking noise, the child’s arms snapped clean off at the elbow and it collapsed face-first back into the ground.

The nearby writhing stopped and hundreds of glossy black eyes turned to look at the strange white rock that had just moved. They watched the white rock attempt to move, fail and then collapse.

Chittering and a sound like that of hundreds of blades scraping against stones rumbled out as a tidal wave of bodies poured toward the child. The child could do nothing more than meekly wriggle its body.

The horde crashed into the child, ripping it limb from limb. The child felt excruciating pain as it felt chunks of its flesh, extremities, and appendages being ripped apart.

A silent tortured scream filled the child’s mind before the world went black and mercifully its thoughts ceased.

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