Because I want to

The sun was rising when Liam finally finished refining the energy into himself and he felt himself being lighter than before. He looked at the core in his hand, but only saw crumbled parts of it. He frowned and thought, there is no more energy in there so it probably loses its form. He shook his hand and it all turned to dust and fell to the ground.

He tried getting up after a moment but felt a wave of dizziness come over and sat back down.

Then it hit him. He had been in this new world for a day and he hasn't either eaten or slept. He had absorbed energy but this didn't mean resting or sleeping. After a moment he felt his body turning heavier and heavier as it slumped over and lost consciousness.

He fell asleep. The sun's warmth was helping him.

In fact, this planet was rather backward.

The sun was setting and Liam started to feel cold. Like the warm blanket, he was sleeping under was being slowly pulled off. He tried to grab onto the blanket to pull it back onto himself so he could sleep a little longer but the hand looking for the blanket didn't find anything. He was confused and started to open his eyes.

As he did so, memories started to come back to him. Where he was and what has happened until now.

"Huh?" he pushed himself off the ground looking around blearily.

"Why are you staring at me?" he asked before registering what was actually going on.

Nio's head was right next to his face. His large eye was open and looking at him.

* * *

"Did you change your mind and would eat me now?" the creature named Liam said.

"Stay Still and do not move," he said and looked vigilant. He stared at the forest with his other eye. He was hiding the weird creature with his own body.

Some time ago, he had woken suddenly. He didn't know what it had been at first, but as he sensed the surroundings he felt a presence that was a menace to all creatures, but especially to the two-legged ones. He had seen it hunting them. It couldn't really be called hunting more like slaughtering them. That creature had fur and four legs unlike most creatures here.

It looked soft and annoying to swallow. He didn't like them and hated eating them.

"What is it?" Liam asked a little annoyed about Nio's actions and somewhat surprised.

"I call it the Black Menace," Nio then whispered. "It moves within the ShadowS and never makeS a Sound," he then added.

"Does it have any kind of other abilities?"

"I don't this so," he shook his head for a moment, nearly knocking it into Liam.

"Is it normal to have those kinds of abilities, as you have?" Liam was interested in that little fact. No animals on Earth had those kinds of abilities.

"I've seen a few others, but I'm rather a permanent resident of this area. I don't know much about anywhere else."

"Can I see it?" curiosity has gotten the better of him. He wanted to see all the creatures of this place.

"Are you Sure you want to live a long life?" Nio asked him because to him it looked like a death wish.

"Why are you bringing that up? Of course, I want to live, what does it matter if I see it?" he questioned him. He had never seen a creature that could move in the shadows. Could he even see it, if it could hide so well?

"Their inStinctS are rather Sharp and thiS one lookS a bit hungry," he said after a moment of thinking. After observing the Black Menace for a while, he felt something different. He couldn't define what his own intuition was telling him. Either way, this one didn't look hungry at all but why was it lurking around his place? He had said that just to scare off Liam.

"Fine," Liam then forced out, "I'll try to sleep some more," he grumbled and laid back down.

A chuckle escaped Nio again.

"You definitely aren't from this place," he said to himself, shaking his head.

"Why'd you say that?" Liam was curious how had he figured something like that out.

"For reference, you have one distinct feature that the two-legged ones I have encountered don't have and ..." he took in a deep breath, smelling the air and tasting it to detect the location of the creature. It had come even closer. He didn't like it very much. "The Sun here has an effect. When the Sunlight hitS the plantS, they Start to emit a Sort of odor that makeS all creatures fall aSleep," he adds, pushing Liam against the ground and covering him.

"By the way, what are you doing?" Liam asks a little out of breath as the snake was heavy, but he is barely holding himself over Liam's body.

"Hiding you."

"What I meant was, why are you doing it?"

Nio was startled by the question. Why was he doing this? Why was he protecting a two-legged creature? Was it because he had found someone to who he could talk? Was it because he had helped him last night? Why was it that he was protecting him?

After pondering over it for a moment, he gave up. He just could not figure out why he did that. The questions needed more time and he didn't have that kind of time at the moment.

"BecauSe I want to," he answered simply.

An hour later, Nio moved back to his position on the tree. The Black Menace had left or retreated. He wasn't sure, it wasn't acting like it usually did.

Liam couldn't sleep, so he had started to absorb energy as he was, his back flat against the earth. His focus changed when he started to absorb energy. He didn't even feel it when Nio moved back up the tree. After a while, he had stopped gathering and saving energy. Liam opened his eyes to find himself looking at the night sky.

He stared at it, trying to find a familiar star or gathering of them but he couldn't and that disappointed him deeply. He didn't want to fall into a deep pit, but just for a moment, he recalled a memory from home. A memory that was good and beautiful.

A similar night like this one. He was with his father. They didn't speak, it wasn't necessary. The quiet was comfortable. They were just there, on the roof of their house, looking at the stars.

A comfortable feeling washed over him.