Chapter 29

I finally evolved into a multicellular organism, but nothing changed. I was expecting some massive qualitative leap, but I got no such thing. I gained the body modification skill known as Morphology, and that was it. That got me thinking back to my previous evolutions, and I began to realize that none of them had been a clear change. I hadn't leveled up and suddenly became a population or a biota. I had built each of those one step at a time.

Usually, it wasn't until the final few levels that I could even truly call myself the thing I had evolved into. The steps between prokaryotes and eukaryotes had been gradual. I had merely added the organelles that I needed one after another. Steadily, I had turned from a simple prokaryote into a complex eukaryote. Then, I began dividing the eukaryotes into more and more specialized cells, and I eventually considered myself a population. That population further differentiated until every cell had its unique functions, and that became a biota.

Now, I was a multicellular organism, and yet I was still all of the single cells too. Morphology allowed me to create body parts to take over larger roles in my ecosystem, but I was still essentially the entire pond. My primordial sensory organs were finally able to take on a realistic appearance, but at the end of it all, I was still stuck where I started. I couldn't go beyond my watery prison. It had become the medium from which I existed. To leave it, I'd need to deal with countless complications from dehydration to energy storage.

It was no wonder evolution took so much work. The move from a prokaryote to a eukaryote took three evolutions, while eukaryote to multicellular organism took five. Now, it only took one whole evolution to make a complete multicellular organism, yet my will to continue was almost gone. Without fish, animals infrequently came to my pond. After all, it was filled with pond scum and the water was rancid with overabundant algae. The oxygen content was pretty low, and the bottom of the pond was filled with the dead and decaying remains of all the organisms I had killed over the years.

It was so easy to see that this pond I had created was especially ugly. If I were the overlord of this pond, I would have done a poor job. No wonder the kingfish had looked down on me so much. I had destroyed the ecosystem. Sure, it was stable to my existence, but it was no wonder all the other fish died now that I could see it more clearly.

I could have changed things around, but part of me wondered why I should bother. Even if I continued to evolve into a multicellular organism and found some way to break the confines of this pond, I could end up in a world with no intelligent life. After all, I hadn't seen a single thing beyond a few common animals in the countless years I had been in this place.

I had lived a poor life, and in the end, I had been betrayed and murdered by my kin. Perhaps, this was the fate awaiting me. At the end of the race was no finish line, but another race. I supposed life was like that sometimes. I sunk back into my pond, allowing the days to pass into seasons, which became years. This was my purgatory. This was my fate.

I could hunt and kill birds that landed on the pond's surface, or grab the occasionally desperate animal that dared drink from my waters, but why bother? One more level? One more skill? I was still just a blob… a series of cells pretending to be a being.

The academic part of my brain tried to tell me that this was the case for all multicellular organisms. At the end of the day, every plant, animal, or human was just a bag of water, filled with differentiated cells, each one working to achieve different goals which keep the entire organism working. I might not have a digestive tract, but I had cells using Photosynthesis to produce energy. I didn't have any lymph, but I had many macrophages, T cells, and B cells designed for fighting bacteria and other viruses that landed in my pond. I may not have a circulatory system, but I had cells dedicated to regularly circulating the water throughout the pond. Their job was to inhale water and expel it, thus pushing the water on. I just didn't have blood vessels.

Time passed by unceasingly, and then, one day, I decided it was time to die. Perhaps I had atoned enough for my previous life. If I could choose, I'd rather not have another life. I'd rather just end it right here. I started by destroying all of the sensory organs. Everything I carefully built exploded one after another. Each one of them did massive damage to me.

-50,000 HP

-50,000 HP

-50,000 HP

As I allowed my consciousness to sink into darkness, my mind seemed to flicker. Images played out in front of me, and I didn't know if they were dreams of an unconscious mind, or hallucinations stemmed from sensory deprivation.

"Please, don't leave me."

I froze. I recognized this night. This was the night I ran away from home for good. I was sixteen years old, and the gang had promised me a home that my own abusive home could never be. Of course, I had no intention of telling anyone that. I had snuck into the house late at night. My mother and her abusive asshole stopped asking where I went years ago. As long as I didn't bother them, they didn't bother me.

Yet, on that night, I had no intention of crashing. I had instead grabbed a duffle bag and filled it up with everything in my room I cared about. I had been trying to be quiet, but the walls were thin and my sister's bedroom was bordered against mine. At some point, she realized I was there and showed up at my door. She was only twelve, a young woman just starting to develop. She was watching me pack, her eyes wet with unshed tears.

When I finally noticed her, those were the words she asked. My heart clenched and I shook my head. My younger self tried to pretend like he didn't hear her and kept packing. While my younger self turned his back on her in shame, the current me could see the expression of pain on her face. I didn't know if this vision was real, or if I was only imagining that's how she looked.

She said the same thing again. The exact words. Exact tone. However, this time, the tears were running down her cheeks.

I stopped what I was doing and glared up at her. I felt angry. Angry that I was finally escaping this place, and someone wanted to keep me from freedom. However, when I finally realized she was crying, the anger left my face.

"I'm coming back. I will come back for you." I heard myself speaking.

It was strange, listening to a promise now. It sounded far less sincere coming from my young voice than I had felt it had been at the time. I looked away and finished packing my stuff. I then went to the window which was still open.

"Brother…" She gave off one last word, her hand outstretched.

At the time, that moment had an impact on me. In my mind, she was telling me she'd wait for me to save her. I leaped out the window and didn't look back. However, the current me could still see her face. As her hand dropped, I could see the exact moment hope left her eyes. I had been the one who gave her hope, the hope of a better future, the hope of an escape from that reality. She wasn't holding out her hand to bid me farewell, but to grab my, less the last thing she loved disappeared.

I had left anyway, and there I saw in her cold blue eyes, the apathy and the coldness. It was the same look I had seen just after she stabbed me to death. I had thought I had lost her to my stepdad, but it turned out I had lost her the moment I left home. I'm the one who destroyed her hope and innocence.

"Hurry up! It's not too late!"

Darkness. I had no eyes, no ears, no sensations at all. I didn't know how much time had passed. However, I felt a disturbance. I had already numbed myself to the world around me. Even birds swimming and animals drinking wouldn't be enough to bother me. This was something bigger.

I began to put together my sensory organs. I began to feel around. Waking up was slow, but the more I awoke, the more I got a chaotic feeling. There was something in my pond. No, there were two somethings.

"Ahhhhhhh!" I heard the vibrations shaking my water.

Even the kingfish couldn't make a sound so loud. I slowly opened my eyes, and there within my waters was something I had never imagined seeing after waking up. Kneeling within my waters, buried down to their necks, were two human beings. The man seemed very typical, with nothing about him that stood out from the limited vision I could scrape together on short notice. The woman, however, seemed to have some grotesque deformity. It was a massive tumor covering her stomach.

Oh… shit! I realized what it was. She's pregnant!

"Shhhh! Shhh!" The man begged her.

"Ahhhhhhhhhh… it's coming!" She yelled.

She's giving birth? … Fuck.