Birth

First Age, Year 1, 3rd Month

The jungle scenery blurs around me, distorting into nothing but a myriad of hues and smells. My body blitzes through growth like it had done so a hundred times before.

That is, for the most part, because it had.

Over a year had passed now since the incident with the berries, or at least so says my internal clock. It certainly feels like it had, turns out being alone in a jungle is a lot more boring than one would expect. In all this time, the only company I ever had were my thought and the stars I watched every night. It sort of became a routine, something to keep me from losing my mind completely. But stargazing could only do so much, so in an effort to stay productive, I have also turned to studying the local ecology. As one would expect, almost everything here is toxic in some way, some more than others. I have seen mushrooms whose spores decay the life around them at visible speeds, vines dripping with mucus that make audible sizzling noises when they drip on to the jungle floor. I had even watched a hole get burned clean through a tree after a single odd-looking leave touched its trunk when the winds blew it in just the wrong direction. Needless to say, I categorized all three of those plants as "Extremely Dangerous" and have not gone near one of them since. Other plants that have the honor of this title include the death-berries I am all too familiar with. These studies ended in me creating a sort of internal encyclopedia, with me giving simple names to the plant-life such as the aforementioned "death-berries". This resulted in me gaining rudimentary knowledge on almost everything regarding this endless jungle.

Almost everything.

I slow to a stop and observe my surroundings. Sure enough, the mysterious glow that I have become all-too familiar with is still everywhere. This force that seems to permeate all of existence remains as much of a mystery to me as the day I first consumed that flower. So far it seems to do nothing, with its only thing of note being its relationship with the super-hyacinth. Those flowers remain just as much a mystery as well. The glow seems to strengthen in the area surrounding them, which is in-line with the aura I felt when I first encountered one, before I could perceive the glow. Because of this, locating them is rather simple, and they have become one of my primary food sources. Which is to be expected, considering they are one of few things that won't kill me upon consumption. After eating them, the effects I perceive are always consistent. My energy is restored, my hunger is sated, and the mystery force becomes ever so slightly easier to see. However, that's where my knowledge on the subject ends. Despite all the time I have spent here, I haven't found any new discoveries regarding this phenomenon, other then that the force is almost certainly connected to the mystical properties exerted by the supernatural flower.

These questions will have to be put on the backburner for now though, as I have a more important goal I am currently working towards. I have decided to try and map the entirety of the jungle. Currently I am in the south-east quadrant, not too far away from the mountains I believe the spring originates from, and I am heading back toward where I set up my "house". It's a large clearing on top of a rather large hill that the stream runs around. I chose this location most in part because it offered a clear view of the night sky, while it also gave the secondary benefit of allowing me to have a clear view of most the jungle.

Passing by a rock with an "X" I carved into the side, I make a hard turn left, where after I few more minutes of running, I make it to the base of the hill. I begin my ascent quickly, eager to get back to my dwelling before the sun sets. Soon arriving at the top, I am welcomed by the sight of the only tree in the clearing. It's huge, even by the standards of the jungle. It grows slanted on the side of the hill, its massive, exposed roots housing the location where I sleep. Entering an opening under a large, arcing root, I make my way into an area below the tree where my den is located. In the center is my bed, a large circle about double my length made from large jungle leaves and soft moss. On one of the walls is a large, incomplete carving that maps out a large portion of the jungle. Moving over to the wall, I make an addition to the bottom right of the picture. I use my claws to mark out a thin waterfall emptying out into a small reservoir of water surrounded by trees. Taking a step back, I view what I have mapped out so far.

The right border of the map is marked by the ocean I woke up in front, while bottom is marked by the mountain range. The top and left borders remain empty, as I have yet to make it anywhere close enough to see what is there. As you would expect from this, the northern and western parts of the map remain largely unfilled. Drawing my eyes away from the empty parts, I focus on what I have been able to map. Down near the bottom left, a large smoking mountain is drawn. I haven't actually gone over to it though, the volcano seems to be rather active, and I don't feel safe getting close. It's easily viewable from my hill however, so I figured I'd mark It down on the map, even if its surroundings aren't. So far, it hasn't had any major eruption just yet, but it's probably only a matter of time. Up from there, I see the furthest point north I had traveled. It's pretty far into the north-west quadrant, when I had made a multi-day expedition in an attempt to finally fill out that part of the map. I would have probably gone all the way, had my progress not been completely halted by a large canyon that completely ended my trek. It was massive, enough so that I couldn't see either end of it. Finally, I look toward my most detailed part of the carving, the area surrounding the stream. It came from the mountain range, as I predicted, and it eventually settled into a large lake near the center of the jungle. My hill is located slightly south from there, marked by the large tree and an "X". Apart from those four large markings, there are also multiple warning signs marked off, designated by a simple bone. These represent locations where I discovered some of those highly dangerous plants I mentioned before, the closest of these being slightly north of my hill. Thinking a bit, I scratch it off. Those berries probably don't deserve their own danger symbol, despite my hatred for them.

Finished, I step away from my wall and exit my living space. Leaving the shelter of the tree, I sit down in a spot where the sky is most visible and watch as the sun sets, the smoke from the volcano in the distance being illuminated by its red light. It's a sight I am very used to by now, however tonight it seems… off. It looks blurry, as if there is a filter over the air, slightly distorting it. I rub my eyes with the back of my paws, thinking it might be that my eyes have begun to water from looking too long at the sun, but it doesn't fix it. I get up to look a bit closer at the distortion, and after I while, I realize that there indeed IS a sort of filter covering the air. The glow permeating the world has been disturbed somewhat and is currently moving chaotically, distorting the surrounding light. This chaos seems to grow the further north the glow extends, marking a possible point of origin for the disturbance.

My investigation senses go off wildly, and I immediately start running in the direction of where the chaotic movements seem to start. Arriving close to the base of the hill, the glow is REALLY distorting the world now, its misty essence twisting and bending light. At the center of it all is a spiral made from a tendril of the glow. It radiates light that is unchallenged from the rest of the glow surrounding it. It's to the point that I believe that even if I had never eaten one of those flowers, I am sure I would have been able to see it. But the strangest thing about the spiral of light isn't its brightness. When looking at it, it's as if I can understand it's meaning, like it's a word from a language I have always known.

Projected into my mind, clear as day, is a single word.

LIFE.

I watch in fascination as this glyph of sorts increases in brightness, the distortions rapidly growing stronger. Eventually all the chaotic glow is suddenly sucked into the point of light, leaving the rest of the surroundings bare, without the glow I came to expect everywhere. The bead of light also goes about a change, its radiance intensifies exponentially, rivaling that of stars. I can't bear to look any longer, and I turn my head away. It doesn't seem to help much though, and the brilliance still scorches my closed eyes. Thankfully, the light soon begins to rapidly decrease before I can be blinded, the star collapsing in on itself. It crushes itself with its own light and explodes into a miniature nova, leaving behind an…

Ant.

It's an ant!

After a year of not seeing a single other form of life, an ant appears before me, conjured from the glow that has plagued me with its mysteries. Forgetting everything, I immediately bend down and observe the little insect, taking in the first form of contact I've received in all my time on this planet. The ant notices me and immediately takes off into the bush, most likely afraid of my daunting form. Desperate to not lose it, I bolt after it, tracking it into the jungle. I don't want him to leave, he's proof that there is more to this world, that its not a figment of my imagination, devoid of any real life. I had begun to maybe think that this was the case, that none of it was real and I was living in world of my own delusion. I follow the ant, barreling through the foliage. Eventually however, the ant finds a gap under some roots of a tree and disappears into the earth. I futilely dig where it disappears, so distressed over losing the ant that I neglect to realize that all the earth I am digging up is getting filled back in by my own panicked claws, making no progress whatsoever.

It's no use. The only proof I've ever received of life being in this world has disappeared before my eyes. I sit back, defeated and depressed, and I question if the ant was even real in the first place. I snap my head back toward where the glyph first appeared. Yes, if there were any answers to be found of what I just experienced, it would be there! Driven by my mad obsession over the possibility of seeing another form a life, I blitz back the way I came, eventually reaching the area where the insect materialized. I scour the area. The glow that disappeared from the area has already returned, as if nothing had even happened.

Desperate, I stare at the stagnant glow, willing it to form another one of its spirals and prove what I saw wasn't some lie.

And the glow responds.

As if listening to my internal pleads, a tendril of glow quickly forms, taking the shape of the spiral I saw not too long ago. Like before, the word "LIFE" appears in my mind, but unlike before, it doesn't shine, nor does the world around me become distorted.

Come on!

Frustrated with being as close as I am without results, I increase my focus. Attempting to force the glow to act according to my will. The glyph starts to shine faintly, but as the glow increases bit by bit, the more mental resistance I feel coming back from the symbol. Its like I am rolling a massive boulder up an increasingly steep hill. Eventually I reach a point where my progress completely stops and, emotionally crushed, I relent. The glyph quickly dissipates back into the ambient glow.

However, this attempt proves that what happened wasn't my own fantasy. Hopeful for the future, I start climbing back up my hill.

Perhaps, I won't have to be alone much longer.