The Miracle of Life

-Planet Eddok

The first thing I remember was my mother, she licked my face to help open my eyes for the first time, she was covered in black fur. The only color on her was a patch of silver between her ears, I squeaked at her affections earning a few more licks and chirps from her.

"Welcome to the world little one, get some rest and gather your strength, once you are stronger I will teach you and your siblings about what we are and how we survive."

Hearing a soft and soothing voice I squeaked again before curling up against mother, feeling her warmth I drifted off to sleep wondering what siblings were and if they tasted good.

My siblings didn't taste good at all, but they are really fun to play with. We hopped and squeaked at each other until mother came over. We drank our breakfast which made us so tired that we fell asleep, the next few weeks were just eating and sleeping while our mother told us stories.

We were descendants of the Lunar fox god, according to the elders of our small clan, but no one had heard from the Lunar fox god in centuries. So our clan declined until all that was left was our mothers and a few old protectors. All of our fathers had led the predators away from our clan when they had found our burrow, no one had heard from them since.

Mother explained to us that survival meant evolving, and to do that we needed to hunt stronger creatures than ourselves. When we ate something that had different traits and origins than us, we could absorb them and grow powerful very quickly. The only problem was that we were weaker physically than most others beasts, and hunting could mean death for the entire clan.

So our main preys were plants and insects. Occasionally we could hunt in a pack if there was a large predator near the burrow, that wasn't too strong. We were told not to scavenge the more powerful corpses, they drew enemies to them like a beacon and these beasts would easily crush us by accident.

A few weeks went by and mother finally took us on our first hunting trip, after weeks of being in the burrow I was shaking from the excitement. I was finally going to see the outside. Mother lead us up through the tunnels into a new place, the ground felt harder than dirt but rougher, it was also warm.

Mother noticed our curiosity at the new sensation, letting a chirp out in laughter, she turned to us, "It is just a tree little ones there are trees beyond count outside. Don't wander off once we are outside the burrow, there will be plenty of things that will want to eat you and I can't be everywhere at once".

We chirped back, agreeing to behave, despite our excitement.

We climbed up a little higher, the center of the tree had been hollowed out, and we followed along the sides to get to the exit. There was a bright light coming from a hole in the side of the tree just a bit above us, it blocked our view of what lay beyond. The warmth though felt amazing, we followed behind mother through the blinding as it bathed us in its warm embrace. I blinked repeatedly to clear my vision and finally, the outside came into view, it was amazing!