I move my body.

Back and forth.

Like hair flowing in the wind.

Or a swing after jumping from up high.

The egg tears. Slightly.

I’m getting tired.

Frustrated.

I bite into the soft tissue until I get a purchase, then curl into that spot.

I wreck it.

Eventually, it gives. I can finally taste that sweet, sweet freedom and…

[Larvae Egg has evolved to Larvae]

I’m hungry.

As I burst out of the egg, my first instinct is eating.

So I eat.

The leaf I was born in is tender and fresh.

Its taste is different than I expected. Savory, but not like food as a human was.

More basic. Primal.

But it scratches that itch in the back of my head.

I can’t stop eating. If I do, I’ll die.

There are many others like me around. Siblings. To say that I see them would be a lie. I can barely make out my surroundings, a blur of light that I have to roughly interpret as images.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

But I can feel them. The vibrations on my hairs. From the breeze, and something else.

The whisper gossips, delighted. It tattles about the direction of the others. What they’re doing. Which hatched and which are about to.

I listen, because I’ve learned to enjoy its murmur.

Lately, there have been more words.

Nothing groundbreaking.

Many zeroes, followed by numbers.

The promise of skills that are as of yet unusable.

I wonder how far it goes?

What mysteries does the whisper hide?

I keep eating.

It’s amazing how much food fits inside me.

Time I understand.

It likes to appear as absolute.

Irreversible.

It is not.

Time can’t flow by itself.

It needs an observer. An accomplice.

It acts immutable.

But it is anything but.

I know.

Time was waiting for me.

Now I can see light. Count.

Not seconds, no. I’m not on the same planet. I don’t have the same body.

But I count.

I’ve been eating for 4.752.

4.752 what?

4.752 somethings.

Time is with me.

I’ve missed it.

Now it is dark.

And then it’s bright again.

Some of my siblings die.

It is natural.

We are fragile.

Weak.

Bacteria kill us easily.

I do my best to avoid them.

I move around the plant. Search for good leaves.

If I see a healthy sibling, I eat with them.

If I see a corpse, I go away.

I try to excrete outside.

Dangle my bottom out of the leaves and let it flow.

There is not much more I can do.

But it seems to be enough.

I survive.

And then the fourth day comes.

And I change.