It had been more than thirty cycles since I reincarnated. I wasn’t sure how many exactly had passed, I stopped counting after things got idle around the den. All fifty-six imps now had their senses and stopped tumbling over one another. Without imps constantly bumping into me I grew more relaxed and ended up lazing the days away. I had grown amity for the brood of imps knowing they were probably all my brothers. Some of them matured late and tried leaving the room immediately. I tried to warn the first couple of them by yelling out unintelligibly but they always ignored me. I would be lying if I said it wasn’t a bit satisfying to see them endure the same experience as me after ignoring my warnings, even if they couldn’t understand me.
Our indolent ways didn’t last long though. Once the caretakers realized everyone had their senses they changed the way they fed us. A big trough of broth would be brought inside for us to eat from. It had enough food for everyone to get some but no one was in a hurry to eat. I guess I wasn’t the only one who hated the taste. We weren’t hand fed anymore but things didn’t change much, I still grudgingly ate my portion of food and went to sleep.
The next cycle they brought another big trough of broth for everyone to eat. This time things were a little different. A sweet smell poured out of the trough and every imp’s attention was fixed on it. When it was finally moved into place everyone scurried to get a taste of whatever was in it. The brown broth looked like what we had been eating up until now but it tasted completely different. The broth was rich and flavorful. Succulent chunks of meat were also abundant. The trough that usually took us an hour to finish was bottomed out within twenty minutes.
It was no surprise everyone had fallen asleep within the hour after satisfying their stomachs. I wondered why they fed us such horrible tasting food up until now if they had something that tasted this good. On reflection the new food might not have been anything worthwhile back on earth but compared to what I was being fed it was very appetizing. After eating this broth I couldn’t go back to eating the other one.
Everything became clear when the next cycle rolled around. This time two troughs were brought inside the room for everyone to eat, one with the disgusting broth and the other with the good tasting one. No one watched the trough with the now deemed inedible broth, everyone was looking at the other trough. The smell coming from it charmed me so much I hadn’t realized something important. The trough was one fifth the size of the regular ones they brought inside. Only a dozen or so imps could fill their stomachs with that small amount. Forty imps were going to have to go without.
As soon as the troughs were put down everyone zerged the small trough, including me. The sight of more than fifty imps rushing to one spot might have scared me before but as far as I was concerned they weren’t dangerous and I was not going to be one of the imps who had to go without.
I moved quickly and overtook the rest of the imps. I noticed I was quicker than everyone but I would soon understand that was the only advantage I had. As soon as I reached the trough I sunk my cupped hands into it and drank hurriedly. I ate so quickly I didn’t even have time to savor the taste before I was quaffing even more down my throat. My palms only brought several more handfuls back to my mouth before five others were at the trough stuffing their mouths as well. With the other sides of the trough covered I naively thought it was the end of the competition and everyone else would have to eat from the other trough. I was wrong though, this wasn’t a race.
A bunch of imps, the more average of our brood, finally made it to the trough. Several hands gripped at my body and pulled me backwards into the crowd behind me. I tried to grab onto the trough’s edge but I was already too far away. I might have been the fastest but it soon became apparent I had a deficiency in strength. I moved as forcefully as I could forward to reclaim my spot but I only ended up getting shoved further and further away. The five imps who reached there first with me got pulled from the trough as well. The imps that took their place ate only a few handfuls before the imps behind them took their place.
A minute or two later the five larger, least nimble imps of our brood had finally made their way to the trough. Imp by imp, they slowly bullied their way through the crowd. When they finally swarmed the trough the competition had finally ended. The other imps continued to try and push them out of the way but failed to do so. Unable to make my way through even the most average of our brood, I had given up quite some time ago and returned to the bigger trough. I wasn’t the first though, there had been three imps already eating from it. They were the ones who were as slow as the bigger imps but no stronger than the faster ones like me. The genetic losers of our brood. They learned pretty quickly there was no way they were going to get any of the food from the good trough and settled for the bad one.
I reluctantly filled my gut with the horrible broth and limbered away from both the troughs. If the genetic losers were the first to give up, the second group were the quick imps. Including me, there were six quick imps and since we were lacking in strength we had been muscled out of the way early on. The next were all of the average imps. Some of them didn’t even get to taste the good broth and the ones that did barely got enough to fill a tenth of their stomach. Even so, a majority of what was in the good trough was consumed by them. There were was forty-two of them after all, adding up what they ate together was no small amount. After finishing what was left in the good trough the bigger imps finally made their way to the bad one. I’m not sure how much was left for them but they still seemed hungry as they finished what was left in the bigger trough as well.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
After the caretakers moved the troughs out of the room everyone went to sleep. It was the first time any of us had to ‘earn’ our food so we were more tired than usual. The bigger imps made sure to sleep close to where the good trough was placed so that when the next cycle came around they would be right where the trough was placed. The average slept around the strong and the rest of us slept outside of the average. I felt dejected knowing during the next feeding I would be in the same situation as the losers but there wasn’t anything I could do about it. I was fast but below average in every other metric.
Luckily the caretakers gave back my advantage the next day. They brought in the troughs and knowingly placed the good one as far away from the group of imps as possible. That surprised me, not because they expected our behavior but because they were willing to do something about it. I thought they wanted to establish a hierarchy amongst our little group but they wanted everyone to compete for food as much as possible. It worked too, this time around even the losers tried harder to get some food from the good trough because they were now closer than the others. They still didn’t get any food though, they were too slow and weak to reach the trough. The fast reached the trough first, the average took it over next and finally the strong muscled everyone else out of the way and ate whatever was left.
Eventually everything had panned out like it did the day before and continued to do so every cycle afterward. After all the food was done everyone would groom themselves and fall back asleep. Grooming mostly consisted of cleaning off any food left on our body with our tongues. I was averse to doing so at first but when they started to bring in the good broth I had no problems with licking the remains off of my fingers and body. Plus we hadn’t been given any water since we were born nor were we given any bathwater. Grooming was going to get us as clean as we were ever going to be in here.
I fell into routine over the remaining cycles I had left to live in this den. Nothing changed and everyone had long since gotten used to the food competition. The last day we stayed inside the den a large number of caretakers brought us a full, large trough of good broth. Even though there was enough for everyone, we rushed to it all the same. Once we were finished the caretakers grouped us up together. We had grown accustomed to them shifting us around as needed when they wanted to get around the room so it wasn’t difficult for them. They divided us into four groups; the strong, the fast, the average and the losers.
The caretaker at the head of the room pulled out a relatively big blue orb. I say relatively because it was as big as any of us imps. The orb flowered the room with rays of bright white light. I was completely awed by the display, I had been to a light show before but it was never this grand. A surge of energy coursed through me whenever the moving rays flashed over my body. The display only ended when all the rays of light converged a couple feet in front the orb. A white rectangle a bit bigger than us imps spawned directly on top of where the rays of light met.
The caretakers ushered the first of the losers into the white rectangle and the imp disappeared completely. Thats when I realized it wasn’t a beam of light but possibly a gateway. After waiting five minutes they sent the next one in. When all of the losers had been sent through the gateway the strong imps were sent next. The only difference with them was the gatekeepers only waited a minute in-between sending each one of them. The only two groups left now were the average and fast imps. They already began escorting one of the fast imps, the group I belonged to, into the gateway.
Next, it was my turn to be herded into the gateway. I contemplated trying to escape for only a few seconds but the only exit was the door on the other side of the den. I tried leaving once and it was not a pleasant experience to say the least so my only option was to let the caretaker drag me off. I wasn’t even sure it really was a gateway and even if it was, who knows where it would send me. What I did know was escaping out the den exit meant death, or at least it smelt like that. All that being said, I wasn’t really anxious. None of the other imps seemed to be scared and I doubted the caretakers would feed us just to kill us for no reason. I closed my eyes and walked into the gateway, hoping I would be sent somewhere pleasant.