For the first few weeks of my life, I had no memories of anything besides unending darkness and the warmth of several similarly small bodies pressing against my side. My eyes wouldn’t open and my body was too feeble to move much. All I could do was lay there in the all-encompassing darkness, sleeping.

I slept a lot, a side effect of having just been born, as all newborns do, and when I did wake up, it was because my stomach was calling for food again. The most blissful thing was the soothing scent of my mother who would tuck us into her side and clean our bodies with a warm tongue, a most comforting act for one as small as us. During these few weeks when my eyes couldn’t open and my ears were still weak, only my sense of smell was acute, and the scent of my mother became ingrained in my mind, as did the scent of my siblings.

I had three siblings, and from what I could tell, they were all much bigger than me and stronger than me. I was the weakest of the litter - the runt. Always last to eat and furthest from the center of mother’s belly, where it was the warmest. It was only natural, I suppose, the strong live and devour the weak. It was nothing serious, just competition between siblings for food and warmth. If I had to blame someone, I could only curse myself for being born so small.

From birth I already had an instinctive knowledge of the world. I am a small creature, weak, defenseless. Therefore I must conceal myself. My species is weak, and unable to stand up to the more powerful Beasts. Therefore I must learn how to run, and run fast. In order to survive, I must fight for my right to live, and I must hone my fangs. Mother didn’t teach me this, I was born with this knowledge and I’m sure my siblings are the same.

My eyes opened in my third week of life, and a few days before I had already started to get jostled around by my siblings who had already grown strong enough to move. I looked around, my siblings were all crawling around in the small, earthy den that we were born in; only I was still too weak to push myself to my feet.

There was a small shuffle at the mouth of the den and a large figure blotted out the meagre light streaming in. I almost let out a squeak of terror but the scent that washed over me told me that thankfully it was my mother and not some predator that had discovered us.

In her mouth hung a bloodied and limp creature that was evidently already dead. My stomach rumbled and instinct told me that this would taste better than the milk I had been drinking all the way up until now. Mother laid the rabbit down in the center of the den before she tore chunks out of it and tossed them in our direction. One piece landed near me and I closed my jaws around the scrap, the taste of blood filling my mouth as I bit down. As I thought, the meat tasted much better than milk.

Though it was barely enough for me to eat, I still managed to get a few more small chunks of meat and Mother disappeared outside to discard the bones. She didn’t return for quite a while, not until the light filtering from outside had drained away and everything was dark. When she returned and curled around us, I could smell blood on her muzzle, a different creature’s blood this time. Mother must have gone out to hunt for herself this time. Burrowing closer to her and my siblings, I slept, the exhaustion of moving around so much today allowing me to fall asleep near instantly.

It was in this manner for the next few months that I grew up.

X

I’ve been alive for near six months now and my body was much stronger than before.

We were allowed to leave the den by now, and I had taken to tumbling around with my siblings, play fighting. Though our fangs were much too small to pierce through each other’s skin, by some instinct we tussled anyways.

I learned that my fur was an unnatural bone white, and that I had weird bumps on my head that Vulps weren’t supposed to have. My brother was a fiery orange, my sisters minty-green and sunny-yellow. Mother began teaching us about the world that we lived in, and I learned that the meat we ate that very first day we began eating meat was rabbit. I learned that this world had more than just us, this world was filled with ‘Spiritual Beasts’, which was what we were, and two-legged creatures draped in cloth known as ‘Humans’.

“No matter what, you must not trust a human. They will only bring you ruin.”

Mother cautioned us severely, but I never took her words too seriously. How bad could these ‘Humans’ be anyways?

Mother transformed in front of us for the first time a few weeks ago. Her elegant figure shone with a bright white light and when it subsided, there was what must be a ‘Human’ sitting on the rock that Mother had been lying on, hands folded on their lap and watching us with a gentle gaze.

We scrambled backwards in shock, and I saw that even Big Brother Elthur, the biggest and bravest of us also tumbled over his feet in his haste to get away. We huddled in a pile watching the human and I wondered where it came from. To my utter surprise, Mother’s voice came from the human’s jaw as she spoke to us in a patient tone,

“It’s alright, it is only me. When you have become stronger, you too can take a human form just like I did, and you can finally blend in with the humans.”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Hearing that, we immediately scampered back to Mother’s side and she picked us up with her hands, placing her on her lap. I pawed at the leaf-green cloth she was wearing - something the humans called ‘Robes’ - and asked,

“Mother, where did you get this robe? You didn’t have it before. Will we get such a thing if we transform too?”

Mother laughed, and I rather liked the sound of that laugh from her human body. Her fingers smoothed down my fur like she did with her tongue and I melted into the touch.

“This is something formed out of mana. When you are all strong enough, I will teach you how to transform, and how to mould mana into objects.”

“When will we be strong enough? I want to learn how to do this soon!”

Ethel was the one who spoke up, as she pulled at the long strands of yellow hair draped over Mother’s shoulders. It looked soft, softer than anything I had seen before, even the fur on Mother’s belly, and I gave it an experimental bat.

Mother smiled at us, and only said one thing,

“When you turn eighty years, you will be strong enough.”

X

A few days after we turned one year old, we nearly died.

Mother had left us with her usual warning of being careful when playing outside of the den and to run if danger appeared before leaving to hunt for the day’s food.

I peered into the clear water of the pond, eyes tracking the darting motions of a small, muddy-green salamander. Mother once said that this salamander was the baby of a Rank 2 Phoi, a winged, lizard-type Spiritual Beast that laid its eggs inside a water source and used its pair of leathery, slimy wings to search for food.

I dunked my head in the pond and snapped at the salamander just as it swam into the range of my jaws, greedily tempted by the possibility of a snack so much that I forgot Mother’s warning of never attacking the babies of several Beasts, including the Phoi, until I had developed my magic. The spurt of blood in my mouth told me that I was successful and I raised my prize triumphantly in the air, its tail still flapping weakly. There was a screech from somewhere inside the forest, and as I looked up, a frighteningly scaly dragon-like creature with large wings and a jaw filled with terrifyingly sharp fangs came barreling through the air towards me. It had a long, moss-coloured body and slime oozed out of the crevices between its scales. It was most definitely a Phoi, and by the looks of it, an infuriated mother.

I let out a yelp and dropped the salamander, which gave a few feeble squeaks before falling silent and motionless. Scrambling backwards, my limbs tangled with themselves and I was sent careening into my siblings, who were also huddled together, the four of us staring wide-eyed at the incoming mouth full of teeth. Involuntarily, we let out a high-pitched whine to call for Mother, but I wasn’t sure if Mother was nearby enough to hear us.

A crackling sound filled the clearing and there was a tingle in the air as blinding sparks curled around sister Ethel’s fangs. She must have unlocked her magic in this dangerous moment. She closed her jaws around one stumpy leg of the incoming Phoi and I heard a sharp crack resounded as her blunt fangs shattered the scales on the leg, the body of the Phoi quivering violently as the electricity coursed through her body. She lay paralysed in the soft clay of the pond’s bank and my nose twitched as I caught a familiar scent in the air. My siblings must have smelled it too, for they began crying out along with me. Mother burst out from the bushes with an enraged growl and tore into the belly of the Phoi, killing it messily and violently. As expected, there was no way a two Rank gap could be overcome. The blood splattered onto us and instead of being warm, like the prey Mother brought back for us to eat, it was chillingly cold and I reflexively huddled closer to sister Alair, though it did little to alleviate the chill curling through my body.

I curled up next to my siblings, trembling, as the rush of fear that heightened my senses left as quickly as it came. I was tired and the warm body of Mother now curled around us made me sleepy. Her tongue washed our heads and I buried my nose in brother Elthur’s neck, dozing off.

I wasn’t very hungry anymore anyways.

X

Today, we have just reached four years and three months old. Mother once told us that we would be strong enough to have a good chance of living to adulthood if we could just stay alive for the first twenty years.

Sister Alair just died today, despite Mother’s fervent efforts the whole time to try and keep all of us alive, nevermind the fact that we, as Spiritual Beasts, faced the threat of imminent death every day, especially when we were still this weak. In fact, it was a miracle that I, the weakest one in the litter, managed to survive. Perhaps it was because I had been nearest to the den this morning, so I was able to quickly dart past the opening before I could be snapped up by the huge, toad-like Beast. Its mouth spat out mouthfuls upon mouthfuls of stinky, black liquid. When it splattered on the shrubs and tree bark, the vegetation sizzled as it dissolved away, a foul odour released from the sites of contact.

Ethel and Elthur dodged the blobs of dangerous liquid - it seemed like something that ate away whatever it touched, how scary - with relative ease as they too tumbled into the narrow opening of the den, too small for the toad Beast to follow. Sister Alair followed one step behind, but that one step sealed her fate.

With a high-pitched whine of pain and fear, a few drops of the burning liquid that splashed onto her back legs ate into her flesh - I was completely frozen with terror at the sight - as she crashed down to the earth with a muffled thud. The toad beast loomed over her and I stared, unable to look away as there was a loud crunching sound as it bit down on her struggling body. It was a weird thought, to see a kit from the same litter as I die just like that. Unlike the humans, as I later found out, I felt no horror or trauma at the sight of my sister’s bloodied and limp body, merely fear that the next would be me. It was possibly because I had been born with wilderness in my veins and instinct whispering in my ear, so I felt nothing much except deep sorrow and loss from my sister’s departure. My instincts told me I had to make sure I survived first before I mourned, and so I pressed up against the back wall of the den and tried to keep as quiet as possible, the need for self-preservation winning over the desire to cry out for mother and alert the Spiritual Beast outside to our location.

However, whether it be good fortune or not, once again, Mother arrived in a whirlwind of fury and claws. She was unable to save our sister, but she came in time to save the rest of us. As the Spiritual Beast was fixated on the body of my sister, mouth open to take a bite from her side, Mother descended upon him with a wrathful screech, a familiar crackling sound emitting from her direction as electricity arced through the air and bored into the body of the Spiritual Beast, an agonised howl ripping through the air. The scene was familiar to me, just like when Sister Ethel paralysed the Phoi with her small spark of Lightning magic, except Mother was infinitely more powerful and awe-inspiring.

With a final growl, Mother tore open his throat, killing him and flinging his body roughly to the side, clouds of dust rising from the impact. We crept out after seeing that the danger had passed, and the warning bells in my head had also silenced as well.

I nosed the already-cold body of my sister, in some vain hope that she was still alive, but her heart did not beat and she did not rouse. The green fur on her back and legs were stained and matted with red blood that slowly seeped into the ground. Letting out a soft cry, joined by my siblings and along with the sorrowful howl of our Mother, we mourned her passing. That night, the air seemed ever so still, ever so silent.

I could not have predicted that this would not be the last loss we would experience, at that time, I was content to stay close with this family that had grown one member smaller.