Squeak. Chitter. Squeak. Squeak. Chitter.

Squeaking and chittering. The very first sounds I have ever heard.

Prying my eyes open, I sluggishly turn my head around. With great effort, I try to keep my eyes open so that I can see my surroundings. But all that I could see were blurry shapes. The squeaks and chitters were coming from these shapes. My ears told me so.

Keeping my eyes open tired me, so I just let them close and went back to sleep.

Chitter. Chitter. Squeak. Squeak.

And yet again, I’m woken up by how noisy the shapes are. Instead of using my eyes, I find it better to use my nose and ears.

Crawling and writhing, I move towards the blurry shapes that keep waking me everytime I sleep. As I sat in front of these shapes, I could smell them clearly. They smelled odd. They didn’t smell good or bad. Just odd. Sniffing my own body, I realize that we smell the same, that we have the exact same smell. Odd indeed.

They kept squeaking, their squeaks grating my sensitive ears. Annoyed, I move away from them.

I wanted to go back to sleep but they were too noisy and wouldn’t stop. So I waited.

But after a while, I started feeling hungry. Crawling around, I try to look for food. After a few minutes passed, I didn’t find anything and I didn’t have the energy to keep looking.

Tired and hungry, I think I now understand why the others were squeaking and chattering so loudly. As I began to loudly squeak, I realized.

The blurry shapes were my siblings. And we were all hungry.

After an unknown amount of time, after a good amount of squeaking, Mother appeared. She sniffed us and licked us. Then she laid down, showing her stomach to us. Moving closer to her, we instantly sensed something. Sniffing around, we smelled something good coming from Mother.

We hurriedly crawled over to her before finding the source of the delicious smell. On Mother’s stomach, there were small buds. They were the source of the good smell.

My stomach rumbled, so I moved towards Mother to eat my fill. But I wasn’t the only one. My siblings also rushed to eat.

I wonder what it was like for Mother. Small children fighting on her stomach.

But soon enough, we were all suckling.

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Weeks later

Me and my siblings were growing very fast. Just a few weeks ago, we were half the size we are now. I was even the tallest and biggest among my siblings.

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Mother appeared and disappeared everyday. But she always came back. Everytime she returned, we would always go to eat the food Mother would bring us.

Mother would spend time with us, either playing or grooming us. But eventually, she would leave. Wherever she goes, we don’t know. We can only hope that she’ll come back every time.

There wasn’t much to do. The place where me, Mother and my siblings live didn’t have much. Our home was cold. Whenever Mother returned and sleeptime arrived, we would all pile ourselves and sleep on each other. We could only rely on each other’s warmth to stave off the chills of our home.

Although, Mother would often bring back bones for us to chew. I, in particular, love chewing bones. Other than to grind my teeth to keep them from growing too long, chewing bones somehow made me happy. Everytime I gnawed on a bone, a smile somehow always appeared on my face. Not that I would know what a smile is.

So there’s our routine. Wake up, Mother would leave, my siblings and I would either play or chew bones, Mother returns, we eat and suckle, we play some more, Mother would clean us, we go to sleep and repeat.

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A few days later

After a while, our routine was starting to get boring. Me and my siblings were getting restless. We were too curious, too energetic. We wanted to leave home and explore outside. But Mother wouldn’t let us. Whenever someone tries to leave the nest or follow Mother to wherever she goes, Mother would get angry.

So we had no choice but to stay in our nest, playing with each other or grinding our teeth on bones.

But then today was different.

My siblings and I sensed something. From the sounds and smells, we knew Mother has returned. But something was off. There was something else with her. Something new. We all put our guard up. After all, we didn’t know new.

As Mother arrived, she looked around and approached us. Moving closer, she would pick us up and sniff at us. One by one, Mother would sniff each of my siblings before moving on to the others.

Curious, I walk over to Mother and talk to her. As I chittered, she looked at me before picking me up. She buried her nose on my face, neck and stomach, sniffing me for some reason.

Then she put me down. I somewhat expected her to also sniff the others, but she just suddenly stopped and stared at me. Curious and having no idea what’s going on, I chitter to Mother, asking her what’s going on.

But then, out of nowhere, Mother started heaving. She doubled over and started to choke.

My siblings and I started panicking. Mother doubling over and heaving was new. We didn’t know new. We were helpless as we watched Mother gag and choke.

But thankfully, soon enough, Mother finally spat out whatever was stuck in her throat. She coughed and coughed over and over before calming down with deep breaths.

My siblings and I didn’t pay any more attention to her though. We were focused on the thing that she just spat out of her mouth. We were staring at what made Mother double over and choke.

It was an orb. It was a ball that was glowing.

As we stared at it, we were instantly entranced. It was new. It was scary. But it was also beautiful.

Mother moved over and picked the glowing orb with her paws. Walking towards me, she reached out and was giving me the orb.

I didn’t know what it was nor did I know what it was for. But if Mother was giving me something, that meant that it was good. But the moment my paws touched the orb, it was as if my mind was shaken and rattled. Subconsciously, I brought the glowing orb up to my face.

I didn’t know what I was doing. But somehow, I felt that opening my mouth was a good idea. Taking a bite and eating the orb seemed like an even better idea.

And as I swallowed the orb, I died.

…

Or did I?