Sapience, Intelligence, Imagination, Creativity, Wisdom, Sentience, these are some of the traits that have caused homosapiens, human beings living on the surface of Earth to become the apex predator and de facto top of the food chain.

Thus the question remains, what does it mean to be truly intelligent, self-aware, concious, and most of all...aware.

One cloudy night, inside of a zoo's particular enclosure which is adapted for the natural needs of a living panda to exist and live comfortable, a panda sleeps.

It's rhytmic breathing remains a parallel with the slow and constant upward and downward motion of it's chest.

In a sudden burst of light that disturbs the calming serenity of the night inside of the panda's enclosure, it's skull started to glow in an eerie light blue coloring.

So bright and sudden did the light come that some of the other pandas sleeping were woken up and released from their slumber. Yet even with the commotion caused by the other pandas, the cause of the commotion did not so much as fluctuate their breathing nor opened it's eyes.

As the bright light continues to shine, it seems to gain even more power in it's energy until even the skull itself has become visible from the outside.

Skull glowing an eerie blue akin to shallow waters of the beach, with a light so powerful as to pierce through the confines of flesh. After about a minute of the intense glow, not only did the light not fade away, it intensified for one final time, and this time, the shine seems to a power such that even the insides of the panda's brain seems to be visible from outside now.

Web-like network of pseudo tentacles appeared from the base of the panda's spine that connects to the brain. slowly but surely it approaches, from the spine connecting to the brain, to the brain itself.

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The moment it touched the sleeping panda's brain, visible change can be seen inside of the brain that is now able to be seen from the outside world...

The thin pseudo tentacles could be seen rearranging, contorting, and modifying the brain, until finally the light suddenly faded, more suddenly than when it first appeared.

After the light faded did the panda in question finally opens it's eyes and unravels the sight of the new world with the blessing of a new mind. Confusion filled it's new mind due to not understanding anything that has occured to it, it fell to the natural instincts that have been passed down from generations before him through genetics and screamed, cried, and wailed.

It's screams reverberate through the compound in a fierce shriek in such a loud decibel that it has caused windows of the enclosure designed for the zoo's viewing audiences to wobble as well as cause microscopic cracks / flaws in it's structure to widen.

While luckily the incident happened at night, humans living in the surrounding area reported a shriek that they've heard in the dead of night. And some would even call it a supernatural sound unlike anything they've ever heard.

Exhausting all of it's available energy, and not knowing it's new mind with all of the new sensations and informations that comes from it, the now changed panda fell back into slumber, closing it's eyes and opening them no more.

That night, the in-built alarm of the zoo designed to inform of an escaping animal has activated, thus resulting in what has happened to the panda to not escape the attention of humans.

Slumbering back to the land of dreams, the nameless panda rests.

It's mind expanded, It's senses sharper, it's dreams more vivid...

Gifted imagination, gifted sentience, gifted new life...

While at first it seems that life or nature has only given the panda gifts that are inherently positive, everything that life gives are usually akin to coins, with different sides for both the positives and negatives.

The more you have, the more you can lose.

Thus as life gives the panda its blessings, life has also given the panda its curses.

With intelligence, emotion, sentience, and all others, also comes lonelyness, depression, greed, existential horror and other such vices.

Everything that was required for humans to be able to become the ruler of the planet and more has now been given to this now unique panda.

For now, it rests and gathers it's strength.

But tomorrow it will awaken. And with it's awakening, a spark of change will erupt into existence.

Author's note:

For now this story is only a hobby and a thought experiment of mine, thus i will not have any fixed schedule of when i will be updating this story.

Who knows? maybe even never if i feel disappointed in my writing abilities.

This story will have very heavy philosophical, ideological, and moral themes. If you feel that this is not your cup of tea, then you don't have to read, just move on and find a different one.