Spoiler :

Sorry for being so late.

As I think I mentioned in my other fanfic first I was busy with exams then I got sick (so was out of commission for a few days) and then I lost the data for this chapter (or what this chapter used to look like) then I finally got inspired enough to think up a oneshot to enter in the may compettion (see notes). Finally I was participating in graduating [th_103_.gif]  and moving my stuff first to my sister’s house and then to my parents (or 'my' house).

Then what happened is basically I was tired so I decided to have a mini vacation...which course led to a relapse of my laziness disease...I somehow managed to fight off the disease long enough to post that WMAW chapter...but then that 'darned' disease it got me in its grips again and it has only been this last few days where I have managed to start working on RF again.

Once again I surprised myself on how slow this story is moving...believe it or not I have had other stories (though those two RF and WMAW along with the one shot BR, are the only ones I have 'published' right now.

With a lot of these other stories (especially the ones inspired by dreams) I tend to write really fast and don't usually even use as much words...but so far I have found that with my day-dream inspired stories (examples: WMAW and RF) my tendency to be wordy has a greater influence on my writing, it is also somewhat harder to 'get inspired' because with my dream based stories I usually 'hear' the voice of the characters a lot more clearly plus occasionally I will have a rerun on the source material while I sleep which makes it even easier.

(though with both types when I attempt to edit it I usually end up with more words instead of less)

So get to the point: I have a ton of stories that are just sitting there in storage...plus I have a few ideas that I had recently created and haven't been put in storage yet -and I was wondering whether I should publish what I have on Royalroad or some other place. Or I could finally start working on my blog/website and put everything there...or I could just wait until everything is more complete.

There was also this one idea I had originally designed just for Royalroad but I am now having many second thoughts about actually going through it with it...

So basically I am just mulling things over right now...in the near future I may (or may not) make a poll about it and ask you guys what you think I should do (its just something to keep in mind)

Note: If anybody is interested I have entered a oneshot in the current competition Behemoth Rodeo (Just know that it is somewhat different in style then what  I have portrayed so far)

Note1.5:

*Just know that below/beyond this point (at least up to note2) is a bunch of crap that I will probably later erase. *

Random Crud:

Also I have a comment about the oneshot competition I really want to discuss is some of the so called 'critique' that I have been reading not just on my oneshot but on other peoples oneshots.

Comment is this:

I find many of these posts very annoying. I am not talking about the ones that point out spelling errors or give suggestions that the authors ask for...although I disagree with some of the suggestions on the whole I find them appropriate. What I am referring to are the comments/'critique' that find fault with key elements of the story that are what’s making up the story! Let me give an example (on a oneshot I just made up).

Oneshot A is about such and such then such, and then the other of A asks for help in making it better/making their writing better. Critic A instead of pointing out problems within the such instead complains about the use of the And. Why do that?! I think, I mean the whole point of Oneshot A is that it follows a such AND such then Such formula, without the 'And' the whole thing falls apart , you know?...There is even the strong possibility that without the ‘and’ or something as a substitute that  the oneshot becomes a completely different story! It is not the story they are complaining about it is the style of the story...but they offer no clues as to why the style is wrong nor do they advise any appropriate substitutes

Another example is with Oneshot B the author has elements that are obviously fictional, things happen in it that would never happen in real life, and the author does not hand hold and tell the readers everything It is the type of story where one has to imagine some things for oneself. Then Critic B complains about things not being "realistic" enough and also that the author does not give enough background information. Come on! It’s an ONESHOT not a full story A ONESHOT! It is not necessary that things be completely utterly realistic (unless one is aiming for that raw style) In short fiction stories especially oneshots limited to under 10,000 words because of it being a competition it is the NORM to fudge the details and to leave things out. Read any famous or 'official' short story and I guarantee you won't see fobs of data, and every camouflaged plot hole plugged. Another annoying aspect of Critic B is that is besides complaining about something that doesn't really have room for complaint is that Mr(s) B is also finding fault with the back bone of the story, if that part they say to chuck wasn't there then the story would be a completely different story then What it Is!

Finally we have oneshot C. This oneshot is sort of a combo of both A and B but it has problems that neither have, there is a tone of spelling and grammar issues, plot holes so big that they even exceed the tolerance of an oneshot and become plot canyons. Or possibly one shot C is absolutely perfect and has no viable problems. So with all of these problems (or lack thereof) you would think that Critic C would have some good advice to give to the C author. But NOOO! (at least in my opinion) instead of help with the problems or pointing out exactly how the author has no problems Critic C instead decides to focus on a teeny tiny part of the story and complains about it...we are talking about approximately 10/10,000 words...that is how minor this part is...and (at least to mine eyes) there is nothing even wrong with theses ten words. Or maybe Critic C is not focusing on the words but a little bit of fictional trivia that has barely anything to do with the plot...it is just a little flavor enhancer but for no given reason Critic C decides to pick a fight about it...

Huff-puff sorry about that, I just went a little overboard I guess...but

Once again these oneshots I give as examples and their critics are completely fictional but I hope it helps other people to understand my feelings on the 'subject'

Note2:

I think this chapter is kind of boring...but (for those who have bothered to read this far) let me explain.

In the original version of the chapter (before it was mysteriously lost)  it was in MC's point of view (as one might expect) it was basically about all the eggs (except the MC and a perhaps a couple of extreme newbies) hatching out. It was titled 'To the Outside!' (a title I will probably still use in a future chapter probably the next).

While I can't remember much about this (dramatic noise) lost chapter. I think it 'wasn't bad' but when I decided to try and rewrite it...for some reason I couldn't manage to do it. At this time I was also writing the chapter of WMAW from the VM's point of view...which probably was an influence.

Now while I had always planed for WMAW to have at least 2 main POV, I had planned for RF to only have one main one and then only use  others in the side stories...but then I ended up writing this chapter (and probably the next few) from that one brother's point of view.

So you probably won't hear from the MC directly until right before they hatch out...(whilst a lot of action is happening) ...hope the new narrator is bearable...

To conclude this: I will say that the MC is still going to narrate the majority of the chapters...but apparently now and then there will be a 'mini arc' (shall we call it?) where a different person will be the POV/narrator

Sorry for anybody disappointed

The Dark and the Lights

(The 'Favorite' Brother)

I had been since the moment I gained consciousness, I was; despite being only barely able to think: unbearably lonely. Though it is blurry to me now, I can still recall not even knowing what lonely was, despite drowning in its daily. It was a case of being so used to lack that one didn’t know one was lacking.

But then lowly, ever so slowly I grew stronger, more intelligent and eventually even being able to be capable of understanding. This state of almost consciousness came in small waves, the intermissions decreasing slightly with each peak in frequency.

The main reason I don’t remember much of this time is because there wasn’t really much that was there for me to remember. Most of my time was spent in a sort of ‘endless’ dream. A dream without any ups or downs, a dream without any knowledge. A dream of pure innocence but also a dream of deep ignorance.

But this state couldn’t be maintained, and eventually one then most of my almost conscious states grew long enough for me to actually start the process of gaining memories, gaining knowledge.

The first memory was probably the knowledge of my own existence. Though I couldn’t think about it much without ending up in a confused circle. I had started to realize that there must be a ‘me’ although I was unable to put words to this concept of ‘self’ I still gained a small amount of comprehension of my own existence.

It was a most tiny germ of a germ idea, but it was still something that allowed me to store the concept that there ‘was’ ‘something’ thinking and feeling things and this ‘was’ was myself.

Soon after this first understanding the pain from the loneliness briefly got worse, but I quickly acclimatized myself to not noticing it again. From this concept of ‘self’ in my still brief though longer periods of consciousness I started to develop a concept of ‘non-self’.

This concept included such things as ‘darkness’ and ‘sound’ or sometimes the lack of sound. Most importantly eventually it included anything that was not of my ‘mind’ or ‘body’ once I realized that some of the sensations I was feeling was because of certain ‘input’ I was receiving from another part of self, that unlike my mind was more concrete and had boundaries.

It was this idea of my ‘body’ and ‘boundaries’ that soon led me to the path that led me to the concept of ‘others’. After I realized and acknowledged the concepts of self and non-self, I started to notice a non-self that was different from what I had already categorized.

The main reason this non-self was different, was because unlike those prior to it, it was not something always present but something intermittent. Sometimes in my conscious time I could almost feel it, other times I could not. Sometimes it even seemed to awake me from my unconscious state, especially during times it was more ‘active’ or ‘energetic’.

Which brings me to the other unique trait of this non-other. Not only was it intermittent in its duration of appearance it was also irregular in the size or type of the feeling I got from it. Sometimes it was most easy to sense, other times unless I was concentrating really carefully and powerfully I couldn’t sense it at all, and even with the focus I could only sense it barely.

Actually it was during one of those times where I was reaching to sense it that I had my next major breakthrough. I was trying so hard to sense it that my mind somehow went beyond itself, as soon as it did I felt this warm glow within myself suddenly appearing.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

This warm glow seemed to make me stronger and after drawing off its energy and attempting to sense the strange non-self again, I found myself suddenly stunned by something I would later know to consider ‘light’.

I am not ashamed to say that I was absolutely terrified and almost immediately broke my mind probe. Why should I feel ashamed of how I felt then? I was only a baby after all. After this event for what felt like a long time I hid within myself, and I tried to concentrate on my prior activities excluding sensing for that strange non-self.

But soon two new concept grew within me that were detrimental to maintaining my seclusion. They were (dramatic pause) ‘boredom’ and ‘curiosity’. Both came about because I had gotten a small taste of something completely and utterly different then what I had experienced so far.

 Curiosity because I increasingly almost to the point of desperation wanted to know more about those ‘new’ things, and boredom because I was preventing myself from indulging in that curiosity and was instead trying to do the same old things I had already done before.

Eventually of course curiosity and boredom conquered me and I soon found myself once again focusing my mind. I instinctively realized that it didn’t make sense to try to sense that unreliable ‘non-self’ but instead it would be a much better idea to use my energy to make another mind probe and to ‘see’ what I could ‘see’.

I don’t know how many attempts it took until I managed, what I had before done accidentally, but this time on purpose but I don’t think it took that long because I hadn’t even started to get bored again before I managed it.

Once again I found myself experiencing ‘light’. But this time instead of running away in fear I managed to get a hold of myself and maintain my ‘location’ and just ‘observe’. I soon realized a few things, although the ‘light’ was everywhere it did not cover ‘everywhere’ and in fact the much more familiar ‘darkness’ actually had greater quantities then the ‘light’.

Eventually I even managed to comprehend that the light wasn’t ‘light’ in fact the light was more truthfully ‘lights’. I ‘looked’ at all of the lights, and thought/felt they were beautiful, gazing at those lights for the first time I felt something that I would later identify as ‘happiness’.

For what seemed like an endless amount of time I observed the lights, basking in their glow I was warmed from the inside out. Then while I was for some unknown reason focusing on two lights in particular and then comparing them, suddenly something in my thoughts ‘clicked’ and with that my warmth was quenched by a abrupt overflow of fear and for the second time I made a retreat back into myself.

This time my seclusion was a lot shorter, mostly because there had been no danger so far, my experiences had planted in me a small sprout of courage, and with the knowledge of the boredom consequence and the curiosity temptation I was soon more than ready to try again. This time prepared to see things with slightly less innocent ‘eyes’.

Once I was out and observing again I confirmed the concept that caused my instinctive fear. This concept unlike that of my concept of self and non-self-had been quite shocking and alien. This concept was one that pertained to ‘size’.

I am not sure why but something in me told me that I didn’t have to be concerned about the little ‘lights’ that were ‘close by’, and that I also probably didn’t have to worry about the bigger lights that were ‘far away’. But this ‘instinct’ told me that the ‘huge’ light that was bigger than most of the bigger lights combined was most likely extremely dangerous.

Of course I didn’t really know what ‘danger’ was back then, but my mostly untapped instincts knew exactly what danger was, and preformed their purpose as life preservation aids by flooding me with fear to get me to avoid that huge light.

So having been taught by that life preserving triggered fear, I decided to be most careful in avoiding that huge light. However I continued to observe it and the other lights. Eventually boredom crept on me again, but although I still thought the lights were beautiful none of the lights seemed to ‘do’ anything.

Thus I didn’t really think about doing anything myself. Then one day as I was watching the lights a majority of the little lights vanished. After I realized that the lights could ‘do’ things I gained curiosity towards them, but other than some vanishing they still didn’t seem to move, so if I wanted to find out more I would have to be the one to do the moving.

So curiosity dragged me to cautiously attempt to ‘touch’ one of the small remaining ‘nearby’ lights. But I soon ran into a problem. Despite being ‘close’ (my concept of distance developed around the same time as my concept of size so I had some rudimentary form of measurement even back then) I still could not reach those lights with my mind probe.

The length of my mind reach was and is (even to this day) shamefully short. However despite my lack, I didn’t give up and instead tried to lengthen myself by ‘stretching’. After a certain amount of stretching there was a ‘snap’ and I suddenly found myself back inside myself while really and truly experiencing the concept of ‘pain’ for the first time.

The pain was quickly over but it had left quite the impression on me, it had made me learn its lesson much deeper then fear had. But I was quickly able to calculate that so long as I didn’t go as far as I had last time there shouldn’t be any pain when I stretched, a prediction that was soon easily confirmed.

However having the knowledge didn’t get me any closer to the light I was reaching for. But when I casually tried again to stretch farther I found too my surprise that I was able to go farther than I had been able to before. So much father that through my excitement I soon heard the ‘snap’ again and felt its accompanying pain.

What followed should be obvious. I would stretch until it ‘snapped’ and then I would repeat the process, each time ending up a little closer to my goal. However after each time the amount of increase in range decreased until I was barely improving each time, and then until it seemed almost worthless to do as I couldn’t see any betterment at all.

But despite this depressing news I continued to keep at it until finally I reached my goal I was able after completely stretching myself out able to barely brush the edge of the light I had aimed for.

As soon as I managed to ‘touch’ the light was suddenly somehow unreachable again. I was confused but as my state hadn’t changed there was only one answer. The light must have moved. Although ‘I’ was unable to touch it, I could still ‘look’ at it.

I studied it for a long time and then after a while the light slowly ‘floated’ back into its original place, but as soon as I touched it again it would once again become unavailable to anything but looking. Eventually, after several times I gave up and just decided to watch it.

While I started to feel disappointed, for what was probably the first time, and had also felt the beginning stirring of boredom I was determined and sure that there had to be ‘more’ to the light then what I was getting. Some sort of secret that would explain to me what made this non-self, light and thus different from myself and darkness.

Just when I had run over this thought in my head, I felt it again. That strange non-self that had inadvertently inspired me to go outside myself. Instead of stopping the stretching and thus my ability to look at the light closely, I instead held myself still.

And unlike what my instincts were screaming me to accept the non-self-did nothing to me, it was like it didn’t even see me. I then noticed that the light had ‘dimmed’. Almost like it was afraid. That’s when I had my next big revelation. The light and probably all lights were like me. They could feel afraid.

That is why the light moved everytime I touched it, it probably had instincts as well and was afraid of me. That’s when getting a question of sorts I looked at myself for the first time in order to get answers. I saw that I, though nowhere near that huge scary light in size, was still actually much larger then all of the little lights I could see, and probably some of the lights in the distance that I mostly couldn’t.

I wondered then if this theory was correct, because if these lights were like me why did they continue to be afraid? Did they not get curious? Why didn’t they reach for me when I tried to reach for them? Then the loneliness attacked me with more pain then any of the other times combined.

Once I had accepted and dismissed that familiar feeling. I formed a new theory, while the lights were indeed like me in some ways, and the seemed to also ‘feel’ and possibly they even had selves. They were the same as what I had thought from the beginning they were non-self. They were not me.

And because they were not me they were basically random variables that I had no control or concept of. This scared me because if they were like me, even if they were not me, what if what whatever made the majority of the other little lights vanished happened to me?

Not wanting to believe these ideas I decided to try and attempt to reach the other lights. Eventually I succeeded with several others, but most were too far away.

But for the ones I did succeed with on the whole I was disappointed. Most were like that first light and were terrified of me and would always ‘hide’ when I came ‘near’. However with one I could somewhat say it was a success. This light was slightly brighter than the other little lights, and unlike the others when I reached out to them they also reached out to me.

Just like how I could guess how the others were ‘afraid’ I was somehow able to tell that they like me were curious. However unlike me they didn’t seem as curious, and they also didn’t seem to ever get afflicted with boredom.

When I was reaching for them, they seemed to accept it. But when getting frustrated with my lack of advancement with them, they never also seemed frustrated. Just confused at my state, it seemed like they couldn’t recognize it.

I myself couldn’t recognize my frustration because with the limited amount of things I had learned in my small lifetime there was no reason for me to be frustrated. This bright little light was a new experience, and unlike the other lights it was willing to interact with me. I should have been totally satisfied.

However I was increasingly and overwhelmingly dissatisfied to the point that I gave up on it and returned to myself to ‘rest’ although I never really seemed to need to rest I was still somewhat able to do it. This time, after focusing on myself there was a difference.

That warm energy that I had used before to go outside of myself, was still there but this time I actually studied it. Because ‘I’ had created it I had immediately categorized it as myself and then dismissed it from thought. But now that I studied it I realized that though I created it was not of myself and should have gone under the category of non-self.

I wanted to ‘play’ with it but then my instinct interfered again and I became too afraid to. But thinking about non-selves got me thinking of that mysterious non-self I occasionally still felt. I decided to begin from the beginning as it were and to once again focus on sensing it.

After waiting quite a while I felt its presence. I immediately went out of myself, this time instead of being distracted by other things I followed the presence to its source…and found a shocking discovery.

The presence I had been sensing, my unofficial instructor and guide was the terrifying huge light.