“You suck, Abner,” I thought to myself as I opened my eyes, the blurry burrow around me slowly coming into dim focus — a daily mantra that kept me mostly sane in my new environment.

Of course, it only came out in a series of high-pitched squeaks, indiscernible from the squeaking that surrounded me. But I liked to think that Abner — with his strange, world-traversing magical powers — could hear and understand me.

Because no one else could.

Because I was a chipmunk.

When Abner said I would be reborn into a new world, I’d understood that it would be different from my old life. Perhaps I would be in a poorer, undeveloped country. Perhaps I’d have to start over as a baby. Perhaps I’d have to learn an entirely new language from scratch.

But never had I considered that I might not even be human.

Peter crawled by me, jostling me out of the way in desperation for his breakfast, and I squeaked indignantly before crawling after him, shoving my hungry sibling out of the way so I could gain access to my own breakfast.

“Oi! Slow down and make some room! Quit hogging!” I called to Peter, but the glutton ignored my squeaks as he sucked greedily on our mother’s teat, and I hurried to claim my own spot in the line.

There were five of us, and while our mother had more than enough milk to keep us all fed, she wasn’t the most patient of parents. As I’d learned during a few of the early days of my rebirth, she wouldn’t wait around all day if I were too slow to claim my meal.

I sucked down a few mouthfuls of the strangely delicious milk before pausing when I realized I still heard squeaking from behind me, releasing the teat with a sigh. Using all of my meager strength, I shoved Peter’s bulk to the side, making space for Miriam, the runt of our litter, to reach our mother’s stomach. Peter, of course, didn’t notice my shoving in the slightest, continuing to obliviously suck down his breakfast. Eventually, there was enough room for Miriam to squeeze forward with her smaller frame and find a teat of her own, which she eagerly began sucking on without a squeak of thanks.

I just sighed before returning to my own breakfast — it was difficult being the responsible sibling.

It had been four weeks since I’d awoken in this burrow, blind, furless, and squeaking in pain. Or at least I thought it had been about that long — it was difficult to keep track of time when I slept half the day and hardly any light reached us in our underground hideout. My estimate was mostly based on how often we fed, though even that was difficult to track. After the first week, the numbers all started to blend together. Especially after, in my boredom, I decided to run through all my multiplication tables to pass the time.

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Thankfully, it seemed my boredom might soon be ending. I was no expert in the life cycle of chipmunks, but I’d noticed that our mother was producing less milk in the last few feedings. Another day or two and I doubted she’d have enough to give any of us more than a mouthful before running dry. I hoped chipmunks weren’t in the category of animals to simply toss their young out into the wild and hope they survived. I had some instincts from my new body — I’d surprised myself by how forcefully I’d latched on in my first meal post-birth — but I wasn’t sure they were strong enough to see myself survive entirely on my own. And despite my mother’s apathy, I wasn’t ready to be separated from my new family so soon.

Even worse, I worried for the dangers I might face once I left our burrow. Once again, I was no ecology expert, but I was pretty sure a baby chipmunk was close to the bottom of any food chain. I knew most rodent-type creatures had abysmal survival rates, and I had no intention of becoming a statistic.

Although…part of me was tempted.

I was a chipmunk.

Surely, there had been some sort of mistake. I’d asked for a challenge, and Abner had stated that things would be different in this life…but surely being reborn as a chipmunk wasn’t intentional. Right? Every day, I hoped for a flash and then to appear back in that weird not-space in a seat across from Abner, the not-man apologizing profusely for his error.

Only Abner’s assurance of ‘only getting one’ kept me from thinking too heavily about a restart via the mouth of a nearby predator. Well, that, and the potential pain of death.

I wasn’t suicidal, though, and Abner had made it clear this was a one-and-done. I had no desire to find out what came next, at least not any earlier than what might happen naturally.

So, I endured. I jostled with my siblings — Jacob, Alphonse, Miriam, and Fat Peter — squeaking in concert when hungry or playfully wrestling, and I eyed the dirt in the corner that hid the buried nuts and acorns our mother hoarded from her trips out of the burrow.

Most of all, I hoped for a change. I’d wished for a challenge, but for the challenge to only be loneliness and boredom? A quick life followed by an even quicker death in the jaws of a fox or other predator?

That was not the type of challenge I’d been looking for. I hoped Abner had understood — it seemed like he had understood when I’d first made my request. Yet here I was, in the body of a chipmunk, getting ready to make my first foray out of the burrow.

So I hoped — prayed — for a change, for something to reveal itself that proved this new life wasn’t just some massive practical joke or bureaucratic mix-up on Abner’s part.

And two days later, as my mother nosed me and my siblings out of the burrow, the light of the sun shining through leaves to touch our thin fur for the first time — my prayers were answered.

Quest Completed!

Quest: Survive Infancy.

Reward: System unlock.