Chapter 3: The creatures

It's not that Aron cannot eat, he can and he has actually eaten all kinds of plants, animals, mutated creatures or other random organisms he has come across during his travels. He has even eaten sand stones and all, but no matter what he eats everything just gets dissolved inside him. But one thing is that he does not feel any taste on eating anything. It may be due to him being made of rocks or something similar, well he doesn't even want to think about it.

And as he continued to sleep, many changes took place inside the forest. Many creatures who were once touched by Aron started to show mutations, becoming larger and heavier and more powerful than previous time. As such it caused major disturbance and reorganization in the original food chain.

But it was all just a start, as those mutated creatures started to develop and reproduce, their offspring started to gain their mutation, but it was not a direct mutation, few had similar bodily mutation overall, but no matter what creature it was, it started to evolve, further on their food chain. And as such several creatures started to emerge and form colonies and as the time passed their resemblance and habits and even their body structure started to change, so much so that they no longer have similarity with others of their earlier species, forming a new species entirely.

And as they evolved and progressed, they all started to fight for food and mate making the already chaotic jungle even more chaotic. Some now evolved organisms, fully mutated with powerful bodies, become the overlord of an area. And as some hunted alone some not fully mutated with powerful bodies formed groups to hunt as such they started to compete with others for food and mate. But these mutations did not only occur in these creatures and their offspring, who were once picked by Aron but nearly in all organisms where Aron was sleeping. All the plants started to grow faster, trees got thicker and taller even other creatures who were not touched by Aron started to mutate and evolve. But all these changes happened only within the surroundings of the Aron where he was sleeping. As we travel farther from him the mutated creatures decline and normal species can be seen, it's as if Aron is a kind of radiation source, emitting radiation, mutating his surroundings.

But these did not happen instantly, as these were all gradual changes and took several hundreds years to happen. Many new organisms evolved and many got nullified in this cruel competition of nature. Some organisms randomly disappeared and some new appeared making the biodiversity more enormous.

After some five or six hundred of years or so, Aron again woke up. It may be due to his thoughts or curiosity for the new organisms, as if Aron instinctively felt new changes caused by him in his sleep, waking him much earlier. In his dream Aron vaguely felt several tiny dots as if in the original black void a few tiny stars had appeared. In the beginning there were only a few stars, then more tiny stars started to appear later, as many previous stars started to disappear forming a chain. Aron felt a little less familiar with these new stars but non the less the difference was so minute that he chose not focused on it.

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Waking up he clearly felt the changes from his naked eyes, the whole forest surrounding him has become more massive and wild, many trees have grown larges and thicker and have become giants ranging several meters. He can even observe many new creatures this time.

And this time his waking up did not cause major disturbance, as he was in the forest for a long time and Aron did not make any sound when waking up.

But looking from above, it can still be felt that just when Aron woke up the whole forest suddenly got silent as if someone had pressed the mute button on the wildlife channel, as every creature in there stopped doing whatever they were doing. Prey and predators they all ignored each other and just stood still, turning in the direction Aron was, they all prostrated.

Aron was a little surprised by this change, as he can tell that these creatures were still afraid of him but Aron felt as if they were all related to him. Yes this feeling, he felt for the first time and he is not feeling this from some creatures but from nearly all, no matter microbes other creatures or insects or plants, he felt them all, familiar as they were all related to him, tough these feeling was minute, it was still there. He can even feel this familiar feeling coming from the mist till a long distance. This was the first time and Aron was very happy at this feeling as if he is finally alive, since the long time he has spent here, Aron, this is the first time he has ever felt this kind of feeling of familiarity, as if he is at home with is family.

Slightly caressing the little creature he had picked, Aron closed his eyes in ecstasy. He has long since lost the meaning of time but at this moment he just wants it to stay as it is. Carefully and gently placing the creature on the ground, trying his best not to hurt it, Aron smiled brightly. He did not care about what kind of creatures they were, this feeling in his heart cannot be faked. Aron can see that these creatures were still mindless, but their size and shape has changed as many new larger and more hideous creatures can be seen, but Aron didn't mind, as it proved that he had many members in his family.

Aron suddenly thought of looking at the new creatures around him and thought of exploring them, but suddenly it struck him, he cannot move without hurting them, even a slight forceful touch can destroy the surrounding environment. As now that they were a big family as he can feel the familiar energy from them similar to his body, he cannot hurt them, calming his mind Aron tried to look at these creatures and observe them. He can instinctively locate them, as like a star in the dark night sky. He can tell there were more than 10,000 of tiny dots near him only, and countless tiny, flickering lights in air, so tiny that he cannot observe them clearly, always flickering as if dying and birthing.

Aron was not disappointed with the nearby creatures, he looked at them and their behaviors, feeling more and more satisfied. As this state of satisfaction suddenly struck him, the forest was too silent, looking at all those creatures looking in his direction and prostrating and looking at his countless tentacles moving in air, Aron suddenly became speechless. Hurriedly recalling all those feelers and restraining his movement as much as possible, only then did the forest regain its original vitality, as all creatures returned to their activity.

But still nearby creatures were still prostrating as this gave him a headache. So he tried to communicate with them.

“Go back” Aron stated.