//------------------------------// // Prologue: Birth // Story: Something Unknown // by ReaderReads //------------------------------// Thoughts rushed into its head. Everything was warm - so cozy and warm. Echoing noises emanated from outside this strange chamber it was kept inside; people talking, perhaps? It didn’t know. It couldn’t recognise them properly. As time passed slowly, thoughts that were less primal, less instinctual began to form over time. It knew this was wrong for some reason. It knew it shouldn’t be having real thoughts, thoughts of more than just Hunting, Expanding, and Protecting. It liked it though. Why is everything black? I’m so warm. Why is it warm? Am I being born? I’m inside my mother, aren’t I? Is she talking? Mum? Can you hear me? Mum? It’s okay. I’ll be out soon. We can talk soon, mum. It felt itself grow at dramatic speeds. It felt so slow, as if it had been forming for years, but some sort of internal clock told it that this wasn’t true. It had only been a few hours. Knowledge flooding into its infant mind from an unknown source told it that it was forming much faster than anything else in the universe; this knowledge that flooded in buried active, primal parts of its mind, leaving them dormant, sealed away by sentience, unable to scream at it that it should be Hunting, Expanding, Protecting. I’m coming, mum. We’ll be the best family ever! Something feels wrong. No! This feels… better? What are those voices? They’re growing quieter. Being - smothered? A feeling injected itself into his rambling train of thought, filling its mind, filling its very soul, with a feeling of balance and harmony. It felt its brain, or at least its equivalent, begin to change. The priorities that it started off with, the very same that still very faintly commanded it, and those voices in the back of his head coming from some sort of gate or leak in its brain, altered themselves. Or, tried to. Pain. Immense pain. Nothing else existed. There was only pain. That was the only feeling there was. That was the only feeling there would ever be. It was going to die. It was going to die without having achieved its precious goals, its Hunting, Expanding, Protecting. If it could beg for mercy it would’ve, but instead its only clumsily cobbled together thoughts were intelligible screaming, filling it- The pain stopped. The instincts had grown even quieter, only able to be heard if it really paid attention, if it silenced itself totally in order to listen. It had no wish to do that, however. To add onto this, the gate that let the multitude of voices attempt to speak to it or to each other had been all but closed, as if the only thing propping it open was a single stick, barely holding it open. Knowledge, however, continued to flood its mind in even larger quantities, multiple languages filling it in less than an hour, values piercing through it in two hours, and basic - even advanced - morals making themselves known to it in three. As it began to know, it shut down, still forming brain unable to handle it all. The knowledge stopped, and it was dormant for another few hours as it grew constantly. It woke up only as it began to secrete an enzyme subconsciously, softening the material around it, breaking it down. Over the course of a minute or two, it began to hear moans, and then screams, horrible screams of unbearable pain. The screams made it wiggle uncomfortably, before instinct surged and propelled it forward, thinking brain shutting down as it tore at the blackness that wrapped around its vision. The screams came into clearer focus quickly. And then, it was all bright. It was all too bright. It hissed at the bright, bright, bright, and scrambled down, digging through the soft material below it. It was falling suddenly. It could feel the air rushing around its body. New instincts took over for another brief second and, as its senses stopped being overwhelmed entirely, it flew. The wind rushing through its hard mesoskeleton slowed down to nearly nothing, and it - it was gliding downwards. In the distance, it could perceive an orchard. At the rate it was falling, it decided that that was the best place to land, and began to really absorb the information it had been filled with, stewing over it all. It felt dirty. It resolved to take a bath in some sort of river or lake near the orchard, or somewhere. Then it would find its mother and apologise for running away when the mother had clearly just birthed him. The information given to it by - something? - had overridden chunks of its knowledge about its own species. It had no idea of its life cycle, or of a few of its abilities, or of its biology; it would ask its mother. Mother would know. After minutes of thinking, and thinking, and thinking, it landed softly on the dirt of the orchard on all fours, settling for a second before breaking into a brisk walk onwards to a nearby river. Things crossed its mind, not many of those things overly important. As it made its way over to the river and doused itself in the water, submerging and swimming before breaking through the topmost layer of the water and taking a hissing breath, it felt the substance that had been quickly drying wash off quickly. As it was cleaned, it swam to the edge of the water, heading slowly - at its own pace, nothing rushing it - towards a barn. Civilisation. ‘Ponies,’ it thought, not entirely knowing why it knew what those were, ‘that’s what I’m going to encounter here. Ponies like my mother. Maybe they’ll know her. Maybe they can help me get back to mum?’ It was nearly silent as it walked, approaching the group of buildings that made up the place, which it could feel in the notches carved into a sign a few feet away was Sweet Apple Acres. It decided it wanted a gender. It settled for male, feeling that it would be easier to be a good son than a good daughter for his mother, his precious mother that he felt so bad for abandoning. It approached slowly. He approached slowly. The xenomorph approached slowly.