Night had come and passed, the forest once again sparking to life in a storm of colour. A fragile form lay at the base of an old oak tree, dry green muck clinging to its dark hide. It lifted its head up to look around, attempting to blink the daze from its eyes. a musky stench filled the air, originating from the green substance that was crusted to the grass.
Lethargic and slightly queasy, the creature at the base of the tree slowly lifted itself to stand on all four of its legs, wincing as the familiar stabbing pain in its side from the day before returned. It used its new height to observe its surroundings a little better. Once it had assured that it was in no immediate danger, its body loosened up a bit.
It was only then, that the creature realized it was actually standing. the calm feeling from moments before evaporated in an instant and it stumbled forward, trying frantically to use its front legs to balance itself. This didn't accomplish much as its limbs buckled under the weight of its body. one of its back legs twisted the wrong way as it fell.
A fresh wave of nausea and pain swept over the creature. Its stomach convulsed, and expelled a small amount of pungent yellow bile. Nothing was broken, but it still hurt a lot. The creature whimpered, fresh tears forming in its eyes. Carefully shifting its weight off its injured leg, the creature lay back down onto its side.
It was beyond caring about the acrid smell that filled the air around it. Its leg didn't look damaged on the outside, but the pain that radiated from inside was huge. Deciding that being stationary was the best course of action, the creature clenched its eyes shut, trying to block out the pain by focusing on other things.
There wasn't much else to focus on, and the creature curled its limbs against itself, hoping that it could shield its body from whatever was hurting. It stayed like that for a while, silent and unmoving. Taking time to calm itself down, It mulled over its options, it now knew it could stand, and potentially move away from this place. The pain in its leg strongly suggested it stay put, but it didn't know how long it would be before the leg stopped hurting, the emptiness in its chest wasn't going anywhere without action.
It decided that it had to get moving as soon as it could. The longer it waited, the closer it would get to starvation. After a small time, the creature shifted, pushing its front legs onto the ground to give itself leverage. It chose to not think about the individual movements of each of its limbs, it just willed itself to stand. Its leg screamed at it to stop but it gritted its fangs and continued, eventually standing in the small clearing on shaking legs.
It was a small victory, but it was still something. Without thinking too hard, the creature willed itself forward, its legs making the motions on their own. It was awkward and painful, but the creature managed to build up some semblance of rhythm, limping harshly on its injured leg.
The creature moved in the only direction that made sense, toward the bright glowing ball in the sky. It couldn't help but view the sun as a guardian, the only comfortable thing in its brief existence. A warm yellow protector. It didn't doubt that following it would lead to something worthwhile. The ache in its chest was much stronger now, and it knew that if it didn't do something about it soon, something bad would happen.
Taking step by careful step, the creature followed the sun, using its soothing warmth to guide it through the thick foliage. The injury in its side ached, and its back leg still hurt terribly. The canopy was extremely dense, only allowing a scarce amount of light through, but it was enough. As it walked, the creature glanced around warily, making sure that nothing was sneaking up on it to take advantage of it's wounded state. It had trouble with exposed roots and vines, often stumbling as its legs caught on the gnarled obstacles.
The creature continued on its makeshift path, falling over more than its fair share of times. Its surroundings were getting brighter by the minute, the trees much more sparse than they had been not long before. It could see the sun much more clearly now, the thinner canopy allowing the warm rays of the sun to strike its black carapace. The sun gave the creature a sense of comfort, helping it through this strange and frightening world, a guardian that would watch over it and make sure nothing would cause it any harm.
The creature's leg was becoming too painful to walk on, so it stopped, lying down beside a tree to rest. It was careful not to aggravate its injuries any more than it had to, which it was only semi successful in accomplishing. A small animal flew just over its head, chirping loudly and causing the creature to flinch. Its ears were still sensitive and even small sounds felt loud and incomprehensible.
Another sound caught the creature's attention. It seemed to come from somewhere ahead, past the trees and into the light. It was faint but audible enough for the creature to pick up. The sound was unlike anything it had heard while traversing the forest.
The creature carefully got up onto its legs and started moving toward the source of the sound, the two appendages on its back vibrating nervously against its own volition. As It came closer to the strange noises, its anticipation grew. They didn't sound like something to be afraid of, they seemed soothing and almost melodic.
Noticing a clearing up ahead, the creature stopped behind a thick oak, keeping itself pressed against it. Cautiously shifting its shaky form, the creature peered around the tree, trying to get a view of whatever was making the sounds.
The clearing was huge, larger than anything it had ever seen before. There were fields of grass with no trees at all, and giant mountains far in the distance. The sun was much more visible now, casting its warm glow on the landscape in front of the creature. Off to the left, it could make out dozens of strange shapes in the distance. Its eyesight wasn't good enough to make out any details.
A river run quietly, not far in front of where the creature was hiding. the gentle sound of the water made it notice the dryness in its throat. It felt drawn to the river, the appendages on its back buzzing excitedly. Forgetting about the sounds from earlier, and the dangers that could come with moving out into the open, the creature moved toward the water as fast as It could manage.
When it reached the water, the creature didn't really need to think about what to do. It arched its neck down and started to drink, cool relief flooding through its body. It only paused to take breaths and quickly check its surroundings for any possible danger, drinking until it was completely sated.
Feeling much better now that it had drank, the creature brought its head back up to look around. The thirst was gone, but It couldn't ignore the emptiness In its chest. It still had no idea how to satisfy that feeling. Off to its right, was what looked like a large tree. It wasn't taller than any of the other trees the creature had seen, but it was definitely wider. The strange tree had all sorts of things littering its trunk. Tiny coloured boxes hung from the branches of the tree, and circular holes riddled the sides, giving view of more strange objects inside the tree.
Realization struck the creature, this was no tree. It was a building, and something probably lived inside this building. It also knew that potential sustenance lay within the building. It didn't know how it knew these things, it just did.
It immediately started to make its way toward the building, the prospect of food making it almost forget the pain in its leg entirely. The sounds that initially drew it to this place were becoming more distinguishable. They were coming from inside the building!
It was close now, only a small hill stood between the creature and the building. After struggling up the incline, the creature stood next to the building, staring at the alien construct in awe. It definitely looked like a tree, albeit very wide and not quite as tall.
Just in front of it, the creature could see a large piece of wood with a gap on the left side. It could see the contents of the building through that gap, and the wonderful sounds were flowing through from somewhere further inside.
It could feel it in the air now.
Food.
This is what would fill the void in its chest.
All caution neglected, the creature reached a limb out and pulled the wood aside. It swung out with a soft creak, staying upright the entire time. This would have amazed the creature if it wasn't so eager to reach the source of the sound, and the food.
walking a bit more quietly, the creature made its way through the building, avoiding a multitude of strange objects on its way to the source of the sound. It could see and hear many small animals occupying various places in the building, most of which didn't seem very happy with the creatures presence. It ignored the trickle of fear and distrust coming from the animals, continuing toward its goal.
The creature froze. Not far in front of it was a large animal it had never seen before. The animal was bigger than the creature, but not intimidatingly so. Its body was a light yellow with pink sections on its head and behind. As confused as the creature was, it was drawn toward this new animal. It radiated security, and the creature wanted nothing more than to be closer to it.
It seemed to be doing something with various vegetables and a big silver object with an opening at the top. From the smell, the creature could tell that this was food. The animal was preparing food!
The creature also noticed that the sounds that had drawn it to this place were coming from the animal. They were very soothing and pleasant, making the creature almost forget about its pain and confusion. This animal would give it both types of food, this animal would take away the hurting.
Taking a tentative step forward, the creature made its way toward the animal slowly, making sure to stay quiet as to not alert the animal. The creature stopped, it didn't actually know why it was trying to stay unnoticed. Nothing about this animal signalled danger. There wasn't any reason to hide besides the niggling feeling in the back of its head.
After a moment's hesitation, with its doubt increasing steadily, the creature chirped with its mouth and wings in tandem to announce its presence. The yellow creature elicited a sound of surprise and dropped the metal object it was holding with a loud clatter, making the creature reel back. It was the loudest noise it had ever heard and its ears were left ringing. The pleasant sounds from before had ceased, leaving an unsettling silence between the two.
The yellow one stood, staring at the slightly smaller creature without making a sound. The pleasant glow of calm was fading from the air, being quickly replaced by the familiar fear it had felt in the animals earlier. This fear was much stronger, and it grated at the creatures already starved body.
The fear only continued to grow, and the creature knew it needed to escape. Without thinking any further, it whirled around and ran as fast as it could through the building toward the exit, bumping into various objects that the creature wasn't paying attention to. It ignored the pain in its leg, as it paled in comparison to the negative emotion radiating from behind it.
The creature rushed out the door, its wings folding out of their covers and buzzing to life, seemingly on their own, carrying it into the air. It couldn't fly very fast, but it was much faster than it would otherwise move on the ground. It moved in the direction of the sun. The warm yellow object in the sky was the only thing that felt safe right now. It was life giving, and had always been there. It would always be there.
Flying came naturally to the creature, its wings carrying it steadily across the landscape with a gentle thrum and its course determined by some unseen force in the back of the creature's mind. It began to see more buildings below, all of them in various shapes, sizes and colours. It could only assume they held similar experiences to the tree building. It didn't pay attention to how far it had gone, it only wanted to follow the sun.
It was getting more clear by the moment that something was wrong.
The sun wasn't getting any closer! No matter how hard its wings sculled, the beautiful yellow sun stayed in the same position. It in fact seemed to move away from the creature, retreating toward the mountains beyond as if eluding the creature. Why would it do such a thing?
Its lack of flight experience started to catch up to it, its wings straining to keep it airborne. It was flying over many buildings now, they were everywhere. No direction the creature could go would take it away from the buildings. If these buildings were anything like the one before, it didn't want to be anywhere near them. It cried out in dismay as its wings slowly faltered, lowering it closer to the ground with each passing moment.
The creature could feel it now. It ignored it before but as it got closer it was suddenly too large to put in the back of its mind.
Fear.
Anger.
A vast sea of negative emotion radiating from below.
A quick glance down confirmed that there were many creatures like the tree living one, all of varying colours and shapes. Some were even yellow which was bad. Yellow wasn't supposed to be bad. The creature whined in fear, the rising aura of panic from below hastening its loss of strength. It could hear them more clearly now, a chorus of loud voices, growing in volume by the second. A shrill noise pierced the air, causing the creature to cringe, its ears flattening against its head. The strain on its wings finally proved too much, and the creature started to fall.
It was only a small distance off the ground by that time, but that didn't stop the fall from hurting. It impacted the ground with a thud, making its vision swim, its body screaming at it to be anywhere but there. Perhaps a body of water?
Death was preferable to this amount of pain.
As soon as it was able, the creature hauled itself onto its legs, its only goal being escape. Escape from all the bad. Walking was even harder than usual, the waves of hysteria and fear burning at its mind, and the myriad of shrill voices assaulting its ears.
The creature was only able to limp a short distance before a deep blue shape much larger than itself impacted it from the side, knocking it to the ground with a painful crack. The creature cried out again, its eyes watering and its breathing frantic. Everything hurt and there was so much noise, so much fear and hate. It could do nothing but cry as the large shapes of the other creatures closed in on it.
There was a blue glow clouding the creature's vision now, making its head feel fuzzy. It thrashed and struggled and cried against the things holding it down, each movement becoming more sluggish by the second. It was overwhelmed by the urge to just let go. To slip into a peaceful slumber. Its mind screamed that it would then be at the mercy of these evil creatures, but it didn't really care now. It was too tired.
The creature let itself fade into darkness, all the hurt, confusion and howling sound evaporating in the merciful veil of sleep.