The future for the child seemed grim.He didn't know where he came from. Neither did he know if he was somebody—or anything at all. More than that, the child couldn't remember what he had been doing just seconds ago. He had forgotten the different organisms latched onto him since the moment he awoke—the parasites and insects that feasted on his eye. Now, every second was a nightmare. A moment-to-moment horror where he could not recall what he had just done... or why.
The pain of his skin being peeled from his body was traumatizing, but not enough to surpass the terror of a mind that had forgotten how to act, how to think. The pain pulsed within him, but then—vanished, only to crash back into his awareness the next second, like a cruel tide.
Life felt too distant to be enjoyed.There was only pain and suffering now—for this weeks-old child. He could no longer form thoughts. He couldn't choose the best course of action, because the moment he tried to think, he forgot why. The moment he acted, he forgot how. His memory unraveled with each breath. His body screamed each second... and because he forgot the pain moments later, every agony felt new again and again and again.
He no longer knew right from wrong. His cognitive functions were fractured—barely enough left to move his limbs. And even that came at the cost of immense brain trauma. Every twitch, every crawl, every reflex tore more from what was left of his mind. The pain surged beyond skin and muscle. It throbbed with an unreal weight. A pressure stronger than the flesh that had already been torn away.
And so—he moved.Not by thought. Not by choice.But by instinct.
He couldn't believe or disbelieve.By this point, the newly born child was already half-dead inside.
And so, the child moved—toward a light.A source in the distance, within the cavern paved by the forest itself. It was a great cave, where no light—nor even the concept of it—should have existed this deep in the jungle's underground. And yet, there was light. The child saw it, dim and far. And so he crawled toward it, driven by instinct—the same reaction wired into every living being on this planet. A pull toward the light. Toward curiosity. Toward something new.
And so, the child moved.His soles were not yet flayed, nor his palms completely ruined. But he no longer cared. He was unaware of the injuries, unfeeling of the pain.
His body had gone too far. It was already collapsing—mentally and physically. With no care left for the flesh—or no awareness of it—he crawled and crawled, inch by inch, toward the light.
And then, it grew brighter.Little by little, until the entire portion of the cavern he had entered was bathed in it.
For the first time in the endless minutes he had been crawling, his eye came to light.Just one—but it was enough.Enough to convey everything he had suffered.
His half-dead mind sparked—for a few seconds.The cavern opened before him. Illuminated by hanging plants clinging to the walls, glowing with a whitish-blue hue. Just a tinge of shadow remained at the edges. Below, a still pond reflected their light—pure, transparent, touched by white.
The child's eye lost its glint, reverting to that same look: dark, pained, clouded with suffering.
And then he saw himself.
At the edge of the pond, his reflection stared back. And he knew. Somehow, without thought, he recognized it.
Huge green eyes, like pearls floating in a pale ocean.But then—the other side: a hollow socket, where an eye had been gouged away.White hair, like milk. A small mouth on a fragile, glowing face.
None of it brought comfort.It only confirmed his agony.
Without lingering. Without thought—he entered the water.
The cold struck first.It stripped him of pain for a brief, blinding instant. Then, it returned—normal once more—as steam rose from his body, like warmth swallowed by ice.
Then something deeper happened.
The child, as if pulled by something buried in his instincts, spread his arms wide and laid his body flat over the pond's surface. And he floated.
The cold, pure water held him. Soothed him. Carried him.His eye closed. And in that vast, distant forest hidden beneath the earth, beneath the canopy—there were no predators.
Only the water lilies, watching silently over the child,as he drifted, floating into the realm of dreams.