The child entered the hollow tree—and just as he did, his body gave up. The movements ceased. He suddenly fell, far deeper into the tree's dark interior.
Lying face-up toward the ground, the child sustained injuries—the worst to the back of his head, where a blunt trauma struck. He couldn't withstand it. His vision went black. His mind slowly faded into unconsciousness.
The world vanished.
Blood seeped from the wound at the back of his head, with no signs of stopping. The child's eyes dilated—one less, one more—both drifting in opposite directions from the impact.
Then, the nose grew wet. But there was no one to see it. Blood trickled from the nostrils, unrelenting. From the ears, too—little by little, it oozed. And worst of all, his eyes began to bulge. Blood leaked from them.
The child's lower arms—strong, defiant—remained intact, but the upper pair had been twisted at unnatural angles. In the vast forest, no one could say whether they would ever heal.
His consciousness sank, buried deep beneath the surface of his fractured mind, in that dark atmosphere where mold spores floated thick in the air.
The child, unaware of everything, lay there in the damp, unwelcoming cavity of the ancient tree.
Time passed.
And as it did, the insects—once cautious around him—began to return. One at first. Then another. And soon, many. They crept over his motionless body.
In the dark, sodden depths of the forest, among the countless insect species, one kind was notably absent: the harmless herbivore.
These were no gentle feeders.
Drawn by the scent of open wounds, they swarmed. They fed not only on the blood but on the soft, broken skin, biting and peeling until patches of his flesh were exposed—raw and red beneath, the tender layer that would have pulsed with pain under any touch.
But the child couldn't scream. He couldn't even feel it.
He was already suffering enough—unconscious.
Seconds stretched into minutes. Minutes into hours.
Like that, a whole day passed.The blood flowing from his eyes, ears, and nose finally subsided.
Little by little, movement returned—first in his fingers.They curled in and out.Then came the hands.
The child, returning to consciousness after the fall, felt as if the invisible force that had bound his body had dissipated. This time, perhaps even faster than before.
But then—suddenly—a raging pain surged through his entire body.
Before thoughts could even form, the child wailed.A scream erupted through the forest.His cries echoed from the hollow entrance above.
Something had gone wrong.Something deeply, irreparably wrong.
It was something the child could never recover from.
The wailing didn't stop. It poured from him, relentless, agonized.His hands flailed across his face, shedding the insects and worms latched there.They covered his whole body—crawling, clinging.
But the reason he had first raced his hands to his face was because—he couldn't see.
Tearing them off in panic, he cleared the right eye. He could see—blurry, but see.But the left?
Still blind.
He rubbed at it again, frantically wiping.But then—he felt it.
Something wrong.Something... missing.
An unfamiliar horror crept up from within—a horror of his own body.
He wiped again.
His left eye—wasn't there.It had been eaten.
The child froze in terror.Sweat poured.Then, as instinct and madness kicked in, he snapped.
He tore at his face, ripping and yanking the insects and worms away, handfuls at a time.He didn't stop. Not for minutes. Not for hours.
Until finally—they were gone.
In rage. In hunger. In spite—he had eaten some of them.
The child had, in these few days since birth, acted in ways not quite natural.Too mature, at times. Too strange.
Was the child a miracle?Or was he something else?
No one knew.
Not even the child considered it strange.To him, this was simply... how he was.
But now, he had no leisure to think—not really.
Or perhaps the better question was:
Could the child think at all anymore?
The brain trauma had been too severe.The bleeding, too much.
And now, as the child tried to think—tried to decide what to do next—He couldn't.He couldn't form a thought.He couldn't think.
His vision had returned—as blurry as when he had fallen—But did he remember?
Did he remember falling through the entrance of the vast hollow?
Did he?
Alas... even as the child tried to find meaning in where he was,he couldn't.
He couldn't justify it.He couldn't remember why he was here.Or since when.
Thoughts felt too distant.Memories too hesitant.
And trying to recall anything at all?
Was traumatizing.