3/31/2025, 2:46 AM
Nameless. Formless.
All but warmth.
Rebirth, yet without understanding. From one realm of warmth to another, though not without the brief bite of cold, a fleeting sting that forced her from the quiet Before into something raw, vast, and unknown. It passed in an instant, swallowed whole by the cradle that now held her — soft, dry, and humming with a heat that curled against her supple newborn flesh.
But even in darkness, she could sense it. The Beyond. No longer an abyss of nothingness but a world alive and thrumming with sound. Muffled, familiar, yet startlingly close. A world she had always known, but only as an observer. Now, she was one of its inhabitants.
Instinct stirred within her fragile chest.
Tiny limbs, so new, so uncertain, flailed in clumsy protest. Her pliant paw met the curve of her skull, mapping the shape of her existence. Unlike in the Before, she was untethered. Free to move, to push, to resist. So, resist she did.
Then—pressure.
It seized her, rolled her fragile body in a wave of sensation. Wet, suffocating warmth enveloped her. Lungs, once stagnant, convulsed against the stillness, air forcing its way inside in jagged, sputtering gasps. The world expanded, stretching far beyond the narrow, shapeless void she had known.
This… was feeling.
Suddenly, she was not content to lie still in silence, to fade into the hush of the cold beyond her. No. A force deep within her chest, something primal and unforgiving, coiled and struck. A ragged, piercing cry erupted from her throat. Sharp, demanding, unshackled by the weight of the unknown. The sound startled her, if just for the moment, but exhilaration triumphed, and the little wolf willed herself forward.
More. More!
And so she wailed again, her small body writhing in fervent hunger. Not just for the sustenance her body craved, but for presence. For space. For the world to know she had arrived.
In the After, she was not alone. One after another, the Others were whimpering, squirming, yowling, flailing — just like her! She crawled to them with desperate wriggling until she was met with a much more tempting instinct, and in that heartbeat, she remembered the Hunger. The whelp clawed and clashed, forcing a way through to the supple flesh she sensed before her, disregarding the fellow bodies she had longed to meet not a moment ago.
No, now she must eat.
All but warmth.
Rebirth, yet without understanding. From one realm of warmth to another, though not without the brief bite of cold, a fleeting sting that forced her from the quiet Before into something raw, vast, and unknown. It passed in an instant, swallowed whole by the cradle that now held her — soft, dry, and humming with a heat that curled against her supple newborn flesh.
But even in darkness, she could sense it. The Beyond. No longer an abyss of nothingness but a world alive and thrumming with sound. Muffled, familiar, yet startlingly close. A world she had always known, but only as an observer. Now, she was one of its inhabitants.
Instinct stirred within her fragile chest.
Tiny limbs, so new, so uncertain, flailed in clumsy protest. Her pliant paw met the curve of her skull, mapping the shape of her existence. Unlike in the Before, she was untethered. Free to move, to push, to resist. So, resist she did.
Then—pressure.
It seized her, rolled her fragile body in a wave of sensation. Wet, suffocating warmth enveloped her. Lungs, once stagnant, convulsed against the stillness, air forcing its way inside in jagged, sputtering gasps. The world expanded, stretching far beyond the narrow, shapeless void she had known.
This… was feeling.
Suddenly, she was not content to lie still in silence, to fade into the hush of the cold beyond her. No. A force deep within her chest, something primal and unforgiving, coiled and struck. A ragged, piercing cry erupted from her throat. Sharp, demanding, unshackled by the weight of the unknown. The sound startled her, if just for the moment, but exhilaration triumphed, and the little wolf willed herself forward.
More. More!
And so she wailed again, her small body writhing in fervent hunger. Not just for the sustenance her body craved, but for presence. For space. For the world to know she had arrived.
In the After, she was not alone. One after another, the Others were whimpering, squirming, yowling, flailing — just like her! She crawled to them with desperate wriggling until she was met with a much more tempting instinct, and in that heartbeat, she remembered the Hunger. The whelp clawed and clashed, forcing a way through to the supple flesh she sensed before her, disregarding the fellow bodies she had longed to meet not a moment ago.
No, now she must eat.
