"Uahhh..."

I open my eyes, still drowsy and very achy. Situated not far from me is an enormous dead monster.

"Did I do that? I mean of course I did, but wow."

Maybe it's because that was the first major mental stimulation I've experienced in years, or maybe it's an innate attribute of my species, but I don't feel any fear when I recall the fight I had. All I feel is exhilaration!

Playing back the memories of the battle through my head, I'm suddenly reminded of the stories the old firefighters used to tell. They would tell tales of huge life and death struggles with fires, almost as if the fire was alive. When I was a kid, I always imagined myself having an epic battle with a fire, but even as an adult I had yet to experience such a thing. Now I feel I've finally experienced something that can relate to those stories!

"Hahahaha! Try and kill me would you! Haa, what a great fight!"

Getting a little too excited, I try standing up.

"Ouch! Oh man, I don't feel so good."

Observing my current state, I realize I'm wounded all over. There are cuts and bruises covering my body, and my back legs both have large holes in them from the monster's protruding teeth. As I turn my attention to the bead on my chest, I'm pleasantly surprised. There is still a small scratch on it, but it no longer hurts as much. Prodding it with my paw, I feel an immediate and intense jolt of pain.

"Tss, yep, still hurts."

Feeling unsafe out in the open like this, I decide to limp back to the egg. Looking at the broken egg, there's one large bowl shaped piece, considerably bigger even than that monster, still filled with purple liquid. Using my injured back legs, I jump onto the side of that piece.

"Good to be home." I mumble as I jump in.

Almost immediately after I jump in, the wounds all over my body start feeling tingly. Taken aback, I hurriedly grasp the edge and pull myself up. As I observe the wounds on my body for several minutes, I realize that they actually seem to be healing!

"WOAH! That's so cool!" I shout.

Jumping back into the pool, I quickly sink to the bottom of the liquid.

'Ahhh, I've really become accustomed to the dark. So comfortable.'

Suddenly remembering the moment when I first sensed the monster, I start trying to reproduce the feeling. It was more than intuition; I could explicitly feel its presence. Waving my paw in front of me, I try sensing it.

'Not working. I can't sense anything.'

After several minutes of waving various limbs around, I finally give up.

After soaking for quite some time, I swim back to the surface of the liquid. Pulling myself out and onto the side of the egg, I start inspecting my wounds. The large scratch on my shoulder has completely recovered; it didn't even leave a scar! There are still small bloody spots on my back legs, but otherwise I seem to have made a complete recovery. Next, as I turn my attention to the marble on my chest, I'm shocked!

"Purple?!"

The scratch mark has actually turned purple! I try touching it.

"Nothing?"

I can't feel any indentations, it's completely smooth. And better yet, it doesn't hurt anymore! The only sign that it was ever scratched is a purple streak running across it.

"Haa."

Sighing, I look up and notice that the sun has risen. The sun looks a lot like Earth's sun, except it has a slight blue tint to it, and I could swear it's a bit smaller. Elsewhere in the sky, I notice something obscured behind a tree.

I try moving my back legs. Not feeling any pain, I decide to climb one of the tall trees in order to take a look at the whole sky! Jumping down from the side of the egg, I start sprinting towards a nearby tree.

"I feel stronger now! Or maybe it's just my imagination? Actually, it's probably adrenal-gah?!"

Preoccupied with talking to myself, I suddenly lose my balance and tumble forward.

"Guess I still need to practice my coordination..."

Blaming the fall on my coordination, I resume my journey to the tree. Once I reach the tree, I jump as high as I can, grasp the tree bark, and start climbing.

'Defeating monsters, running super fast, effortlessly climbing trees; I feel like I have super powers!'

Overcome with excitement, I start laughing loudly.

Reaching the top of the tree after about ten minutes of climbing, I realize these trees are even taller than I thought. Glancing sideways, not far off, there is a massive tree half again the size of the rest. It occurs to me that I could use it to find my way home in the future should I ever get lost.

These trees are amazing though! All of their branches and leaves grow almost straight out, overlapping each other and making an almost completely flat surface. I even had trouble getting onto the top, through the dense branches and leaves. Assuming you had a method to transport enough materials, you could probably build a house up here.

Pushing my treehouse fantasies to the back of my mind, I lie down and appreciate my surroundings. The sky is just as blue and beautiful as Earth's sky. In the entirety of the sky, I can't see a single cloud. All I can see is two more moons, one of which was the object covered by the trees. But unlike the moons at night which looked white, these moons are very dark, almost black. It may sound a bit ominous when I say it that way, but they're actually very pretty.

I'm awoken from my trance by distant bird calls. As I direct my gaze toward the sounds, I'm greeted by the sight of a small flock of pink birds. They seem to be heading this direction, but just before reaching the clearing, they actually change direction and make a detour around it.

'Were they intentionally avoiding the clearing?'

After admiring the scenery for a couple hours, I decide to head back to the Eggshell. The Eggshell is what I decided to call my home base. I also decided to call the purple liquid tonic, since it makes me feel better.

As I near the bottom of the tree, I happen to spot some creatures crowded around the corpse of the red cat monster. Scrutinizing the creatures, their appearance is fairly reminiscent of monkeys, though they do differ significantly in some areas. For instance, they have four arms instead of the normal two, mossy green hair, which I have never seen on a monkey, considerably longer tails, and those same black eyes.

'I shall name them grass monkeys! And I guess I'll call that leopard monster a bloodcat. Wow, I'm on a roll here!'

Sneaking closer to them, I find that they're eating the bloodcat.

'So creatures here do indeed need to eat! Or maybe they don't need to eat, but still do? I'll have to try eating something sometime...'

"Kreee!"

I'm suddenly roused from my thoughts by a high-pitched screech. It seems one of the grass monkeys noticed me. Hearing the noise, six other grass monkeys scurry behind the one that just screeched, which is significantly bigger than the other monkeys. They start making aggressive gestures, screeching and shouting at me, but I can't help but notice something else. I'm getting a similar feeling from them as I did from the bloodcat!

"This is the same feeling I got when the bloodcat found me!"

I slowly back away, paying close attention to their presence. As I back off, the grass monkeys start to gradually calm down. The farther away I get, the weaker the feeling becomes. Closing my eyes, I concentrate on trying to feel their presence.

After more than an hour, all but one of the grass monkeys, the biggest one, have lowered their guards and gone back to eating the bloodcat. The biggest grass monkey continues to stand watch, still giving off a weak intent. I can now sense its presence almost as well as all of them combined earlier, but I can still only sense the boss monkey.

Suddenly I get a feeling, like something is right at the tip of my fingers. Desperately trying to grasp that feeling, I focus intently on it. Just as the feeling is about to fade, my mind starts feeling a bit fuzzy.

Whoosh!

Like a barrier just broke, I feel a whole new sensation sweep over me. I can sense everything around me! The grass, the leaves, the monkeys, the trees, it's like I can see it all in my head!

"Hahaha! This is it! This is what I was looking for!"

Concentrating as hard as I can, I try and reach as far away as possible. Past the grass monkeys, past the trees, the feeling starts getting weaker the farther I go, but I can still sense it! It's like I can travel places with just my mind! Is this what they call clairvoyance?

Looking at the grass monkeys that are angry at me again because of my sudden shout, I laugh.

"For helping me unlock this new ability, I hereby bestow upon you this bloodcat corpse!"

Feeling quite proud of my generosity, I head back to the Eggshell to soak longer in order to completely heal my wounds.

--

It's been about a month. In that time, I've completely gotten accustomed to my new body, and I'm now able to run freely without tripping over myself.

Aside from that, I also discovered two new interesting species! I called one of the species wingets. Wingets are the first creature I've seen that aren't afraid of coming into the clearing. They are a type of bird, and if I were to compare them to a bird on earth, I would say they look most like a crane. Assuming I'm three and a half feet long, including my tail, they would be about four feet tall. That is when they hold their heads straight up, instead of curving their long necks as they usually do. They have a round patch of white feathers on their belly and back, while the rest of their feathers are gray, save the tips of the feathers on their wings which are black. They have an absolutely massive wingspan, about three times their height for each wing. Their beaks and feet are both orange, similar in color to many birds on Earth, and while their feet look pretty normal, their beaks most certainly do not! They have long, extremely thin and round beaks. Since I have never seen one open its beak, I suspect they may be tubes, possibly for sucking blood like a mosquito! Something else that surprised me was they don't have black eyes like the other creatures I have seen. They have normal white eyes, with brown pupils.

The other species looks somewhat like a rat. I call them sitchles. They're relatively small, about a foot long including their tail. They have black eyes like the bloodcat, grass monkeys and myself, and their fur color varies wildly. Orange, green, yellow, brown, I've seen all kinds of them. I've only ever seen them eat plants, so I assume they're herbivorous.

Something else I have noticed is that almost all of the creatures seem to be scared of the clearing. The only creatures I have seen that will come anywhere near, other than wingets, was that group of grass monkeys and the bloodcat. I'm not sure why everything avoids it, but it is very convenient having a safe place to rest at.

Other than that bloodcat, none of the other animals have outright attacked me. The grass monkeys seemed aggressive when they saw me, but once I started backing off they calmed down a bit.

"Maybe they would have attacked me if they didn't have the bloodcat to eat?"

I think back to when the bloodcat attacked me. I don't know what I am. I don't seem to need any of the necessities of life that any living being should need. All I know is that ever since coming to this world, that fight was the first time I've really felt alive.

"I think I'll go hunting today."