“Tick.”

The uneventfulness of the forest was interrupted by a loud noise.

“Tick.”

The sound resounded again, a bit louder this time. Only a few birds noticed the ticking, peeking their heads out of their nests and wondering what had interrupted their peaceful slumber, but no other animals were around to witness the strange occasion.

“Tick tick.”

The ticking continued while moonlight fell through black clouds covering the night sky, illuminating a dark and frozen with a silver light. It was winter in the Great Forest, and most animals were hibernating in their warm holes. And yet something was awake, causing this disturbance in the middle of the night.

“Tack.”

Cracks appeared on the slippery surface of the lake, indicating that something was pushing against the underside of the ice. The cracks grew larger, and eventually the ice shattered. A slippery shape lifted itself out of the water and began crawling towards the shore. The slimy creature slithered over the ice, its small brown eyes glimmering in the moonlight.

---

Slimes are versitale creatures that come in various shapes and sizes. Their behaviour differs greatly and usually depends on the type of food they eat. This slime was likely a chestwood slime, a variant of slime that spends most of its life living on the insides of sturdy trees feeding off their sap.

When winter comes, they usually hibernate on the bottom of a lake to prevent themselves from freezing to death. This little bugger probably hadn’t eaten enough before falling asleep, and had to go out for a midnight snack.

---

After the tiny slime had finally reached the shore, it immediately started attacking a nearby tree with violent movements. It hungrily tried to wriggle its way inside by continuously pushing itself against the bark, just like it had done to break the ice on the lake, but no matter how hard it pushed, the bark was frozen solid, making it impossible for the tiny slime to penetrate it.

After trying a few other trees as well, the hungry slime finally gave up. So instead of aiming for the bigger trees, it searched around the lake and found some bushes that were easier to consume, although they tasted horrible, even for slime standards. Chewing on the sticks to extract the precious yet disgusting sap, it didn’t take long before it had eaten an entire shrub. Still hungry however, it continued its search for food deeper into the forest.

After consuming several bushes and even some dried and wet leaves, the slime was finally somewhat full. It burped, content, even though it was the worst meal it had ever had so far. All that was left to do now was to return to the lake to resume its long sleep before it got too cold. The tiny slime shivered and looked around.

First looking left, then right, it tried to remember the way back. The slime wrecked its tiny brain, but no memory of the right way popped up. After remembering that with every second its body was growing colder, it hestitantly made a decision.

---

After an hour or so the slime finally concluded that it was hopelessly lost. On top of that, snow had started falling, erasing his tracks and making moving through the forest significantly harder. The poor slime was now shivering in the cold, very unhappy with his current situation.

Another hour later, just when it was about to give up and it had prepared itself for a slow and painfull death by freezing, it spotted something. Very far away, but just close enough for the slime to see with its underdeveloped eyes, large white mounds were spread out over a large field between two hills, with paths going in between them. The tiny slimed recognized them and concluded that these were probably caves were beasts resided.

It had always avoided caves for safety reasons, mostly spending its time inside a nice and sturdy tree instead, but spending the winter with some warm animal still sounded better than freezing to death. And so the slime rolled down the hill, bumping on rocks until it stopped in front of the biggest cave in the valley.

The slime peeked its head around the corner. No reaction came, so it rolled further inside, making sure not to disturb a potentially dangerous enemy, but it quickly turned out that the cave was uninhabited. The floor was covered in dust and dirt, making it habitable for grass and other plantlife, while empty cobwebs hung from the ceiling, deserted by their owners.

The tiny slime walked in further and wondered what kind of animal had lived here, but its question was answered quickly when its glance fell on the corner of the room: the giant body of a stone golem laid still in some sort of nest made from dirt and plants, half buried under the soil.

The slime had seen golems wandering inside the forest a few times, and it knew that the quickly irritated golems extremely hostile towards anything mildly annoying. The slime tensed up and tried to remain as still as possible, but no reaction came. After closer inspection, the slime saw why: this golem was dead, and for quite some as well, judging by the state of the golem’s body. Time and plants had cracked the golem’s hard skin, and some of its limbs were detached. It probably died of old age, as most golems did after a few hundred years.

The slime was about to leave the cave to look for someplace warmer, but stopped, catching a peculiar scent. It felt familiar, but alien as well. The smell resembled wood, with a hint of leaves covered in morning dew, but most importantly, it smelled almost… warm. It was as if the smell knew that the little slime was cold, luring it in like a venus flytrap luring in an unsuspecting fruitfly.

The slime, a simple creature, couldn’t resist the temptation of course and eagerly started searching the cave, turning pebbles while sniffing the air. A few minutes of searching later, it found the source of the smell in the hand of the deceased golem, so it pried open the dead golem’s fingers and looked at the desired treasure.

The slime was suprised to see the golem simply holding a regular old chestnut, but there was doubt that the smell came from the golem’s hand. It gave the suspicious chestnut a little push, but the thing gave no reaction. The slime, still not convinced, pushed it a little harder. As the nut hadn’t grown legs and attacked it yet, the slime deemed it safe to eat.

It swallowed the chestnut whole, the shell too hard for the slime to break and burped. Immediately it felt as if it had eaten some hallucinatory mushrooms. The little slime felt a warmth inside that quickly spread through its entire body. Its surroundings seemed to be more colourful than before, and it felt more active than ever. Sleep was no longer necessary, quite the opposite actually. It felt like it could run miles without stopping.

---

It was a wonderful sight, seeing a small chestwood slime bouncing with top speed through a snow covered golem village in the darkest of the night. The slime itself was amazed by its newfound power to run outside in mid-winter without the fear of freezing. It ran and ran, but still showed no sign of fatigue or stopping. It only took a small break to watch the sunrise on a large hill, awing at the frozen landscape.

The slime enjoyed its new lifestyle of running around and discovering new places. It wanted to travel through the endlessly large world and discover every place of it. It looked at the upcoming sun and started running again, over the frozen landscape, towards the orange horizon.