“E-Eos, Are you there? Why does it hurt so much”

Silence. I was met with silence.

“Eos? Are you there?”

More Silence.

“Eos. Eos answer me if you can, where am I?”

A line of text appeared in front of my face.

“Elzri Ahfuken Mliess Tres Ah Grien”

What the fuck. I thought to myself, I can see the words in my head, I don’t know what they meant though. Is this a message from Eos? It’s probably a message from Eos, he’s the only one that I can communicate with right now. I could feel my fingers now, they’re really like little baby fingers. I brought them to my face, they’re little fingers, like a human’s. Thankfully it seems that I’m still a human. I breathed a sigh of relief, imagine being in one of those ‘I reincarnated as a wolf’ or ‘I reincarnated as the final boss’ novels although the ‘I reincarnated as a slime’ was pretty fun to read.

I breathed another sigh of relief, Well what do I do now? I wonder what my friends are thinking back on Earth. Maybe this is a bad dream, it doesn’t feel like it though. I kinda miss them already, although, I don’t think it's goodbye. I don’t want it to be a goodbye.

I looked at my hands again, these little stubby fingers. It was what I dreamt of, being transported to another world, living a life of magic, feeling power and proving the bullies wrong...but I could always close the book and return to my world again, that is the beauty of books.

But I can’t shut it off, close it, turn it off, not anymore. At least that’s what I think, would there be a better person in this position? A terminal patient, someone who can’t run, someone whose life was terrible, they’re given a second chance to redo their lives. I’m just me, a normal person.Do I deserve this? I don’t know.

Eos was still gone, where did he go? I rubbed the fur I felt by my hand, it was rough, it wasn’t like grass but like a dirty rug. Is this an animal’s fur? Perhaps a wolf’s fur. But wouldn’t that mean I’m dead? Or maybe it’s one of those things where I’m mistaken as a wolf’s pup and I get raised as a wolf. I’m not sure, I’m probably worrying too much.

Maybe there’s magic in this world, can I feel anything inside of me? Like a magic core or hidden powers. Early protagonists always train from their birth, I should do that too if I could. I might be able to survive if I get a small spell like fireball.

I closed my eyes, and felt inside of me, the small pulsing heartbeat, wait, there is….two pulses? I have two hearts, it feels like, the one that normally pumps blood, and another which pumps something else, I’ll call it mana, through my body. It beats slightly slower than my original heartbeat, like a drum player that’s never on beat.

I seem to be safe, but I’m in a ton of pain. What am I, 80 years old and getting back pain already? I’m at least a newborn, my bones are fresh, my meat young, I’m overflowing with life, surely there’s no way, it’s probably from what Eos did yesterday. I hope my mother or father is well. I’m feeling so sleepy.

“Oi, wake up, wake up, can you hear me? Wake up”

“Mmfffffmmmmmm, I’m too sleepy”

“Then what about food, do you want to eat wolf's food? Did you know that a mother wolf throws up meat from her stomach and the baby wolves need to eat it?”

“Ugh, yuck. Gross, ew, no way!! EW!” I woke up, my baby little eyes wide awake, the bright sunlight entering my vision from the small opening in the cave. I still couldn’t move but the sunlight from the cave layered itself on the roof.

“Well, what do we do now?” I asked Eos

“We can choose, stay here and be raised by wolves for the time being and the other is to try and survive without the wolves”

“Well, being raised by wolves doesn’t sound too bad until you mentioned how the babies eat. Say, how are my parents?”

“It’s your mother that survived. She’s breathing but dying very very slowly. She needs medical aid but she can survive for another 129,067 heartbeats before she draws her last breath.”

“What the fuck, what’s 129,067 heartbeats in coherent time measurements.”

“Time is perceived differently in different worlds, how am I supposed to know what coherent time measurements are?”

“Like you know, seconds, minutes, hours. Like saying 1 second is 1 second, and a minute is 60 of those, and 60 of those minutes is an hour, and one day has 24 hours.”

Pause. A long pause, a calculating pause. “Around 1 day”

“WHAT, THEN WHAT CAN I DO TO SAVE HER”

Pause. A longer pause, the silence feels threatening, like the moment of silence before a guillotine blade falls on you. When the rope snaps and it begins to fall, it seems like a single millisecond but it feels like an eternity. I felt that too.

“Grab the wolf, tug on its shoulder, hang on tight, wait 129 seconds and then let go and start crying as loud as you can. I see something coming soon, but I can’t tell when it’s coming.”

“I can’t cry all day, there surely is a better way to do this”

“Not one that I can think of right now”

“Then what use are you!!”

“You can only measure something by how it's supposed to be used.” I felt a kind of intensity coming from Eos. “A butterknife shouldn’t be measured by its ability to cut logs, it should be measured according to what its supposed to do”

“Well what are you supposed to do”

“Live well, and give insight from my experience to those of the next generation. At least that’s what I decided what I‘m suppose to do right now”

“So give me insight”

“I told you, grab the wolf, wait 129 seconds and then start crying”

“Ugh fine”

I tugged on the sleeping wall of fur. It felt more like a wall that was made out of fur than anything else. I can’t believe I’m this small, I tugged, tugge, tugged, and it still slept. I tugged a bit harder, cmon wake up already, I pulled with all my might and then the wall shook and trembled, it got up and I saw a grey snout with white, grey and black wolf patterns covering its face. This was nothing like the wolves I’ve seen, and it had fangs that protruded like a sabretooth. The eyes were red and tired in a comical way. It yawned, and then stretched, arching its back before yawning and looking at me.

I tried to formulate words but, “Googoo gaga” was the only thing that came out.

Damn this useless baby mouth! My tongue can’t even do the correct words. H-e-l-p m-e I tried to word but all that came out was,

“Haa-haaafff-veeee” I looked at the wolf with pity, please carry me, the wolf nodded, like there was a shred of intelligence in its eyes and then using its snout it scooped me off the floor and let me rest on her snout and began walking. I hope Eos is right, wait I should begin counting.

1, 2, 3,.......28, 29. I patted the wolf and with its large crimson eyes it looked at me almost curiously, right now it looked almost like a gentle mother. I pointed to the ground and with a jolt tried to bounce on her snout getting her to go down but aughh I can only topple a bit patting her snout with my little hands. She put me down gently on the grass, and then nudged me with her snout almost as if she’s asking me what I was doing, and then I began to cry.

“Waaa, Waaa,Wagrahhhhhhhhhh, Grahhhhhhh, Grahhhhhhh, Grahhhhhhoooooo” My cries went from that of a babies to one that was like a pained panther that cried through a copper bell. I saw that my cries shook the leaves, the birds flew away and I saw a small horde of birds that flew overhead me. They seemed to have long legs with fire tipped wings, they looked like small flying sun flares. I cried a bit longer, “Graaahooooooo, Grahoooooooooo, Grahhhhhhhh”

I felt my heart beat faster, my second heart. It beat faster than before, overtaking the pace of my regular heart, like a train engine starting up it kept pumping faster and faster, my cries gaining in decibels and strength. I felt the ground tremble now, it was a tenacious tremble. Quite like the drumming beats of a gallop. I saw that the leaves of the tree moved again, by a powerful gust of wind, not of my own cries. Instead it’s like they were opening the gateway to me and I saw animals of different species flying away from my left vision. The crackle and stomping of animal feet resounded through the floor all around me but there were also scurrying of little animals and creatures. I kept crying, and crying, but this engine’s fuel tank was running low. I slowed down my crying, crying between breaths, heaving in and out my little chest before I bellowed again.

I felt like toothpaste, squeezing out my final breath.

The silence protruded through the forest. Step. Step. Step. Step.A flowing brushing noise followed each step, my cries reverted to that of a simple baby once again. Not roaring, just whining. A soft hand carried me, the hands hand little scales like that of a fish, deep turquoise blue and large. This thing’s palm covered my entire back and its fingers arched over my sides, letting its fingertips touch my belly. I could feel it’s scaly hands holding me like a loaf of bread, I tried to turn to look into the things eyes.

They were yellow, yellow eyes and it had 4 of them. It looked like it had the body of a human but with a darker bluish skin tone and 4 eyes. 2 where they usually went and 2 more on where the eyebrows should be. The top one looked at me with cautiousness while the bottom one looked at me with compassion, their faces were angular and long, with their hair braided from what I saw. I couldn’t determine the gender yet because their face was ambiguous, they had an angular face but it could either be described as a femine guy or a tomboyish girl.

Mother! I thought. I needed to ask it to go to mother. I stopped crying, and then I forgot which direction I came from.

“Eos! Eos I need your help” I cried out in my mind, a familiar feeling of oldness and wiseness filled my head,”Help, where is my mother” I sensed an aura of red coming from a certain direction like it was a gassy red river. I pointed to that direction, and the person looked towards there confused, and then with a sharp amazonian-like gallop it grasped me and began sprinting towards that direction. Its eyes turned from yellow to bloodshot amber, like that of an eagle locking onto its target. It crawled and darted fast, the scenery was moving faster and suddenly, an abrupt stop. I looked around again, gaining my consciousness and realized we were pretty close to the area I came from. I saw some strange landmarks that resembled the ones I saw while on the wolf. I cried again, and pointed to a small little cave.

It was more like a burrow, hidden underneath all the bushes. I saw that it wasn’t a cave as I thought, but a little hole hidden and buried underneath the roots of a gigantic tree. Its roots seemed to be as large as me and next to it was a trail of blood leading to who I presume is my mother.

“Ma-ma” I whispered unconsciously with my undeveloped baby lips. “Mama” I pointed at the person again and pointed at the trail of blood. I followed the blood trail and I saw my mother.

She was beautiful. Stunning even, she held a regla beauty about her even at death’s doorstep. Her skin was pale white and her chest raised up and fell like that of a slow breathing animal. Resting, if it wasn’t for the blue liquid that plagued the entire place with her blood. I could smell, a kind of decaying smell. Terror covered my face, and terror covered the person’s face too.

The person placed me down and then inspected my mother and then I knew my job was done.

“Well done” a joyful voice resounded in my head

“Hey Eos,” I greeted back tiredly, this body isn’t meant to do anything but eat food, roll around and grow. “Thanks for your help”

“I’m just glad to see that your mother is safe”

“Yeah, I’m going to sleep now” after such a workout I felt my eyelids drooping down like curtains of a play. They were heavy, sudden, and relaxing.