The Creature
A small egg, sheltered in a rocky crater, began to crack, and two slimy eyes peered out into the dreary abyss. A creature, small and embryonic, started to emerge. Tirelessly, it loosened its limbs from the warm, nurturing embrace of the egg, and with one final pull, released its body from the shelter it was formed in. As it slowly moved upwards, its eyes stared above at a world void of color, sound, and movement. Looking around, it saw absolutely nothing, but smelled the redolent scent of the beginnings of life on Earth. The creature began to move away from its crevice; the atmosphere was heavy, and with each whimpered motion, the space around it seemed to engulf it in an icy embrace. It felt the buoyancy of its body sway in the air, but just as a baby begins its first steps, it wavered its movement unknowingly and sank to the ground. As it lay pressed against the sandy floor, it gained consciousness of its body, and rose its head in a motion that lifted itself back into the air. While there was no mother or father or community of similar organisms around to guide its emergence into the world, the creature carried ancestral knowledge that acted as instructions. As if it were programmed with a task to perform, it immediately understood its mission for survival. Staying close to the surface, its face brushed into the crystallized sand that decorated the plains for an incomprehensible number of miles.
As it filtered through the sedimentary floor, it began recognizing foreign particles not belonging to the landscape. In an act performed by its evolutionary instincts, the creature began inhaling the particles. With each gulp, it understood these precious morsels to hold the necessary nutrients for its continued growth. It began cascading along the rocky ground for more sustenance, this time using its short, tapered front legs to propel itself forward. Connected to a slender torso, its back legs consisted of four long organs that brushed fluidly through the heavy atmosphere. It spun elegantly throughout the open space, bobbing its head in and out of the ground. This action cemented itself as crucial for survival, and just as it began, it would remain for a large number of years.
However, as its first instinct proved beneficial, the creature felt the strangest urge to work against its internal hardware. In an act completely foreign to its pre-coded instincts, it began jutting itself upwards into the open atmosphere. No more could the littered ground of minerals guide it towards food, as the creature was only led by pure wonder. As it ascended further, it began hearing a low-pitched humming sound. While it had not heard any other detection of activity, this sound felt unnatural; a different kind of foreign than the strange particles it had just inhaled. With each hum of the mysterious noise, its sound sent waves of motion throughout the air, so forceful, in fact, that it briefly halted the creature's ascension. This reactivated the creature’s instinctive data, and it retreated back to its crater.
Over time, the creature grew larger, and its voyages across the desolate landscape grew more perilous. It adapted to its harsh environment; the jagged rocks which decorated the ancient ground were no match for its agile movements. It slithered its scaly body along the Earth’s floor, cascading around sharp corners of basaltic rocks and rugged canyons. And as its efficiency increased, so did its wonder. The creature found itself harboring an unknown sentience. What began as a mere curiosity for the chiming sounds above expanded into pure cognitive thinking. Every day, the creature would explore the terrain, giving mythology to every crevice and canyon it came across. The world existed as a canvas, in which the creature painted beautiful depictions of its beginnings. It imagined itself as the first living thing, exploring an untouched planet filled with pulsating motion and frigid temperatures. The ground, while barren of any flora or fauna, was alive in its texture. It believed the floor of the Earth harbored the story of life itself, and each crevice and jagged edge was an inscription depicting its journey. The creature even began to think of its own thoughts as another organism, something also curious of its surroundings, which traveled alongside it as a companion. And the noise which chimed from above was the catalyzer of its energy. With every thought and feeling of passion felt by the creature, the song was there to guide it to fruition. In this barren world of decayed matter and ancient minerals, the creature found solace in its mind’s eye. The world, as it knew it, was lonely and unchanging. With a mind ablaze in wonder, it had no means of exerting this energy into anything but its own philosophies.
Despite its intense wonder, the creature could not shake the instinct to avoid the noise at all costs. The mysterious humms would continue during its expeditions. Sometimes the frequencies would change from low moans to higher pitches. Sometimes the rhythm would accelerate, sending sound waves that pulsated throughout the atmosphere. These frequencies were gentle, but enough for the creature’s highly sophisticated ears and sensitive skin to detect nearby. As the otherworldly song rang throughout the depths, the creature’s curiosity grew more uncomfortable.
One day, as the creature traversed the open plains, the mystical song played once again. This time, it resonated with a gentler frequency, one that was pleasing to the lonely creature. As it grew louder, a euphonious song filled the freezing atmosphere with a sense of warmth, something so completely strange to the creature, but harbored a familiar, pleasant feeling. This catalyzed an array of questions in the creature's mind.
“What could that beautiful sound be?” It thought to itself.
“Could this song be coming from someone out there? Could they be trying to find me?”
As the sound grew louder, churning stronger motions throughout the air, the creature felt itself slowly lift from the rocky ground and up toward the noise. Its body, aware of its ascension into the unknown, fought back and began forcing itself back to the safe shallows. In a battle between its newly forming cognition and ancient instincts, the creature experienced a kaleidoscopic ray of thoughts.
“Why do I feel I cannot explore this glorious sound? What could be so dangerous in finding out, once and for all, who is calling me? All this time, I’ve explored these rocky plains, with only this enchanting tune keeping me company. Why shouldn’t I finally see who or what it is that has guided me?”
Before it could further ponder its aching questions, the creature thrust itself toward the noise. As it further ascended upwards, ignoring every bodily instinct begging it to return to the safe shallows, the sound grew louder and louder. What was once a small chime that sent gentle waves of sound throughout the valley was now a thunderous roar that permeated the creature’s ears and mind. Despite this, it kept going, as the air around it slightly increased in temperature. Detecting this, the creature’s senses heightened, and the dark abyss which was once so familiar began to slowly brighten. The atmosphere began to shift from a void of no detectable color to exhibiting muted shades of something. The creature could not detect what these hues meant, but it recognized them as different from nothingness below.
The creature's four, slimy organs continued undulating against the heavy air. It sent powerful waves of motion below that propelled its body forward. For a moment, the creature imagined these movements sending shock waves across the landscape, clearing the terrain of the sand and stone, unearthing its ancient scripture. As it moved faster and faster toward the noise, the murky air began to brighten exponentially. The stark contrast between the black underground the creature called home, to the bright expanse of the open air was too much for its eyes to handle. Soon, the creature’s sight was blinded by the light; it could not understand the identity of the shade but believed it to be the complete opposite of the silent depths below. It still moved, however, despite its lack of sight, as the brightness only sparked a fiery passion in its heart to keep exploring. The humm of the entity grew louder and louder. The sound erupted in its ears in an eternal raucous song. The creature could no longer hear or see but continued its desperate pursuit. The world was once a dark, desolate place, but in mere moments, everything the creature understood about life had changed. The only detection of any familiarity was the creature’s anxious thoughts which raced in its mind.
“What in the world could this be?” It thought.
“How bright and how loud. How intense in its movement! Oh! How I can’t wait to finally bask in the presence of whoever this is! What if they can read the scripture of the ancient Earth? What if they hold the answers to my raging curiosity? What if they’ve come to introduce me to a new world, one with brilliant shades and fervent motion? What if-”
The creature rammed its head against an unknown object. Its thoughts halted, and soon there was no more detectable sight or sound. It floated aimlessly in the open atmosphere. Unbeknownst to the creature, the object responded to the collision and began moving toward its limp body.
The submarine jutted forward, aiming its headlight toward the impact scene. Like a flame illuminating the darkness, it revealed the cause of the crash. In the frigid depths, void of all recognizable life, it revealed an enormous, leviathan sea creature. Its body stretched well past the length of the submarine, its limbs stretching too far to be detectable by the light. Its head, comparable to the size of the ship itself, was decorated in bioluminescent filigree. Its eyes were glazed and propped on the top of its head like two stingers. While they had no visible pupils, they seemed incredibly intelligent. Its body, from what the light could detect, was covered in thick, dark green armor. Its forearms pointed towards its chest, slightly twitching in the motion of the water. A voice echoed from a radio inside the submarine.
“Oh my god,” it said. “Did we just find one?”
Soft murmurs radiated from the speakers, as more and more voices began chiming in with their disbelief over this discovery. The creature, paralyzed, struggled to comprehend the situation. With a damaged frontal lobe, it began to interpret the chatter as communication from the entity. It pondered its incessant noise-making as the answers to all the questions it spent its entire life asking. The creature struggled to clearly make out what was being said. As it focused its damaged senses on the foreign noise, the submarine aimed toward it with a long, protruding weapon. The creature could not detect any new motion, as it remained occupied trying to understand the magnitude of this situation. But before it could draw any further conclusions, the submarine, in one swift motion, sent a metal spear barreling into the creature's head. Its body, now lifeless, hung gently, drenched in the light from the submarine. Its blood erupted from its skull in torrents of crimson gas, and the clouds melted into the dark void of the ocean.
