ORIGIN

Wet. It was wet. Slick. Gooey.

When it opened its eyes, the surroundings were green. There were tiny shards of quartz at its feet.

It was alive.

There were no profound realisations, no grand ideas. Instead, the beast swivelled to look at where it'd come from. More quartz. Not that it knew what quartz was. In fact, its head felt quite blissfully... empty. There was no little voice telling it what to do. How to feel. Just a comfortable quiet.

It was hungry. Its head didn't tell it that, it was just a faint signal, barely a prompt. Its belly felt hollow and ached a little.

It would be good to eat. Yes.

Turning its nose towards the quartz, it gave the crystal shards a sniff. It smelt like it did. And it was gooey, like it was too.

These didn't smell edible.

It smelt like home. The self. Yes. This was it. This was what it was.

That did not fix how hungry it felt, though. Perhaps there was something else nearby...

Jutting out of the same vein of quartz was a second chrysalis. The thing inside was dimly aware; it, too, was hungry. It did not, however, have a nice set of limbs with which to struggle out of its chrysalis with. Over the last few days, it'd been flexing and testing, shifting inside.

Soon, the face of the quartz had softened enough for it to press against the wall until it cracked. Instead of a tumbling or a thump, though, there was just fluid that came oozing out-- pearlescent and transcluent.

Slorp. Once most of it had came out, the heavier, thicker substances of its innards came gooping out, too, landing in a neat, wet pile onto the jungle floor.

Hungry. It was very hungry.

Though, there was a problem: it couldn't see anything worth eating. Actually, it couldn't sense much that was useful at all. There was a warm mass somewhere nearby and dappled light shining in through tree-tops. The ground it had gathered on was rough under its belly, though not unpleasantly so. Simply... textured.

The ooze lifted slightly, like a bouy dipping up and down with the waves. It reached deep inside itself and found a manifestation of its one and only desire: in the trees came a dim, low whisper.

"Feed."

A wet noise. It turned to look at the source. More goo.

It gave the goo a sniff, it smelled the same. This must be what itself also looks like. Wet, shapeless. Yes. This was a sibling. A twin.

It wasn't alone. That made it feel nice.

Feed. It was also very hungry. They must of both been born hungry. It had to feed its sibling, that much came without any thought at all.

It could feel it's throat work as its senses came alive through the fluids drenching it. Then a sensation of not being in a body, just watching it work from its place within its own skull. Watching through the sockets of its own eyes.

Never would it be able to put a name to that feeling.

Then louder in its ears.

Thum-thum, thum-thum, thum-thum. Blood, a heart. Food. Food! Food!

Without hesitation it turned towards the sounds and marched towards it. Parting low foliage as it stalked towards the noise.

They would eat now.

The heat began to retreat.

Slowly, the ooze shifted again, finding its feet and beginning to slime on after the heat. Perhaps it was bringing it to food: perhaps it hadn't known what it wanted at all, and it was all circumstance. There was only one way to find out, after all.

Trailing after the spinosaurus's heels, the mimic said nothing at all, partially because it didn't have a mouth with which to do so, and partially because there was nothing of note to hear. It could make out a dim rustle of leaves. The heat signature nearby stalked low to the ground.

Hunting. Yes, this registered as hunting. Something rustling in the leaves was going to be eaten. There was a dim instinct to help the hunt, but it couldn't do much physically other than glorp around. Even when it reached back inside itself for the sensation that'd made a noise, it found nothing.

It only waited, rind rippling in the breeze.

It could hear the sibling following behind it. Perfect. Together the hunt would be easier.

It followed the sounds. Thump-thum, thump-thum, thump-thum. Louder now. Closer.

It was resting. It must be. The beat wasn't fast.

Thump-thum, thump-thum, thump-thum. It pushed through more ferns. Pushing through jungle was becoming exhausting to its juvenile frame.

Thump-thum, thump-thum, thump-thum.

There.

No thoughts guided its actions. It lunges through the ferns with an almighty shove, jaws wide. And when they snapped shut, a gruesome crunch resounded through the jungle, making everything else nearby flee in a flurry of activity.

Then, it was just them. Something of blood and flesh hung limply from its neck in its jaws. It turned to deposit it on the ground for its sibling.

The food had hide. Limbs and features. It didn't look like them, wet and formless. It wasn't sibling-looking at all. A perfect meal.

Brother settled on its hunches, lowering its body to the ground as it presented its meal to its sibling. It waited, feeling anticipation settle in its stomach alongside hunger. Sibling would have the first bite.

It wanted the sibling to have first taste, but it'd unintentionally stole that, it licked its teeth. The taste was good. So good it was drooling as it watched over its sibling, but it would wait his turn.

Something was placed in front of it. Warm, but cooling. Dead. Food. It didn't think to leave anything for the spinosaurus-- not out of malicious intent, of course. This was pure survival. It reached out and then slowly engulfed the blue creature inside its rind, its features melting away down to the bone until it was nothing.

Yes. Yes. This is what it'd needed. It could work with this.

As the last bits of the raptor dissolved inside it, the slime shifted. New data was soaring through its insides; meat and skin and bone and bristles and teeth. There was a dim instinct that everything was vital in making it come together. There was no one thing working without another. So, slowly, it began to shift.

At first, it was a new hint of red somewhere deep inside the layers of fluid. It might have looked, at first, there was a bit of the previous creature that hadn't been digested yet. But then, it grew.

A heart, first. This was central to everything else. From there, veins. Arteries. Lungs to oxygenate the blood. A brain to control it all. The heart began beating and the arteries thrummed as newly-created blood pumped through them. An esophagus was next; an airway for oxygen and a flap for food. A stomach to digest. Kidneys and liver for cleansing. Intestines, large and small.

Next, bones. Stark white against the red and browns of its guts. A ribcage around the heart and lungs for protection. A spine that connected the brain to the legs. Delicate bones and claws, a skull to encase the brain in, a long tail for stability. After that, muscle. Flesh. The translucent fluid became scarlet, and then opaque as it formed to encase around the skeleton and insides.

A layer of fat, next, glossy and yellowish against the red of flesh. Then, blue and red skin, pimpling over into scales. Ridges formed along the orbital bone and the spine. And then, finally, dark red bristles grew a ruff around its neck and its tail.

When the new form was done, it was laying on its side in a near-identical position that Brother had dropped it in. Melting, reforming, and now beginning to move. The creature shifted, standing up on shaky legs.

It could see, now. Things were very bright-- these eyes must not be well-adapted to light. But in the shade of the trees, it could just about make out the spinosaurus looming over it.

Finally, "Thank you."

It could only watch as the food disappeared. Almost quite literally. Inside of its sibling.

It might of been angry that it hadn't shared if it wasn't staring at its sibling growing and changing before his very eyes. Quite literally too shocked to be upset.

No thoughts would help it figure out what was happening, it only drooled mindlessly over itself as it became an audience member to this spectacle.

Only when the sibling spoke did he move. He blinked. Then, made a noise of his own. Not words, they seemed far too complex right this moment. Instead he grunted, a low rumble that made the dewlap on his neck wobble.

With a curiosity, he leaned closer and brushed his nose against his sibling's side. Leathery hide. Just like a meal. Now this was confusing. How would he know which ones were food and which ones were siblings?

Perhaps a marking. It stalked over to the ferns again, using his jaws to yank a particularly long one from the bush. Then returned to the sibling and gently laid the fern frond onto it.

It would no doubt fall if it moved. Yet it seemed he hadn't thought of that.

He gave another grunt.

He was still hungry. He looked at the floor and saw not even a morsel was left.

They need more food.

The spinosaurus only made noises. Perhaps speech wasn't normal? It didn't use words again-- it mimicked the little grunt he made and turned its newly-formed head to nudge into the side of his much-larger face. When he moved, the mimic began testing its new legs properly to follow. It didn't get far before a fern had been dropped down onto its back.

Its neck turned to see-- and then a section of its back that held the fern opened into ooze and the frond fell inside. This, too, was digested. This one was much simplier than the other, at least, though there was a distinct sense that something vital was missing-- likely because it was only a section of something greater, and not the whole thing.

It could make this work, it was fairly certain.

The cellular structures were completely different, but the fundamentals were the same. It assessed its new body for a moment: it knew, on a base instinct level, that it didn't want to stand out too much. But, likely, the spinosaurus wanted to know which he shouldn't eat.

Weight shifting from one foot to the other, the mimic's skrungler form trembled-- for a moment, half-ooze and half-raptor. It scanned itself for an acceptable place to grow the frond and it decided on its tail-- soon enough, the bristled on the end of its tail shrunk back and, cell by cell, grew into a fern.

It wasn't green. It had to rewire the structure to be supported by blood instead of choloraphyll, so it took on a flushed sort of colour. The mimic lifted its tail to its sibling's face with a questioning grunt, seeking approval.

It watched as the fern sunk into its sibling. Goodness. It truly was a very hungry sibling.

Moments passed as he watched his sibling. Something was different about it... Yes. Something had changed. He narrowed his eyes to inspect his sibling as it made a questioning noise at him.

What was it asking? Was it still hungry? That wasn't very fair, it'd already eaten all their food! No, no, it was showing him something. Was it the tail? Well, it looked a little tasty, but he wasn't about to eat his sibling. So that couldn't be it.

This was difficult. It filled his head with voices and ideas; thoughts, some may call them. They disrupted the peace inside and he didn't like that. He preferred it when it was quiet.

Ultimately deciding this wasn't fun at all, he did the only thing he could think of. Which was to lower his top half, so his arms bore some of his weight, and lift his own tail into the air. Waving it right back at his sibling.

Oh, yes. Now this was a fun game. Pointless, yes. But he could see the appeal, yes. They must be bonding. Wonderful.

He very much did enjoy bonding with sibling.

But, his stomach still ached.

His eyes grew distant as they glazed over. Straining to listen for the beating hearts of the nearby fauna. They must eat. They must. They needed to survive.

There was something nearby. He turned his head into the direction of it.

Was that... approval? It would have to assume so. For a few, stupid seconds, Brother and Friend just wagged their tails at each other. Then, he seemed to check out and a moment later, turned his head.

The mimic-skrungler's head swivelled, looking out towards where he was looking. There was something nearby, scratching at the ground. Did he also hunger?

It reached out. The core was still somewhere in there, it found-- inside its skull, likely wedged inside the brain. It felt magic pulse against its newly-formed skull and a soft whisper was thrown from the other side of the creature Brother was looking at. "Flee."

And, flee it did. Another, smaller Skrungler came lunging out, startled and running-- and obviously not expecting to come across two other creatures, both larger than it was. Friend snapped forward, its jaws sinking into its throat. The real-skrungler struggled against the mimic-skrungler, squealing in alarm, but eventually Friend found that biting down hard enough to crack the bones of its neck made it go still.

Hauling the corpse towards Brother, it plopped it down in front of his forefeet and looked up. It grunted, mimicking his noises.