ORIGIN

Inside of a pure red gemstone hidden behind some stones near the waterfall, there hummed a life. It was small, but its mind was active in its sleep. Endless images passed through the little one's mind as she slept, meanings, words. They morphed into scenarios, faces, sentences, wild dreams that split and branched into impossible outcomes, and if she didn't like one, it replayed to another one. Over time, the dreams became more complicated as her mind matured to understand and appreciate such things, and she became the main character in most of them. She could do anything! Fly, tunnel down to find treasure, swim in an endless sea, and every choice was open to her, most of the time merging to play both, or all three options, just to see which one she liked best, in a completely nonsensical way. It was paradise to her!

But as the dreams reached its high point, its pinnacle, there was something outside the dreams that bothered her. Like a voice telling her to wake up, a soft touch that announced someone's presence, it woke her, and she could feel walls press against her shoulders, too proximal to her for taste. Her eyes fluttered open, and she pushed against the walls with a single minded determination. She pushed for who knows how long, for inside these walls, time meant nothing.

They splintered and cracked at her insistence, and she nudged at the cracks with her forehead till it gave way, shards falling to the ground outside with sharp clings, one after the other. Light poured through, and she kicked at the opening, poking her head through.

At first, none of the images that hit her eyes made any sense. Blue, ground, water, wet - and this loud roaring noise nearby. Everything was new, everything possible was a unique and crazy possibility for her to explore, and she rested there, thinking.

There was a sound...a scared sound. She turned to look at it, blinking, and the shape that was making noise took a while to make sense to her. It had...two eyes...a patch of brown fur on their head....and four paws. They seemed almost familiar, like someone in one of her many arching dreams, but as she tried to remember, it slipped away, in the habit of dreams. But as she kept looking at them, the more they made sense - the more their words made sense.

"Ah-" She said, trying to reply - but knowing how to speak in her dreams and actually doing it was another matter, and her baby face crumpled a little bit. How silly! In her dreams she always said the best possible sentences to any given situations, and if it didn't work right, she just chose another! This other world, the waking world, was silly.

"Ah-ahm- ff-faiiine," She tried to say, ashamed at how clumsy her tongue was, and she tried to stand, but her small twig legs were so shaky. This was so silly! She was able to run and jump and fly just five minutes ago, and here she was, too weak to even get out of this broken shell and onto the slick stone. The waterfall was crashing almost right next to her, but it wasn't intimidating. She didn't know it was dangerous.

She took one step, then another, her knees shaking and wobbling terribly, her head ducking low with her almost losing her balance, but she kept trying out of sheer determination - she could walk, she could! She knew how - sort of - and she would do it now!

Then one of her legs gave out, having never been used, and she fell straight onto her face.

Tears built up in her eyes. She hiccuped. It hurt! Nothing had ever hurt before! But she wouldn't cry, she wasn't so silly; she did all sorts of terrifying things all the time and she never cried. A sniff escaped her anyway.