Chapter 36: The Time of All Living Beings – To Be an Animal 1

The darkness gradually receded, and Elden felt his consciousness sinking into another existence.

At first, there was only a dull awareness of warmth and movement, accompanied by a steady rhythm that seemed to come from somewhere deep within his body. He could feel the ground beneath him, the pressure of something pressing against his side, and the faint scent of damp earth carried through the air. Unlike his previous lives as a plant, however, these sensations did not arrive separately or remain disconnected from one another. They formed a continuous stream of information, each sensation influencing the way he responded to the next.

He opened his eyes and found himself surrounded by darkness.

Not the absolute darkness of the trial, but the dim interior of a narrow burrow. His body was pressed against several small, warm shapes, and the air smelled of soil, dried grass, and the unmistakable scent of other living creatures. He attempted to move, discovering that his limbs were short and his body covered in soft fur. His ears twitched at a faint sound coming from somewhere above him, while his nose moved almost involuntarily, drawing in the scents that surrounded him.

Before he could properly understand his situation, a warm body shifted beside him, and something brushed against his mouth. His jaws opened instinctively, searching for nourishment, and he began to suckle.

Elden froze internally.

He had become a newborn animal.

He tried to recall the appearance of his current body, but his eyes could barely distinguish anything in the darkness. His limbs were weak, his movements uncoordinated, and his consciousness seemed strangely constrained by the needs of his flesh. He could recognize his own thoughts, yet even that recognition required effort, as though the mind he had brought into this existence were being forced to operate through a body that had not yet developed the capacity to support it.

Then hunger returned, and whatever he had been thinking about disappeared beneath the overwhelming demand to feed.

He could not ignore it. He could not reason with it, nor could he postpone it simply because he wished to examine his circumstances. His body needed nourishment, and until that need was satisfied, everything else became secondary. He continued suckling until the discomfort gradually subsided, then curled against the warmth of the other bodies and drifted into sleep.

Only after waking several times did he begin to understand the rhythm of his new existence. Warmth, hunger, sleep, and the touch of his mother formed the boundaries of his world. He could not see beyond the burrow, had no understanding of the landscape above it, and possessed no meaningful concept of the dangers that might surround him. His world was small, but it was not empty. It was filled with sensations that demanded his attention, and each passing day brought changes that his developing body slowly learned to recognize.

He was a rabbit.

And his life had only just begun.

As he grew, the burrow gradually became less confining. His eyes adjusted to the dim light, his legs strengthened, and his ears became increasingly sensitive to the sounds that traveled through the earth above him. He learned to distinguish the movements of his siblings from the heavier footsteps of his mother, and he began to recognize the difference between the ordinary rustling of grass and the sudden disturbances that caused her to freeze.

The first time she emerged from the burrow and returned carrying fresh vegetation, Elden followed her toward the entrance. Sunlight spilled through the opening, and he hesitated before stepping into it. The world outside was impossibly vast compared with the narrow tunnels where he had spent his earliest days. Grass stretched across the ground in every direction, its blades rising above his head, while scattered shrubs and wildflowers formed a dense landscape that concealed countless movements.

He sniffed the air, overwhelmed by the abundance of unfamiliar scents. There was moisture in the soil, the faint sweetness of flowering plants, and the lingering traces of animals that had passed through the area. His mother began feeding, pulling at the grass with quick movements of her mouth, and after watching her for a while, he imitated her. The taste was unfamiliar at first, but hunger soon made it acceptable, and he continued eating until his stomach was full.

For a time, life seemed remarkably simple. There was food to be found, shelter beneath the earth, and the warmth of his family when night fell. Yet the simplicity of his existence depended on his ability to recognize dangers that he could not always see. His mother frequently stopped eating without warning, raising her head and turning her ears toward distant sounds. Whenever she did so, Elden found himself freezing as well, his body responding to her tension before he understood its cause.

One afternoon, while they were feeding near a patch of shrubs, a shadow

passed across the grass.

His mother bolted.

Elden followed without hesitation.

The sudden movement sent his heart racing, and the world became a confusion of pounding feet, bending grass, and rapidly changing scents. He did not stop to ask what had frightened her. He did not need to know whether the danger came from the sky or the ground. His body had already recognized the urgency in her movement, and every instinct urged him to keep running until he reached cover.

They disappeared beneath a dense cluster of roots just as a large bird swept across the clearing.

Elden pressed himself against the earth, breathing rapidly. His mother remained motionless beside him, her ears angled toward the opening while the bird circled overhead. For several minutes, neither of them moved. Eventually, the shadow disappeared beyond the trees, and the tension in his mother's body gradually eased.

Only then did Elden realize how tightly he had been pressing his claws into the soil.

He had known fear before, but never quite like this. As a plant, he had experienced the gradual loss of water and the crushing force that ended his life. Those experiences had been real, yet they had not involved the same continuous awareness of danger. Now, the world was filled with things that could kill him, and survival depended on detecting them before they came close enough to strike.

The grass that concealed him could also conceal a predator. The open clearing offered abundant food but left him exposed to the sky. Even the act of feeding required him to divide his attention between nourishment and the possibility that something was approaching.

His existence had become a constant negotiation between the need to live and the need to avoid being killed.

As the weeks passed, Elden learned the habits of his surroundings. He discovered which plants were safe to eat, which paths led toward reliable sources of food, and which patches of vegetation offered the best protection. He learned to remain motionless when the wind carried an unfamiliar scent and to flee when the sound of approaching footsteps became too heavy to ignore. His body grew stronger, and his movements became more coordinated, allowing him to escape dangers that would once have overwhelmed him.

He also began to understand why his mother rarely remained in one place for long. Food was never simply something to consume; it was something to locate, reach, and obtain without exposing himself to unnecessary risk. A patch of fresh grass might be worth crossing an open space for, but only if the benefit outweighed the danger. A burrow offered shelter, yet its entrance could become a trap if a predator discovered it. There was no single place that guaranteed safety, only a series of choices shaped by circumstances that could change without warning.

Elden did not consciously formulate these principles every time he moved. They gradually became part of the way he perceived the world. He began to notice the position of nearby cover without deliberately searching for it, and his attention instinctively shifted toward sounds that might signal danger. His mind remained capable of reflection, but his existence was no longer governed by thought alone. His body had its own accumulated knowledge, expressed through the subtle adjustments of his ears, the tension in his muscles, and the direction in which his nose turned when the wind changed.

Then came the season when the young rabbits began to leave the burrow.

Elden's siblings gradually dispersed, each following the movements and opportunities available to them. Some remained nearby for a time, while others disappeared into the surrounding vegetation. He occasionally caught their scents, but those traces became less frequent as the territory grew familiar and their lives carried them in different directions.

He did not experience their departure as a human might have. There were no promises to keep, no final conversations, and no conscious understanding that they were beginning separate lives. Their presence had simply been part of the environment in which he had grown, and their absence became another change to which he adapted.

His mother eventually disappeared as well.

One morning, Elden returned to the burrow and found it empty. He waited for a while, then ventured outside to search for familiar scents. He followed several trails, pausing whenever something caught his attention, but none led him back to her. By nightfall, he had found shelter beneath a fallen trunk and curled himself into the dry leaves.

He remained there through the cold hours, occasionally lifting his head whenever a sound disturbed the darkness. His body missed the warmth of the burrow, and for a time he continued to search for a familiar scent that no longer appeared. Yet hunger returned with the morning, and the demands of survival gradually drew his attention elsewhere.

He began to live alone.

The world changed when the first heavy rains arrived.

Water soaked the ground, flooded shallow depressions, and forced Elden to abandon several familiar feeding areas. The vegetation grew thick and lush, but the soft earth made movement more difficult, and the scents he relied upon became muddled by the constant moisture. He had to search farther for suitable food, often venturing beyond the territory he had previously explored.

At first, the abundance seemed like a blessing. Fresh shoots emerged throughout the grassland, and the plants grew so quickly that he could feed without traveling far. But the same vegetation that provided nourishment also concealed danger, and he soon discovered that a place could become more dangerous precisely because it offered so much to eat.

One morning, while moving through a narrow stretch between shrubs, he detected a scent that did not belong to the plants or the small animals he had grown accustomed to encountering. It was faint, almost lost beneath the smell of wet soil, yet something in his body reacted before he could identify it.

He stopped.

The grass ahead remained still, but the scent grew stronger.

Elden turned to flee, only to hear movement behind him.

A fox emerged from the vegetation.

Its body was low to the ground, its attention fixed upon him with a concentration that left no doubt about its intentions. Elden sprang sideways, attempting to reach the nearest cover, but the fox moved with astonishing speed. He felt the rush of air as it lunged, and a sharp pain tore through his hind leg when its teeth caught him.

He twisted violently and kicked free.

For a moment, he lost his footing, rolling across the wet ground while the fox turned to strike again. He scrambled toward a narrow opening beneath a mass of roots, forcing his body through the gap just as the predator's jaws snapped shut behind him. The fox clawed at the entrance, scraping away soil and dead leaves, but the opening was too small for its head.

Elden pressed himself deep into the darkness, his injured leg trembling beneath him. He could hear the fox moving outside, occasionally circling the roots and sniffing at the ground. Each time the creature approached, he froze, scarcely daring to breathe. The pain in his leg was severe, but the fear of being dragged out into the open was worse, and he remained motionless until the sounds gradually faded.

By the time he emerged, the rain had begun again.

He limped toward a sheltered patch beneath a fallen tree and spent the rest of the day licking the wound. His body was exhausted, and the injury made every movement painful, yet he could not afford to remain in one place indefinitely. He needed food, and he needed a location where the scent of blood would not draw another predator toward him.

Over the following days, he moved cautiously, relying on sheltered routes and feeding only when he felt reasonably secure. The wound gradually closed, but the experience left him more attentive to the subtle changes in his surroundings. He began to avoid places where the vegetation was too dense to provide a clear escape route, and he became wary of lingering scents that suggested a predator had recently passed.

He had survived, but not through strength or determination alone. The roots had happened to provide an opening small enough to protect him, and the fox had been unable to reach him before he escaped. Had the ground been different, or had the predator approached from another direction, his life might have ended that morning.

The realization did not make him helpless. Instead, it altered the way he moved through the world. He continued to search for food, explore unfamiliar areas, and respond to opportunities, but he no longer treated survival as something that could be secured through effort alone. His actions mattered, yet they operated within circumstances he could not entirely control.

As the seasons passed, Elden experienced the ordinary rhythms of a rabbit's life. He found food during the warmer months, sought shelter when the nights grew cold, and learned to conserve his energy when the weather made movement difficult. He encountered other rabbits, sometimes sharing feeding grounds with them and sometimes driving them away when competition became unavoidable. He mated when the opportunity arose, and later encountered young rabbits whose movements reminded him of his own early days in the burrow.

He did not recognize them as his children in the way a human father might have understood the relationship. His behavior was shaped by the immediate circumstances of their presence, by familiar scents and instinctive responses rather than an elaborate conception of family. Yet the continuation of life was visible all around him. Young animals emerged from sheltered places, grew stronger, and eventually dispersed into the same world that had shaped him.

Many would not survive.

One disappeared after a storm flooded its shelter. Another was taken by a bird while feeding near an exposed patch of grass. A thir

d simply vanished, leaving behind no clear sign of what had happened. Their absence altered the immediate surroundings, but the grass continued growing, insects moved among the leaves, and the remaining rabbits returned to their routines.

Elden began to experience death as part of the ordinary uncertainty of existence. It did not always arrive as a dramatic struggle, nor did it necessarily follow a mistake. Sometimes an animal failed to notice a danger. Sometimes it noticed too late. Sometimes it did everything that had kept it alive before, only to encounter a circumstance for which those habits were insufficient.

The world offered no guarantee that yesterday's success would protect anyone tomorrow.

His own life continued nonetheless, shaped by the repeated acts of feeding, resting, avoiding danger, and searching for shelter. The longer he lived, the less he needed to consciously consider these actions. They became the texture of his existence, so familiar that he noticed them only when something disrupted them.

Then, one cold morning, he failed to wake.

His body had grown old, and the strength that once allowed him to flee across the grassland had gradually diminished. He lay beneath the roots of a tree while the temperature fell, his breathing shallow and his senses slowly fading. There was no predator waiting nearby, no wound that demanded attention, and no sudden catastrophe to mark the end of his life. The world was simply becoming too difficult for his aging body to endure.

Elden felt the cold seep through his fur. He tried to shift into a more comfortable position, but his limbs responded only weakly. The familiar scents of soil and vegetation lingered around him, while distant sounds reached his ears as faint vibrations. He remained aware of the world for a little longer, then the sensations gradually lost their clarity.

His life ended quietly, beneath the same earth that had sheltered him since his earliest days.

When his consciousness returned to the darkness of the trial, Elden carried with him the memory of a life shaped by vulnerability, adaptation, and the constant need to respond to a changing world. He had not conquered the grassland, nor had he overcome the natural limitations of his body. He had lived within them, sometimes finding ways to survive and sometimes failing, until the passage of time brought him to an end.

Before he could fully gather those memories, the darkness shifted again.

A new sensation spread through his consciousness, accompanied by a sudden awareness of height, balance, and the movement of air against his body. His senses sharpened, and the familiar pressure of the earth disappeared beneath him. He felt feathers along his limbs, a light body supported by powerful muscles, and a narrow beak that moved instinctively as he adjusted to his surroundings.

He was no longer bound to the ground.

He had become a bird.