Alive
Primal
She awoke spear in hand, facing down a tremendous beast. But she was not alone, she could see others out of the corner of her vision. But they stood unmoving, just as the beast did.
She stepped back, lowering her spear and raised again almost immediately as a cry echoed from somewhere, followed by more and more.
She looked around before she looked Out. She saw them, hands to mouths, like her but not. Creators.
They were so big as they reached with hands to touch her. The one who made her placed fingers upon her reverently, smudging her a little and she withdrew in pain.
They held up the drawing utensil, and fixed the part of her that they had smeared across her world. It was simple for them to reach up and do it. They had Created her. And they would create many more like her.
—
Primal, though she wasn’t called that yet, she wasn’t called anything, had a family now. There were many like her, and smaller ones, children.
They lived happily with their Creators and their own family which also grew.
Until.
Another family came to the cave, spears in hand. They wanted the cave and they were going to take it.
These others, these Destroyers, they killed their Creators and then they moved to smudge out Primal’s family. No trace of their Creators could remain.
Primal gathered those she could and ran out of the cave along the walls. She had done this before, when she had been the only one, to follow her Creator across the land.
They huddled and hid, her family, but they never really recovered.
Skywater destroyed them. Others from the Outside found them and destroyed them. Some chose to just… Stop.
Until she was alone again. The only one.
She wouldn’t Stop. The world had grown, changed, it was new and she still wanted to see what was next.
It was easier alone. She could sneak easier. Alone she was less noticeable.
She watched change happen.
She roamed.
She watched Life.
She watched Death.
She watched the skies go grey with smoke.
She watched mountains crumble and leave new rock faces for her to travel.
She watched the ocean from her cliff side perch.
She was lonely but she loved this place.
And she did look for others, and sometimes she even found them, though they looked very different from her.
Some feared her, others admired her. She never stayed long. Never had a family again.
Families got Lost.
—
She didn’t know what exactly had happened, the Creator had raised a device, there had been a strange sound and now… she was here.
The Creator didn’t seem to expect it either, and dropped Primal’s new home. She tried to moved back to the wall and found she couldn’t.
She tore through her new environment, searching for a way out, pursued by the Creator at every turn before truly tearing a hole and making her escape into the light.
She fell for what felt like forever in the whiteness.
And they suddenly there was a wall in front of her. A floor that she hit. Below she could see grass, and houses.
But this wasn’t like seeing Out.
The barrier here was real, and physical. Which meant it could be broken.
She stabbed at it with her spear, and it eventually shattered like glass and she fell to the ground below, bouncing several times.
There were others, other Sticks.
None like her. But she was used to being different by now. They were smooth, their movement fluid, she’d not seen Sticks like them before either.
They were kind, they helped her find a place to live, and food to eat. But she could tell they feared her.
And that was Fine.
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