The Children

She discovered the first larva laying in the forest after the piece of the sun crashed in the waters licking the beach.

She had seen such things before. The sun often got angry while it was raining and lash out its arms to strike the mountain, causing the whole world to shake. The last time it lost a piece of itself, it was on the other side of the mountain, and it ate many of the plants until there was nothing but bones and dust behind. But she did not live on that side of the mountain. It was never her concern and fighting the longones and bushtails was not worth the effort.

Even now, she could see the sun thrashing in anger at the edge of the world. The rain over the land itself was soft enough to not be a bother.

But this larva…. This was something new. Or at least, she thought it was larva. She had never seen a child version of her kind before—or anyone but herself, really—but she had seen the children of the smallthings numerous times. This creature was no different.

Instead of hard and dark skin, they were soft, pale, and covered in stripes adorned with red cuts and purplish patches. Instead of four eyes, they only had two and the white around their brown round had yet to finishing shrinking away. Instead of eight limbs, they only had four. There was no sign on their torso the missing ones had even begun to grow or had been torn off or ever been there in the first place.

Their mouth was all wrong too. No palps at all, no protrusions, just soft lips.

She looked inside. No fangs either, but so many teeth. They looked like some mutated form of ballprey, all flat and crammed together.

And what were these gills on the side of its head? The holes were on the front of them instead of the back. Or were they like the ears on the ballprey’s head too? But the rest of them looked nothing like ballprey, with exception to how soft and squishy they were to the touch. Their top two limbs had hands like her top six. Their bottom two limbs had jointed stubs. Their head and torso were the same shape as her own.

But what was this colorful skin wrapping its body? Perhaps the remains of a cocoon? Perhaps the egg from which it hatched?

Her heart sank. No, she did not think it was one of her kind. Maybe something similar, but there was still no denying it was an undeveloped larva who had emerged too soon—from its cocoon or egg or whatever this skin was. She grabbed it and gave it a gentle tug. Poor creature. Its chest continued to rise and fall, so it was still alive. But it would never be able to grow into full maturity, only shrivel up and die here.

She stretched her palps, bearing her fangs and venom, her own jaw wide, and dove them into the creature’s neck. They jerked and squirmed. Flesh and juices burst in her mouth. While the taste of the blood made her heart beat faster in her own hunger, the overall taste made her nauseous and she was not hungry enough to ignore it.

Finally, the creature fell limp.

There. Now they would not have to suffer anymore.

A vibration and movement interrupted her thoughts, and she looked up from the creature.

There were two of them this time. Identical in the number of deformities as the larvae she put to rest, but bigger. Their skin was darker too. That meant they were more mature then. The larger one had broad shoulders and thick hair that stuck out in different directions. Most likely some female then as the other was smaller and more pleasant to look at, so that had to be the male. The male’s hair fell down to their waist, there were two large lumps on their chest, and they had red claws.

The male’s hands were over their mouth. Their eyes were wide, showing off as much white as they could. She could feel them trembling. Both of the male and female. Their chest rose and fell like an injured ballprey too. The female jumped in front of the male, hands of their top limbs at the same level as their shoulders.

She tilted her head and blinked. What? She looked around. What were they planning to pounce on? There was nothing here. Maybe she did not see it.

She crouched low and took two cautious steps forward, light as she could so not to startle them.

The male and female jumped back. The female’s arms dropped to cover the male. The vibrations rattled the hairs of her body again.

She froze. She looked left. She looked right. See, there was no prey to catch. These mutated creatures were strange. Maybe they were confused because they were forced out of their cocoons too early. Their bodies were not the only things underdeveloped.

She eyed the beach behind them. A large white mass sat in the water and sun pieces continued to make more clouds. They were wise not to trying eating plants on this side of the mountain—even she stepped on that flower’s arms by accident sometimes—however, they were getting smaller and smaller, soon to die and disappear forever. But she felt the vibrations of footsteps and her hairs continued to prickle. More of them?

She bolted to the nearest tree and scampered up it until she burst through the canopy. Finally, she understood.

An egg sack had fallen from the sky. These were not larva like she first thought; they were premature hatched children at different stages of completion. The survivors were scattering in a panic along the beach. Thirty-seven in total, she counted.

Nineteen females, thirteen males, and the rest either too small to tell or too confusing to think about.

Only seven in total hard darkened skin, and she would have continued to assume they were the matures of the bunch, but there was a smaller one—the smallest, in fact; about the size of a ballprey—who had dark skin too and one of the males was holding them.

She looked around for any signs of their mother. Did they even have one? But if they were not like her… What were they?

A raindrop fell on her nose. She sneezed, shivered, and looked up. The clouds would part soon.

She wanted to stay longer and study them. How frustrating. She had hoped a quick look would be enough to satisfy her curiosity, but now she was more curious than ever. She sighed hard.

Well, even if she could not find their mother, the mother was likely around somewhere. And if the mother was gone, as long as they did not go into the forest until tomorrow night, that flower would not bother them too much.

She, on the other hand, had to get back to her cave. She wanted to make a picture on the wall before she forgot, and she definitely did not want to be out here when the sunlight came back.