Hungry.
I woke up on day 8 and I was extremely hungry. My mucous had turned mushy and cold from the night before. Without the protection of our birth leaf, our first night out on the branch was brutal as the wind had whipped across our shells.
As usual, I was the first to wake up and crawl out of my shell. Looking around I observed our environment. In the distance I could make out a divide in the branch, but it looked to be a day away.
'I'll think about which direction we should take when we get to it.' I decided.
I looked around me as well. My siblings were still there. ''Looks like we didn't lose anyone in the night.' I thought. But just to make sure, I spent the next hour counting them with my counting powers.
436 siblings.
'Yup. Everyone made it.' I confirmed to myself.
As the sun moved higher in the sky and the air warmed, we were met by a gentle breeze. 'It was going to be another a good day.' I thought.
But I was wrong.
Slowly, each of my siblings woke up and got out of their shells.
Well, all of them except for one.
"KEVEN!" I yelled at the top of my gills as I slid past my siblings to the only one that hadn't woken up yet. "We can't wait for you forever, wake up!" I yelled some more as I touched his shell with my foot.
Keven didn't respond nor move.
I tapped his shell slightly harder. "KEV-EEEN!" I yelled like mother from the movie "Home Alone".
Wait. STOP. What's a MOVIE? O^O
...
No response. Even after waiting for a few minutes Keven didn't move. He didn't react. It was like he was dead.
Instead of waiting for him, I crawled back to the front of the line of shells. "We can't wait for you all day Keven. If you don't come out, we'll leave you behind." I said as I slid towards the divide in the branch ahead of us. 'Hopefully he'll start moving when he sees we have left him.' I thought to myself.
But I was wrong.
After we had moved a few centimeters away, Keven remained in his shell and didn't move a single bit. I didn't want to leave him behind that day, but I had a duty to keep us moving. We needed to reach a leaf ASAP. I was extremely hungry and I bet my little brothers and sisters were too. I decided that we couldn't let Keven drag us behind. And so we left him.
Instead of slowing down, I actually tried to increase our pace. Driven by hunger, my siblings started to slide across the branch faster and kept pace with me in the lead.
What? Why didn't we just eat the bark off the tree? It was hard. Our teeth can't scrape it up nor could we digest it. We were snails. But good idea though.
...
Slowly the wind began to pick up as the day progressed. Of course I didn't forget about the stubborn Keven who had remained in the same spot the whole day as I occasionally turned my eye stalks to look back at him.
'No movement after so many hours... I wonder if something has happened to him?' I thought as I glanced behind me once more.
Then I saw something that I shouldn't have.
The wind suddenly picked up and Keven's shell was knocked off the branch. I heard small thumping sound as his shell hit ground below our tree.
At the same moment, I started having flashbacks. This had also happened to 13 as she flew off the leaf. 'Are we all being cursed to fall into the abyss below?' I thought to myself as both these situations began to overlap in my mind.
"NO KEVEN... NOT YOU TOOOO!" I screamed. I started to cry. Well I would have, if I could cry.
Instead, I stopped in my tracks and so did my siblings. We paused for a few minutes as we mourned for the loss of Keven.
No, it didn't decrease my courage at all. I didn't let the death of Keven affect me.
No. It didn't make me question my decision to leave our birth leaf. I made the right choice okay? We were going to starve for sure if we stayed.
In fact, instead of negative emotions, I felt a spark of determination. 'We need to reach a new leaf quick and the death of our fallen brother Keven is a reminder that we didn't have much time left.' I thought to myself.
Once again, I started to move once more. Feeling slightly guilty of Keven's death, I used my foot and placed some of my slower brother and sisters onto my shell. It was a brilliant idea as I had grown slightly bigger than all of them. On that day I carried three of them on my shell and allowed them to rest.
Yup! I was a good big brother who cared for his siblings.
"I'm not going to let another one of you die in front of me again!" I said to myself as I looked back at the little cute parade of shiny shells that were following behind me.
'So cute, I could almost eat you all up!' I thought to myself as my hunger started to slowly take over my thoughts. 'I bet you are all delicious. No. NO! They are my siblings. Not Food. Not Food. Mmm Food.'
'Maybe something had happened to my body after all? Maybe the heavens hadn't blessed me, but cursed me instead?' I thought, but I quickly pushed that thought to the back of my mind.
If I only knew what was about to happen the next day...
...
By the end of the day, we had arrived at the divide in the branch and we slept there.
I tried to sleep as I was extremely tired, but I woke up multiple times that night because of my hunger.
Summary of Day 8: I watched the wind sweep away Keven or Keven's dead body.
+ 1 size
+ 1 strength
+ 1 speed
+ 1 determination
[Mutation: Gluttonous] (Not satiated)
[Status: Hunger is growing]
[Quest: The Great Snail Migration] (Updated)
Days: 2
Snails: 436
Fatalities: 1