Sometimes life surprises you. I was surprised on my 20th day of life.
...
I woke up on day 20 to the sound of beeping.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
It chimed constantly like it was on a timer.
Groggily, I tried to pull further into my shell in an attempt to get some more sleep. But like an extreme annoyance, it didn't stop. I kept on beeping. After a few seconds, I couldn't take it anymore. I angrily poked my head out to see what was making the noise.
It was still very early in the morning. The sun had just risen just over the horizon and was casting its orange hue over the entire forest. I tried to make out details of the things around me, but I saw nothing through the dim morning light. The clouds above were still grouped up and dark and blocked out most of the sunlight that would have blanketed everything.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
I looked around for the source of the sound, but the source didn't seem to come from anything that was near me or anything that was further away and in the distance.
No, it boomed from within my head. 'It's that damned voice from yesterday.' I thought to myself.
"Stop!" I shouted.
[Warning.set(Off);] it chimed.
'At least it stopped without me trying multiple times to get through to it. But what does it mean by warning, open bracket, close bracket and semicolon?' I wondered. But before I had a chance to think it over, I felt a huge rush of wind hit my leaf. Like a quake, I felt the whole leaf shake and flutter as it was suddenly blasted by jets of air.
The sudden wind blast caught me by surprise.
Having grown gigantic the day before, I was way heavier. I felt my foot slowly begin to slip off of the leaf because it was harder than ever for me to hold on.
I immediately jammed my head against leaf. With my mouth I cut a small hole in the leaf and held on with my teeth. Meanwhile, I produced as much sticky, thick mucus as I could as I tried to keep my body from being blown off.
The gust continued to smash against the leaf but quickly dissipated after a few seconds.
Jolted from my grogginess, I looked around to see if my family was alright. Slowly, my snail-blings began to poke their heads and bodies out of their colourful shells.
I tried to slide towards them, but before I could, we were hit by another blast of harsh wind. Once again, I braced myself against the leaf as the wind carried dirt and dust across my body. With each second that passed, I felt my body begin to dry out more and more as more and more dirt stuck to my mucus. 'I can't hold out like this.' I thought to myself.
Quickly, I tensed my muscles and pulled myself back into my shell. I couldn't keep my head out anymore as I was drying out way too quickly.
After a few seconds passed, the wind seemed to stop once more. I pulled my body out of shell quickly when it died down once more, but the wind was not the end. It was only the beginning of a large event that descended upon our forest that morning.
...
Boom. Boom. Boom.
The sound of impacts filled my proverbial ears as I tried my hardest to hold onto the leaf as our whole tree shook. 'Something is happening!' I thought to myself as I looked around. Bits of the edge of our leaf had been torn to shreds by the wind.
Soon, more and more of my siblings poked their heads out of their shells after a while shake and loud awakening.
*Ding*
[Quest Initiated: Evacuate the leaf!]
'You don't need to tell me twice.' I thought as I slid across the leaf towards the area with the most snails. As I looked at the state of the leaf, I was beginning to fear that it wouldn't last much longer.
"We need to evacuate now!" I shouted out loud as I slid past a few of my siblings. "QUICK! GRAB A BUDDY! EVACUATE THE LEAF!" I continued as I slid forward.
When I finally reached the group of snails, I grabbed the nearest ones and quickly slapped them on top of my shell. I didn't know what was going on in the distance that was causing the loud noises, and the sudden wind storms. But I did know that I couldn't just wait for them to escape. I needed to save as many of them as I could.
Just as I was about to turn towards the branch, 11 and 7 approached me worriedly.
"What's going on?" 11 asked.
"GRAB SOME SNAILS! LET THE LARGER SNAILS CARRY THE SMALLER SNAILS! WE NEED TO LEAVE IMMEDIATELY. THE LEAF'S..." I tried to shout out, but we were soon hit by another wave of wind before I could finish. I quickly ducked back into my shell and hung on as tightly as I could.
BOOM. BOOM.
Whatever it was, I felt the tree shake once more as our leaf fluttered. After a few seconds, it stopped once more. It was followed by a terrifying screeched that filled the air. It was so loud that I could feel the leaf and tree below me shake as they seemed to resonate with the screech.
Once more, I pulled my head out of my shell and looked around in a panic. 'We need to go. No time. Go now.' I thought as I felt my blood being pumped through my body faster and faster as I was beginning to panic.
"EVERYONE! THE BRANCH! RUSH TO THE BRANCH!" I shouted hysterically. "7, 11 GO AND GRAB AS MANY SMALLER SNAILS AS YOU CAN CARRY AND MEET ME ON THE BRANCH."
...
It was a rush against time as I looked at the leaf around me. After the wind had ravaged it, the leaf was nearing the closer and closer to the point that it was going to be torn apart. Rips and holes dotted the leaf's surface especially in the areas that were scraped away by me and my siblings.
I knew that we needed to reach the safety of the branch immediately. The leaf was on the verge of falling apart beneath us.
Having picked up many of the smaller snails in the area, I turned around and slid in the direction of the branch.
As I rushed forward at a high speed, I picked up as many snails as I could and slapped them against my shell with a layer of the stickiest mucus that I could produce. I didn't care about their complaints or screams. I was saving them.
"Hey! Quit holding on to the leaf so hard. I'M TRYING TO SAVE YOU!" I shouted as I ripped snails off of the leaf left and right from around me. I didn't count them, but soon my shell was decorated with an assortment of different sized shells and snails.
But before I could bedazzle my shell further, I heard a loud roar come from the distance as the tree shook once more. The roar was different from the screech. It was deep and sounded like rolling thunder.
Some of my siblings slipped back into their shells in fear, but I didn't.
In fact, I moved even quicker than before. Whatever made the noise was still quite far off from our tree, but one thing I was certain of was that it originated from a different source than the one who made the screech earlier.
I didn't have time to figure out what the source of the roar was or where it was. The only thing that was running through my mind was 'Go quicker! Faster! Rescue as many snails as possible.'
...
I picked up even more speed as I dashed across the leaf past all the other snails that were desperately sliding towards the branch just like I was. With my larger size, I easily made it to the branch in under a few minutes.
During that time, the wind had ravaged our leaf twice. With each hit, the damage to the leaf had noticeably increased as chunks of the leaf had been blown off by the wind.
When I got to the branch, I used my massive foot and scraped off all the snails that I had attached to my shell. I knew that time was running short and it was getting more and more dangerous for the snails that were still on the leaf.
"STAY HERE!" I shouted as I turned around and slid back on the leaf. 'I'm a responsible brother. Don't worry, I'll rescue you all.' I told myself.
Yup.
...