Paw Dunes

Ahhh… I am born. I am alive. I come into this world a beast, and as a beast… I will eat, and eat, until I become King of all Cubivores!

And yet… my body is still so weak, and all around is nothing but dunes. I bitterly bit into the hard twigs below my wormy body, the nest I was born in just seconds ago serving as my only substance. I would have been better off eating rocks.

Swallowing a saline mixture of spit, blood, and twigs, I crawled out of the nest. I then wandered for what felt like hours, the day slowly dawning behind me. Where were my parents? Why had they abandoned me the moment of my birth? Did I even have parents? After all, a pig (which is what I was) should have parents.

My thoughts were distracted by a snort of the wind. Snort? Swiff? Wiff! Wiff of the wind, that's it. Sorry. My tiny brain is barely squeaking by, on account of being an infant and all. Now where was I? Oh yeah! Anyway, my nose acted on it's own, smelling food! I homed in on the scent. My eyes gazed upon the leafy green tinge of… a bug?

It was lying on its back; I think, and was stretching out its spiky leaves to absorb the sun's rays. Did I mention that the sun is shaped like a cube? Yeah. Instinct took over, as I lowered my body, tensed my muscles, and pounced onto the unsuspecting arthropod.

Spiky green leaves and the crunch of insect slid through my mouth, leaving a taste not quite like an after-dinner mint. My mind took control of my body once more, and proceeded to lick- wait a minute… where's my tounge? I remember having one, somehow. Shouldn't a pig have a tongue? What is a tongue anyway? Even trying to say it twists my tongue…

So, my body was burning from the fiery cube in the sky, so my eyes sought shelter, while my stomach sought food. Eventually, I found both; the gigantic carcass of a truly huge beast, it's immensely sized bones serving as a temporary cover from the sun's burning.

I wriggled my way through the house sized behemoth, found a dark (and less than burning hot) nook, and rested for a spell.

My dreams filled with round things that looked like cotton balls come to life. I chased them around in a craggy maze, cutting myself on the thorns and burning sand as I passed by a wooden horse. Wooden horse? Another strange word.

Then my vision blurred, and I felt the sticky smell of doo come out my end and drop on the ground, simply from seeing such an awesome creature. Then a flash of light, the cold as ice fangs crushing my body and the hot sticky smell of death.

My body lay on the dunelands, rotting away, and yet somehow, I was still alive. Then, nothing, not even dunes, just a great expanse of white, no mountains, no rivers, not fields; not even ice cold tundra; just… white. And then not even that.

I awoke to the smell of rotted, disgusting meat, the feel of wet, sticky feces and the sight of leaches on my body. Wait, leeches? ACK! I think I'm gonna barf. Luckily, all the food I had eaten earlier in the day had been completely digested, so all I did was screech loudly (though in reality it was more like a whisper than a screech) and squirm my way out of the insides of the big dead beast.

My one leg I slammed onto the ground and scraped it on the side of the earth, trying to get the things off while ignoring the fact that the sand was really, really, HOT.

After making sure that each one of the things was dead (by eating them; I was still hungry, after all), I set off, yelping at each wriggle, across the waste, hoping to find something. Something NOT desert.

Along the way, my eyes saw more bugs, and I feasted, each of them as tasty as the first, finding as well as the bleach-white bones of dead cubivores like me who just couldn't survive. Is this sadness that I'm feeling? A PHHWWIT noise came out the space behind me, accompanied by a sharp, tangy smell. Nope, just a fart. Still, I wouldn't want to end up like that.

My extraordinary deep thoughts culminated into me slamming right into something. When I looked up, I saw, strangely, a horse the shape of wood. I mean, a wood the shape of horse. That sounds right. There was some dead grass nearby The Horse-Shaped-Wood, and after some thought, I came to the complex and technical conclusion that I'm about to tell you right now, so brace yourself.

There was water nearby! Pretty smart, eh?

I crawled at a slightly faster pace across the land, following the trail of dead and wilted dead grass until it became live, not so wilted grass. I could see it now; ponds, lakes worth of water! More water than I could ever drink! After doing this for two hours, I got worried. What if there is no water? What if I never found any water? What if I'm just going in circles? (Come to think of it, I probably was.) What if I die?

But, just then, I came across a beautiful sight; a vast expanse of blue. I made it! Yes!

I leaptinto the pond, expecting the splashing sound of liquid to accompany me, but no! It was just a mirage! My frustration boiled into despair. How could I be so stupid? There's no way I could ever hope to live! I'm as weak a 1 legged dust mite! There's no point; I'm just wasting my time trying…

I flung myself to the ground, quaking with self-anger ready and willing to lay there until my death.

What I failed to notice was that right next to me, was something much better tasting than water, and just as essential, as it turned out, to my survival.

It was a beast.

Refreshed (and injured) from eating cacti, the yellowbrate regarded the other whimpering beast (Me!) with a sort of curiosity; after all, it's never seen a beast with a square head before, just L-shaped. It neighed, deciding that it would be an easy meal. Well, I wasn't going to let that happen!

I am not going to die because someone else chose for me to! I dodged the first assault, bit at the beast repeatedly, and exhausted it easily; it was clearly not used to the desert environment that I was born into. We continued our dance of death, both of us with only our teeth as weapons Lurching in for the kill, I took hold of the yellowbrate's lower body and gnawed on the meat for a bit, to get a better grip, and swallowed the beast's body/limb eagerly.

The meat slogged right down to my stomach, to be digested. I tasted the yellow blood as it went down my cube throat; nothing like it. Nothing that I have ate in the 8½ hours that I've been alive has compared.

But, suddenly, instead of feeling full of delicious food, I experienced pain like never before.

My body was on fire, burning pain as the one limb that made up my body receded into myself, blood squirting as the old limb dissolved away inside me, the muscles and blood vessels being broken down and the nutrient rich blood of the eaten meat being distributed to the newly forming limb. The developing limb now appeared, growing up from yellowish bone marrow to blood vessels to muscles to the skin, in a new position, different from were my limb was originally, as well as a different color.

Somehow, my body is able to absorb the essence of other beasts and translate it to my own body form, like a mutation, or something! But that's impossible! Animals can't just change species like that! Can they?

Ack, who cares? I feel slightly better, still thirsty like crazy, but hey, I'm just glad to be alive!

I wiggled my new body around; unlike before, were I had to toss myself from side to side; I can just tilt my head back and reach forward with my body. A little disorienting, though… But I got into the groove, and soon it was lean, reach, lean, reach, like I was doing it all my life.

*POW!*

I reeled, as the thing that hit me squawked right in my face and leaped right out of the way just as it was in my sights! That dumb bird thing! I'll wipe that smile of its red face… wait, red? Whoa! A different color of meat, which means… something significant!

The redpead leapt to the sky, out of my reach, so I chased him across the dunes until he got tired, (it couldn't go very far in the heat) and, after a combat scene I won't bother explaining, ate him up good. Then I remembered; the fiery sensation. Dang.

Bracing for pain that never came, the sqwelgtingsound and shifting weight accompanying my change. The featherd limb was right on the side of my face, so I had to eat dirt to move, but it beated being hungry!

A wind began to pick up; a viscous sandstorm, I could see plain as day, was working it's was toward right where I was standing. See, before, I was following a path, of sorts. Following the grass, to find the water, so to spak. SpEak, sorry, I'm kinda nervous considering that there's a SANDSTORM coming right at me! So I guess I can be forgiven for slipping out! Up? Whatever. So, I flopped for the nearest cave.

Inside there were a bunch of spiky things coming from the walls and ceiling, and the wind blowing from in the cavern was also much colder. Seriously, I don't know if I was just used to the heat, but it was COLD!

I think I even saw some ice, (which I, yes, ate) somehow, turned into water! At last! Liquid refreshment!

It was only a puddle's worth, ice-cold, and bitter, and it smelled like sulfur, and it was the best tasting water I ever tasted! I headed for the center of the cave, where there would be more ice, hopefully. Then, a growl.

Behind me was a furry, blood spattered bear of a yellowbrate, whose intentions were already clear to me. But what was the real cincher was the meat. This clearly wasn't some lightweight; this was a real beast of a beast, with rock-hard muscle! It was a much clearer shade of yellow too, not at all like that other 'brate earlier. This guy has some dark meat to him! Wait, what? Dark meat? How did I know this? Doesn't matter. It's out for my blood, and that's all that matters.

It glared at me, staring me down with its stained-red eyes, eager to get its teeth into my hide. I noticed its injuries; the bite marks were still oozing mustard colored blood. The guy was clearly on his last leg. I made the first move, using my cranium as a battering ram, hoping to get some.

Dumb move! It leaped out of the way easily, and sunk his jaws right into my side, tearing off a small piece of myself, which only served to hinder me even more. I paid him in kind, or rather; I would have, if I had any real teeth! I nipped at him in a futile gesture, my own biters not fully grown in yet; this monster was fully mature, not some pipsqueak like me!

The other beast's scratching and biting was… very painful, and I just reached a point where instinct took over, then the fur really began to fly! In the end though, I managed to survive, and promptly made the beast my lunch!

For only the third time, the one limb that made up my body receded into myself, while the new limb grew out below me in a different, darker pattern, like a cheap tiger print, complete with fur to match.

Licking away some of the excess blood from my combat and my transformation, I realized something. Actually, multiple things. First and foremost, I was much stronger and faster than before! I must not just be able to absorb the pigment of the beast, but its strength.

I also realized, somewhat somberly, that that the Dark 'brate was heavily wounded and yet, he was still nearly able to kill me! That means that I need to watch my back in case any more of these stronger, tougher cubivores come along.

Finally, I realized that my blood had changed to a mustard color like the Dark 'brate. But enough thinking about that… better find a place to rest.

Whew! I'm plum tuckered out! What with being born, and pigging out; not to mention plenty of drama in between- it was a killer schedule for my first day. I'm totally oinked out! Zoinked out? Ah! ZONKED out! Sorry! I haven't quite mastered the art of language, obviously. Anywho-glad to be born and all but, to be totally honest, I didn't have a clue what I was doing; just vague ideas. But if I close my eyes and search the back of my bacon brain, I can see a world teeming with wilderness… Colorful animals, Colorful lands! I wonder if there are any lands like that anymore…

Also, I wrote a poem!

Eating the colorful meat makes

My body take on many shapes

It's the Vitamin D

Or perhaps the protein

Or maybe it's the savory taste!

-Piggy

As you should know, this is based of of the indie game Cubivore, and will be as faitful to the game as I choose to make it. If you have no idea what Cubivore is, you can look at .?g2_itemId=364.

Please, for the love of the plot bunnies, read and review!!!