NOVEL NEXT [Arc I] Chapter 7 – Outsssside world
It’s finally time for the world to taste the bite of Drunken Snout. I could feel my tail wiggling in anticipation. I stretched my senses outside the egg as much as I could, waiting for mother to prepare the victim. She really was large, now that the coating inside the egg, that protected the contents from the outside vibrations was nearly completely dried up, her movements made it shake noticeably.
I got into the meditative state. You might have noticed the increase in meditation skill, and paid it no mind, what difference could one measly level make. Well, stat page is not everything my friends, for I have developed a new improved method of meditation!
The old method is still in use as the basis. You relax your body. Tense your muscles up, relax, tense up, relax. Then, you imagine a blob of heat. Concentrate on it, and carefully and precisely imagine it going around your body, from muscle to muscle, not skipping a single one. You repeat it, until you feel as if there was “another” you, a few centimeters below the “real” you. Now, after every muscle visited in your real body, you try to do the same to an imaginary muscle in the “second” body. Once again, repeat a few times, until you can “feel” heat coming from the second body.
Thoughts? To the dark sphere in our “real” body. Movement signals? Go to the heat ball in the second body. Then, very carefully, you try to select the signals into those you purposefully, send to your actual body, and everything else. If you fail? Well, you will choke on your spit, or stop breathing, get startled, the whole process breaks down, and you have to start over. Not that I would know, I’m the master of our sect, don’t question me! You will understand when you reach my heights!
Apart from the obvious benefit of creating a kind of firewall for my body, the increases meditation allows me to do one more thing- delay the thoughts I receive. Now, instead of feeling as if 20 people were trying to talk at once, It feels more like a set of disjointed conversations (and images.. And scents.. And noises… And pains.. And urges.. And..)
Thanks to the many practice sessions, I managed to get into the “zone” about the same time as I’ve felt something being dropped near me. Time is key, I have to act before I get scared. OUT!
It took my eyes longer than I expected to adjust. It’s been a while since I’ve been exposed to unobstructed sunlight. It was so bright. The surrounding nature, so lush, and green! Unlike the world inside the egg.. The sun! The brightness!… I had to try extra hard to keep my calm and sustain my meditation. It was hard to see far beyond, as we were surrounded by huge roots of what resembled a mangrove tree. Wait, it’s not the roots that are huge, it’s me that’s tiny. I suspect I’m less than 10cm in length.
“Healthy” “Brootherrrrr” “Brotherrr” “Fighhht?” “SSssssnaaaaacck?” “Dig dig dig” “Danger. Run? Danger. Fight?”
That would imply that the bug in front of me is slightly bigger than a hornet from my old world. It’s no one else but our old friend, Rosebug- this time red and in a ready to fight condition.
