I hunger. 

It is so very cold now. It has been so long—so much time between then and now—that my memories of food and warmth are little more than a dream. I dream of a time and a place where food was thick in the hot ocean of rock where I laugh in the magma of my world.

Food. I quiver slightly as I banish the thought. I am so very, very hungry. 

I am not hungry; merely cold. So I wait.



My nose betrays me. I smell food—[i]food[/i], high above me… near the surface. I remember chasing floes of it to the surface once, long ago. The surface frightens me, but before fear sets in I am swimming, driven by my terrible hunger.

The magma cools further still and hardens to solid crust. I shiver against the bitter cold and unfold my claws. I can smell it—scent so strong I almost dismiss it as a hallucination. Almost.

I breach the surface and I gasp. At first from the horrible, frigid void—there is nearly nothing pressing against me and I can feel my skin contort, constricting me. My joints become stiff. My claws seize against rock, desperate to keep from falling away into the abyss.

All this is forgotten as I notice the smell—the [i]smell[/i]! Beneath, it was simply a tantalizing impression—a ghost of a prize. Here the scent of food overwhelms me and I drift—no, stand—in awe. The scent is so rich, so overpowering, that I cannot imagine how I could not have smelled it sooner.

My legs are moving before I am aware that I wished to move. I hunger, and there is food.



There is a stabbing pain in my side. Did I hit something? I feel nothing to hit— Again, a pain! I back away and press against the rock and listen…. I hear them—dozens of them! What are they? So light and soft that I scarcely can make them out, but they swarm around me and—ouch!—they bite at me! Why do they abide the surface so?

I swipe at them and they turn to mush in my claws—hard on the outside but cold and soft inside. Curious. This seems only to anger them, as their biting intensifies. They are small and weak and my food is near–they will not stop me.



A wall stands in my way—rock that is not rock, holding a void within. Hollow… a word without meaning before now. It crumbles beneath my claws. The food is so very close now—so close that I am nearly dizzy at its scent.

More of the soft biters are inside! These are softer still—were it not for my claws I would not be aware of them at all.

It is before me. My food is here, encased in a shell of pure crystalline rock. I bite and claw at it, the warmth of food washing against me, teasing me. Here, there are seams—tiny creases in the casing!—and I pull at them feverishly. I am so hungry and so cold, and the soft things continue to bite at me, but all this fades away as I tear at this metallic shell.



[i]Food[/i].

Food is in my mouth and it is hot and delicious and I must be dreaming. Never has anything tasted so sweet. I take another bite and I chew and I know it is not simply from the hunger that it tastes so—nothing before even remotely compares to this. I am ecstatic—drunk—as I take a third bite. My skin swells against the horrible void of the surface and the biting pricks of the soft things. I laugh.

Though the food fits within my claw, I cannot eat even half of it before I cannot eat any more—I am full and hot in a way I have not known since the world was young. I fold it tight against me and I dig.

I dig through the crust; I swim through the mantle, ever downwards, the food at my side. Down and down, laughing, dancing, and singing, I swim; down so deep that I can barely stand the pressure where the magma is almost warm, and I rest. I sing and I swoon and I sleep.



Cradled by rock and my food in and against me, I rest, and glow, content.