Part II.
The first taste of Earth I ever devoured was its wet, grainy soil as I clawed my way out of a world just beneath the surface.
When my hand broke through the thick barrier of dirt and grass, fingertips caressing the air as my body protruded forth, goosebumps arose on soft flesh—skin—layers and layers of it, replacing what had once been scales. Black scales. They had been sharp, sleek, glowering against the hot coils of a home far away from this humid, sticky world.
Those scales were gone now. What remained was soft and smooth, stretchy and supple.
Something acrid bubbled up my throat. Had I been ripped apart? Was this what lied beneath my protective case, my shell? Fast I was learning the inner workings of this new world, for I soon realized the only thing that seemed to help settle my nausea was the second miracle I ever tasted.
Air.
Breathing didn’t come easily. I was a little busy choking and coughing up dirt to give it the thought it deserved, but it did come, eventually, pushing through the many countless holes in my newly acquired skin suit. I did it instinctively, without even a clue of knowing how. The rush to my head was exhilarating, and so I did it again and again and again, faster and faster, until my cap spun and I fell out onto the grass, staring aimlessly at the shimmering sky above.
Perhaps I should have been more terrified. Perhaps I should have been more confused or curious about my new surroundings, my new body, my new lot in life.
I wasn’t.
Suddenly, I felt too much to really feel anything at all. I felt so much that it overwhelmed me. It took over my chest where a hard thud rampaged for freedom. It took over my skin where a slimy film dripped out of my millions of tiny holes. It took over my vision as everything around me peered back as a solid gray in the bold darkness.
The only color for lightyears was a glowing, white ball in the sky and its twinkling companions. I stared at this spotted, round ball as I breathed and breathed, for it was the only thing I knew how to do. That’s when, suddenly, another light brightened the night sky with something I did recognize.
Fire!
A fiery blaze, so hot in its descent that it scorched violet and blue, burned a smoking trail across the night sky. For the first time since my arrival to this strange, new world, my breath caught, and I understood beauty. Again, in the depths of my body, I felt something new, something raw and indescribable tugging to be loose. It started in my stomach, coiling and rolling, slowly rose to my throat, and then it ended in my eyes. They were hot, burning, and the only thing that could end the pain was succumbing to its control. My vision blurred as water spilled down my cheeks, and in this storm of calm, I knew it was okay.
The shooting star blazed through the darkness, shining brighter and brighter, hotter and fiercer, as it neared me in my little hole. I thought I was safe in this hole, free from being buried alive.
I was not safe.
Neither of us were.
When the meteor crashed, the whole Earth quaked, shifting the hard ground and releasing me from its hold. Little did I know then how vulnerable this body was; how easily the Earth could have shifted a different way and completely crushed me. This was not a matter I concerned myself with at that moment, however, for I did not know.
There was much I did not know in those early days…