Ball of Nothing

Chapter 13 A Drop in the Ocean

Oh no! What was I doing? Flap those wings!

After jumping, I allowed too much time to pass before realising my mistake. How was I meant to fly if I didn’t move my wings? However, after spreading those flimsy wings out, I felt the air go through my feathers. Nope, not going to make it. How did the bird manage to go against its weight and the strong air currents? How does one win against the wind?

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Sadly, there were no answers and I plunged into cold water. With soaked feathers, the mission to fly was officially a failure. Not only was I unable to soar, I was now going to drown.

What a sad and miserable experiment. Is this how I end? The bird’s body suffered without air and swallowed mouthful after mouthful of cold and salty water. Without air, I could feel the bird’s body lose its strength. As its vision darkened, I felt the heaviness leave me.

Once more I became unable to move. Looking around, I did not see feathers. It appears that I assumed my original form automatically. Now that’s what I called convenient. Basically I had a death escape card for any situation at the cost of being unable to move by reverting to my original form. Good to know, good to know.

While the cold water no longer bothered me, my worries only increased. How will I get out of the sea in this form? Frogs couldn’t survive in the sea and shellfishes cannot move on their own. I didn’t have the energy to keep morphing forms between the two nor the ability to partially morph parts of each animal to create a completely new species. If done wrongly, who knew what the consequences could be?

Was this going to be the end of my exciting adventure? Do I have to wait in the dark waters for the current to take me somewhere else again?

Oh well, I suppose I could go back to waiting since there was nothing I could do. Perhaps I could trap a nearby fish and absorb it with the frog’s tongue so that I could swim as a fish?

With that idea in mind, I kept my eyes peeled.

When the last of the light left, I waited patiently at the bottom of the sea. However, there were no creatures nearby as far as I could tell. What rotten luck!

Now that the plan has fallen through I had to console myself. At least there was plenty of sand and water I could absorb. A thought struck me. As crazy as it sounded, it might work. If I absorbed the sea, I could transform into a bird and escape.

Yes, that sounded like a fantastic plan. Why settle for escaping when I can hunt?

***

A long time must have passed since I started on this insane project. Yes, I dutifully absorbed water for who knows how long. At first there wasn’t any visible change. The surroundings were still as dark as ever and the water never seemed to lessen. I was disheartened but since there was nothing better to do, I stuck with the boing routine, occasionally switching it up with absorbing sand for variety. Strangely enough, no creature passed by during my sea absorbing mission.

I didn’t know exactly how much water or sand I’ve absorbed but over time, one thing was certain. The light was becoming more and more obvious. Now, whenever I absorbed water, there was always a huge space around me before the water came back. I no longer needed to sleep after absorbing once. In fact, absorbing sand and water kept me energised.

I could already tell the direction of the sun from where I was. Does this mean I’m a lot closer to the surface of the water than I was before? No matter, since I’ve resolved to absorb the sea, I will keep my word and see it to the end.