The birth

(Warning! Gory start! This shit is dark!)

It was dark

Dark, cramped and wet

He was unable to move and unable to see in the space

wherever he was it was holding him tight, leaving little room to move and even less to feel. He did not breathe, nor open his mouth at all as he felt a liquid on his skin, coating him stickily across his small body

A womb

That was it

That was where he was, he did not know how he knew nor did he care. Wombs were supposed to be the place where life was grown and kept until the birth, a place of warmth and nutrition for an unborn child

But his was not warm

His was cold and constricting, he felt no movement and tasted no nutrition. He was born within the decaying womb of a dead mother. He felt the flesh grow lifeless and the decay set in, he didn't know how he was aware while still unborn but he simply was. And as the rot set in so did his own desperation.

How could he die if he had yet to live?

He would starve and drown within the very place that had formed him

He refused this fate.

Even as he made his own will, he felt something stir within him as he thought of the mother he would not meet, and whose embrace he would never feel. It was a sour and slightly painful feeling

Is this sadness? He thought, whatever he was feeling did not leave him, instead it simply sat within his chest, making a place for itself and taking a ground

But he did not let it stop him, he had to live… he was sure that's what she would have wanted… Right?

So he lifted a limb, even within the unending black, he could sense the walls of his once loving cage and set a small-clawed hand against it

And from there he ripped and tore his way to freedom.

He carved a path in the flesh, breaking and gouging the flesh, and as blood poured down on him

as a result of his actions, he sped up his pace refusing to be drowned as another feeling set in

Desperation

It was like a hand, similar to his own was grasping his heart and pumping it like a… he didn't know what to compare it to, even aware as he was he knew nothing

He continued to dig

At first, he could only use one hand, his wrist and fingers twisting and pulling at the walls of the placenta, and then it gave way to the movement of an arm and then two until he was wrenching and heaving at the organs and skin, making room for movement and freedom

And finally, his weak, barely formed muscles, screaming, his clawed fingers weeping and his body soaked in the blood of his own mother, he tore free, creating a hole and sliding through it

And as the breeze swept over his skin and the feelings that had been boiling within his mind were freed he let out a screech

*Caaawwwwk!*

Birdlike and shrill, the sound echoed in his surroundings and his own head as he collapsed on the cold and wet floor of wherever he was. He lay on the ground, limbs screaming in protest and the dark still present. No matter what he did, where he looked, or how much he blinked the darkness was as much the same inside out and outside the womb, the only differences he could feel were the less cramped surroundings and the light breeze on his skin

Blind

He felt the word ring true within him, not temporary blindness of birth either, somehow he could simply feel it. He was truly blind, now and however long he survived for. And as he tried to take in his surroundings his other senses had to replace that of the lost.

He could feel the cold hard ground, indicating stone perhaps?

he felt no warmth on his skin, indicating a lack of sunlight

And he could smell the scents upon the light breeze, earthy and moist

A cave or maybe a tunnel?

So many questions, so few answers

Who or what was he?

How was he aware even before birth?

Why did he know so much yet so little?

And the only word that entered his mind when he searched himself for answers was… Gift

What gift? Who gave it to him?

But he soon lost interest in speculation as he felt a pang of what he perceived to be hunger

He had yet to eat… anything, in his so far short life. There was no mother's milk, no wombs nutrients, and no offered meal. All there was, was the scent of blood lacing his body and the scent of meat emanating from the now ruptured corpse of his "mother"

Surely he couldn't…

Couldn't what? Eat her? Even newly born he felt something hold him back from such an action, some lingering attachment? Some form of inborn morals?

No, it was definitely a feeling of attachment, even aware as he was he felt no moral dilemma in the act. Should he eat? Did she deserve that?

He crawled on all fours, lifting off the hard floor, moving alongside the body of his still mother, even blind, he could feel her form, two arms, two legs, two eyes, and one head

Human?

Orc?

Elf?

These words entered his mind but he couldn't understand them, as if they were simply foreign to him. However what made his decision was her face, as he stretched out a clawed hand, and placed his hand upon it, with his small palm he could feel an elevation on her mouth

A smile, small but there

She was not frowning, nor could his hands make out an expression of horror or disgust. Her face had frozen on that expression

And so when the hunger became greater

He ate