The Black Poisonwood
"Faith plants the seed, love makes it grow."
~ Anonymous

Over the passing time, the sprout has grown into a small plant aspiring to become a shrub one day. The leaves of the plant are smooth, glossy and dark green. As the seed cumulates water and food, the nutrients begin to be converted into energy in the form of enzymes. Many different types of enzymes. One of them can't be really called enzyme. It is a sap that covers the seed coat. The soil seems to not get irritated by it so the Life doesn't mind it too much.

The Life can already be called a 'he'. His body has been covered in brown fur and he can open his light blue eyes. However, there is not much use for either. The seed keeps him warm and his vision is limited to the walls of the seed. Boring!

Besides soaking up all the available information, he starts to have thoughts on his own. He wonders whether it's all that awaits him. The boring seed, the channel that provides him the only entertainment and a beautiful world which seems out of his reach...

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The Life is provided with light, air, water and nutrients. The temperature is rather low but constant which works well on the Life's ability to withstand cold. The texture of the soil is the biggest issue, as it influences the time how long air, water and nutrients are held in the soil and in what amount. For the time being, it's enough for the Life to start putting roots and growing a sprout. The latter forces its way up high and one brisk morning breaks through the surface. There is also one peculiar thing the Life has noticed – the second Form of Life above the surface keeps burying something close, to the soil's displeasure but ground critters' enjoyment. The Life can't possibly know yet that it's meat.
Moreover, the Life gets used to the new surroundings. The sprout works like a channel thanks to which noise is carried and the Life soaks each single noise like water. And there is a waterfall of noise all the time. Songs, words, growls, snorts, whispers, hums. One big busy buzzing Forest. There are more Lives above the surface too. And sometimes they direct words towards the Life. Exciting!

Around: Cereja, Amaroq, Siblings, Jude, Dorian, Warren?, Tristan.

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The Life doesn't understand but the Life is aware. Despite being in a sack, the Life is aware that the surroundings have changed. The texture which earlier consisted mainly of fluids is now...the Life hasn't determined yet what it is. The temperature dropped and the general ambience seems almost adverse to the Life's presence. The reason for that unknown. The Life wishes to come back to the previous place but has no means to do so. However, there are things that stayed unchanged. The other two Lives are there, on the right and on the left, further away but still present. And there is that...Form of Life, above, constantly, and they remind the Life of the previous place. Also another Form of Life, sometimes there, sometimes not, much different from the first one but definitely an ally.

Time passes. He grows, a drop of sunset buried underground, and his seed grows too, roots digging deeper and wider in order to feed the babe whose unsight had sharpened into a continuous pull against the world. The lights are so few and far now, so instead he explores what is left, casting his senses to the very tips of his roots. And then, one day, his root finds another and it is like what he would later know as sunrise. His sibling is strong and bright, the same material brought into amalgam, and every day the contact puts the infant’s mind more at ease. However, their growth doesn’t stay in tandem. The soothing entanglement begins to die as a strange burn starts to dessicate his roots, slowly and inexorably dousing the light. Shifting against the curved walls of the seed in discomfort as the hunger mounts again, the child does the only thing he can in order to heal, in order to live. The light becomes just a little dimmer as he begins to pull.

---

It had become bigger by now, nigh biggest of the three, thriving on what its roots sent from below and the sparking ministrations of the lights that moved all around in the ground. With the sight that was not the sight it had tracked the way they constellated and felt something akin to delight. None outshone the source of the warm voice, now more familiar than its own egg. Others came and went and it nosed up curiously as the rumbles descended, some even becoming familiar. And then the hunger settled in, a niggling sense of not enough as the lights sparking across the warm dark began to grow weaker. A restless grumpiness made itself felt as it did not understand, could not understand why the earth was growing dim and lonely. It was still big, though, and still needed more than the roots could fetch. And so it reached out and wished very, very hard that the lights would draw closer. They did.

---

It was small, but not too small to notice the change. It was a shock to leave the warm above and to be nestled into the cold, cold dark. It was so scary at first, reaching to what was so close for all of its short existence and finding it didn't get any closer than this now. It missed the closeness, the soothing rumble of the voice it knew best and could feel all around when it sounded. But it got okay after a while. It can still feel the others, for one, and the warm above with its soft voice (though the rumble is softer now and not all-around, which is a shame). And it got used to the vast dark mass of the earth surrounding it, not nearly as empty or cold as it first seemed. The stuff it's been seeing-not-seeing tickled its roots roots tantalizingly as it crisscrossed warmly in the dark. Now it's getting big on it, and the heavy press of the ground is comforting, warmed by its own body. Now the voice is rumbling softly again and it turns its head upward in its shell. It's still small, but not too small to be happy.