Deep within a cave, a being whose body began to reflect the light that gently touched it. —Light coming from a crevice at the top of the chamber—emerged into the world.
Materializing in a small, translucent, rounded form, it gradually began to perceive its own existence: it felt its surroundings; the faint warmth of the sun's rays bathing its body, the damp atmosphere, and the dense air.
Within this mysterious entity, there was an intense desire to know — a desire that burned more fiercely than anything else.
Despite that, it couldn't form logical thoughts or develop continuous reasoning — ironically, it was as if its very nature worked against itself.
Amid relentless attempts to develop self-awareness, suddenly, this mysterious entity finally grasped a concept: it understood what the sun was, and its nuances.
This information struck its mind like a spark, a click. Alongside it came an instinctive revelation: the more intimately it connected with something, the more knowledge it gained — in a literal sense.
It didn't take long before that sensation returned, now regarding the limestone beneath its feet and the air around it.
Complex thoughts began to emerge as these understandings settled. In ecstasy, it became immersed in deep thinking:
The sun, the air, and the limestone — three seemingly distinct elements, yet intertwined in a silent and profound cycle — became the focus of the intelligence germinating there.
It began to understand how the sun, distant and blazing, penetrated through the cave's crevice, activating minuscule and silent chemical reactions upon touching the rocks, slowly and steadily transforming matter.
How the air, carrying moisture, acted as a conductor and protector, transporting particles that caused erosion and change — life.
How the limestone, representing the union of various solidified minerals and the past, also changed. Everything happened on a minuscule, slow, and beautiful scale.
It wanted more. Understanding how everything is connected was the first rational thought it managed to form — and for that, it fell in love.
Just as it had been driven by its very nature to think the moment it began to exist, now that it thought, it desired to know.
That moment of bliss was interrupted by an intense curiosity: it felt, through its body now familiar with the air, oscillations.
These vibrations came from nearby, but seemed not to touch the ground. Faced with this unusual situation, for the first time, it moved: its tiny body dragged itself toward that singularity.
Its physical composition was peculiar. In a way similar to viscous sludge, it moved. Hardly any sound was emitted, and its presence could only be perceived with great precision and attention, as its translucent body, blending into the darkness, made it nearly imperceptible.
Upon reaching the closest possible distance to the object of its curiosity, filaments unconsciously emerged from its body and extended toward the target, wrapping around it and assimilating it, then retreating back inside.
For the first time, it had ingested another living being: an insect.
Suddenly, it could see — even if poorly. Dazed, it took in its surroundings, while its mind was bombarded with information about what it had consumed — its particularities, its history, its memories. In that very second, it lived the life of the being it had absorbed.
It relived the sensation of being born, dealing with the unknown, breaking out of a pupa, searching for food, flying, preying on smaller creatures.
One day, the insect entered a cave in search of food — and, suddenly, the end: the cessation of existence. That was the moment the small creature had been absorbed.
Fascinated by what had occurred, it confirmed something about itself: apparently, it could obtain the peculiarities — from the most minute to the most intimate — of everything it came into contact with. It also learned about the law of the wild, where, just like the more abstract elements — air, sun, and limestone — everything in the outside world was connected too.
It realized, however, that this kind of "contact" happened in a more aggressive way with other living beings. That's what it was able to understand from that experience. That was its nature.
Now, endowed with the knowledge gained through the life lived by the creature it had preyed upon, its body expanded and thinned, heading toward the crevice through which the ray of sunlight — the one it had once refracted — passed: it escaped the grotto, retracing the same path the small insect had followed to enter.
It found itself in a gigantic forest. It didn't react much — it had already seen it through the eyes of its first prey and had experienced it, if only for a few seconds.
Even so, the fire within burned stronger than ever: there were still many things it didn't know.
It wanted to know everything.