AuthorPalt
patreon
Digimon Ch.8
🕑 Added 2022-09-04 12:41:16 +0000 UTC“Here we are!” Bukamon exclaims cheerily, bringing me out of my brooding. I look around, expecting something edible, only finding an underwater clearing filled with colourful seaweed swaying up from between the rocks, looking a lot like massive strands of rainbow hair. I glance around. The little clearing is squeezed in-between a number of large rocks, making it feel pretty disconnected from the rest of the ocean. However, it doesn’t feel dark or anything, in large part because the area is kept alight by several bright streams of light flittering in from above.
…Where meat?
Bukamon excitedly swims up to one of the strands of seaweed, taking a big bite before slurping up the entire thing like a strand of fettuccine. “Yummy!” Biting off another strand, Bukamon holds it out towards me with one flipper. I stare at it blankly. “Here, Innomon, have a taste. It’s super tasty!”
Um. I don’t have a mouth? I literally can’t eat this.
For a few seconds, we just stare at each other. I can actually physically see the moment he realises why I’m not eating. His mouth—still full of seaweed—opens up in shock. A few square bits of it float out into the free ocean but he sucks them back in. “Right, you don’t have a mouth, um…” He retracts his flipper, looking down at the strand of seaweed with a confused expression before eating it himself. “What do you usually eat?”
So far? Pixels. So, it looks like this is where our paths split. Not that I had expected much else, I guess.
Turning my body around requires a very crude movement of my legs, like a stalling drill.
“W-, wait!” Bukamon cries. I glance back at him, but my neck doesn’t go all the way because of the stupid stone neck-brace thing. Regardless, he looks meek. Kind of like a puppy whose playmate is leaving them. “You’ll come back, right? I’ll still be here, so…”
Will I come back to hang out with a monster that could probably kill me as easily as I kill fish?
I glance away. I nod stiffly.
Bukamon visibly lights up but I’m already swimming away. It’s not like I’ll actually return. I just said it so he wouldn’t follow me. Besides, what would I even gain from his presence? Maybe a little deterrence from other monsters, but that’s about it. As soon as he decides to, I’ll be gone for real.
Yeah. Just to get him off my back…
B-, but, for now, I need to get myself some grub. Those colourful fish come to mind. With how colourful they are, it barely takes me any time at all to find a pretty large number of them, all in a big school. Easy as pie.
Swimming as fast as I can, I shoot towards the school. And pathetically miss it. Or, rather, the fish easily dodged my attack, swimming out of the way with amazing dexterity. Is this what is meant by home field advantage?
Turning around (slowly, awkwardly), I readjust my position and shoot off again. Just like last time, the fish dodge me easily. Right.
I probably spend at least a quarter of an hour just chasing fish, completely fruitlessly. By the end of it, the frustration gets to me and I let myself sink aimlessly to the sandy bottom, glaring up at the fish passing by so high above. It’s actually kind of relaxing to lie here. Or, it would be, if I wasn’t constantly reminded by the monsters passing by high above that this is far from a safe place to be. Down here, I can see a lot of monsters easily bigger than humans, or even cars. Compared to them, I’m like a grain of sand. Perfectly nothing.
“Pichi?”
Something brushes against my foot and I quickly sit up, eye flaring towards whatever touched me. There, beneath my claws, is a little almost-transparent thing with big red eyes. It’s small. Barely bigger than a fish. I blink at it. It blinks at me. I think it smiled just before I pressed it back down into the sand, making it burst into pixels.
Huh. That’s… interesting?
The pixels go into my foot, and although it isn’t enough to make me feel quite full, it does remind me that for how small I am, there are things smaller than me. Perfectly edible little things, to be sure.
Hm, I wonder if there are more of those things?
Standing up, I begin clawing around in the sandy dirt. To be sure, although there’s far from many, every now and then my claw pokes into something soft and the sand pops with pixels. After popping maybe five or six more of these, I actually feel pretty full and content.
What now? If I want to grind to evolve, I could probably keep searching. Then again, it’s been a while since I left Bukamon, so he might be starting to get worried.
…What the hell am I thinking? Bukamon is… He’s… It’s just a monster! Sure, a small one that talks like a kid, but if I poke it too hard it’ll pop into pixels, too. Not real. It’s not a real creature. It can’t be real. None of these monsters can be.
Am I real?
