Ball of Nothing

Chapter 12


Chapter 12


For some reason, I felt like I'd slept for longer than normal . That wasn't something particularly surprising as I expanded a lot of energy to absorb the bird . However, the tiredness that lingered was something new . It felt unbearably heavy and I wanted nothing more than to return to sleep . Unfortunately, there was a more pressing issue that didn't allow me that luxury .
That was learning how to fly .
Yes, the experiment turned out successful . Thanks to the number of creatures absorbed, I could now muster enough energy to transform fully into a bird . However, looking like one and becoming one was two very different things .
I might be able to imitate the form of the bird perfectly but my skills were lacking . How the bird viewed the world was also vastly different from how I viewed it . With a sharper sense of sight and hearing, I now understood more details about my environment . Things that eluded me before were now crystal clear to me .
Although the bird did not possess much intellect, it had a keen sense of time and something called instinct . Instincts were very strong feelings that compelled me to act before I could understand what was going on . For example, I spotted a worm earlier and before I knew what I was doing, the bird's body had pounced and gobbled it whole . Strangely, the worm was not absorbed . Instead, it went into the stomach of the bird .
The battle between behaving like the previous host and behaving like myself was tough . The bird's memory and mine were sometimes blurred . While I could leverage on the bird's knowledge and memories, I couldn't imitate its experience . This body was a replica and there were many first times for me including eating . Walking was the first challenge I had to overcome . It wasn't simple and I often ended beak first in the soil .
After hours of practice, the sun was now high up in the sky and the air became hot . The bird would take into the skies and ride on the wind around this time . However, as I had never been a bird, I never knew how flight worked . From the past memories, flight was experienced by falling from great heights . It seemed very simple . All they had to do was flap their wings in the right direction . Once they could manage that, taking off was relatively easy . They simply flapped .
Readying those heavy wings, I extended them as much as possible and flapped with all my might .
***
Nope . It's an utter lie! How do birds do this? I don't know how they flew but flapping didn't work . Looking at the fallen feathers around me, I devised another method . If height was a factor to trigger the flight skill, then all I had to do was jump from a tall place .
Putting my newly acquired walking skills, I started the journey . From memory, there was a cliff near the seaside at the end of this forest somewhere in the opposite direction of the rising sun . If this doesn't work, I don't know what will .
***
Staring down at the edge, I kicked a small pebble and watched it roll of the cliff, bouncing on the sharp edges of protruding rocks before landing in the sea with a small splash . The ripples didn't travel far and the waves continued crashing against the cliff as if nothing had transpired .
Would that be me if this experiment failed? I shook my head . No, don't think about it . The bird learnt how to fly by falling from a high place, this was probably how it should be done .
To prevent any second thoughts, I closed my eyes and jumped .