Ball of Nothing

Chapter 4


Chapter 4

*Thock*
*Thock* *Thock*
What's that awful sound?
*Thock* *Thock* *Thock*
For the first time in a while, I was awakened before I felt like it . For a while now there were vibrations, tossing and tumbling, sometimes even sliding or sailing movements but none so crude like this . It felt as if someone was deliberately knocking against the outside of the current prison that I'm in .
I caught a glimpse of the outside of my prison . Yes, it turned out to be a shellfish of some sort . After the initial movements stopped for the first time, I saw light again . I didn't see water but I heard it for sure . The shellfish couldn't move much, only opening and closing . I suppose the water must have pushed me into it while I was napping .
The shellfish was a rather shy creature . It was slow to open up and quick to close whenever something came into contact with it . The shell that was its home was my prison and as much as I enjoyed the view outside, the owner of this shell was ultimately not me .
Oh yes . Speaking about that, I discovered that I possessed a very interesting power . No, it didn't help me move yet BUT I think it might in due time .
Yesterday . . . the day before . . . no, maybe even before that . . . I realised that I was able to 'absorb' things into my body . You see, the sea likes to move . Sometimes it goes away and then sometimes it returns . For the past few days, while the light came and gone and returned once more, the water has come and gone at least eight times . Every time the water came, it would bring items into the shell . Most of the time, it brought sand . The shellfish would snap the shell shut and wriggle around inside trying to get rid of the unwanted objects . That annoyed me as I too required space and the shellfish wasn't giving it . I decided to make space by attempting to will the items away .
Strangely, instead of moving the items outside, I moved the items inside of me . The first time it happened, I felt sleepy and took a short nap . The very first object I 'absorbed' was a grain of sand . Subsequently, I tried it again hoping that I could will the objects to move again . However, no matter how much I tried, they could only move inwards and get absorbed .
The sleepiness became less after I absorbed at least a hundred grains of sand . I decided to try absorbing something else like water . It was tricky as water was huge . However, I could separate water into smaller parts and it took a while for me to be able to absorb all the trapped water in the shell within one intake . I also noticed that the shellfish tended to open quicker if there was less water . With this new finding, I absorbed as much as I could, whenever I could . When I got tired, I slept .
Then, I accidentally absorbed part of the shell during one of my water draining sessions . No, there isn't a hole yet but I aim to make one as soon as I can . The shell was a few layers thinner now and I rejoiced at my 'power' . Despite not being powerful enough to take down the prison, I now had something called hope .
*Thock* *Thock*
That sound again . . . what's going on? For the first time in my imprisonment, I felt that it was better to remain inside than outside .