Ball of Nothing

Chapter 4 High Tide, Low Tide

*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.