Chương 7: My Name Is Neribe

"Neeeeeeeribe! C-&# mommy!" I'm pretty sure my name is Neribe. To show my distaste at the name, I turn away, still on my knees, crawling around like the badass I am. And completly ignore my mother open arms to instead crawl toward a particularly entertaining piece of wall. Wow, why is it like that? I can hear some sounds of despair behind me, and my father starts laughing. Probably at my mother. I listen with one ear, really interested in this piece of the wall. It's made of wood, like most of the house.

Our house is pretty poor looking. We have four rooms. The bedroom, the living room with a weird and small kitchen attached to it, then a bathroom + toilet room, and finally there's a closed room on the side. Don't know where it leads to. My dad stays in there for hours sometimes. Don't really know what he does in there, but to be honest, with the looks h-! Ohhh a fly! I start huffing heavily, compeltly exhausted while I follow the fly at mach speed.

My knees brushing on the ground, my crawling is the best, I'm the best crawler ever I can hear voices, but again. I half listen, too focused on the fly for some reason"Al-&- -$(look -$" I can hear my father voice for a second before his footsteps comes, closer to me. But I don't really care. Too focused on the fly. THIS FLY SHALL BE MINE! Wait. I freeze. And the pain starts growing at the stop. I ignore it, my pain tolerance already good enough to shrug this amount of pain off, it's like holding your breath really, just need to get used to it. As I freeze the fly passes me. My father passes in front of me too, get on one knee and open his arms wide with a dumb smile on his face. Just like my mother did a second ago." Neribe co-#& d&$" I stare at him He stares at me I stare at him He stares at me I turn around and go crawling again. The sound of laughter resonates behind me, this time from my mother. I won't call her mom. In any case, WHY was I so focused on that fly? It's not normal now is it? I'm sure it isn't. I stop crawling, breathing hard, fuck, I'm exhausted. I fall in a slow side roll and rest on my back, moving my feet in the air and dragging my arms on the ground as if I was doing a snow angel. This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. Why? To avoid the pain of course. Follow man, it was obvious. Well, maybe you're following, but you're following on the fact that I was focused on a fly like a dumbass. And that's understandable, WHY was I so focused on a fly? It's as if I was hypnotized. I started crawling after a fly. The sentence makes me freeze and stop mid moving. Enough for me to see my mother squatting in front of me, well, at my side, but since I'm laying on the ground and she's gigantic compared to me she encompasses almost my whole view. She pokes my belly and I ignore her. Instead I start moving again as the pain grows again. Okay, so what just fucking happened? I crawled after a fly, I didn't even knew that was possible. I crawled after a fly, how did I end up in this situation? Well, it started pretty normally. After some weeks of training, I finally managed to rest on my knees. Things happened, and my training bore fruits. I found myself crawling in my crib. One of my parent found me, went all, awwww that's so cute. Took me out, put me on the ground. And for once in my small little life, I've had the opportunity to move. FOR REAL To explore my little world that is my house, yes, but also to move. AND THAT'S THE KEY HERE! I can move. I can crawl. I can fucking crawl! And yeah, that's lovely, I have a measure of independence and all, but that's not what I'm happy about. What I'm happy about is that I can move. And do you know what that means? Less pain! Yes you fucking heard me! MUHAHAHAHGAHAHAHAH, LESS PAIN, MUAHAHAHHAHAAH! My evil laughter comes out as an adorable giggle, and my mother starts laughing with me and babying me around. Which is distateful, but as long as she doesn't pick me up, I don't really care. I can't afford to be picked up. I just can't, not when I can finally move and progress even more. Do you know what I figured out since the whole understanding that the pain is some kind of... spread? You remember right? I did the whole comparison with it being a cream. Well, during my weeks of training after this discovery of a path to heal myself FOREVER! I found out something. The more I do... hard things. With my limbs, physically at least. And the bigger the spread is. Do you understand? If stillness is 100% pain. Then a small movement from all of my body, like what I'm doing right now, or my worm like wriggling technique reduce the pain and put it at like. 70% Which is a crazy fix. BUT do you know what's crazier? When I do something that's realy hard, like crawling, IT'S EVEN BETTER! I huff hard and pull myself on my side, my mother help me until I'm belly first on the ground. I spread my arms around, face on the ground while gripping the ground. And now? Small movement, up and down, up and down, back and forth, push my torso over my arms, then back into my legs, until I manage to inch myself on my knees. Ass on my heels. Then, I palm the ground. And slooooowly push my weight on my wrist. VICTORY! I start crawling again, like... well, a baby. Big strides, almost no coordination, easily kickable into next week by any evil villain passing around. Ignoring my mom, who's following me real close, I focus instead on feeling the pain in my limbs while breathing. Pretty hard. The pain is at like.... 50% It's as if there were centipedes in my arms. In my veins! Which is awesome! It's only centipedes now! Youpie! I'm not even exageratting, and that's the worse part in all of this. I start crawling again, and I see an interesting spot on the wall, I crawl toward it. Ohhh what's this? I freeze mid crawl. My parents look at me with a smile, wondering why their baby froze mid crawl. And the reason is simple... I crawled after a fly and fucking forgot about it. Holy shit my baby brain is affecting me way more than I thought, HOLY SHIT-! Oh the same fly as earlier! I turn around and start chasing the fly again for all the laughter of my parents. A dumb goofy baby smile spreads on my face. Because of the subdued pain yes, but most importantly because I just have even more proof that my baby brain is affecting me. Maybe... this pain is really just something natural for babies? Maybe I won't live with it forever? With this hope growing, I start crawling faster, fatigue building up in my small limbs as I try to catch the fly. Having a lot of fun now that I'm not feeling my veins are carrying magma constantly. The only real problem with this is how much time I can train. It's not a lot, and I can already feel my limbs drag on the ground, the pain building up as my pain climbs up. And the exhaustion, that again, promise me a good two minutes meditation session in hell itself.