DAYS SURVIVED: 14
MASS: 14.2 grams
The nest gland manifested as a constant, low-grade pull in his abdomen. Not painful. Not even uncomfortable. Just present. Like an itch you couldn't scratch, or hunger that food wouldn't satisfy.
The genetic memory supplied information in carefully metered doses, as if it knew too much too fast would overwhelm him:
NEST GLAND ACTIVATION PROTOCOL
Stage 1: Identify suitable nest location (defensible, temperature-stable, water access)
Stage 2: Produce nest material (organic polymer, hardens on air exposure)
Stage 3: Create brood pod (external development chamber)
Stage 4: Feed genetic material and nutrients to pod
Stage 5: Wait (4-5 days for maturation)
Stage 6: Kit emergence
Kit. The word felt strange. Not child. Not offspring. Something between the two. Something uniquely World Cat.
Kai had been avoiding thinking about this moment since the genetic memory first showed him the breeding system. Creating life felt presumptuous when he could barely keep himself alive. Playing God when he didn't even believe in God.
But the stones had made the choice for him. The Maker standing alone. The crossed-out figures fleeing the floods. The empty face on Stone 7 where someone had run out of time.
He wouldn't run out of time. He wouldn't stand alone.
Even if it cost him everything he used to believe about himself.
The hunting that day was methodical. Calculated. He needed specific prey—not just protein, but genetic diversity. The template he fed to the brood pod would determine what traits the kit inherited.
The genetic memory showed him the options:
BASIC KIT TEMPLATE
Base mass: 60% of creator's current mass
Intelligence: 70% of creator's baseline (sufficient for complex tasks)
Loyalty: Genetically encoded (family bond, unbreakable)
Specialization: Determined by genetic material fed to pod
That last line bothered him. Loyalty: Genetically encoded.
He thought about Chicago. About free will. About the right to choose your own path, make your own mistakes, tell your boss to fuck off even if it meant losing your job.
Would the kit have that? Or would it be programmed to follow him the way his body was programmed to breathe?
Worry about philosophy later, he told himself. Survive first. Ethics second.
He found a beetle nest in a collapsed chamber two levels down—a species he hadn't encountered before. Smaller than the ones he'd been hunting, but with interesting traits. Enhanced vision, judging by the eye structures. Improved climbing ability from the specialized leg joints. Lighter armor but faster movement.
Scout traits.
He killed three. Quick, clean kills with Crushpoint Strike. The ability had become second nature now—he could look at any chitinous creature and immediately see the kill points glowing in his mind's eye. Throat. Eye socket. Nerve cluster. Brain stem.
It should have bothered him how easy killing had become. It didn't. That bothered him more.
He also took down a grub—pure mass, heavy armor, slow but nearly indestructible. Tank traits. And a small spider he found in the upper tunnels, all venom and ambush instinct. Specialist traits.
By evening, he had what he needed. A genetic palette. Options.
Now came the hard part.
The side chamber he'd chosen for the nest was perfect. Small. Defensible. Single entrance he could guard. Temperature stable. A thin seep of water in one corner—not much, but enough.
Kai stood in the center of the chamber and pushed.
That was the only way to describe it. Some internal muscle he hadn't known existed, clenching and releasing. His mouth filled with something thick and sticky—not saliva, something else entirely. Organic polymer that tasted like copper and smelled like fresh rain.
He painted the wall with it.
The motion was instinctive. Layering. Shaping. His paws kneaded the material into smooth curves, building a pod the size of his current body. Oval. Warm to the touch. The walls translucent enough to see shadows through.
When he finished, he felt connected to it. A cord had grown from his belly to the pod while he worked—thin, pulsing, alive. The sensation was intimate in a way that made him deeply uncomfortable.
BROOD POD: ESTABLISHED
Status: Empty, awaiting genetic material and nutrients
Connection: Active
Feeding required: Live prey only. Plant matter insufficient.
Development time: 4-5 days once feeding begins
"This is insane," Kai muttered. "I'm twenty-nine years old. Was twenty-nine. I don't know how to be a parent. I can barely take care of myself."
But even as he said it, he was moving. Dragging the beetle carcasses to the pod. The spider. The grub.
He fed on them first—the choice parts, the organs and flesh. The rest went into his belly, processed through new organs he hadn't possessed a week ago, sent down the cord to the pod.
The pod drank.
He could feel it. The material flowing through the cord. The pod growing warmer. Fuller. More alive.
And with each feeding, he could feel the template forming. The genetic blueprint assembling itself from the material he provided.
Three beetles: Enhanced vision. Improved climbing. Lighter build.
One spider: Venom production. Ambush instinct. Patience.
One grub: Armor reinforcement. Endurance. Slow but unstoppable.
The combination created something in between. Something new.
After an hour, the pull in his abdomen eased. The pod was full. Satisfied. It sealed itself with a thin membrane, and the cord between them thinned but didn't break.
He could still feel it. A presence at the edge of his awareness. Something growing. Something that would soon be real.
BROOD POD DEVELOPMENT: INITIATED
Genetic template: Processing
Predicted traits: Scout/Ambush hybrid
Kit designation: Pending (will be determined by personality post-emergence)
Estimated maturation: 4 days
Four days. Less than a week and he'd have company. Help. Family.
The word felt strange. Foreign. He'd never had siblings. His mom had been an only child. It had always been just the two of them against the world.
Now it would be two against the world. Then three. Then more.
The thought was terrifying and exhilarating in equal measure.
Kai sealed the nest chamber entrance with loose stone and scent markers—territorial claims that anything with functional olfactory organs would recognize as keep out or die.
Then he collapsed in his main den, exhausted. The breeding had taken more out of him than expected. His mass had dropped to 12.8 grams. He was hollow. Shaky.
WARNING: Excessive energy expenditure
Current reserves: Critically low
Recommendation: Immediate rest and feeding
Note: Multiple rapid breedings are not advised. Space colony establishment over several weeks minimum.
"Yeah, thanks for that advice after I already did it," Kai muttered.
He forced himself to eat from his cached supplies. The meat was starting to turn—not spoiled yet, but close. He'd have to improve his preservation techniques. Maybe the moss could help. Wrap the meat in damp fungus, let the moisture and whatever antimicrobial properties the moss had do their work.
Small problems. Solvable problems. Better than thinking about the larger implications of what he'd just done.
He curled up in his sleeping spot, surrounded by his seven carved stones, and tried to rest.
Sleep came in fragments.
He dreamed of his mother again. But this time she wasn't waiting at a table. She was in his apartment, going through his things. Folding his clothes. Finding the lottery ticket in his jacket pocket.
Her hands shook as she read the numbers. Checked them against her phone. Checked again.
"Baby," she whispered. "Oh, baby. What happened to you?"
She called the police. Filed a missing person report. His face went up on social media. Friends he hadn't talked to in years shared it. The cashier at the Shell station was interviewed on local news.
"He came in every week," the cashier said. "Bought the same numbers every time. Said they were lucky. Said they were going to change his life."
The lottery office tried to contact him. Certified mail. Phone calls to a number that rang and rang and never got answered. After thirty days, they started the unclaimed prize protocols.
After sixty days, his mother hired a private investigator with money she didn't have.
After ninety days, the investigator found his car. Still in the parking lot. Door closed now. No signs of foul play. No body. Just gone.
In the dream, Kai watched all of this from a distance he couldn't measure. Watched his mother age years in months. Watched her quit one job and take another with worse hours but better health insurance because the stress was killing her.
Watched her never stop looking for him.
"I'm sorry, Mom," he said in the dream. "I didn't leave you. I didn't choose this. I was stolen."
She couldn't hear him. Dreams didn't work that way.
He woke with his face wet. Couldn't tell if it was tears or condensation from the moss garden. Decided it didn't matter.
"Four more days," he said to the empty den. To the pod in the sealed chamber. To the kit that would soon emerge.
"Four more days and I'll have someone. Won't fix anything. Won't bring me home. But it's something."
He spent the rest of the night awake, listening to the tunnel sounds. Water dripping. Stone settling. Something large moving in the deep places, far away but getting closer.
The genetic memory was tracking it. Cataloguing vibration patterns. Building a threat profile.
UNKNOWN ENTITY DETECTED
Size: Large (estimated 50+ times current mass)
Behavior: Territorial patrol
Frequency: Every 6-8 days
Current distance: 800+ body-lengths
Threat level: Unknown
Recommendation: Avoid contact
Something else lived down here. Something big enough that it made the stone tremble when it moved. Something that had territory and patterns and probably very firm opinions about small creatures settling in its tunnels.
"Of course there is," Kai said. "Because nothing about this place is easy."
He checked on the pod three times that night. It was warm. Pulsing. Growing.
Inside, something that had never existed before was learning to exist.
In four days, Kai would meet it.
In four days, he would become something he'd never been.
A creator. A father. A maker.
Just like the figure on Stone 7.
He hoped he'd do better.
DAYS SURVIVED: 15
Morning brought hunger and routine. Kai hunted mechanically, his mind elsewhere. Took down two small beetles. Cached one. Ate the other. Checked the pod. Still growing. Still warm.
The day passed in a blur of maintenance tasks. Reinforcing the nest entrance. Expanding his moss garden. Mapping new sections of tunnel. Anything to not think about what was coming.
DAYS SURVIVED: 16
The pod was larger now. Noticeably so. Something moved inside—small, tentative movements. Learning its body before it even left the shell.
Kai found himself talking to it.
"Hey, kid. Don't know if you can hear me yet. Don't know if you'll understand even if you can. But I'm here. I'll be here when you come out. I'll teach you everything I know."
He paused. "Which isn't much. But it's kept me alive this long. That's something."
The pod pulsed in response. Maybe coincidence. Maybe not.
DAYS SURVIVED: 17
The thing in the deep tunnels passed through his territory.
Kai felt it more than heard it. A vibration that made his teeth ache. A presence so large it distorted the air pressure. He stayed in his den, perfectly still, barely breathing.
It passed without incident. Didn't even slow down. Just moved through on its patrol route, massive and indifferent.
After it was gone, Kai checked the pod. It had stopped pulsing during the passage. Frozen. Instinctively hiding.
"Yeah," Kai said softly. "Smart. That's good. Fear keeps you alive."
DAYS SURVIVED: 18
POD MATURATION: COMPLETE
Kai woke to a sound he'd never heard before.
Tapping. Gentle. Rhythmic. Coming from the nest chamber.
His heart hammered as he unsealed the entrance. The pod had changed overnight. The membrane had stretched thin, something pressing against it from inside. The shape of a small head. Paws. A tail.
As he watched, tiny claws emerged through the membrane. Paused. Pushed harder.
The membrane tore.
A small head pushed through. Stopped. Blinked at him with eyes that were compound but shaped like cat eyes—insect and mammal merged into something that shouldn't work but somehow did.
The kit pulled itself free of the pod slowly, deliberately. Black fur like his, but thinner. Patches of beetle-like plating visible under the coat, chitin integration from the genetic material he'd fed. Longer legs built for climbing. Face more angular, more insectoid. Tail short and slightly segmented.
It smelled like him. Family mark. But also like new stone and beetle shell and something uniquely itself.
The kit stepped onto the chamber floor on shaky legs. Looked up at him. Waiting for... what? Instructions? Approval? Recognition?
Kai didn't know what to say. All the speeches he'd prepared in his head vanished. He was looking at life. Life he'd created. Life that existed because he'd made choices and taken actions and now here it was, real and breathing and his.
"Hey," he finally managed. His voice was rough. "Welcome to the world. It's terrible. You'll hate it."
The kit tilted its head. Watching. Learning. Recording every detail with those strange hybrid eyes.
"Come on," Kai said, voice gentler. "I'll show you around. Keep you alive. Teach you everything I know. Which isn't much, but—"
He stopped. The kit had taken a step toward him. Then another. Moving with surprising confidence for something only minutes old.
It pressed against his leg. Small. Warm. Trusting.
The family bond snapped into place like a physical thing. Kai could feel it. Not telepathy—nothing so clear. Just awareness. He knew where the kit was without looking. Knew its general emotional state. Calm. Curious. Attached.
"Okay," Kai said softly. "Okay. We'll figure this out together."
He led the kit to the root seep. It tasted the sap, sneezed violently, looked personally offended.
"Yeah, I know. Plants are fuel, not food. You need meat. Real food. Come on."
The hunt was a revelation.
The kit knew what to do. Instinct coded into its genetics from the moment of creation. When Kai found a grub, the kit watched once, then tried its own pounce. Landed perfectly. Bit the seam exactly where Kai would have.
"Fast learner," Kai said, genuinely impressed. "Good. That'll keep you alive."
But there were differences too. The kit was more cautious than Kai had been at that size. It checked exits constantly. Twice, sometimes three times. Even when Kai showed them clear, showed them safe, the kit would check again.
And it startled easily. A distant sound—just sand shifting—made it freeze. Shadows that were nothing caused it to jump.
"Anxious little thing, aren't you?" Kai observed.
The kit flinched at his voice, then crept back to his side.
"Okay. That's your thing. Cautious. Paranoid, even. I'll call you... Twitchy. Not because you're broken. Because you're careful. Careful keeps you alive down here."
KIT DESIGNATION: TWITCHY
Traits: Heightened threat awareness, enhanced escape instincts, cautious decision-making
Specialization potential: Sentry, scout, early warning system
Family bond: Established (moderate strength, growing)
Twitchy's ears came up slightly. The name had weight. Meaning. The kit accepted it.
They spent the rest of the day working on the den together. Kai showing how to shape moss, how to test stone stability, how to mark territory. Twitchy checking angles obsessively, testing strength, making sure everything was safe. Making sure every wall could hold. Every exit was clear. Every alarm was functional.
Kai watched the kit work and felt something unfamiliar in his chest.
Pride? Affection? Fear that he'd already fucked this up somehow?
All of the above, probably.
That night, they settled in the main den. Twitchy checked the perimeter fifteen times before finally curling up beside Kai.
FAMILY BOND: STRENGTHENING
Colony size: 2
Pack dynamics: Emerging
Note: Emotional connection detected. You care about this kit beyond utility.
"Yeah," Kai whispered into the darkness. "I do."
Twitchy pressed closer, seeking warmth and safety. Kai curled around the smaller body, protective instincts firing in ways that surprised him.
"I'll keep you safe, kid. I promise. Whatever it takes."
He meant it. Meant it with an intensity that scared him. When had he started caring this much? When had survival stopped being just about him?
In the dark, he whispered to the mother he'd never see again.
"Mom, I know this isn't grandkids like you wanted. But it's family. Sort of. I'm not alone anymore."
The den was quiet except for two heartbeats instead of one.
Kai breathed. Listened. Felt the weight of responsibility for the first time since arriving.
He had someone to protect now. Someone depending on him.
It changed everything.