1 (cover art is drawn by me)

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(TRIGGER WARNINGS: gore, blood)

Like every other cycle i take my basket that my mom made for me to carry my singularity bombs in and i take them out to the roads of our city.

I place the basket on my stand where i sell the singularity bombs... Or try to.

My mom always thought i was soo special because of my genetic ability. Every cycle when i wake up i can generate at least one singularity bomb from my stomach. Some think it's gross which is why they don't sell...

..but i try my best anyway! As a matter of fact i do this voluntarily as a routine to help my mom and i. I lay out a row of singularity bombs on my stand and watch as the people walk past me, ignoring my advertisement and super-super-awesome-egg-stand (yes, i named that!!).

"Singularity bombs! Get two for just one pearl!" I exclaim from my stand enthusiastically as i wave to the other friendly people. Everyone tends to kind of ignore me and never buy my stuff, but i guess I don't mind.

Every new egg i generate has a unique red pattern in the middle. The bombs are white and shaped like an odd fruit. My friend calls them eggs to make fun of me but it's the name that inspired the title of my stand! If you don't know, eggs are a rare white version of blue fruits! (Yuck)

They grow underground towards the south and if you're lucky and dig one up; people say that it keeps you full for two whole cycles! I heard they're crunchy.

"Aren't you kind of sick of standing here every single cycle and wasting your life getting nowhere? Sell something more interesting." A voice says from my right side. I jump up in surprise from my friend's voice (the one i was talking about earlier).

He's kinda a loner and travels around the city every cycle with the meat he sells. It's pretty much a thing everyone does in this city. Sell food to get around and do whatever.

His name is shade... I think? Every cycle he comes down this same path with a new bruise on his body. I wonder what kind of fights he gets into. There's rumors everywhere in these cities and one of them is that shade gets all those bruises from the badass lizards he hunts to sell the meat.

"I mean, no offense but when's the last time you've even made a single pearl?" He adds.

I simply smile and lean over the counter of my stand.
"Free egg?" I offer, handing one towards him.

"My bag is full, sorry." He replies. He smiles and waves without making eye contact. Eye contact is something he hates for some reason. He carries on and walks into the dirt paths of the cities with his bags of lizard flesh. Sometimes you'll even see him with centipedes on him.

Something I've noticed though is days when he comes back before the cycle ends, I'll greet him again and he'll look down miserably when he only makes one or two pearls- sometimes even none as if it's the end of the world.

This cycle he came back empty handed and simply frowned. "Hey, shade!" I say as i collect my bombs back into my basket, none sold as usual.

"Hey, inv." He sighs and walks away. Usually i ask how he did with his meat selling but this time he seemed like he didn't want to go home. I simply stare at him with worry as he glares at the ground, kicking rocks that come up in his path and eventually he walks away.

In the next cycle i set my stand up in the same place, set up my eggs in the same row and lean over the counter made out of scraps from fallen buildings. This time, Shade doesn't come to sell anything which seems highly impossible to me, considering that every single cycle no matter how sick, how beat up or how sad he is, he ALWAYS comes with freshly hunted meat.

I shrug it off, thinking nothing of it until i notice the next cycle is the exact same.
Now i start to worry.

I pack up my eggs in my basket after about a quarter of the cycle passed and i start walking down the path that leads to his small tree home he shares with his parents.

I set my basket down in front of the willow tree and brush the vines to the side, allowing me to enter. My eyes widen in disgust at what's inside and i almost throw up.

A dead body which i assume to be shade's mother lays on the ground, her throat ripped out and a dried up blood puddle staining the grass below the body- but that's not the only thing i notice. There's a similar spot of dried blood about ten feet away from the mother's body as if there had been a dead body there before but now it's gone.

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