Evolution

The creature drifted down slowly from space.

It landed gently in a forest clearing in the White Mountain National Forest, its hundreds of tentacles softening the impact.

It rested.

In the forest it foraged, finding small animals that were easily attracted. The creature mimicked the scents and sounds of the squirrels, chipmunks, raccoons, porcupines and small birds. But that wasn’t enough. The vibrational characteristics were unsatisfying. It needed something more.

The gravitational pull of both the planet it was on and this solar system blunted its ability to tune in to living creatures. It needed to move beyond the area it had exploited during its recovery after its long, long trip across the solar system.

Getting across cold hard space was another thing.

Outside the gravitational pull of a stellar object, it could open wide the glands it used to sense the full range of vibrations and energy in the universe. The creature could slip through time and space, a sideways movement, eventually arriving near a gravity sink. Searching and slipping. And more searching for life, life which would give the creature the ability to exercise its evolution.

The creature carried a memory of seeds cast out in space, searching.

It moved from its resting place, shuffling along on its tentacles with a sound like wind through trees. It learned to move stealthily in order to catch the tiny forest animals. In ever-widening circles it expanded its investigation of the third orb from it sun in this solar system at the fringes of  its galaxy.

In space, it had sensed something drawing it from one point to the next, from dead planet to unrealized habitat on to the next dead planet. It sensed a hum, a vibration almost too remote to grasp. Only as it leaped through space from dead and dying star systems did it realize the pull was life. Now, on this planet where it had found lower forms of life, it wondered if this world could sustain creatures with more complexity to them. Had evolution progressed on this planet to that point in the remote reaches of space.

In the distance, a different hum, of rubbing, spinning, massive amounts of energy shed into the environment. As it got closer to the source of the hum, it began to feed on gases flowing on the wind. It stood in the shadows at the edge of the forest. Before it, in the sunlight, the source of the burnt gases. It settled into the shadows and evaluated the flashing colors, a cacophony of vibrations. Its senses reeled.

During the hours it sat and watched the flow it collected the energy wasted, the vibrations emitted by friction and motors turning at thousands of rotations per minute. It fortified itself with the energy thrumming through the air, dissipating into the ether. Such a waste, thought the creature.

As it classified and categorized each note of the physical plain, it began to notice an energy masked by the riot of sensations assailing the various lobes that made up its brain. But unlike the nearly overwhelming hum it was dividing up into categories, the hidden energy flashed in and out, almost imperceptible. The creature knew it was near something that might help it fulfill its destiny.

It began to move again.

It was no longer overwhelmed. It could focus below the ranges it had now stored away in one of its neural lobes.

It moved for several more days, feeding on the fumes and small animals. Once a bear, but it consumed the muscular creature in a rapid fashion, leaving nothing but meat and bones, its vibrations permanently ceased.

It traveled in search of the peculiar hum that tantalized it with the potential it needed to evolve.

Then, it stumbled upon the source of the hum. Strong. Powerful. It could sense in an instant the possibilities offered its kind by vibrations such as these. The ecstatic energy charged its own frequencies, nearly incapacitating the creature. It slowly realized it was receiving emanations from several different sources, impossible for it to categorize the many places of origin. It needed to find an isolated source so that it could effectively and efficiently understand the many levels of these beings’ frequencies.