Kaypa's Earliest Memory

There is a noise, and I am running across the arms of the trees. This is the first thing that I know I know, but it is not the first thing I know, for I know what a tree is, what an arm is, what a noise like that means, and what it means to run.
It means to live. All things want to live. I do, so I run. The trees do, so they wish that they could run. The thing that made the noise does, so it runs for me.
The monster can shoot columns of zaps and sparks. I know this because with a mighty crack, one explodes out of the monster. It is like the qi that the sky makes when it is angry, and it makes the same sound, and it shatters the tree I have just left.
The monster does not care that it has killed something that is not its prey, and it is right to not care. The small ones in the dirt, with their pointed bellies that move the dirt - they will rise from the dirt and eat what remains of the tree. In this way, they are grateful for the monster's bolt, and for my speedy running, for if it had hit me, they would not be able to eat what remained.
In the inside, I am not like a tree. I am like the monster. I know this, because I turned and fired my own qi upon it in a spray of colors, and this drew blood, thick and pink like my fur, onto the tree-arms where the monster's thin-needle legs carried it. And it made another noise, of anger, and of fear, and of hunger. I know this, because the world makes - every moment of every day and night - noises like this, though I do not hear them with my ears.
The monster's legs are bent in two places, and all in a row under its body. It hunts along tree-arms, and they are built to help it. It is not built to be escaped, as it runs to prey, feet grasping and ungrasping the tree-arms almost too fast to see. But I am fast, and I shall not be eaten. You know this because you know I have written this, though I did not know it. Just like I did not know that the trees would stop soon, for the land stopped soon, and - on this world - trees do not grow in air.
But the monster's teeth reach out for me, its body leaning towards me to help it, and I jump hard in front of me, and I do not land, for the land stopped just after my jump started.
I feel angry. I feel this because I think the monster has killed me, though it did not do so with teeth or with it bolts. It has killed me with a fall, and with my own hurrying towards it to escape. I turn, and look at the monster as I fall. I look at it standing on the branches. It watches me. It is sad that it will not eat me, for I, though dead, will be very away from where it goes to hunt and to eat, and even if it came for me, I will have been eaten by the small ones who dart among the grass. But this is the wrong reason to be sad about the death of me.
I shoot my qi at it, angry. So angry. Too angry to tell in words that I yet know. The qi sings my anger into the monster, and I am glad for this. Would have thanked. The shoot turns me back, falling headfirst now, with my feet over my head. And one of the flying ones, with the spiral-mouths that spin to eat, was hoping to eat me as I fell. I know this, because in my turning, I kicked it down, and this must mean it flew to me, and that I only dodged it's spiral-mouth because of my turning.
This kick saves me. The flying one is under me, and hurt, and I am upon it. I hold it's throat while it moves quickly about, angry and fearful, but not falling. It doesn't fall, so I don't fall. But it fights me. It knows I will eat it when I can, and wants to be free, as all things. So it turns its head back at me, twisting many times its neck in my hands, and shoots a small green thing past me, but it meant to shoot it into me. I melt its head off with qi, bright and yellow; burn like yellow-sun. This is a creature of wings, not a creature of heads, but it needs its head to fly, as I need mine to do many things.
This would be problem, because now we fall together, and it is already dead, so only I will die when hit the ground. I see down there rocks, such big rocks, and more trees, and river running far away. I see the death of myself. But, I think, because shooting qi before turned me over, and saved me, maybe now shooting qi push us, and save me. I shoot qi behind us, turning last hope for life into shining blue force behind the flying one. Qi is first friend, because like this, it brings me and flying one to cliff with trees with monster. We crash into dirt of the cliffside and I grab hold of it. I hold flying one in my feet, and dirt in my hands, and I climb, pulling up, and up, so hard, past rocks tumble-down from touch, past plant-feet and plant-arms poking from dirt. Ground-down is closer than ground-up, but ground-up has dead monster, and my anger tells me I need to see it. So I climb, until we are on flat-dirt again.
Near me, is burnt hole in trees from when shoot qi while falling. Near that, is half of monster, because was hit with singing-qi - how loud it sang while kill monster. It is an attitude I respect, but not then. Then, I eat monster, and I eat flying one. The little ones from the dirt eat the remains of the trees who died. I do not eat them on that day, even though I could have. I would not, if I saw them today, but I will not see them today. Today is a day of writing, at job, and of new friends.