'I… am hungry.'
Those were the first words echoing in Nair's mind as the fourth day's dawn broke.
He awoke, as usual, before sunrise, when the village still lay in a gray silence pierced only by the distant whisper of the sea. The air was damp, and a faint warmth still seeped from beneath the mother hen's wing—but something had changed.
Hunger.
It wasn't a sharp pain, but an inner void, a silent echo reverberating through unfamiliar hollows.
'The moment I feared has come…'
He gazed at the empty space before him, at the nest that had never been his true home, then closed his eyes for a moment.
'Now I can no longer run away… this body, this creature I've become… it demands its most basic needs to survive.'
He tried to ignore the feeling, turned his tiny head toward the sleeping hen, then to his siblings huddled beneath her. All lay motionless; the night had not yet yielded to morning.
'What do I do?'
With his limited vision, he surveyed the scattered straw, broken eggshell fragments, and a few rogue shards left over from the previous day—nothing resembling food, no one awake to guide him toward anything that might fill this silent emptiness in his belly.
'Even if a solution exists, it depends on luck… or on her mood when she wakes. And it seems…'
He watched the hen's wing rise and fall in steady slumber.
'It's far too early.'
Then an idea glimmered in his mind. It was no solution, not really—not even a plan. Closer to instinct, or a gamble.
'It's the only choice… or nothing.'
Holding his breath, he slipped from beneath the hen's wing. He had no true strategy—only the hope of finding scraps from yesterday's meal, a few crumbs… or perhaps a single drop of water to still the silent roar within him.
Everything around him lay still—except inside.
Now, as he crawled heavily through the straw, searching for anything to sate him, that old feeling returned… weakness, helplessness, alienation from his own body.
Yet even this was not the worst he had known.
Because the truly worst had already passed.
Those first days… were a nightmare he would never want to relive.
Despite the helplessness, the frailty, and the estrangement he endured then, what he faced now was a blessing—a grace beyond measure compared with what he'd suffered before hatching.
At least now he had choices.
For the worst fate a being can suffer is to be stripped of choice, cast adrift on a path beyond control.
That was exactly the prison of the egg.
Waking in utter darkness…
Your body bound, entangled…
Unable to move even a fraction of an inch…
With no knowledge of what was happening or how long it would last…
That was true terror.
Even the brutality of hatching, as harsh as it was, felt less savage than that prior imprisonment.
Yes, he found himself face-down, damp and fragile, chilled to the bone—but he was free. Free in his own primal way: no binds constricting him, no darkness suffocating him, no absolute paralysis.
Pain was bearable because there was room to choose…
Weakness acceptable because it could be overcome.
But total bondage…
That is the cruelest affliction for any sentient creature.
At least now, he had a choice.
If he couldn't adapt to this body, he would have to try.
If he couldn't control it, he would train.
If he didn't know how to walk, he would learn.
But when he was inside the egg…
There was no choice.
The bonds were absolute, the darkness total, the body fragile and wet, his limbs entangled—unable to move even the blink of an eye, unaware of where he was or why he was there.
Even sleep then was not rest but utter surrender.
Even the agony and clumsiness of hatching were lighter burdens than that silent prison.
He remained weak, and he remained lost,
Yet he was free—free enough to stretch his wings, to breathe, to see, to think.
And that freedom, however fragile, was not to be underestimated.
From the moment he hatched, Nair did not much care if he died right then.
It was strange… but he felt, even faintly, that he possessed choices—small choices, a precarious freedom, but real.
A freedom, though deceptive.
The emotions he faced before hatching, especially on that first day—the humiliating helplessness, the utter fragility when neither life nor body belonged to him—were enough to swear he would never endure a similar ordeal again.
And so… he never surrendered.
No matter how often he fell,
No matter how much he felt this body was not his,
He vowed within himself to shape it to his will.
To seize every moment, every breath, to strengthen himself and reclaim mastery over his fate.
That is why, from the second day onward, he did not dwell on "Why did this happen?" or "How?" or "Where am I?"
Those questions… were luxuries he could not afford.
Though important, they were a burden without purpose—he had no means to answer them, nor the power to pursue them.
Even inside the egg, his rare moments of reflection were drowned by the crushing sense of confinement.
That constraint…
Was unbearable. Growing tighter day by day, and as his fragility and weakness increased, his new body's sensations became ever stranger and more terrifying.
The dampness, the stickiness, the narrowness, his inability to move… everything pressed in on him as if the world had shrunk to a suffocating shell with no escape.
And yet, it was astonishing that amid all that, he retained the will to think beyond his torment.
Even sleep was not an escape but a destined collapse once his meager strength was spent.
All he could rely on then was his will alone— the will that allowed him to wake despite his weakness, only for his body to force him back to sleep again, as though the shell itself had drawn its cover over him.
So after his ordeal on that first day and his astonishing discovery of his new reality, he was not shocked by the mystery that surrounded him; he accepted it.
He was ready to embrace the idea of this new body and this strange world—simply because he refused to die.
That was all that mattered:
To stay alive.
He did not care into which world he had come, nor what creature he had become.
As long as there was a beating breath within him, that was enough.
And so he took everything around him as fact.
Was he a chick now? All right…
So he would learn how to live as a chick.
* * *
Despite all he had faced and overcome, Nair now confronted a new challenge just as dangerous as the rest: hunger.
He knew it would strike sooner or later.
And, for better or worse, he was a chick.
Newly hatched chicks don't require food or drink in their first days; the yolk they absorbed before hatching sustains them.
Fortunate—or perhaps unfortunate—for him, his small, weak body consumed very little, allowing him to survive the first three days without being utterly drained by hunger.
But that did not stop his mind from racing. From the second day on, he understood that this grace period was temporary—and that starvation was inevitably coming.
He also knew his body and circumstances would not allow him to move or forage for himself—he couldn't even leave the nest.
So he resolved to spend those three days doing one thing: adapting. Learning to use this new body, training in movement—especially walking. For having even a primitive ability to move was better than total helplessness.
He knew that mastering walking did not guarantee survival, but it would be a step on the path, a step that gave him a chance:
— A chance to search.
— A chance to try.
— A chance to live.
'But that isn't enough…'
Nair was not entirely satisfied with his "great achievement" of yesterday. True, he had stood and taken a few steps—but he was not yet capable of leaving the nest and finding food on his own, assuming naïvely that food awaited him outside on a golden platter, with no claws or beaks in ambush.
After briefly venturing from under the wing in search of something to fill his belly—pecking through the straw, probing corners for crumbs left by other chicks—he found nothing. No scraps, no stray grain of rice, no droplet of water. Only the gnawing ache of hunger.
He returned from that short quest exhausted—not from walking, but from dashed hope.
'It's still too early… let's postpone today's training and conserve energy.'
He muttered the words in the tone of a jaded coach, then tucked his head back under the wing.
Curled up in his familiar spot, he preferred saving every ounce of energy rather than carry on with what felt like futile attempts.
'What an unreliable mother…'
he grumbled as he shifted beneath the hen's wing.
By all the parenting manuals no one ever read, a chick his age should not be thinking of food, water, survival laws, or staying alive. He was merely a nursery baby whose entire world was meant to be covered by his mother's wings.
Yet from the very moment of hatching, that "mother" had artfully ignored him—more thoroughly than the worst parents in any tragic drama. As if she never noticed he existed.
'I'll report you to Child Protection… I mean, Chick Protection.'
he thought, extending his tiny beak as though filing an official complaint in midair.
'I'll demand compensation too… like a few kernels of corn.'
he snarked inwardly, tucking his head as if filling out an imaginary grievance form.
* * *
Nair knew hunger was coming, but he did not know exactly when.
What had been an abstract threat yesterday had become an undeniable weight today. Despite the strangeness of his situation, he was lucky to inhabit a chick's body—the new form had bought him time: a narrow margin, but precious.
Chicks at hatching do not need immediate food. They emerge with a yolk sac still inside them—the "residual yolk"—that sustains them for several days.
It was his first meal, and his only source of energy in his early days.
This internal nourishment could sustain him for two or three days, depending on the size of the chick and its activity level.
Nair's small, weak body hadn't consumed much; in fact, he barely moved at first, which prolonged his benefit from this yolk.
But the yolk doesn't last forever. It gradually begins to shrink after hatching, and the urgent need for real food starts as time passes.
Naier was aware of this.
Since the second day, he had started preparing, in his own way.
He knew he had to move, to search, to chirp, to do anything to get his first meal.
The egg yolk might give you a start...
But it doesn't guarantee survival.
He spent three days with great caution, conserving his energy, sticking to a strict routine of short exercises and long sleep. He always stopped his "training"
at noon, to avoid exhausting his fragile body.
Fortunately—or unfortunately—his body was very small, and his energy consumption was minimal... on paper. But the reality was that whatever his small size saved him in energy, it was consumed by his daily exercises—exercises that were necessary.
What good was it to conserve his energy for another day if he couldn't walk to the food?
'I hate this, but I can only rely on my lucknow,'
he thought desperately, curled under the mother hen's wing as if waiting for a storm.
Time passed slowly, as if it were deliberately mocking him.
He tried to sleep.
Then tried to sleep again.
Then tried to convince his body that this "hunger" was just a rumor, or perhaps a misunderstanding.
But his body wouldn't listen.
He was hungry. Real hunger, painful, unfamiliar.
This was the first time he had ever felt hunger, either in this body or in this world.
Even if he had a grown-up mind, his body was still that of a small chick: weak, fragile, only able to face its biological needs by dodging and enduring.
'It's time now...'
He thought, staring at the faint light filtering from outside the nest.
The sun had risen, and the usual noise around him was rising. Familiar sounds—perhaps human... other animals... footsteps. He wasn't sure, but he felt they were the sounds of life.
He thought for a moment…
If his guess was right, he wasn't in the wild.
The nest was safe, it hadn't been attacked during the night, no hyenas, no cats, not even cold air.
He was probably in a village, or a farm, and perhaps... with humans.
'It's my only choice now.'
He had no other option but to bet on the owner of this place.
After all, it wouldn't be in anyone's best interest for the chick destined to one day become a plump rooster on a dinner table to die.
'A sacrifice must be made...'
He said to himself as he prepared to do something that seemed heroic in that moment, despite his misery.
He was silent, took a deep breath, and tried to appear brave—even though all he had was a small beak and chirps that wouldn't convince even a bee.
'Walking today is better than yesterday.'
Nair thought as he swayed slightly on his feet. His steps weren't completely steady, but he didn't fall this time, and that was an achievement in chick terms.
True, his body was still weak and fragile, but one simple fact couldn't be denied:
Chicks grow at an astonishing pace in their early days.
Every day, his body became a little stronger, and he got more accustomed to it...
as if his tiny muscles were finally acknowledging their existence.
'It's time to ask for help...'
Nair moved to the edge of the nest, then stood in a formal chick pose: chest out, wings hanging tensely, eyes in the "I'm cute but desperate" position.
He took a deep breath, pulled his head back slightly, then…
"Chiiiiiiiip!"
It was a long, loud, desperate chirp… filled with hope.
He had no other means, no message, no sign, not even a beak to carry a paper saying "Feed me."
Only a chirp. One chirp aimed at the sky, and anyone who might hear it.
'It's time for promotion!'