The blazing sun hung overhead, cicadas shrilled in the ears, and the mountain forest lay hot and airless in the summer afternoon.
On the ridge, ancient pines oozed sticky Pine Resin under the scorching heat. Thick layers of dry pine needles covered the ground, while a stream burbled along the valley floor.
At first, an unnatural gray line appeared atop the distant mountains.
Gray clouds of smoke rolled and swelled soundlessly, drawing swiftly closer. Suddenly, fires crested the ridges in several places without warning. Scarlet flames flowed unchecked along the contours of the forest, spreading until the burning crowns formed a swaying sea of fire.
Thick trees groaned and crashed down, rolling, grinding, and colliding as they slid down the steep slopes, throwing up towering flames and billowing ash.
Waves of heat swept burning debris into the air, scattering it farther afield like paper money offered to the dead, bidding farewell to all living things.
Unable to withstand the scorching heat, the surfaces of the rocks abruptly burst apart, sending fragments flying.
Halfway up the mountain, inside a shallow, narrow crevice, a two-foot-long black snake instinctively curled deeper into the rock, relying on the cool spring water seeping through it to stay cool and alive.
The black snake flicked its tongue in bewilderment, its limited awareness unable to comprehend what was happening.
The crevice was too shallow. It curled and slowly writhed in a futile, meaningless effort, hoping to find a little more coolness.
Outside the crack, smoke and dust hung murky as a dying dusk. Clusters of flames flickered in the blurred darkness, and the wind carried sparks with a low, sobbing howl. A burning old pine crashed down, splashing embers onto the snake. Pain sent it twisting and thrashing, tearing at its awareness. In this inferno of burning winds, an emotion quietly took root in the depths of its muddled consciousness: fear. And it remembered the boundless crimson its Thermal Sensing had shown it...
A wild snake born in the dust and raised among the grasses, destined to live and die an unremarkable life governed by primal instinct, had somehow broken past its limits in this forest fire. Despair had awakened an intelligence it should never have possessed.
In desperate straits, it underwent a brutal awakening and learned what fear meant.
It was a prisoner in this blazing inferno, knowing neither calamity nor beginning nor end, clinging painfully to life beneath the shelter of a dripping rock crevice.
After an unknown stretch of time, the forest fire moved on, though the lingering heat remained intense.
The surviving black snake felt a silence unlike anything it had ever experienced. Within its limited field of vision, ash fluttered down and settled around charred stumps trailing wisps of smoke.
It flicked its tongue in bewilderment, trying to find the familiar scent of the mountain forest, but there was only the foul stink of burning.
Suddenly, the black snake sensed a faint vibration.
The dull, scattered sounds grew ever more rapid, until they merged into a seething clamor. Dense pattering surged in from every direction.
This rhythm was so familiar.
Cold rain pierced the thick smoke and struck the embers, bringing coolness and driving away the sweltering heat.
With the limited intelligence that had only just begun to sprout, the black snake came to know anew the rain it had always taken for granted. A new emotional understanding was born: fondness.
It slowly slithered out of the shallow, narrow crevice and cautiously raised its head, viewing the world through its Thermal Sensing.
It patiently read the world's cooling progress, building a shifting, flowing picture in its mind from the subtle changes in the temperature around it.
It enjoyed the faint vibrations and coolness of raindrops striking its scales.
Its forked tongue tasted the rainwater, and its nostrils greedily drew in the rain's crisp scent, giving full expression to its fondness for the rain.
A white haze filled the mountains.
The black snake breathed in the cool Rain Essence...
Daylight gradually faded, and the rain showed no sign of stopping. Stripped of vegetation, the steep slopes could no longer hold water. Streams mixed with ash and earth scoured channels into the ground, growing more violent the farther they descended. At last, they became muddy debris flows, sweeping along stones, half-burned trees, and roots gouged out by the flash flood, surging onward with a thunderous roar.
Debris piled up in narrow places, blocking the flow. The flood gathered force, then burst through with still greater power, repeating the cycle again and again.
The black snake had long since retreated into the narrow rock crevice to hide.
It sensed the unusually violent trembling of the ground, but neither knew nor thought to wonder what was happening.
It curled up in its familiar dark corner and waited quietly.
The black snake had poor eyesight and could barely make out the cramped space before it. It did not know that lightning was illuminating the valley outside, again and again, for an instant at a time.
In stark contrast to the crimson inferno in its memory, its Thermal Sensing detected no source of warmth. Only cold darkness remained.
A forest fire and a thunderstorm had changed an ordinary black snake.
Time slipped quietly by.
When dazzling sunlight once again spilled over the earth, the once-verdant mountain was scarred and ravaged. Vast stretches of green had vanished, exposing jagged rocks, tangled roots, and charred wood.
The black snake left the crevice and lay motionless on a rock, following its instinctive habits by basking in the sun to regulate its body temperature.
Two images it had never known before now lingered in its memory.
The omnipresent, scorching, twisted red, and the lovely coolness of rain.
Then it cautiously moved downhill, slowly making its way through unfamiliar rubble, flicking its tongue ceaselessly to catch scents as it searched for prey.
Forest fires would go out, storms would cease, but survival had to continue.
Finding food after the disaster took more time and energy.
For the moment, it set aside its fear of fire and fondness for rain, concentrating on searching and hunting.
Soon, its forked tongue caught the scent of prey. Following the trail, it detected a small patch of warmth among the stones. It distinguished the details and confirmed that the creature was something it could eat, slowly drawing close enough before striking swiftly and securing its bite. After a brief struggle, the prey went limp and died, and the black snake slowly swallowed it.
Afterward, it coiled among the scattered rocks and settled into quiet digestion, seeming to lapse back into unthinking ignorance.
Perhaps its brain had too little capacity to bear much thought, leaving only the most basic survival instincts.
Several days passed in a muddled haze.
Once the food in its belly had been fully digested, the black snake continued hunting to survive, relying on its keen sense of smell and its heat sense to find prey.
It had no concept of time and cared nothing for day or night. When hungry, it hunted; when full, it hid away to rest.
It had no interest in the green shoots emerging from the soil between the stones, nor did it know that the carcasses of animals killed in the forest fire lay everywhere on the valley floor, among flood-heaped broken branches and torn roots, and in the gaps between rocks. Flocks of crows came to circle and alight, their hoarse, raucous cries echoing through the valley.
Without stimulation from the world outside, that faint spark of intelligence in the black snake would most likely have quietly faded away.
One night, inky clouds pressed down upon the mountains.
Hiding beneath a boulder, the black snake sensed a change in the air.
Rain began to fall.
Raindrops struck the earth and green leaves. Hearing that familiar rhythm again awakened the hazy sense of fondness and loveliness deep within it.
It slithered outside, but the earthy smell at ground level was too strong. After exploring in confusion, it discovered through scent that the higher it went, the crisper the rain-laden air became, and the closer it came to the scent in its memory. So it wound its way up onto a high boulder.
Unlike other snakes, which instinctively sought shelter from the rain, the black snake had an unusual fondness for rainfall. It raised its head and breathed greedily.
Low thunder shook the valley.
Each time lightning briefly illuminated the sheets of pouring rain, it revealed an eerie silhouette: a black snake perched silently atop a great boulder, straining to raise its head toward the churning rain clouds and thunder. It breathed in each wisp of cool Rain Essence, over and over...
It breathed in every wisp of cool, rain-laden air, over and over...
From then on, the black snake became an anomaly.
Ordinarily, it relied on instinct to survive, but whenever rain fell, it climbed to higher ground, with no practical purpose at all, solely out of pure fondness.