The splashes of a feeding frenzy nearby were drawing closer. That was more than enough encouragement for Collin to move on from his current hyacinth despite the unreliable winds. Before he could plan his next jump, A particularly large fish leaped clear out of the water next to Collin and when it came back down, it crushed the Hyacinth right next to the one Collin was on.


    He was forced to crouch low to his own pad as the waves of the water jostled him violently. Another jump like that and Collin would be underwater. He needed to get to shore before something bad happened.


    It was now or never.


    He readied himself for the next gust of wind and when it blew, he leaped along with it. He kept the routine going, wait, aim, gust, and leap, but the sun was falling faster than his gradual progress toward the shore and the fish below were becoming more active. He needed to hurry, but there was nothing he could think of to safely move faster.


    Too late, Collin realized he was not going to make it to the shore in time.


    As soon as the realization struck him, he stopped in the middle of a hyacinth. He let the breeze pass over and hoped for a plan. He hoped his instincts would take over and solve his problem. He wished he could think of some sort of solution, but try as he might to come up with something, he simply didn’t know what to do.


    Whether by fish or bird, being stuck here all night was a death sentence. He needed to hide or find shelter, but the shore was out of reach. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    Not knowing a better solution, Collin searched within himself and tapped into the instinctual feeling that drove him to feed, The instinct that led him to the caterpillar, the one that let him hear the water strider’s intentions earlier. He turned his attention toward the origin of his own instinct and listened for something that could help.


    The sense of pulses were there, within that point of instinct surrounding the pulse of his own life. It was damaged for some reason but he avoided focusing on that. It was far too painful. He moved on and found circulating around his life pulse, the instinctual pulse of hunger, it was subdued, but it gave off the impression of a damn slowly building up. He could still reach out to it easily, but it didn’t seem like the help he currently needed. Collin moved past the hunger after becoming consciously familiar with it.


    Deeper past his hunger, there was another familiar pulse inside him, stirring and whirling. Where the feeling of hunger was insistent and throbbing, this new sensation was a quiet and sturdy pulse.


    This was what he needed.


    Collin honed in on the new, yet familiar pulse and let it overwhelm his instincts in much the same way his hunger had taken over before. He wasn’t sure how, but he invoked the instinct to come alive and pulse harder.


    Rest


    Collin’s body burbled and shrunk into itself as it produced a shell to surround and protect him. Thankfully, he managed to fully enclose himself before the sun was completely down. As the sun slowly disappeared, he floated on a hyacinth nestled safely in his chrysalis.


    Rest


    Collin held onto that quiet pulse and let it guide him deeper and deeper until it pulled him into a deep hibernation. In this state, he was still aware of his surroundings, but his thoughts felt dulled. He could feel his body assimilating the meal from earlier into himself, to make it a part of himself. He felt himself changing and knew when he emerged, that he would no longer be just a water strider. He would be something entirely new. Something that was much more