The first thing I notice is the cold. It swaddles me, an arctic blanket around my damp fur, and tingles against my nose as I inhale. I can’t remember where I had just been, not really, but somehow I know it had been warm and that I had never experienced anything quite like this before - the utter novelty of the sensation gives me pause. It feels… sharp, but not stabbing. Tingly, yet numb. Though it may eventually grow to be something appreciated, right now it sends shivers shuddering down my skin and I finally let out a yelp in protest. This, too, startles me. Not so much the noise, for I am still too young to know sound, but rather the foreign vibration in my throat. This, I decide, is pleasant; it feels funny in a way that makes me want to experiment and I loose another squeak, savoring the feeling.

By now my curiosity has piqued and I run my tiny paws over ground: it is hard, but soft. It strikes me that this world seems full of contradictions. The top of the earth easily moves with me, sliding as my paw does freely over the surface. Yet if I press downward at all it resists. I test the surface a few more times before an idea begins to form: what would happen if I were to simultaneously push down and pull?

Before I can test my revelation, something warm is against me, pulling me across this hard-but-soft ground. I yelp again, my paws scrabbling in a panic against whatever this strange force is. But then the warmth intensifies and I feel a soft thumping against my side that I instantly recognize – it had been with me in that world I don’t remember. I snuggle toward it, against the thing I will one day know as Mother. Then it comes: the rumbling of my belly. I don’t need to think as I begin poking my stubby snout against her side, searching for her ever elusive teat. Hunger is instinct, and instinct knows where there is food to be found.