I'm trapped in a cube

The shadow lay on the ground and looked at the sky.

Looking up at the sky, what is raised is the "head" of the shadow, and the "sky"...

In the lush forest, there was a vine growing wantonly. The vines covered all the trees in the forest, and the shadow of the vine spread throughout the forest.

However, as a plant, no matter how well it grows, it is just an ordinary vine. The only thing it can feel is sunlight. The warm sunlight passes through the gaps between the leaves and shines on the vines wrapped around the big tree. It can only get more sunlight, but it can only climb higher and higher.

And the shadow of the vines illuminated by the sun on the ground covers an increasingly larger area.

As the vines grow, so do the shadows.

The forest is peaceful every day. As a plant, you don’t have to worry about the intrigues. You just need to keep growing toward the sun...

The incident happened on a sunny morning.

There was a battle in the forest. A ferocious predator attacked the prey group, but a trap was set to kill him. The predator's body was torn into pieces, and the prey carried its body, declaring the success of the resistance. .

The blood flowed into the shadow of the vines on the ground, watering the earth. Even the dark shadow was dyed a little red, and the picture of the shadow looking to the outside world also became red.

The predator's eyeball fell into the gap where the vines wrapped around the big tree, and slowly connected with those tiny tendrils...

"What's this?"

The vine saw green for the first time. It slowly raised its eyeball and saw the sun again.

It stared at the scorching sun for a long time until its eyes were burned dry.

It was back to the darkness again, but the vine couldn't forget that feeling at all. It was the feeling of the world opening up to it. The "light" it had been chasing was actually such a scorching fireball? The "pillars" that have been entangled are actually very similar to me, and are made of brown and green.

Vine began to "think" for the first time.

The new perception allowed it to understand the world for the first time, and its wisdom was also improved.

In order to experience the world again, the vines spontaneously searched the forest. Countless companion vines no longer chased the sunlight upwards, but spread on the ground, searching for the corpses of those animals.

Finally, it found matching eyes again.

This time the eye was fresher than the previous one, and this time the vine had experience. It protected the eye with soft tendrils, just like animals protect their eyes with flesh and blood.

It did not look directly at the sun like last time. Instead, it carefully hid its eyes in the shadows and peered into this familiar and unfamiliar forest.

"What a nice view."

Compared with its huge body, these eyes seemed a bit insufficient, so it started looking for new eyes.

It wanted to get the eyes of other creatures, but after thinking about it, those creatures would be sad if they lost their eyes, right? So it gave up this plan and instead went to collect the eyes of those corpses.

"They're all dead anyway, so it's useless..."

There were deaths every day in the forest. With the help of eyes, the vine became more and more successful in searching for corpses. Soon it collected dozens of eyes. It scattered these eyes throughout its body and continued to collect eyes.

The more it sees, the gradually clearer its understanding of the world becomes.

Associating "vision" with things he has touched, Vine increasingly feels that eyes are a magical thing.

As the eyes collect more and more, many eyes "grow" on the shadows on the ground. The vines are not only changing themselves, but also changing their own shadows...

With eyes, the vine is already very satisfied. It looks around in the forest every day, collects corpses, and does not interfere with other things in the forest.

It was only after having eyes that the vines realized that the forest was not actually "peaceful". There was fighting and death all the time. Weak creatures were escaping in all directions. They were in fear every day. Their lives were like fragile vine whiskers. If you pay attention, it will break and become a useless corpse.

Many of Vine's eyes come from these weak creatures. Vine can feel the resentment in the eyes of those weak creatures. They also have hope for life, but things go against their wishes. There is no room for the weak in the cruel forest.

Most of the corpses that Vines collected eyes were still alive. Some of them didn't even know how they died. Their eyes revealed confusion. As more and more eyes were collected, Vines could gradually distinguish the contents of those eyes. emotions.

Fear, confusion, despair, resentment, helplessness, pity, unwillingness...

"Why is it so uncomfortable?"

The emotion in those eyes affected the vines as well.

Before collecting its eyes, it had never felt such an emotion. It was a powerful vine that occupied the entire forest. As a plant, it did not have to participate in those fights. Even if some fragile vines were eaten by herbivorous creatures, It doesn't feel pain, and its growth rate is much faster than its gnawing rate. There is no need to worry about something as vague as "death".

For these weak creatures, death is something that can come at any time.

The vine saw those dead eyes, saw those bodies discarded randomly, and finally figured out that there are differences in the world. Although it has no eyes, it is already much luckier than many creatures with eyes...

After understanding the feelings of these weak lives, the vines no longer stood idly by. They began to protect those weak creatures and tried their best to protect those lives that should have died.

Gradually, the small animals in the forest also discovered that the vines would protect them, so whenever they were hunted, they would run to the vines for shelter.

Looking at the performance of those small animals, the vines felt needed. It was very happy that it could protect them and was also happy that it didn't have to see so many deaths.

However, its wanton interference with the ecology eventually brought bad consequences.

A new wave of death has arrived...

This time, it was not the small animals that were hunted who died, but those "brutal" predators. They could not get enough food, fell behind in the struggle for survival, and their numbers dropped sharply.

The forest was full of starving predators.

Their eyes also revealed despair and unwillingness.

The desire for food was always condensed in the eyes, and even if they died, it could not be dispersed.

The vines looked at the eyes of the collected predators and fell into confusion for the first time.

It began to doubt itself and think about "right" and "wrong".

"What is the right thing to do? Interfere? Or not interfere?" It seems that no matter what it does, it is wrong.

The hunger and thirst of living beings are instincts, and the operation of nature has its own rules. There is always life and death, and it cannot be changed arbitrarily.

But no matter how the vine thinks, it can't figure this out.

As a plant, it has never thought so much, collected so many eyes, and seen so many things, but it is still confused. The emotions of those living beings are intertwined into a complex web, trapping its thoughts in it.

The weak should die?

Then what is considered weak?

Protecting the weak, the weak's upper level will die again?

The vine couldn't figure it out, and it felt regret for the first time.

"If I didn't see these at the beginning, would I not have such troubles?"