Metamorphosis

Caterina opened her eyes only to be blinded by the sunlight. It looked like it was past noon. She thought it was funny how she overslept today, the most important day of her ever-crawling life. Her stomach growled loudly.

"What kind of a monster do i have in my stomach?" she wondered. She saw a fresh green leaf nearby. She could smell the sweet aroma of the leaves around her. She crawled towards it and started devouring it with great delight. She always ate the same leaves yet it tasted amazing every time. She has been munching on the leaves of milkweed for more than a week now. She had shed her skin four times already and soon she would have to cocoon herself for transformation.

As compared to all her siblings, Caterina was the healthiest. She was the first one to hatch out and start her larva-life. Every other caterpillar envied her for her strength and beauty. But Caterina feared the transformation.

All her life she had been an achiever. She was fast and pretty, at least everyone said so. But life after transformation would be a very different from this life. It would change completely. She would have to face the dangers of the outside world all alone and she wasn't sure if she were capable of it. She always wondered how easy and beautiful it would be if she remained a caterpillar forever.

Delaying was a waste though, the change was inevitable. Caterina dangled herself upside down from the hook that she'd made on one of the leaves, hidden deep in the bushes. It was breezy day. She swayed once, twice, thrice. She was scared senseless and her heart was pounding so fast that she bet everyone of her siblings could hear it.

"It's now or never" she thought to herself as she shed her old skin.

"I can do this and I will" she said before she was sucked into a deep sleep.

Caterina woke up feeling uncomfortable and numb. She could feel a cover like thing caging her body which had grown out of it's capacity. She tried breaking the cocoon with the wings but she could't feel them. She was scared. What if she didn't have the energy to break out? Will she be caged in here forever? She tried harder, struggled and wriggled inside the chrysalis. She could see hazy outline of the leaf from which she was dangling. Finally after a long time she managed to tear open the chrysalis and come out of it. But she still couldn't feel her wings.

She was tired of all the struggling she had to do in order to tear the cocoon so she decided to rest on the leaf for a while before figuring out how to flap those huge wings and fly.

Later when she could finally move her wings a little, she could feel them like she could feel her hands or legs. It wasn't weird, okay a little bit weird. But she felt whole for the first time in her entire life. It would take some adjusting but she couldn't remember why she was so afraid of the whole transformation thing. So far it was amazing, except for a little panic attack she had while inside the chrysalis.

She started flapping her wings slowly. She couldn't wait to soar towards the blue sky and taste the sweet nectar. She continued with the flapping practice and also the daydreaming. She would fly for the first time today. It was so exciting and thrilling at the same time. And in the midst of all this excitement she couldn't hear the rustling of the leaves and whispers of footsteps nearby. She flapped her wings and jumped from the leaf expecting to gain height but damn! She fell onto the ground. She tried again but no use. She sat on the ground dejected by her failure when she saw the predator. A huge rat with long whiskers and red eyes was waiting for an opportunity to catch it's prey.

"Oh i'm dead!" she thought to herself as she furiously tried to take off. The rat was now running in her direction. She had to fly, somehow, anyhow. She spread her wings and started swinging them with courage as well as fear. She started gaining height. She batted her wings with more power, a triumphant smile on her face. But little did she know that this new world was filled with predators.

Sitting on a beautiful flower she was enjoying the sweet nectar and reminiscing her heroics. On the first day of being a butterfly Caterina had to escape a rat and three gigantic hungry birds. While she wasn't flying away for her life, she loved watching beautiful gardens, lakes, the vast blue sky and the scenery that the world had to show. More than that, she loved flying and she was almost awesome at it. She had to work on it but she was enjoying every moment of her life.

Of course there were predators out there waiting for her but now she knew how to tackle them, one at a time. She would survive.

She was glad she wasn't a caterpillar anymore, the larva-life was great, it taught her a lot but this was the real life. Besides you need to transform yourself from time to time to enjoy the life to it's fullest.

#prose_writing #story_writing #short_stories #changes #transformation #metamorphosis #Caterina_the_caterpillar #butterfly #stories #courage #fear #stnf