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A straight stride has proven fruitless and aimless as time makes no difference. Walking for an infinity no longer than a week, starvation begins to sink in. Madness has long since stricken, although the stride has not been affected.

Broken dissolved vocal cords rasp with every breath. Destroyed by the screams held for days with hopes that someone would hear my pleas for mercy, with no avail. A torn bloodied forehead shows white bone bits cracked by my skulls repeated impact against concrete. Fingernails broken off by all the attempts to hatch another.

Debating whether to lay for rest and die as a means of escape from this merciless prison I see a shadow ahead. A dark figure piled into the corner where the wall and floor meet. And the excitement is enough to rob me of the lack of energy and propel momentum. But only until proximity reveals truth. And as I approach the features become familiar and my pace drops. Although this is the first person outside of a pod I’ve seen, this is just another me. Dead, likely from starvation. Further down the hall an open pod is visible.

And just like that, all hope is gone, again. And I’m back to being in this miserable place, unable to free more of them, more of me, but aware that at least one other was freed and starved. The only clarity I have now, on the brink of starvation, is that I didn’t even hatch first.

Before I was destined to starve. Now I am a copy destined to starve in an everlasting chamber of clones. But I continue walking, because what else is there to do before I die?