Noon had stretched over the yard like a warm blanket of laziness. The sun sat high in the sky—neither harsh nor kind, simply there… as if watching from a distance. Not participating. Everything seemed dull, slack, even the air itself—still, as though time had frozen at that precise moment.
But of course, that was only how Nair saw it.
"Cheeeeep..."
Amid that indifference-soaked stillness, Nair lay where life had last left him: lost between unbearable hunger… and a dignity slowly eroding, like autumn leaves eaten away by the wind.
His latest cheeps were closer to sobs than calls, but they carried what little passion and desperate marketing he had left. One cheep after another, as if auctioning himself off to any passing merciful heart.
'Cheep': "I'm here!"'
'Cheep': "Open your eyes!
'Cheep': "A cold, neglected chick... a rare investment opportunity!"
But the auction failed.
Not a single paddle was raised.
No one turned.
The mother hen? Still motionless, as if nothing had happened. As if Nair had never been born at all.
He wasn't expecting a miracle. But he hadn't anticipated this level of humiliating neglect either.
Not even chance itself had passed by him in hours. It was as though the world had silently agreed not to see him.
So when he suddenly heard a faint sound above the straw… he didn't open his eyes right away.
He assumed it was just another hunger-induced illusion, the kind where your brain starts turning sounds into wishes.
But he heard it again.
A flutter… a soft rustle… then the gentle tap of claws.
As if a tiny earthquake had struck the nest.
'What now?'
He thought warily, his little heart picking up speed.
Nair opened his eyes cautiously—and saw something move.
The mother hen.
She raised her head first, her neck stretching slowly, like someone emerging from a deep slumber. Then she began to rise—step by step, unlocking each joint from the grip of long sleep. She shook her body, making the straw tremble, and Nair slid slightly toward the edge of the nest, near the trunk.
'Could it be…? Has she remembered she's a mother? Now?'
A fragile hope flared inside him—unworthy of him, but he clung to it like a drowning man clings to driftwood.
But the hope dropped to the ground, as did he, almost.
She simply jumped.
Out.
Into the world.
And left him behind—in a slanted nest, with a slanted situation, and a life tilting sideways.
'It's my fault. What was I even hoping for?'
He sighed heavily.
'At least… she went the other way.'
Had she gone in his direction, it wouldn't have been surprising if she had stepped on him—accidentally… or even on purpose. The way she had ignored him the past few days made anything seem possible.
He had been the transparent chick.
The invisible cheeper.
And if he had been in her path, she might have treated him like a leaf stuck to her foot.
As he watched her walk away, moving with a surprising lightness after four days of stillness, he wasn't sure exactly what he felt. He wasn't angry, not entirely sad… just something closer to a cold emptiness.
An emptiness left behind by someone you had hoped for a little from… but who gave you not even the least.
'She moved… but not for me.'
'She left, not because I was here… but because she got hungry.'
He watched her walk—not in shock, but with a deep, resigned certainty. It was how he'd seen her all along.
But he had hoped to be wrong.
What he didn't expect, though,
was that her absence…
would open the door.
To the first real chance he'd had since the moment he was born.
Here's the English translation of your passage, preserving the literary tone and emotional nuance:
Hardly any time had passed since her departure when new footsteps were heard—
Light. Quiet.
Treading softly on the dirt.
And then… a girl appeared.
A young woman in her early twenties, with braided black hair and a simple dress cinched at the waist by an embroidered fabric belt. In one hand she carried a small, half-woven basket; in the other, a bundle of coconut fibers and soft palm fronds—suggesting she had been in the midst of weaving a traditional basket.
Her steps were deliberate, her eyes distant… as though lost in silent contemplation, somewhere between the weaving of baskets and the weaving of life itself.
She sat outside of Nair's field of vision; he hadn't seen her at first.
Then she stopped.
But when she spotted the mother hen hopping out of the nest, she lifted her head—as if something had dawned on her. She placed the basket down gently, stood up slowly, the fibers in one hand, the empty basket in the other.
She walked toward the corner meant for the brooding hen, filled the bowl with some grains, and poured water into the clay dish.
At that moment, Nair was watching her with one half-closed eye—not just from fatigue, but from a fragile awareness that this… might be a chance he wouldn't get again.
'This is it!'
At first, all he saw was a giant shadow stretching over him, but he guessed—by the instincts of a chick seasoned in marketing—that this was one of those target customers he had been trying to reach in his latest promotional campaign.
And so, he gathered everything he had left.
The last air in his thin lungs, the trembling remains of his will, the hunger that had morphed into a desperate inner cry…
And he cheeped.
"Cheeeep!"
He didn't care if it drained all his energy—this was, most likely, his last chance…
The sound leapt into the air, hoarse, shaky, short…
But it was enough.
The girl stopped.
As if she… heard him.
A long moment of silence passed.
Then she turned and stepped closer.
And closer still.
She slowly turned her head toward the nest… as though she hadn't expected there to be anything alive in it.
She leaned slightly and peered inside—into the dim corner where Nair lay curled up in the straw, his down pale, his limbs stiff.
Her eyes widened for a moment—not in shock, but something closer to discovery.
She drew nearer and crouched halfway down.
Then whispered something in words he didn't understand:
"Ha ti 'esa tset?"
That in itself wasn't strange—he'd grown used to this ever since hatching. The words he heard were always unclear.
He simply assumed it was a language he didn't know.
And there were so many languages he hadn't understood even in his previous life.
He didn't know what she had said, and though he couldn't clearly make out her facial features, he could still guess.
Some fine details pulled from human memory, the tone of her voice, the movements of her hands—together, they gave her phrase a shadow of meaning.
She had something… understandable, even without understanding the words.
But this time, he wasn't focused on what he heard…
He was focused on what he saw—
or more precisely, how he saw.
Something in her shadow as she leaned in, in the motion of her hand, in the patterns that formed on the earth around her…
unleashed a sudden flash within him.
Something ancient—
or perhaps, incredibly new:
The very first moment he had opened his eyes.
He remembered it now as if it were a vivid dream—
or a radiant nightmare.
The world hadn't been as he left it; it was as if someone had dipped it in paint and light, and rearranged everything anew.
His vision wasn't clear the way it had been in his previous body; everything looked larger, more exaggerated—closer to illustrated drawings than reality.
Yet, he began to distinguish… expressions, movement patterns, tone of voice.
He couldn't see the girl's face with human clarity, but he sensed from her body… that she was a girl.
His sight was no longer what it used to be.
He didn't see faces—
he saw moving patches of color in the glare of the sun.
Everything looked bigger, closer, as though the world had expanded and swelled—
or he had shrunk until he was the smallest creature in it.
He couldn't make out her face.
But he recognized her tone, her walk…
even her shadow seemed familiar—
like one he'd passed beneath more than once before.
The thing that had most bewildered him on that first day was his eyes.
For a moment, he thought he had superpowers…
until he remembered he was just a chick.
'Do I have eyes in the back of my head? How did I see that without turning?'
The world now felt like it was overflowing with information—
far more than he could handle.
He no longer possessed two human eyes fixed at the front of his head. Instead, they were now positioned on the sides of his skull, granting him a field of vision nearing three hundred degrees—without needing to move his head. Compared to the mere 180 degrees he once had... it was an advantage, yes. But one that came at a steep price.
His stereoscopic vision—or "three-dimensional perception"—had diminished or disappeared entirely. This ability, for those unfamiliar with it, is what allows humans to perceive depth and the distance between objects by merging the slightly different images each eye sees. The brain compares the two images to estimate distance… and understands that this cup is thirty centimeters away, or that wall is a meter off.
But now, with his eyes set so far apart, and no overlap in their visual fields, that ability had almost vanished. He now had to rely on repeated head movements—like pigeons or chickens bobbing their heads as they walk—to estimate depth.
On top of that, his vision had become less sharp, more blurred. His focus was weaker. He saw shapes and motion more than he saw detail.
He could no longer make out facial features… everything looked large, blurry, with fuzzy edges.
No depth in sight… no clarity in distance… and everything was either alarmingly close or confusingly far.
Even the light… had grown brighter, and the shadows deeper, as if the world itself was warning of danger.
Moving objects caught his attention far more than still ones.
But amid all this confusion… there was a gift. Or perhaps… a kind of magic.
He could now see something he'd never seen before.
Ultraviolet light.
As a chick, he had begun to see an entirely different world—a world human eyes could not perceive.
He saw subtle color gradients on the ground, on feathers, that had once been invisible to him.
He saw a soft glow along the edges of feathers… translucent halos shimmering over the mother hen's head.
The mother hen appeared to be surrounded by a violet halo, hinting at her presence—or the location of the nest.
At first, he thought it was an illusion… maybe his eyes were still adjusting.
But he soon realized: this was a feature, not a flaw.
Colors were no longer what he had known them to be… white was no longer white, black no longer black.
He saw glimmering dots on the ground, faint flashes around his eggshell… things that had no place in the "human reality", but now sparkled before him like hidden messages from another realm.
He was amazed. Then confused. Then laughed inwardly—if a chick could laugh.
'I had no idea the world was this beautiful!'
Then came a moment of internal silence, followed by a creeping question:
'But… is it the world that changed? Or was it always like this, and I just couldn't see it?'
More questions followed, dancing between curiosity and sarcasm:
'What are those spots? Magic signals? Microscopic creatures?'
A gentle confusion overtook him. He closed his eyes. Opened them slowly. Shook his head, as if waking from a dream painted in color.
'Did I… step into a magical world? Or was that egg I hatched from… radioactive?'
But what truly shocked him wasn't what he saw in front of him… it was what he saw behind him—without turning his head.
'I can see my tail? Clearly? From this angle?! Am I… a creature with back-facing eyes?!'
It felt like his eyes had become twin radars, capturing every detail around him… colors, shadows, gleams, pulses of motion.
'This is like having full cinematic mode… with 360-degree coverage… and free visual filters!'
'Honestly? Who said turning into a chick was all bad?'
* * *
Let's return now to the present.
The girl approached him gently, speaking in words he didn't understand.
But there was nothing surprising about that… it wasn't a moment of sudden realization that he was in another world—after all, there were plenty of languages he wouldn't have understood even in his previous life.
She slowly stepped toward the nest.
Naer had raised his head slightly—not out of curiosity, but from a raw, primal hunger, as if his body was searching for anything remotely edible.
But the moment his eyes met hers… he felt something like freezing.
'Wait, what is she going to do? Could it be that she's…'
She was leaning toward him.
Her hand reached out hesitantly, then cautiously, tinged with tenderness, as if preparing to lift him.
And in the instant her shadow touched the tips of his wings, he didn't quite know what he was feeling: fear? hope? Or simply a surrender to a hunger too powerful to resist?
She was about to pick him up.