Muji

A long, long time ago, the sky god Hamo shook a great tree. Its leaves fell, transforming into humans – some malformed, some incomplete… Hamo drove them away, telling them to live their own lives.

 

One leaf remained on the tree, clinging tightly. After Hamo left, the god of thunder and the god of wind quietly approached that stubborn leaf, attempting to dislodge it with their divine powers. Yet, the leaf remained unmoved by external forces, still hanging from the branch.

 

One day, a larva crawled up the winding tree, waiting beneath this leaf to metamorphose. One morning, the larva gnawed at the leaf, formed a chrysalis, and began to change color, swelling. Soon after, the leaf on the branch withered. As the chrysalis fell, it burst open, revealing not a beautiful butterfly emerging from its cocoon with wet wings, but a child. The child must have been hungry, for it grabbed a handful of dirt from the ground and put it into its mouth. Suddenly, its face contorted, and it burst into wails.