When the tide next returned, the creature, born of a mud clod was hunched in a sitting position, gazing with dull, uncomprehending eyes at the bleak prospect which was coming into focus before it.
... Just when awareness of himself returned to Dave Marlin, he could not have told. There was a borderline phase in which a bewildered, naked creature stumbled along the rocky shore with only vague consciousness of self. Memories of the past mingled fantastically with the present. Impressions of an endless journey, of a huddled group within a shadowy interior, of black, star-studded vistas, were intertwined with breaking waves, a sense of chill discomfort, and a dull yearning toward the coppery disc that hung in the mist overhead.
Gnawing hunger in his vitals gradually thrust the present into dominance. He dropped down and drank thirstily of the lapping fresh water sea. This partly appeased the discomfort, but a grub which he pounced upon a moment later satisfied it more. Eagerly he set about finding other objects to still that ever-present hunger.
Instinctively the man had turned toward the less precipitous region. Grim and forbidding though it was, it bore some evidence of life—increasingly more evidences on the rocky hillocks that receded from the barren shore. There were clumps of grass and bushes, an occasional bird winging overhead and here and there glimpses of squirrels, chipmunks, and other small animals.
A tawny streak flashed through the bush. At the squeal of its victim, Marlin dived toward the spot, frightened the creature from its kill, and hungrily appropriated the squirrel. In the moment of satisfying his ravenous hunger with the warm bleeding flesh, he was troubled by no memories of the process to which flesh was subjected before eating, in that shadowy former existence.
Somehow he lived, aimlessly wandering, sleeping, when darkness came, in the shelter of the moment, constantly alert for something to appease the gnawing within him. More frequently than not, he went hungry, for the region was sparse in its vegetation and niggardly in sentient life. He chewed on roots, eagerly pounced on insect larvae, now and then caught or killed with rocks some of the small animals and birds that his unceasing search flushed from cover.
It is doubtful whether he at any time thought clearly, "I am Dave Marlin, a man, who once lived on a planet called Earth." His mind was far behind his body in recovering from the paralysis of disuse.
A new excitement stirred him one day. Farther inland, a thin column of smoke was rising. Smoke! The ascending smudge wakened something within him. Smoke was connected with that former life. It meant the presence of his own kind!