How many years had passed since the last time he had felt so comfortable? That question crossed Feinth's mind as he began to regain consciousness.
He had slept for a long time, and yet his first impulse was to squeeze his eyelids shut and curl up as tightly as he could. The temptation to prolong that state of bliss was almost irresistible.
However, the emptiness in his stomach soon reminded him that he had to wake up. How many hours had he spent in bed? A whole night of sleep was a luxury he hadn't been able to afford since… the pain.
Should he be feeling pain? He couldn't remember.
The craving for a steaming bowl of coffee and a slice of toast flooded his drowsy mind.
"Did I overdo it with the drinking?" he wondered, while his thoughts fought to pierce the fog of memory, ironically confirming his own doubts.
The rumble in his stomach finally drove him to rise.
Crackle.
As if approving his decision, a violent roar invaded his senses. Thunder pounded in his head again and again.
The explosion was so close that the last traces of sleep vanished instantly, replaced by a state of heightened alert.
He opened his eyes only to find darkness. With a sudden movement, he tried to pull himself together, but as soon as he attempted to move, he struck against an obstacle. He was blocked on every side—behind, below, above, and ahead.
His heart pounded as he tried to scream, but only a muffled, incoherent grunt escaped his throat.
"Where am I? What's happened to me?" he asked himself in desperation.
With frantic force, he hurled himself against the wall that confined him.
CRACK.
The shell shattered, bursting apart in every direction.
Shreds of torn membrane clung to his body as a thin layer of slime slid down, pooling beneath his feet.
Before him stretched a landscape utterly unfamiliar, profoundly dissonant.
Furious waves crashed against each other, breaking in an endless cycle. The sky, dark as a wolf's maw, hurled lightning that momentarily illuminated the chaos, unleashing its fury upon the vast sea.
On the horizon, a massive wooden ship, as imposing as the cruise liners from the movies, struggled to stay afloat.
It was surrounded by hundreds of tentacles as thick as the trunks of the oldest trees.
Suddenly, the tentacles recoiled with brutal violence. The crack of splintering wood filled the air, and the vessel could not withstand it. The structure gave way, torn apart as if it were a worthless toy. The wreckage was dragged mercilessly into the depths of the abyss.
At last, a dozen giant eggs floated amid the storm-tossed waters, drifting slowly toward the shore.
He swallowed hard.
"I must still be dreaming…" he laughed to himself, trying to believe it.
But as if the heavens disapproved of such a thought, a lightning bolt struck just meters away, creating a small explosion that hurled him several meters from where he stood.
The taste of iron and copper filled his mouth, while his limbs went numb. Even so, under the rush of adrenaline, Feinth tried to get up. That was when something made him stop.
He lowered his gaze to his feet and drew a deep breath. Then his eyes shifted to his hands—or what he should now call claws.
Scattered across the beach lay thick, gray slabs from a giant egg…
He had emerged from an egg!
It was, without doubt, a nightmare.
A gust of icy wind struck him, making him shiver. The warm membrane that had once cocooned him had slipped away at birth, leaving him utterly exposed to the fury of the elements.
He tried to steady his breathing, but it was still so ragged that he doubted the air even reached his lungs before being expelled again.
His heart raced wildly.
He tried to move, but soon collapsed, exhausted, onto the sand. His body simply would not respond as he willed.
Slowly, his consciousness began to fade, until at last his eyelids surrendered entirely, plunging him once more into darkness.
..
He yawned—or at least thought he did—but all he heard was a guttural growl.
"A bad start." His reality was utterly wrong.
He wished with all his might that it was only his imagination, but it wasn't. Even after sleeping, his body remained sluggish and heavy with fatigue, as if he had overexerted himself beyond all limits.
He opened his eyes cautiously, then shut them again at once, shaking his head. His body was buried in the sand.
When he tried to rise, the first thing he noticed was that the clouds had vanished, the sea had calmed, and aside from the waves lapping against the coast, an absolute silence filled the place.
With effort, he freed his limbs from the sand before pulling himself fully upright.
His first step was clumsy; he stumbled and fell face-first into the ground. Spitting sand, he tried again—only this time, instead of standing and walking on two legs, he pressed his arms into the earth to use them as support.
Incredibly, it felt perfectly natural. He did not feel awkward at all, and his balance wasn't bad.
He decided to approach one of the many rain puddles left scattered across the beach.
What he saw made him recoil.
A small body, covered in glossy gray scales. A long dark scar stretched from his left leg up to his chest, most likely from the lightning strike that had hit him at the moment of birth. His claws were sharp as daggers, and his teeth, like knives, completed the strange form he now possessed.
Feinth had never thought of himself as someone with unusual tastes, yet he found himself thinking that, in a way, the creature was almost… adorable. At least, if he were still human and stumbled upon a doll shaped like that, he would certainly have bought it.
He touched his face; his scales were cold and slippery. Using one claw, he tried to scrape at one, but accidentally tore it off. A faint itch came from the exposed area, revealing a patch of pink skin.
What had happened to him? How had he become this?… He could not remember.
He searched his memories over and over, but all he found was a splitting headache.
His recollections were vague, riddled with gaps. He knew that not long ago he had been an ordinary human, but beyond that, his past was nothing but darkness.
It was strange, as though someone had opened his skull and stolen every memory of who he was, leaving only the remnants behind.
But one thing he knew for certain, newborn reptiles the size of children did not exist.