Not this again.
I tried to scream, but what came out was a dry, pathetic rasp, like someone had taken my throat, wrung it out, and put it back without checking if it worked. For the second time in what counted as my life, I was surrounded by complete darkness.
Brilliant.
I had genuinely thought I was done with the whole floating in the void experience. I had done my time and suffered enough. And yet here I was, back in a world of black, reliving the worst part like the universe had put my trauma on replay.
Hey, mysterious god. This was not cool. Do you hear me? Not cool.
If my soul could develop PTSD, I was fairly certain it had hit that goal twice now.
Never again. Never again did I want to feel this powerless, this suspended, this close to being erased.
Then a thought cut through the panic.
Wait. Why was I putting up with this?
I was alive. Allegedly. I had picked an evolution path. Something should have happened after that. If I was stuck somewhere, then there was probably a physical reason, which meant I could probably solve it by doing the one thing I was good at.
Violence.
With all the strength I could muster, which was not a lot in my case, I slammed my body against whatever was pressing around me.
Ouch.
That hurt a lot more than I expected, which was already a bad sign.
A cold line of text blinked into existence.
[You are currently below 10% health. Proceed with caution.]
I froze.
Below 10%?
Below ten?
I had barely moved. I had thrown one angry tantrum and somehow nearly killed myself. At this rate my autobiography was going to be titled: A Brief History of Dying.
How weak was this body?
Actually, no. I did not want to know. Ignorance was the only comfort I had left.
I forced myself to stop flailing. The darkness did not feel endless anymore. It felt close. Pressing. Like I was inside something.
An egg.
Of course.
I had reincarnated into a gecko. Geckos came from eggs. That was basic biology. I could not believe I had forgotten that in the five seconds since I had been alive again.
Okay, new plan.
No more slamming or drama. Just push.
Carefully, like a sensible creature who did not want to die from its own enthusiasm.
I shifted my weight and pressed steadily.
For a moment nothing happened.
Then I heard it. A fine crack, like dry clay splitting under pressure.
Finally.
I pushed again, harder this time, and the shell gave a little more. It did not burst open in a heroic, cinematic way. It simply failed, the way cheap packaging failed when you leaned on it too much.
Light spilled in.
It stabbed straight into my eyes, harsh and white, as if the sun had been waiting specifically for this moment to bully me.
I blinked, reflexively trying to squeeze my eyes shut, but I was learning that my new body's reflexes came with a delay. The world stayed painfully bright.
Everything burned.
It felt like I had spawned in directly under a spotlight.
I stayed still, letting my eyes adjust, because I had already learned my first lesson of being an Aenyx Gecko.
Move too fast, and you break.
After a minute, the glare softened into shapes. The world came into focus, sharp and unfamiliar.
I was not in some cosy nest. I was not in a cave, either. I was wedged into a narrow, sheltered pocket between dark bark and splintered wood, like the tree had half-swallowed a cluster of eggs and then forgotten about it. Sap had dried in amber streaks along the interior. The air tasted damp and old.
And I was not alone.
There were eggs everywhere, packed into the space like someone had poured them in by the handful. Not hundreds, thank God, but still enough to make my stomach clench.
Maybe thirty or fifty.
A small batch, hidden deep in the sheltered reach of the Forest of Eldegar, exactly like the system description had promised.
Looks like I didn't get the volcano spawn. Should I be happy?
It was then that I noticed something.
My gaze flicked across the nest pocket and landed on the movement in the shadows.
Spiders.
Black-bodied and glossy, with legs that moved too smoothly, like they were sliding rather than stepping. They clung to the bark and the inner wood, threading silk in lazy arcs that caught the dim light.
One of them had an egg pinned beneath its forelegs.
It punctured the shell with a neat, practised jab, then drank.
With no delay... just pure efficiency.
Another spider dragged a second egg closer, mandibles working, and started chewing like it was enjoying a crunchy snack.
My siblings.
I'd be lying if I said I had any sibling piety, but these were my newly found bretherin.
WTAF, is this spawn point.
For a second my mind went blank.
Then the panic flooded back in.
Oh. Oh no.
So much for rare and hard to find. Apparently predators had a subscription service.
I swallowed, which was difficult because my throat was dry and my body felt like it had been assembled from brittle twigs.
I tried to move, gently, and my limbs obeyed with a strange heaviness. My legs were longer than I expected, delicate but built for climbing. My toes ended in tiny claws that gripped bark instinctively. My tail dragged behind me, thin and underpowered, more balance than weapon.
The life of an Aenyx Gecko. I was small, weak, and had probably been born in a place predators checked when they were bored.
A spider's head twitched. It did not look at me fully. Not yet. It was focused on the egg in its mouth, but I saw the way its body angled, as if it already knew there was fresh movement nearby.
I held still.
A horrible thought hit me.
Where was my mother?
Surely, if I was a baby gecko, there was some instinctive parental thing. A protective mother guarding the clutch. A watchful adult, I mean anything would do at this point.
I thought the question hard enough that I half-expected the system to answer out of sheer annoyance.
A pause.
Then text appeared.
[Information requested.]
[Searching…]
[Information found.]
[Aenyx Gecko adults do not remain with the clutch after laying. Hatchlings are born fully independent.]
I stared.
So I had been professionally abandoned after birth.
Fantastic. Love that. Ten out of ten. Great species.
I would have sighed, but I did not want to waste oxygen.
A smaller spider shifted, and this time its gaze snapped to me.
It froze, measuring.
For a heartbeat I did the same.
Its eyes were clustered and ugly, black beads that reflected nothing human, and it looked at me like it had already decided I was food, but was doing the polite thing and double-checking.
I felt a crawling discomfort in my chest, something deeper than fear.
Then the system chimed in, helpfully cold.
[System believes Host is being appraised.]
Appraised.
So this was a world where even random hungry bugs could run a mental scan and decide whether I was worth the effort.
The spider's posture changed. It relaxed, slightly, like it had reached a conclusion.
Not a threat.
A snack.
Good. That was good. If it thought I was harmless, it would commit to a simple, sloppy attack. If it thought I was dangerous, it would be careful. Careful predators were the ones that killed you cleanly.
Sloppy predators gave you chances.
I eased backwards, inch by inch, keeping my belly low to the bark. My limbs trembled from the effort. I was still weak. Still fresh. Still below whatever reasonable definition of ready existed.
I needed distance. I needed an exit.
I turned my head slowly, scanning the cramped pocket. The interior of the tree was tight, but I spotted a narrow fissure where the bark had split. A crack that led out into open air.
It was not wide, but it was enough.
The problem was getting there without announcing myself like a flashing neon sign.
I moved again slowly.
My body slid along the wood with the cautious grace of something designed to survive by not being noticed.
Behind me, the hungry spider clicked its mandibles.
A sound like impatience.
It started to move.
I did not run yet. Not because I was brave, but because running meant noise. Noise meant attention. Attention meant dying with my name still not listed on the status screen.
I needed to know what I had to work with.
Inside my head, I barked the only command that felt natural.
STATUS.
For a moment nothing happened.
Then a pane of information appeared, clean and indifferent.
[Name: None]
[Class: None]
[Species: Aenyx Gecko]
[Level: 1/10]
[XP: 0/100]
[Status: Alive somehow]
[HP: 3/30]
[MP: 0/0]
[Stamina: 62/100]
[Stats]
[Strength: 6]
[Defence: 8]
[Speed: 12]
[Intelligence: 25]
[Luck: -10]
[Skills: Heat Tolerance (Lv 1), Cling (Lv 1), Tail Drop (Lv 1)]