I have to face facts. I'm a young dragon.

I look at my paws and they're all clawed up. My claws are choppers and luckily I have an opposable thumb so I can hold things. 2 of my fingers are abnormally elongated and stretch a skin acting as a wing.

I have 3 fingers left: 2 useful as a pincer and a thumb. Well, that's not how I'll play the transverse flute.

I have forgotten a lot, I just know that my name was Nicolas and that I was unlucky that my parents loved me and that I was living on earth in 1988. I still had some computer skills and some science notions from school.

Then I looked at myself in a puddle and saw my face: A terrible Red Dragon! Yes, but not bad, I think it's beautiful, it's me!

A long neck with scales and a terrible bump on the head. between two horns.

In fact I have almost 11 horns, counting the horn on my nose.

Full of terrible thorns on my back. And huge legs with claws, real can openers.

My tail ended with a sharp spear point and a poisonous sting!

My teeth are spears and my claws are swords.

Well, to finish the picture, all that's left to do is kidnap a princess and cook some knights, except that I'm all alone here.

I then decided to take a tour of the owner and the dead dragon reminded me of my dragon mummy! She was much taller than me and must have been about 25m tall. I see that she had a broken wing and she had made a fatal fall, a stone piercing her skeleton. She was holding eggs and she had to protect them in her fall instead of protecting herself, which was fatal to her.

Poor mama dragon.

You had to be loving too. A tear fell on her corpse and an image of her alive gushed in my mind: An intelligent beast, once human, ferocious and reigning over the whole planet, proud and very protective towards her future child. She escaped from a cage of a star egg and was already pregnant. When the egg burned, its cage melted and its scales protected it from the fire. She then established her lair and dominated the food chain of this world. Then, unaccustomed to storms, she took shelter in a tree and lightning struck her and she fell into the ravine, part of the egg falling and breaking with it. She saw a little red dragonlet come out and huddle up against her, agonizing and sad, and she protected the little one until her last breath and even afterwards. He grew close to his mother's rotting corpse and tried to fly by climbing the cliff but he was very badly received, due to his mother's lack of education and here I am.

So I was reincarnated as a dragon and my fall brought back my memories of Nicolas! At last me. I do not have a double personality, I am whole but I have the impulses of a young beast with instincts often in contradiction with my logic.

Often, disgusting things, like gutting and sucking the blood of my prey gave me a high human heart but my dragon nature was rewriting my personality...

It was crazy how instinct drives survival.

For example, I'm thirsty, and instinctively, I know where to find water. It's like a ghostly image of a lake or a river that's superimposed on my vision.

The footprints on the ground, the smells, like spots of light...

Growl!

Ah, hunger!

I visit the cave and I see bones from a previous meal and nothing very appetizing.

There's a rule that the higher you go up the mountain, the bigger the predators.

Well, I must be about 5 meters high on my hind legs and 7 meters long.

Reptiles grow fast and normally if they survive, the growth doesn't stop!.

Well, I'm a carnivore and let's see what I can eat! In front of me, a forest. If Mother knew how to feed herself, there's game.

Shit, I have to learn it all over again.

But a dragon blows!

Let's give it a try: I inhale and I feel heat in my throat and the temperature rises and rises and gets hot and a flame spears out of my mouth! Of course, I've aimed at birds on a branch and the heat wave killed them.

Wham, my dinner just fell.

I picked up some wood and lit a fire. I was probably the only one making fire on this planet or on earth, in fact I don't know, the only clue was Mom's space egg. which must have been a cage or a capsule in a ship or a broken piece of ship. But were we on earth? In the past, the future. Elsewhere? No way of knowing.

Besides, with the clouds we couldn't see the sky, day or night.

My meal was quickly swallowed, but I was full. Then I decided to explore the valley to see if there was water because I was dying of thirst. I was jumping higher and higher and I ended up gliding. And an hour later I was flying.

Not great, but I was flying. Not high, but to land, I grabbed a tree and let it bend to absorb my weight and then jumped when it straightened up. Then I landed in a small lake with lots of fish. I tried to catch them in mid-air but it was too hard. They would pass between my heels and my mouth, when they came in contact with the water I lost my balance and I ended up rolling upside down in the water.

Luckily, I had my inner fire to warm me up.

Reptiles are very sensitive to the cold but not dragons. Whew.

I was hungry and would have eaten anything.

There was game but it was hiding under the branches and with the trunks I couldn't fall on them. They needed a clearing or near a stream, but as soon as they saw me, I was in the forest, under cover.

So I took lianas and built a creeper. Already difficult with hands, so I don't tell you with three fingers. I had to consider my mouth as a third hand and sometimes I had to help myself with my hind legs.

At last I had something and I held the trap between my hind legs and I ran into the fish on the surface and there, CATCH!

Fish in my trap! YAY, tonight, Fish-stick!

I stung the fish on a branch and planted the branches over the fire and enjoyed my catch. I kept the guts and let them dry and then crushed them with stones.

So I built several pots and put the guts in rolled bark and threw them to the surface to attract fish.

After several passes, the fish would come and eat the guts that floated to the surface, so it was important to let them dry, and it attracted other animals that ended up in my stomach.

Fishing was well established and I also put pots in the river.

My job was to make the pots, place them, repair them and dry the offal.

I also made traps with spikes, traps in the ground and my menu was enlarged: pheasants, big toucas runners (2M at the withers).

Carnivorous doe, a nightmarish bambi, 3 meters long.

Rabbit Throw, a large rabbit with a point like a unicorn...

Pterodactyls. I tried to communicate with their squeaks and growls and apart from saying prey, kiss and my territory, I preferred to communicate with them with my stomach. It was like chicken.

There were a few spices and herbs to garnish but no cooking utensils, nothing. So I started exploring the world.