The egg was coloured a pure white with black lines forming what looked like a scale pattern. As the fact that he had just come out of the mysterious egg registered in his mind, the man’s concentration wavered and his unstable legs failed him. He found himself falling on the grass once more, putting his body in better view and causing him to regard himself.

His arms were covered in white scales, much like the pattern the egg presented. They started from the upper side of his hand going back and covering his entire arm all the way up to his shoulders and then his neck, though they did not proceed above it. His torso was also covered by them with the exception of his abdomen, they proceeded down his legs to his heels without covering the rest of the feet. He touched his back only to find that It seemed to be completely covered as well and found something at the lower side of his back. Thinking it’s the source of the strange sensation he had been feeling there ever since he awoke the last time he brought it in front of himself only to see a thick lizard-like tail covered in more of the scales.

He sat staring at it for a few moments in shock, trying to make sense of the situation. Was he reborn? But what about the greenery around here? The term didn’t even seem appropriate anymore. He tried moving the tail, finding he could, though it was sloppier than even his legs were right now, probably because he had never even had one before. The concept of reincarnation wasn’t foreign to him. Though he had never stopped to think about it, being reincarnated as a different creature didn’t seem outrageous either. But what sort of creature was he? And WHERE was he?

His questions didn’t receive an answer but they were enough of a temporary distraction for him to calm himself down. He let go of his tail and stood up once more. He took a few shaky steps until he got to a tree at the edge of the clearing and leaned on it to prevent himself from falling. The tree was much bigger than he was expecting. No… he had truthfully already realised. It wasn’t the trees that were big. It was him that was small. In truth he was the size of a four-year old human. Other than the scales and tail he looked exactly like one. He had short, white hair on his head and a pair of piercing, yet beautiful light blue eyes with slit pupils.

That had honestly surprised him much less than everything else. If he was just born out of the egg it was natural that his body would be undeveloped. If anything he was thankful it did not take the shape of an infant as that would have been exceedingly difficult to work with. There were surely predators in this forest and he doubted they would deny the fresh meat of a helpless prey, even if it did not have much of it.

In any case he needed to get his legs used to walking, he needed to find shelter, food and water. Whatever sort of creature he was he seemed to be a humanoid, the thing hanging between his legs further confirmed that. His body structure outside of the scales seemed to be strangely identical to a human which made him even more convinced that the things he needed to survive weren’t any different from what they used to be.

Before he fully left the clearing he turned, looking at the egg once again. Something inside him was trying to make him stay. Something feared leaving the egg behind but he couldn’t drag it with him and, more importantly, because he was fairly sure this was some sort of psychological disorder. The fact that the egg had served as the only place he knew in this world, something that protected him from harm and reminded him of his mother, was making him attached to it. It made him fear stepping out into the big wide world, he knew nothing about, by himself. It was a feeling similar to what young children would feel when separated from their parents.

The boy did his best to ignore those feelings of fear and anxiety. He gave the egg a final look before turning around and walking into the unknown of the woods, surrounding him.

He took small steps as he leaned on tree after tree. His legs slowly got better at supporting him, less stiff, easier to control. While he did this he noticed something else. His senses were much sharper than they had been before. His nose picked up smells almost like a dog’s, his eyes detected even the smallest movements and were undeterred by the shadows created by the overgrowth and his ears picked up the movements of everything around him easily. Around half an hour passed as he walked, trying not to be distracted by his new senses before his legs were able to carry him steadily without needing to lean on something every few steps.

He could now fully indulge himself in examining the surroundings through his new eyes. He spotted a bunny rabbit with incredibly long, droopy ears, caught glimpse of a small, brown-furred creature in the upper branches of a tree, with two small, round ears on top of its head and a long, thin tail, a small, colourful lizard in the grass caught his attention as it moved as well, looking almost like it had camouflaged itself due to its colours being very close to those of the grass.

He saw both familiar and unfamiliar creatures. Some, looking like a creature he knew but slightly different, others completely new and like nothing he had known before. That wasn’t the only things he spotted as some of the bushes held berries and some of the trees fruit, but as he did not know any of them or if they would be the same even if he did, he refrained from eating any of them. Thankfully he didn’t come across anything that wanted to eat HIM.

An hour went by with him walking and observing his surroundings before he heard the faint sound of flowing water. He had already grown used to walking by that point. It’s not as if his legs were weak and lacked the physical ability to carry him, after all, but they simply felt hard to control as they had never been moved before. As such, only an hour was enough to get them back to a mostly normal state.

‘Finally something to drink…’ he thought as he turned to the direction his enhanced hearing had picked up the sound from. It didn’t take long before he arrived at a stream of water. At least it looked like water. He gathered some in the palm of his hand, even sniffed it before putting it to his lips and drinking a refreshing mouthful to ease his thirst. It tasted slightly different than in his memories but he didn’t know what else was in the water or if his new tongue also had a different way of registering tastes. He could only pray that it was safe for drinking as he took another sip.

After his thirst was completely quenched he looked around to see a deer-like creature drinking from further downstream. Only, unlike a deer, the creature had a thin horn growing out of the middle of its forehead, not being very long or short. The animal looked up and noticed his gaze, causing it to quickly run into the treeline and out of his sight.

The boy sighed. He was a creature he didn’t know, in a world he didn’t know, surrounded by flora and fauna he didn’t know with no signs of civilization in sight. In all honesty, this wasn’t exactly the after-death experience he was expecting, nor was it one he was hoping for.

‘On the bright side…’ he thought ‘This might be a second chance. I have no responsibilities here. No desires. No attachments. Maybe I could live an actual life this time. Even if I’m not human… no actually that might be for the better.’

In fact, he hadn’t thought of that before. He wasn’t human now. He was something else. Even if it was similar. Still he decided it wasn't really something that bothered him. Even if he was no human it didn't change who he was. He looked around the stream again, spotting several animals eating something beneath a tree. He realised the fruit in it might be edible. They looked like cherries but pink and with a shorter stem. Some of them had fallen on the ground under the tree. There were several more of the trees around. In fact he had seen them on his walk already.

He walked up to one of the trees. This one didn’t have many fruit fallen on the ground around it. Most of them still remained in its branches, out of reach of most of the herbivores in the area, the type of trees being fairly large even compared to the rest of the ones in the woods. He wondered if he could climb up, not sure if he could do so very well with his small size.

While thinking of what his current strength was relative to a normal human child another thought struck him and he looked at his hands closely. He had bashed his fists into the egg’s shell dozens of times before it had cracked. He wasn’t sure how strongly he hit but his knuckles weren’t covered by the scales yet they weren’t injured in the slightest. Even when he had just gotten out of the egg and was examining his hands his knuckles didn’t have any sort of injury on them so it wasn’t as if they had simply regenerated in the one or two hours that had passed since then as ridiculous as that would be in and of itself. This struck him as odd.

He formed a first as strongly as he could, clenching his teeth in anticipation and smashed his fist into the tree. He regretted it instantly as the skin on his knuckles peeled off, while the tree shook heavily and fruit fell from its branches. He moved his hand back slowly as the pain made him wish he had never done that. He remembered. He did something else in the egg. He was overcome by instinct back then so he couldn’t remember but the pain seemed to be an effective reminder.

He concentrated his senses on his fist and it was quickly covered in scales, turning it into a sharp claw. His other hand was still hurting as he silently cursed himself for not remembering sooner. After a minute of simply standing there, annoyed at both himself and the tree, he moved back to the stream after grabbing some of the fruit that fell on the ground. He first washed his wound and then took a pair of the fruits, washing it in the stream and took a bite. A sweet sensation landed on his tongue. The fruit was delicious. Its texture felt much like a cherry but it’s taste was sweet, like sugar but not as overpowering, feeling like a natural sweetness. He quickly reached out to the next fruit. Then the next. Until they were all gone and he felt full. He suddenly started feeling drowsy again after that.

“What am I a cat…?” he mumbled to himself, half-jokingly half-annoyed “Then again… no… I’m a new born… I guess needing sleep is natural if I was just born today.” he rolled his eyes as he approached another fruit tree, different from the one he had punched just a moment earlier. His hands turned into claws and using them he climbed up into the tree with relative ease. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but it was enough. For now, he needed sleep. And so he dosed off once again while thinking that he had been losing consciousness much too often for his liking recently.

A low sound woke him up. He was still drowsy, unable to even tell what he was woken up by yet. He rubbed his eyes. While it was night, to him it seemed quite bright out. Not as much as if it was day but through his new eyes the night seemed that much more appealing to him. He had always liked it more than the sunny day even before this, but now both its beauty and his ability to appreciate it were greater.

As he was taken aback by the fact that he could see so well in the dark he heard it again. A low, growling sound. He snapped out of his sleepy state to look around and as he looked down he saw it. It was a beast with black fur, more so than the night itself, with clear red, almost glowing eyes. It was big, almost reaching a meter and a half in height and would otherwise look much like a wolf from his own world. If he was in any other tree the boy was sure he would have been dead by now but for some reason the terrifying nightmare of a creature was still only looking up at him, as if weighing its options.

The boy did the same. Any rapid movement could antagonize the creature and in his current circumstances, he very much wanted to avoid doing so. Despite the strength he had demonstrated when testing it on the tree he had no confidence in putting down this natural predator and if possible would avoid putting himself in a situation that required him to do so.

So he did what he could. He looked at the beast with the calmest gaze he could muster and stood as still as he could possibly manage, yet ready to move at any moment. The wolf stared up at him for a moment, then two, before it looked away and walked off in the opposite direction from the stream. The boy watched it walk away until it was fully out of sight, sighing in relief, as he was sure it had no further interest in him. While he may have panicked slightly in the encounter that was because of his surprise more than anything as he did not feel any fear for death. In fact, it was almost disturbing to even himself how unafraid of the fact he could have been eaten he was. He now knew the nights around here were no joke. He would have to find proper shelter soon, lest he become a snack for a wandering bear next.

The rest of the night, the boy spent completely awake. As dawn came, the sun rising above the horizon, the boy still sat completely still in the tree. If it weren’t for his vigilant eyes, one would think he was a mere corpse. The boy had, in truth, simply seen too much that night to remain as carefree as he was before. While the wolf remained the most horrifying, the rest of the wildlife that awoke during the night around here was nothing to scoff at either.

During the night he had seen a giant shadow in the sky, only noticing it because of the abundant amount of stars in it. The shadow most likely belonged to a sort of bird, having a long neck with a large wingspan. The size was only relative to what he perceived was the height the creature was flying at but despite that not being the most accurate measurement he was still fairly certain that would be one large bird. As big as the wolf maybe… maybe bigger.

He had also heard heavy footsteps from the stream, which he was fairly close to. He didn’t see what caused them this time but he was only glad, as at that point he didn’t even want to have anything to do with the cause of a creature that could walk around so brazenly in the middle of the night which usually hosted a plethora of creatures which depended on silence of movement and surprise to hunt.

These surprise encounters with the unknown, combined with the constant sounds like howling and soft steps on the undergrowth, which never failed to tense him up, kept him from lowering his guard all night. Even if he was unafraid of death that didn't mean he desired it and would surrender his life so easily. The stream of water which accompanied him and tried to calm him, distract him from all these sounds didn’t help as his particularly sharp ears kept picking them up.

In the end after spending such a night completely still up in a tree without moving from the branch he was sleeping on, he was already quite mentally exhausted. With a thankful sigh, to the sun’s rise, he finally moved, stretching his rigid muscles which he’d barely used in almost twelve hours, considering the time here could be measured in the same way as it could in his own world..

If something kept the youth wondering before he was now sure. He was in another world. Whether he truly arrived there by reincarnation or there was something else at work he did not know but he figured it did not matter. This was an opportunity. While he was completely frozen during the night and knew nothing of his surroundings, this was a definite chance for him. To move forward. To once again live, but without being bound by so many things. To him this was a blessing which allowed him to enjoy that euphoric feeling he had experienced back on his jet for that much longer. He was allowed to actually live freely, with no shackles.

Not to mention this world was a complete unknown. The creatures were new, the scenery was new, everything was new. He had so much to explore, so much to find out. Maybe there was civilization, maybe whoever lived in this world were vastly different to his own both in culture and biology, maybe even his own race was out there for him to find. He didn’t know why he awoke in this forest. The egg seemed to have simply been left in that clearing. No. By the way it was slightly buried into the ground, it was most likely left there on purpose.

Well. If he was abandoned by his parents to die he didn’t care. That was just convenient to him. He wouldn’t feel indebted to them. Less shackles, more freedom. He walked over to the stream and drank his fill of water. He was a newborn, looking like a four-year old, lost in a forest, naked, but he felt alive. A grin worked its way on his face as he finished drinking. He walked up to a pink cherry tree and covered his fist in scales before striking the tree with all his strength. Unlike before he felt no pain. Only the strong impact which didn’t seem to damage him whatsoever. The tree shook satisfyingly and his breakfast fell around him, as he grinned widely at all the possibilities.