When I was able to open my eyes again, I found myself inside a weird place.

I was looking to a surface resembling parchment from colour and texture. I was wrapped by the substance making up this chamber in a way that made it too tight for my tastes, but I was able to see some light peering from an entrance right before my face.

"Dammit! It's too tight. Must get out before I start feeling claustrophobic!"

I started crawling forward, an act made difficult by my apparent lack of limbs. In another moment, I would investigate my new body further to understand what I was reincarnated as, but exiting from this coffin got the priority.

It was a chore and a half, but I was finally able to get out and get blinded by the sunrays hitting me straight in the face. After so much time without light, the effects were catastrophic.

I relented from the shock, finding myself unable to cover my eyes, with no arms and hands to do the job, for the first few seconds.

Then, I felt it. Six long limbs were reaching out to the surrounding world, extending from my body, stretching out and gaining a more definite structure.

Four of them located on the lower half of my body, angling themselves to support me upright on the surface I was standing. I could feel that they were scrawnier than the other two, that I found more closer to my head, that itself undergoing some changes, becoming more definite and better shaped than before. I was now able to move it around and look at my surroundings.

My arms (I was referring to them like that, for their position on my body) were more robust and folded up, looking shorter than the legs, unless I decided to extend them to their full length, showing the little spikes covering their underside and the claws I had for hands.

I knew enough about bugs to understand what I was: a freaking praying mantis! Or, this world's corresponding creature, I guess. I doubted that I was exactly like the ones on Earth, especially if this place was a fantasy-based world like it was often the case in the stories I read.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

*Nice! Mantises are one of the most badass insects you could get on the old Earth.*

They were carnivorous, acting like ambush predators to catch their food between their raptorial forelegs, using camouflage both as offence as a defence, hiding from their predators and prey alike. Truly one of the best candidates for a new body, if it had to be the one of an insect.

And best of all: I could stand upright, instead of crawling on the ground, or slithering if I had no limbs at all. That sure helped with the transition from a human body.

*Now, let's see where am I...!*

Turning around my head, I didn't expect to see a horde of other mantises, all of them skittering over the nest from we were born.

Not wishing to be trampled on the first minute of my new life, I moved away from the crowd, quickly trying to get used to two pairs of legs and to not fall from this place that was attached on a branch over what looked like an old, mossy log, from a height that I could feel was over my chance to survive a fall.

Luckily, there were some little hooks at the end of my legs, allowing me to grasp the surface and climb down and get away from my brothers and sisters before any of them could get hungry and get strange ideas. Mantises were notoriously cannibalistic and were more than willing to eat each other when there weren't enough food sources around, so it would be best to put as much distance as I could between them and me and to do that, I needed to reach the ground.

Once I got used to having four legs and how to move them in synch, I found myself pretty quick on my feet, reaching my destination in qhat felt like a few minutes while the others were still starting to move out from their eggs and stretching their limbs.

"Ok. Now I can say I'm safe-ish. What to do next?"

I couldn't stay still. My actual condition of newborn marked me as a weak, easy and tasty morsel for any hungry beast that happened to walk on me. I needed to understand more about this world and how it worked. If there was a "System", there should be a way to access it, and that could give me some clues on what to do to survive.

Speaking of the "System", I wondered what it was and why it brought me here and how. Did I regain consciousness in that Limbo because I was just about to be called by the "System"? If it didn't choose me, would I merely not exist or something? And how did I end there in the first place?

And what criteria made it chose me? Was it luck? My destiny? Or was it just its amusement?

I needed to find the answers to those and many other questions that would come out during my stay here, and I would get them! Even if I had to reach up into the Void and grasp them with my tiny, spike-covered claws. And to emphasize that, I lifted one of my forelegs to the sky, as to declare that I was ready to do it...

#GURGLE#

... And to do that, I needed to find something to eat quickly, as I could feel myself starting to be quite hungry, and climbing down from a branch wasn't an activity fit for a newborn, with no food whatsoever in their stomach.

*Best try to find something before I pass out.*

Fortunately, I was a born predator. It shouldn't be hard to catch a little bug to replenish my strength.