I can’t really remember what killed me. I suppose, if the cliche holds true, it was most likely a truck. I do vaguely recall a bright, expanding light just before everything went dark, but beyond that… nothing. I don’t even remember where I was when it happened.

Death really isn’t as bad as some folk make it out to be, but I can’t say it’s fantastic either. There may be no lake of fire or the absolute void of nonexistence, but there isn’t a choir of angels or permanent state of bliss either. In fact, if I had to describe it, I’d say it’s mostly… cramped and muggy. I can still sort-of feel my limbs, but I can’t really move them — and worse, I’m all curled up, so it’s pretty damn uncomfortable. It’s also way too hot for my liking, like I’ve been bundled up in full winter wear in the middle of a desert summer.

Now that I think about it… maybe this is Hell. I’m hot, uncomfortable, and unable to move, trapped with nothing but my own thoughts to keep me company. I’ve only been aware for a few minutes at most and I already feel like I’m going crazy. It’s insidious, really, far more so than if I’d just been chucked into a pit of flames. Props to whatever devil thought this one up. If I were in charge of hell they’d get a raise. Or… whatever. I’m not sure if devils get paid. I just feel like they would be.

Can’t say I’m sure what I did to deserve this, though. I mean, I wasn’t a saint by any means, but I wasn’t that bad. Sure, I’m biased, but I basically just lived. Didn’t steal, didn’t kill, didn’t go out of my way to hurt anyone, always apologized if I did hurt someone without meaning to… I suppose if I could be held accountable for anything, it would be wasting my life. Thirty years old and nothing to show for it — no stable job, no degree, no ambition, no wife and kids, no nothing. Just a mediocre existence drifting from moment to moment, consuming more than I contributed, living only to wile away the days until I died.

Shit. That does sound like the sort of thing one would get punished for. I’d beg for forgiveness if I could, but my mouth is as incapable of moving as everything else is at the moment, and my voice isn’t working right, meaning I can only make the effort and get nothing out of it. Maybe whoever’s in charge will get the idea. A guy can hope, right?

I take it back. Death sucks. 

I don’t know how long I spend like this, desperately trying to do something, anything, but incapable of so much as the tiniest wriggle. It’s maddening, it’s frustrating, it’s the worst — and my vain hope that whatever tormenter damned me to this fate will take pity bears no fruit. Again and again I try moving, but my limbs do not obey. Again and again I try screaming, but my mouth and throat do not respond. Again and again I try; again and again I fail.

Insidious. Cruel. Devious. Worse, I don’t even have a face or name to assign my tormenter, I possess no concept of who to blame for what I suffer. Without even that I am left with nothing but the choice to struggle or the choice to cease and hope that eventually I simply stop thinking. The latter option has its appeal — it wasn’t like I was a particularly motivated sort. To simply stop being would be right up my alley, really…

Except some part of me recoils at that thought. I don’t want to stop. I don’t want to cease. I don’t want to just waste my existence all over again. I want to keep trying, I want to struggle, I want to fight! Maybe it’s simply a mad desire to prove that I’m not entirely worthless, that I can still put forth something even in the face of inevitable failure. So I keep going. I will my limbs to move, over and over, even knowing that they won’t. It’s childish, perhaps. But it's all that I have.

Time continues to pass, and I continue trying to do something, anything, with no success. Then… a twitch. My fingers. The movement is so slight that it’s almost imperceptible, but after what feels like an age of nothing it may as well be a perfectly-executed cartwheel. I freeze, shocked and barely able to believe it — and when I make the effort once more, my fingers twinge again. If I could shout for joy I would, but alas my voice still eludes me.

Voice or no, something is better than nothing, and so I fixate myself on my sudden minute mobility. Soon enough the tiny twitch becomes actual movement, which gradually morphs into me flexing not one but both of my hands. My nails dig into my palms but the sensation is duller than I expected, almost as if I’m wearing thick gloves. No matter. I revel in the feeling, diminished though it may be.

As usual, I cannot say how long it took for me to regain more-or-less full control of my body, but when I do I realize it’s… wrong. That dulled sensation exists all over, not just on my hands. My feet are shaped differently and possess a range of motion more akin to my hands, able to flex in and out so that I can almost form a fist. Or a… foot-fist? My mouth is too large, too long, and my teeth are too many.

Most notable of all, however, is my fifth limb — a tail, wriggling just at the seat of my spine. It’s an odd feeling, moving an appendage I’ve never had before, but command of it comes as naturally as anything else I possess. Soon enough It’s harder to remember what it felt like not having a tail at all.

My hands — claws, rather, the nails are too long to be anything other than that — rake against the surface of my prison. It’s close, too tight around me, meaning even now my range of motion is limited. Now that I have control of my limbs, the next step is to break this wall that encases me. Soon… soon, I will be free, able to look my tormenter in the eye… and make them pay.

The wall doesn’t budge at first. It’s hard, whatever it’s made of — or perhaps I’m simply weak. Either way, I quickly realize that randomly shoving against it will accomplish little and instead focus all my effort on one spot, a single point where all of my claws can dig into it at once, putting all of my likely-inconsiderable might behind the effort. I hear something then, beyond. It sounds like chirping, or perhaps shrieking. I open my mouth as much as I can and try to answer the noise, and to my surprise find that my once-absent voice comes out in a hissing shriek of my own.

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Galvanized by my fellow captives’ cries, I continue to answer and push against the wall even as the heat of my exertion makes the already muggy interior of my prison positively unbearable. Freedom is so close, I know it, I can feel the wall giving way. A loud *crack* sounds from the wall, echoing oddly within my prison, and triumph burns in my breast. My claws dig into the crack, ripping and tearing the wall away in a mad fit of flailing that sees my cage reduced to rubble as I spill out and fall, only to be caught by something before I can hit the stone floor beneath me.

Struggling in the grip, I look up and into the slit-pupiled eyes and reptilian face of what I can only presume is my captor as it laughs at me… and take my revenge.

—

Soh did not particularly enjoy hatchling duty, but there were certainly worse roles in the Nest. He could be out hunting, for one. Indeed, this particular task got him a temporary break from his actual role, that of a warrior and guardsman. Technically speaking he was still guarding something — the clutch itself — but the nest was far enough within their caverns that only a few particularly unwise rats or spiders ever bothered making a go for the eggs, and Soh was more than capable of dispatching such meager vermin.

The kobold’s eyes roamed over the clutch for what felt like the hundredth time. They remained as still as the last ninety-nine times he had done so, perched upon the raised segment of stone upon which their keeper had built their nest. “You’re sure they hatch today?” His slate-gray eyes found their way to the only other occupant of the room.

Vekit’s equally-gray scales were dry and leathery even to the eye, a clear sign of her advanced age. Once, Soh knew, she had been a warrior in her own right, but age and injury had pushed her out of that role. She now spent her remaining time caring for eggs and passing her considerable knowledge and wisdom to the new generations — those who would listen, at least.

“I have been watching eggs since before you were hatched, Soh — you may recall me raising your own clutch.” Her voice was a low, gentle rasp, and Soh heard no small amount of reproach in her tone. “If I say they hatch today, they hatch today. Now watch. That one there,” She gestured towards an egg near the edge of the nest with a long, thin claw, “Will give you trouble. Ornery thing.”

He grunted in response and paced around the chamber to pass the time. He had known, of course, that Vekit wasn’t wrong about when the clutch would hatch — the old ‘bold had an almost mystical sense for this sort of thing — but boredom and monotony had driven him to ask his question despite that. She watched him as he paced, her eyes never once leaving him. It was unnerving, but he did not begrudge her for it — he doubted she had anything else to do, and he was probably one of the few living non-egg things she’d seen at all in the past few weeks. Few of their clan enjoyed wasting time in the egg chambers when there were treasures to hoard.

It was Vekit’s eyes moving from him to the clutch that heralded their hatching. No sooner had she looked at them than one wriggled, then another. The noise came just after, and Soh couldn’t help but approach as the chirps of the not-yet-born kobolds sounded from within their eggs. He chuckled lowly in amusement at the cries and scanned the eggs one by one as they all wriggled and writhed from within.

There were seven of them in total. Not a bad batch, all things considered — there had been maybe thirty just a few weeks ago, and roughly one of three being viable was about to be expected. Most died within their shells, lacking the drive of their majestic progenitors. Such was the cruelty of life as the descendants of dragons — the battle for survival began even before birth. The cries and struggles to escape of the surviving seven were testament to their right to live.

One of the eggs cracked and he jumped back in surprise. When had he gotten so close to the damned thing? A low, rasping chuckle came from Vekit. “Told you. Watch that one.”

Recalling her warning from earlier, Soh leaned back in towards the cracked egg. Small claws poked through the crack and began tugging at either side, rapidly tearing the shell to pieces and causing the newborn to tumble free of the egg and nest both. Thankfully for the little thing Soh’s warrior reflexes kicked in and he snapped the hatchling up and brought it to his face, snorting with laughter. 

“You were right. Spirited thing, isn’t he?” He said to Vekit… right before the ornery bastard chomped his snout.

A little over a minute later Vekit was still howling with laughter, holding the hatchling behind the neck as it continued to struggle in the air, while Soh rubbed at his nostrils as he watched the others come to life with much less aggression than their elder brother. 

“This one,” She rasped, “Vicious for a grayscale, no? Were I still laying eggs myself I’d say he’s mine. Could be a couple generations removed, now that I think on it.” The little menace writhed and hissed angrily as she studied it thoughtfully, though after a few moments it seemed to calm, looking around the chamber with sudden curiosity. “Smart, too, if I read these eyes right. Definitely got my blood somewhere in him.”

“Hrmph.” Soh grunted as he brushed the shell off the last of the hatchlings. “Smart enough to not bite everything he sees from now on, I hope. The chromascales will snap his neck if he so much as nips one of them.”

“Hrm…” Vekit raised the brat to her face, eyeing it critically. It stared at her in silence, making no attempt to bite her as it did Soh. “Smart enough to not bite me at least, hm? Perhaps you are just ugly, Soh.”

The warrior did not deign to respond to her jibe, instead running his claws gently over the scales of three of the hatchlings and letting out a low whistle. “Three chromascales. That’s nearly half the clutch. The dragon-shamans will be dancing on their hoards all week.”

Carefully, delicately, he plucked the three colored hatchlings up — one red, one blue, and one white — and set them apart from their gray-scaled fellows. “Ivo will want to name these ones, then. That leaves the other four to us.”

“May as well start with this one, hm?” Vekit acknowledged, her eyes narrowing as she inspected the hatchling in her grip. “You, little one, shall be—”