Tyler came to, only to find himself in what seemed to be one of his blank dreams. Are you kidding me? I thought I would be done with these now that I’m dead, Tyler chuckled ruefully. After a long moment of complacency, though, where he simply sat in his discontent, he finally began his slow attempts to move. This was something he had done in every blank dream since the beginning. He didn’t know why, but it was somehow ingrained in his instincts to try and move, even if he couldn’t feel his body at all.

To Tyler’s disappointment, no matter how he tried, nothing changed. Even now that he was dead, he had to suffer in a blank dream. And so, he simply waited. Now that he was dead, he was in no rush. He figured that there were two possibilities going forward: either something would eventually change, or this would be his permanent state of being. Either way, all he could do was wait.

In the void, time was strange. He had no frame of reference, so he could have spent a period of minutes, hours, months, or years by the time he noticed that something was different. Although he could sleep in the void, it was hard to tell the difference between being asleep and being awake. At some point, though, he began to feel aware again, as if he could feel himself existing.

It was a strange feeling because he still couldn’t feel his body. He was still a proverbial phantom in an infinite void, but at least now he was a phantom instead of not existing in the first place. At some point, though, when he did his usual struggle to find his body, he was shocked into complete awareness. Am I… moving? He could barely—just barely—feel himself moving a finger. With an enormous amount of effort, he could feel his body. Am I just asleep? What’s going on? The shock of something changing after so long shook him to his very core.

After that he didn’t let himself sleep or fall into complacency. His mind was constantly exercising to feel even another twitch of his body. It had become somewhat of an obsession. If he could get out of this blank dream, Tyler would do anything to get there.

Though time was uncountable in this place, Tyler felt as though days had passed. It could have been even longer. If he could somehow escape, he would be happy.

Tyler spent a long time simply trying to feel his body. Deep down, he had the suspicion that it was simply a trick of his mind, and he had never felt anything in the first place. Even so, nothing could make him stop trying. All of those suspicions evaporated, however, when he opened his eyes.

He could tell that he opened his eyes because it was no longer completely dark. He could now see that he was in some sort of oval chamber, and the walls were covered in purple specks. It looked as if he was in space, surrounded by stars of the most brilliant violet. He tried to move his body, which he could now somewhat control, but he could feel a strange fluid surrounding him, restricting his movements. He reached out with all five limbs, and began to push against the walls. Wait, five limbs? Tyler thought with a start. Something was wrong.

Either way, though, anything was better than that void with nothing in it, so he continued to attack the walls with all the force he could muster. Surprisingly, the walls eventually gave way, cracking under the force he exerted. With a grunt, Tyler broke a hole in the shell-like substance, and poked his head through. He could tell that he was in some sort of spacious cave, with a rock ceiling, walls, and a few stalagmites here and there. At one end of the cave, he could see an opening to the outside, where a starry night sky was present. As he turned his head the other way, he could see that there was a pool of water further into the cave.

Before he could look further, though, he would need to fully get out of this strange chamber that he remained trapped in. And so, he continued his efforts of cracking the walls, and pushing his body through the ever-widening hole. With a final lurch, Tyler pushed forward and escaped from his prison.

Once he escaped, he looked back towards the strange prison he had just escaped from. Just as I thought, Tyler said internally. It really was an egg. The eggshell was beautiful, with a height of maybe two feet and a width of about half that. The surface was glossy black, with hundreds, maybe thousands of glowing violet stars. Before Tyler could continue observing it, though, he began moving forward.

It seemed to be completely instinctive, by the way he didn’t feel in complete control of his body. He crawled forward on four limbs, and began to eat the egg shell and the fluid inside. Before he could stop himself, he was swallowing the last bit of the shell. As he did that, he could feel his skin growing tougher, as if it took on the strength of the shell itself.

I somewhat felt this before, but I’m not human anymore. What… what am I? Tyler thought quizzically. Suddenly, he felt an overwhelming thirst. He began moving towards the crystal clear pool of water, and, before taking a sip, gazed at his reflection.

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His face was somewhat triangular, and he had pitch black horns extending from his head. His eyes were like vibrant amethysts, and were slitted like those of a cat. From his back, two bat-like wings lay folded against his spine. His entire body, from what he could tell, was covered in scales of the darkest black. In an instant, Tyler understood what he was. Am I… a dragon?

After that realization, his thirst got the better of him and he began to drink. In between long sips of clear, spring water, Tyler began to cup water in his clawed front… hands, and washed the sticky egg fluid from his scaled body. This is, by far, the strangest thing I have ever experienced, Tyler chuckled to himself. Was it some kind of reincarnation? Does this mean that I’m really… dead? It was painful to think about now, but Tyler had hoped that when he came out of his strange blank dream, that he would wake up in his bed, in the small apartment that he shared with his mother and Gray. Nothing, though, prepared him for this eventuality.

Suddenly, though, Tyler felt a presence enter the cave. In an instant, Tyler spun around and began to growl at the human-shaped silhouette. The sound came from the back of his throat, and seemed as natural as breathing.

The man, or at least Tyler assumed it was a man by his posture and the way he breathed, had frozen upon entering the cave. After a long minute, the man began to speak.

At first, Tyler couldn’t understand what the man was saying, but it only took him about a second to decipher the man’s words. He didn’t know if that was because he was a dragon or because of his past experience with languages, but he had more pressing matters to worry about.

“What the..? How the hell did it hatch?” It seemed as though the man was talking to himself and not to the dragon hatchling in front of him, which Tyler found really strange. Not only that, but the language he spoke in wasn’t English or, in fact, any language that could be found on Earth. This proves it, Tyler sighed inwardly. I really am no longer on Earth. Not only that, but seeing as he had seemingly reincarnated after dying on Earth, there was no way he would be able to get back.

Tyler was still in a crouched, threatening position as he faced towards the cave opening. The man hadn’t moved from his original position, and hadn’t made any threatening motions. Still, he was an unknown variable in an unknown world, and Tyler needed to be prepared for anything.

“Calm down, little dragon. I’m not going to hurt you.” The man finally spoke again, stepping further into the cave. As he got closer, Tyler could see him more clearly. What he thought was a grown man at first, turned out to be a boy only slightly older than Tyler. Or, at least, Tyler’s age on earth. The boy was about fifteen, with black hair and green eyes. His hair was long, reaching past his shoulders, and his pupils were slitted, just like Tyler’s were. The strangest thing, though, was the boy’s ears. His ears were on the top of his head, and were pointed like a cat’s. It was as if someone had played mix and match with animal parts.

When Tyler heard the words and noticed how unthreatening the boy looked, he simply made a small growling sound, turned around, and kept drinking the water. His tail began to shift back and forth nervously, but he didn’t try to restrict its movement. This really is strange, Tyler thought once again.

Though Tyler wasn’t watching the boy behind him, he could somehow sense what he was doing. The boy moved towards the center of the cave, and, muttering all the while, began to build a fire.

“…sent on this stupid mission, and of course the stupid egg I was transporting had to hatch while I was hunting,” the boy said to himself. “Why can’t the Professor just give me a normal mission for once?” While he was speaking, he was striking two rocks together to try and start the fire. The problem was, he didn’t have enough tinder, so the logs he had stacked together wouldn’t catch.

“How did the egg even hatch? Isn’t it like 15 years old? Dragon eggs that go dormant for that long normally never hatch. Once the stupid Winter kingdom finds out that their precious egg hatched, they’ll have my head for stealing it.” At this point, he was trying to rub two sticks together to utilize friction, but the wood was stubbornly remaining un-lit.

Tyler had turned around at this point, and was staring silently at this strange boy trying to light a fire. With a smirk on his scaly face, Tyler began walking towards the kid. When he reached the pile of wood, he gently breathed in its direction. To both Tyler’s and the boy’s surprise, a stream of brilliant purple flames burst from Tyler’s open mouth, and instantly lit the logs in the pile.

As the wood caught fire, the flames slowly changed from violet to a regular orange color. The boy looked from the blazing fire, to Tyler, back to the flames, before settling his gaze on Tyler once more.

“Well. I guess that’s one benefit of having a live dragon, instead of an egg,” he muttered with a shocked look on his face. To Tyler, he said, “I’m James. What’s your name?” Tyler simply shrugged, turned around and laid down next to the warm fire.

James stared at Tyler for a few more seconds, before shrugging and sitting down himself. This time, though, it was Tyler’s turn to be surprised. As James sat down, his body began to shift. First, black, lightly leopard patterned fur grew over his skin. His hands turned to paws, and his facial structure elongated. The process only took a moment, but James had turned into a panther.

“What are you, some sort of were… cat?” Tyler asked out loud. It was the first time he had spoken in this body, and in a foreign language at that.

“What… you can talk??” Though James’ voice was slightly huskier as a panther, he could still speak surprisingly well.

“I mean, I think so. Isn’t that what I just did?” Tyler said, sarcasm dripping from his voice.

“Great… you were born not ten minutes ago, and you’ve already learned sarcasm. This is going to be fun,” James groaned in annoyance.