The Egg

(The soul formerly known as the hero’s companion)

I gain consciousness very gradually, the first thing that I notice is that It is dark…no it is darker than dark it is the complete and utter absence of light…the second thing I notice is that I can’t feel my body. I think about this for a while and realize it maybe not so much that I can’t feel a body rather than the fact that I probably don’t have a body…

After a while I realize this assumption must be incorrect, I am conscious therefore I must exist in some form because I can think and I slowly soon come to realize that I can feel…So then I decide to concentrate solely on feeling rather than thinking. After a while I realize I am feeling a strange sensation, it feels almost like I am floating in a warm soothing water…a gentle type of liquid that slowly lulls me to unconsciousness once more.  

When I awake for the second time since I died, I feel much more than I did before and my thoughts are much clearer. I also confirm that I definitely have a body, though how much of a body do I have is the question. I don’t know if I have eyes or not because it is so dark and I am surrounded by water. I am not sure if I have any limbs or even if I have a head, it is impossible for me to move so I am not sure if I have muscles.

I don’t think I am a fish or an amphibian because it doesn’t seem like I am breathing, and it is lucky that I don’t need to breathe because I don’t seem to have a mouth either. Once again I decide to stop thinking, and start feeling…and once again the water starts to sooth me back to the almost sleep form of unconsciousness but I force myself to stay awake and try to see if I have any other senses besides touch. After a long while I realize part of what I thought was water moving on me as I floated, was really a very small sound.

I stop concentrating on touch and focus solely on what I think to be sound…it is a fluttering sound…like the wing beats of a butter fly or a leaf gently tapping another in a soft breeze. After a long while after realizing what I am using to hear is probably some kind of ears that are on either side of my head, I am better able to locate the sound and realize that it is inside me…that the light fluttering sound is probably my heart beat. I am very thrilled when I realize this; because this discovery means that I am alive again in some way which is something I never expected. Happily listening to the sound of my own heartbeat while being soothed by the warm waters…I drift asleep once more.  

When I wake for the third time, I am much stronger, I first realize this when I listen for the flutter that signifies my life and realize that it has graduated from flutter to a slight tapping. Then I focus on feeling other things and realize that now I can slightly move myself, and after experimenting, and practicing moving for a while, I manage to somewhat confirm my body shape through feeling, I measure by comparing each body part with each other and then forming a rough proportion scale, thus I decide my shape is like this:

My head is much larger compared to the rest of me, it takes up at least slightly half of my whole body at least in density. Following after my head is my midsection it is slightly longer and much thinner than my head.  On the sides of my body I have at least two small stubby limbs that I can almost wiggle, it isn’t much it but it is much better than like before when I was completely unable to move at all. In-between my two tiny limbs there is a rope of some kind attached to my midsection…I know this because every time I move my body I feel a comforting tug. Comforting because if I was not attached to anything and was just freely floating, I feel it would be very scary. I continue to practice moving, but soon I am tired out, once again I fall asleep soothed by water and my heartbeat.

I wake for the fourth time. Once again I am many times stronger than I was before, the stubs that are my limbs seem a bit longer, and they appear to have somehow multiplied. I have at least four perhaps 5 because I am beginning to suspect that it is not just that my body is very long it is mostly  that I probably have a tail. I use my limbs and eventually even my tail, to move around, it is hard to tell direction floating in a liquid in complete darkness but I try to move towards the direction my belly cord comes from and eventually I find I can no longer go forward.

I do not have the best sense of touch at the moment but I brush my body and stubby limbs on the obstacle in front of me…it appears to be some kind of wall, it is hard and smooth like stone, but strangely warm…however soon after I start touching it I get instinctively uneasy so I gently use it to push myself away back towards the liquid. This instinct that is almost fear, triggers an unknown memory of some kind…something about my situation particularly the wall is making me think of something. Something though not personally familiar to me, it is a thought that would probably shed some light on things;

However the liquid not only soothes my fears but gently drives away my feelings. I relax, and then once I realize that it wasn’t my choice to relax start to struggle to actively think. I hadn’t bothered to really think much, so far, mostly because my new body got tired really easily, but also because the environment I was in encouraged a thick calmness on me that didn’t really let me feel emotions that strongly even curiosity.

Even the joy I felt at realizing that I wasn’t dead but alive had been a peaceful blanketed joy, which had soon fallen back to the sleepy neutral tranquility. However no matter how strange and unknown the situation was I was still myself, and I was a type of person that didn’t accept laziness or peace well.

Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

I constantly struggled against this invisible hindrance that continually threatened to wipe all thoughts from my head, but after a while I realized this was pointless I was just wasting what pathetic strength I had, I also managed to recall that every time I let myself rest when I awake I am much stronger…perhaps I should utilize this but instead of somewhat pointlessly trying to move my weak body I shall focus solely on thinking…yes that is what I will do next time I think as I allow myself to be swept under again.

I wake for the fifth time… (and stay awake for quite a while) I feel a lot stronger but it isn’t as great of a leap in difference compared to my other awakenings. Soon I recall the plan…and try to put it into practice. I allow the liquid to soothe my body but I gather all my mental strength and will power to prevent it from affecting my mind.

It works to an extent and thinking becomes a lot easier than before. I start with the basics I dredge up all my memories from before my death from childhood onwards and I find it is easy and the memories are a lot more vivid and detailed then my recollections of utilizing my memory in the past.

I speed up and flash through all the rest of my experiences…and linger on those near the end…and I soon recall all the memories  I had  forgotten of my first and last true friend…and he wasn’t even human but a demon lord. I then look at the moment I died over and over…just to make sure. It was true, I really had died. Then I started thinking how I am alive right now?

The religion my parents raised me in was all about pleasing the gods and respecting nobility…and not much else...one of the main ways they keep the majority of peasants in line was the idea that only nobility gets a free pass to the afterlife  and paradise, but peasants like myself had to hope that our bosses and masters asked for us personally when they got there otherwise we would be stuck in purgatory or if we have lived a life of evil deeds we would be eventually dragged from purgatory and into hades to be punished for eternity. I didn’t notice any stops in between dyeing and waking up here so I guessed most of what my parent’s religion taught was untrue or at least in my case, which brought me to my second theory: reincarnation.

In my rare free time I would often sneak into libraries to read books…and once I read a book that talked about various human cultures…on lands far away. It had been really interesting and one of the things that had really interested me were the various religions of other lands. I don’t know many foreigners personally as my land isn’t very welcoming to outsiders. However, I having an ear for languages and love of nosiness and eavesdropping, so by gaining info through grey activities and also through some of the books I’ve read I know more things than most people of my land, and theories about life after death is just one of the miscellaneous trivia that I have learned.

Reincarnation is basically the idea that after death your soul is reborn into a new body…there were various other details about the how’s and whys. And differing opinions depending on the religion involved…but the main features seemed to fit what is happening to me perfectly.

I am not really religious and am not convinced that reincarnation (at least the how and why of it) and the religions that believe in it are correct…I decided to set this aside…because unless I meet a god who explains everything to me I probably won’t ever bother with religion s it seems to complicated…as well as such a hot topic.

So I decided to only pick and choose aspects of things that make sense…for example one reason accepting the religions that use reincarnation wouldn’t work for me is that I can remember my prior life…and according to the religion supposedly everyone is reincarnated but just don’t remember it…and as I do vividly…such complicated subjects annoy me so I soon drop that and think on just what being reincarnated means for me personally.

A second chance, I now (if things go well and I continue to live) I now have a second chance to basically do things over and hopefully better, to learn the things I never got to learn, to do the things I always wanted to do but never got to. A chance to follow my dream again of being the stronger this time with possibly more time in which to do it in.

A second chance, such a beautiful wonderful thing, at first I am tickled pink but soon reality intrudes on my daydreams. First I am doubtful that I am human, besides my strange body shape there was also the fact of my location…the walls and liquid still bug me. Then suddenly a lightning strike of brilliance in the back of my mind reveals what was so familiar yet unfamiliar that I couldn’t understand before. I am weak, helpless, and inside a dark enclosed space full of liquid, I must be some sort of baby that’s still inside of an egg.

Basically I am something that hasn’t been even born yet, or hatched whatever. I am surprisingly unbothered by the idea…I have never really interacted happily  with those of my past life's race  and thus besides my family I had no great bond with humans and thus the idea of being human.

However I realize that whatever I am could greatly impact my plans, for example if I turn out to be the creature equivalent of a peasant I would be devastated. But what would be the worst result is if this new body wasn’t just weak now but grew up to be relatively weak and impossible to train so that I would be rendered unable by default to follow my dream of getting stronger.