As I slowly woke up, I was surrounded by blackness and a feeling of comfort.

Still groggy, I lacked any desire to get up. With how comfortable it was, I might have just fallen asleep again, if it weren't for the feeling that something was wrong. I tried to let unconsciousness take me again, but it would not accept me. After what felt like an hour, but was probably only a minute or two, my mind woke up enough that I could identify what was wrong: it seemed like I wasn't breathing.

I didn't have the awareness required to panic, because I was still not fully awake, but I did try to take a breath. There was something preventing me from doing so, however, and I started to hiccup. After some time of trying to ignore that, I was starting to get annoyed, still unable to fully realize what was happening. I tried to take a breath again, but nothing came, except that I now also noticed the distinct lack of a feeling of weight all across my body. My mind was slowly piecing together that I should probably get up and deal with whatever the problem was, and could finally form a coherent thought.

What ... what's going on? Another failed attempt at breathing in got my gears turning, as my panic started to mount. I can't breathe! Why can't I breathe!? I tried to grasp at my face to remove whatever it was preventing me from breathing, but was foiled when my hands couldn't reach. Adrenaline flooded my brain as my mind went into full-on panic mode. As my right hand continued to try and reach my face, my left went searching for anything that it could reach that might help me. I opened my eyes, but it was no less dark than before. My left hand hit a solid surface, not even finding purchase to pull myself up, while I still couldn't even touch my face with my right. I had kicked out with my legs, but that didn't do anything, either. The movement I had started by touching the wall with my left hand came to a stop, when I softly touched another wall with my back. It felt like I was suspended in some sort of viscous liquid.

What the fuck? How did I get here? I need to reach air. As my panic started to reach levels I had never experienced before, I tried desperately to swim up. I failed at the first step, because I didn't know which way was 'up'. I had no indication for which way gravity pointed, so I tried to pull myself along the edge of one of the walls I had felt. Both my hand quested forward this time, but I couldn't find where the wall ended. When I had hastily explored what my arms could reach, I tried to turn around, failing once more, as my hands swished from right to left without noticeable effect. I couldn't get any grip on the wall either, as it curved towards me and was slick from the liquid all around myself.

Fuck! Why can't I move!? I'm going to drown. I don't want to drown! My situation was quickly turning from desperate to hopeless, as I pushed against the wall in front of me with my arms and legs, only succeeding in pushing my back into another wall that also felt like it curved around me. I tried to scream, despite my lungs feeling empty, but nothing came out. I didn't even feel any bubbles rising past me, and if they were going away from me, I wasn't able to see them. No. This can't be the end. Not like this.

My arms continued to search for a way past these walls, but they were slowing down in their movements, as my panic turned to depression. I did my best to punch at the wall, but the liquid made the hardest punch I could throw into barely more than a light tap. Reluctantly, I stopped my movements entirely, hoping to preserve what little breath I had left. Is someone going to find me here? Or am I going to die? How long have I been here? How long do I have left?

With my panic subsiding, I noticed a few things I should have noted before. For one, throughout this whole ordeal, there had been sensations coming from my back that were entirely unfamiliar to me. Like there was something between my back and the wall, something I could also feel. Then there was how odd my arms and legs felt whenever I moved them.

The thing it took me the longest to realize, however, was that my lungs weren't burning, like I would have expected after holding my breath for this long. How does this make any sense? I should have been drowning, my lungs crying for oxygen but only finding water. Instead, it felt like I didn't even need to breathe.

OK, Keith calm down! Calm the fuck down! You're not suffocating, you're going to be fine. You have time to actually think about your situation and how to get through this. There must be some reasonable explanation for what's going on.

I tried to heed my advice, but my nerves were still fried from thinking I was about to die. The last thing I remembered before waking up here was getting home from work, looking forward to a relaxed weekend. I had unlocked the door, stepped in, and then- … nothing. I remembered that for just an instant, there was a feeling of nothingness.

Did... did I die? I hadn't realized how tense my body was, until I relaxed it all at once, from the sorrow this thought brought. No, it can't be! I'm clearly still alive. I'm just trapped in this room. This... circular room, filled with water. My mind desperately searched for another explanation for my last memories, but that feeling of nothingness was all that came to me.

In that instant, it was like I had been stripped of everything, but was left with my awareness intact. No sensations, no emotions, no thoughts, just knowing that I was. That I am. And that I will be. It was no more than a moment, but it might as well have been an eternity. Maybe I had lost myself there, and none of this was real. Maybe that had always been the case.

I shuddered at the recollection, and forced my mind back on the issue at hand. No, surely I was just knocked out by someone and abducted. I tried to convince myself of that, but I kept having this nagging feeling that I was missing something. Someone ran or is going to run some sorts of tests on me. Like you see in those sci-fi movies. Guy gets abducted and turned into a super soldier.

Yeah, that would explain why so much of my body feels weird. I'm probably in some sort of bacta tank, explaining the liquid all around me and why I don't need to breathe. It all makes sense. I just need to get out of here and demand they undo everything they've done to me. Easy.

My thoughts were adopting an almost manic quality as a hope blossomed, that I might still be alive, after all.

Until then, however, I likely wouldn't get out of this thing, so all I could do was to try and note what physical changes they had put my body through. I started with my hands and feet, flexing them to get a feel for what they were like, now. They didn't flex as much as I had expected, only the tips really moving, So I brought my hands together to feel them better.

Sure enough, it gave me the necessary insight to say that those, weren't hands. For one, I had trouble making the two grasp one another. It felt like only the tips of my fingers were capable of curling around something. Then there were some sort of dull, hard protrusions at the tips. The most notable change, however, was the lack of a thumb. I could only feel 4 digits, and I even had trouble determining the shape of those.

Feeling further up my arms, I reached the spot that 'felt' like my wrists, but they were way too high. What have they done to me? I couldn't feel further up my arm than my elbows, which were surprisingly close to my chest. Bending over to feel my legs gave pretty much the same results; four digits, hard protrusions, and all the joints in the wrong places.

All in all, it felt like they were shaped more like a dog's legs, than a human's arms and legs. Next, I tried moving my head. It had been in an awkward position this entire time, but it also somehow felt normal where it was. When I tried to move it into a more 'normal' position for a human's head, I got slightly disoriented.

The fuck is wrong with me. Is this even a human body, anymore? I need a fucking mirror. I refused to believe I was anything but human, but intellectually I knew there was no other explanation.

Then, without any provocation, I suddenly had the urgent desire to press my face against the wall. I hardly expected the strange sensation, and I was still slightly distracted by how my body had changed, so I didn't have the mental capacity to stop myself. My face rushed at the wall as if on it's own accord, and almost instantly broke through the wall.

What the fuck just happened? I wondered as I instinctively took a breath of cool air, while only my nose was outside. While there hadn't been any feeling of suffocation, breathing now felt way better than it had any right to. After a few deep gulps of air, I pushed my head further through the small hole I had somehow made.

Since the structural integrity of this container had been compromised by whatever instinct had come over me, the material surrounding my head fell away easily. Once my head was outside, I could finally see.

I was in some sort of rocky cave, with patches of bio-luminescent moss everywhere I looked. The hole I had made seemed to be at the top of my little prison, so I cast my gaze downwards again to examine it.

Is... is this a fucking egg? Fuck, did I get pulled into some sort of reincarnation shit? So I really did die. Fuck. My mood shifted back to sadness as I thought about everyone I had left behind. My head slumped down on top of the egg's surface, and I absentmindedly noted that my neck was a lot longer than I was used to. Dejectedly, I thought that that explained the slight disorientation I had felt when I moved my head.

I sighed and unenthusiastically decided that I should get out of the egg. I made the hole large enough that I should be able to get myself through it, then started to get out. I wasn't exactly graceful, with how extensive the changes to my body were. I also didn't really try, so I had no one to blame but myself when I stumbled on my way out, and landed firmly on my face.

There we go, I've been born. Big whoop. In my depression, I lacked the willpower to force myself up again, but I was surprised when a glowing list of light-blue text appeared in front of my face.

Name: Keith Harrows

True Name: unknown

Age: 35 seconds

Species: unknown

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Gender: unknown

Life Stage: Hatchling

Titles and Given Names: Keith, K, Mr. Harrows

Statistics: N/A

Goals: N/A

I closed my eyes, just wanting to be alone and not be bothered by even more weird shit, but the list remained visible, like it was imprinted on my eyelids. Now forced to read it, I noted how some of the entries changed as I read them. Initially, all of them said 'unknown'. I sighed again, this time in mild annoyance, and tried to think of a reason, any reason at all, for this weird phenomenon.

I briefly considered if this was some sort of game simulation, like deep dive VR, but decided it was unlikely. I had never heard of real technology that could give this level of immersion. I also doubted this was the result of some sort of brain implant, based on the fact that I seemed to be in some random cave. It didn't seem likely that someone would have gone through the trouble putting something in my brain, only to leave me in some random cave. Never mind that that sort of medical technology had also been unheard of.

Even more annoyed that I couldn't find a satisfactory explanation for the floating text, I decided to shelve the question for now and go forward with some level of suspension of disbelief. I accepted that this list was a thing, and that it had information about me in it.

The least it could have done is record all of my information. What is a true name, and why are gender and species tagged as unknown? If it knows my name and what others call me, surely telling me what race I am would be simple, never mind my gender. My mood was fluctuating between annoyed at all these unexplained, new things, angry that I couldn't just be left to wallow in my own sadness, and said sadness at likely never seeing my family again.

Come to think of it, am I even still male? If I was reborn as a member of a different species, there's no telling what else might have changed. With that thought, curiosity gained the upper hand among my emotions and I forced myself to sit up and examine this new body. Moving my head was definitely disorienting, with how long my neck was, and the glowing blue text stayed firmly in my field of view as I looked around.

C'mon, just go away you stupid- ohh. There we go. The simple thought of it going away seemed to be well enough to make it so. Now, what the fuck am I? I rolled onto my right side, looking at the rest of me in the process. As far as I could tell, I was some sort of reptile with blue-ish scales. Could just be the light from the moss, I wish I had some uncolored source of light. Other than that, I had 4 legs, each a bit more than half as long as my torso. The length and shape of my ...paws? Claws? suggested that they were digitigrade, which was going to take some getting used to.

Taking a glance at my back, which was surprisingly easy with a neck almost as long as my torso, I could make out a pair of small wings. I estimated their current span to be maybe a bit more than half again the length of my torso. Moving them was even more awkward than the rest of me, since the muscles seemed to have had no analogue in my human body. So, I'm some sort of dragon? A dragon hatchling. Just great. I tried to say something out loud, but only a strange chirping noise escaped me. A dragon hatchling without a voice. Can this get any more annoying?

I lifted up my left front and hid leg, to take a closer look at my underside. The scales were slightly different from those on my back. They were bigger, for one, but only in one direction, giving my belly an almost striped pattern. Touching them with my claw revealed that they were also a lot more sensitive than the scales on my back. Looking further down along my body, my tail was at least as long, maybe a bit longer, than my torso, tapering gradually from about half the diameter of my barrel at the base, down to a rounded tip. Without a mirror or something else reflective I couldn't yet examine my face, so I moved on to the last unknown property of this new body.

How the fuck am I going to determine my gender? I know it's not always very straight forward to determine the sex of a reptile, but that's about it. The only idea that came to mind was to physically probe myself. I looked at my claws, but I wasn't comfortable with sticking those anywhere near that particular area. I tried to flex my tail, but it didn't really cooperate. At least not enough to manipulate anything with any degree of dexterity, never mind the fact that it wasn't very sensitive at the tip. I might have hurt myself if I wasn't extremely careful, which was rather difficult with my lack of proper motor control. Also, the spot in question seemed to be just out of reach with the tip anyway.

As an idea popped into my head, I extended my tongue as far as it could go, and was surprised that the length of tongue I managed to throw out was almost as long as one of my claws, wrist to talon-tip. Damn, that's gonna be enough to reach in there. Eugh, I just had to jinx it with my question about how annoying it would get, didn't I? The fleshy protrusion looked to my eyes like the tongue of a snake, with how it forked at the tip.

Gingerly, I moved my snout between my hind legs and extended my tongue. At least my neck and tongue are somewhat intuitive to move, even if they feel weird as all fuck with how long they are. I navigated my tongue to a spot where the scales were slightly different from my normal belly-scales, then carefully pushed it in. I didn't know if it was a result of having a genital slit or if it was from my body being so young or just different in general, but it was a strange feeling, rummaging around within myself with my own tongue. It felt at the same time good, but also incredibly foreign.

I didn't know what to feel for, so I just tried to find some sort of object that might be considered a penis, but I couldn't find anything. I searched as deeply as my tongue would go, but didn't find anything to calm my worries that this body was female. As I reached as far in as I could, and with my muzzle pressed up against my scales, my tongue touched something and the feeling made me recoil reflexively. The too-quick retraction of my tongue didn't help, and I was left shivering at the very unexpected and unwelcome pleasure.

Note to self, never do that again. I nearly jumped when the status list came up again.

Name: Keith Harrows

True Name: unknown

Age: 6 minute, 35 seconds

Species: (some sort of)Dragon

Gender: female

Life Stage: Hatchling

Titles and Given Names: Keith, K, Mr. Harrows

Statistics:

  Notes to self:

    Never do autocunnilingus again

Goals: N/A

Are you fucking kidding me? That's what the statistics entry is for? Keeping track of things? Fine! I want to keep track of how many times I thought of my situation as weird in any way. Sure enough, there was now an entry for 'Times I thought of my situation as weird in any way' with a 0 right behind it. I thought back, and I could remember at least 5 times where I thought something was weird or strange, maybe more. The entry corrected itself to exactly what I had just thought.

At least this had distracted me from my previous thoughts somewhat. It would probably be a while before I was comfortable at all with the thought of what the future would have in store for a female dragon. I could only hope they didn't go through some sort of fertility cycle like many animals do. Then again, maybe that might be better than menstrual cramps. The future would hold the answer to that, regardless of my feelings towards to facts.

Alright, I can't stay lying around here forever. I don't know how often a young dragon has to eat, but there don't seem to be any other dragons to ask for help. Why is that, I wonder? Was my egg abandoned? Maybe abducted and lost? Is someone looking for me? Asking all these questions, I made my first effort in my apparently 7 minutes of living to stand up.

Contrary to what one might think, standing up on 4 legs when one is used to standing on just 2 is rather difficult to get used to. I constantly tried to use muscle memory that was used to human physiology to move this new body. While just standing up and looking around was weird enough, walking was downright difficult. I had seen plenty of quadrupedal animals walking, but I had never really looked at their stride in great detail, so I started just trying shit slowly and seeing what felt natural. For some definition of natural. Natural for this body maybe, but not natural for me.

There was space enough to move in the area where my egg was positioned, but I didn't want to go away too far, since there might be predators lurking in these caverns. I had about two body-lengths of space in the width of this crevice, maybe 5 or 6 towards a dead end and I didn't know how far in the other direction. Well enough to start moving about.

According to the age entry of my status block, it took me the better part of half an hour to figure out a gait that would see me walking anywhere with some confidence. The key had been getting the timing between back leg landing and front leg lift-off right. Just for the heck of it, after the second time I face-planted, I decided to let the system or whatever it was keep track of those. At the point I felt confident in my ability to walk, I had kissed the ground only 12 times. Who can boast about learning to walk on their 13th try, eh? Now, to figure out running.

This felt like it took significantly longer and more tries, but was only another 15 minutes and joining my face and the ground another 20 times. I could now run for a minute at a time, stopping only so I could catch my breath. At this point, I was even getting some better motor control of my tail and wings, as I had to learn to keep them from throwing off my balance. That was the main reason for why I kept falling.

I also had to take a few longer breaks, as my stamina wasn't the greatest, apparently. Since I only really had one dimension to move in, I had to constantly turn around and double back between the dead end and a spot where there was a hole in the wall.

Man, this is exhausting. I had just laid down for my 5th break when I got the distinct feeling of being hungry. I looked over to where the remains of my egg still lay, and there was still some of the liquid I was suspended in remaining, though most of it was in a puddle on the ground, rather than in the cracked remains of the egg. Let's hope this stuff has some nutritional value.

Exhausted, I approached and lapped up some of it. It didn't really taste of anything, likely because my body had been in there for long enough that whatever sense of taste I had didn't pick it up anymore. It seemed to fill me somewhat, but I'd need to find something meaningful to eat soon enough, likely within the day. I took a bite from the shell, but it was the same stuff as a bird's egg shell. It was quite thick as well, so I didn't even try to swallow the tiny bit I had broken off.

Somewhat satisfied that I wouldn't be a sitting duck for whatever else was lurking in these depths, I finally removed myself from the location of my supposed reincarnation. Let's get to exploring this place and possibly finding something more substantial to eat.