The last thing Jake remembered was collapsing into his bed without even bothering to change his clothes after a long day in college, as usual.
Except he wasn't able to wake when he wanted to. He couldn't feel his body. For how long? Who knows. He couldn't even open his eyes.
At first, he thought this was a nightmare. But then he realized it couldn't be a nightmare,if it were, he would have woken up. That fact was further proven when his sense of feeling started returning and he gained a bit of mobility. Only then did he realize he wasn't on his bed anymore, but in a confined, sticky container.
But that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was that he couldn't feel his damn legs. One of them was either missing, or they had fused together into a single limb.
And at that moment, a strange thought came to his mind: had he been kidnapped and experimented on? Eyes gouged out, legs stitched together? If so, what kind of sick individual would even do this?
He hadn't offended anyone or anything. He was just a guy who liked minding his own business so much that he didn't even have friends,just people he knew. He found the idea of hanging out and socializing tiresome. Just greeting someone while on his way to class was enough talk for one day.
He'd rather sleep, wake up, trade online, take a break with some gaming, study a little, then go back to sleep again until the next day, go to class, and repeat.
And just as he was deep in his thoughts, a wave of exhaustion hit him. He'd gotten used to this. He'd gain a semblance of consciousness for maybe what he could count as a few hours at a time before getting exhausted again. Every time he gained back clarity, he would have an upgrade,hopefully.
This time, he hoped he'd wake up with his sight back, so he could maybe figure out what the fuck was going on here.
And after who knows how long, Jake finally regained consciousness,and was surprised to find himself submerged in a sticky liquid, unable to breathe.
He struggled inside the container, panic rising as he started to unconsciously claw at its walls. He couldn't swim, and oddly enough, it felt soft to the touch.
Somehow, he managed to tear it open. It split like a balloon, and he came spilling out along with the liquid.
He finally drew a sharp breath, his breathing ragged as he coughed out some of the liquid that had gotten into his lungs.
As he looked around, his vision still blurry, he shook his head,and what he saw made his heart sink. Eggs. Gigantic eggs.
They were as big as him… and there were a lot of them.
They looked ready to hatch, twitching slightly.
Jake slowly turned and looked at the container he had just escaped from only to see an eggshell.
His heart sank even further.
He had hatched out of an egg.
He had no idea what was going on… but clearly, he had just been born from the looks of it.
The only question was,what was he now?
He tried lifting up his arm to inspect it, but ended up getting slammed into the dirt with his chin as he lost balance.
His arms now somehow doubled as his legs.
He pushed himself up again and braced himself with his right arm, then attempted to look at it again,and this time, he managed to see it.
It was now a massive clawed limb that ended in curved black talons.
"No… no, no," he murmured.
But the voice that came out was a low, distorted rasp.
He bent around to look at his legs, but didn't find them,because there weren't any.7
Instead, his body stretched into a long, muscular form after his arms, tapering into a thick tail that was still slick with the same viscous fluid from his egg.
"This can't be real," he murmured, as another raspy screech came from his throat.
He started panicking as he heard raspy screeches,only muffled for now,coming from the eggs around him as they began tearing open, mucus leaking from inside them.
A dull thud sounded behind him.
Jake turned to see a familiar reptilian creature, with two limbs and a tail like him, which had also come out of an egg just like he had.
Seeing it from another perspective, something clicked in his mind.
He finally understood what he was.
He was now a Skullcrawler… for some reason.
And the Skullcrawler before him that had just hatched seemed to be twice as big as him for some reason.
It lay on the ground for a while before standing up and looking at him, thrashing its tail behind it as it screeched.
Things were not looking good, because he really didn't see himself winning this fight if he tried to fight back. But he would be damned if he allowed himself to get killed,and possibly eaten,without a fight.
Jake thought this as he screeched back, lashing his tail in response, showing that he wasn't backing down.
But before they could clash, another Skullcrawler tore its way out of its egg and fell in between them, still weak.
The larger Skullcrawler paused, then screeched,before lunging at the young hatchling instead.
To Jake's shock, it bit straight into its head.
Then it jerked its own head sharply,and with a small pop, snapped its neck.
And just like that… it began devouring it.
Jake froze as he watched the larger Skullcrawler that had just recently hatched, like him, kill and eat another hatchling.
And oddly enough, he started feeling himself getting hungry.
The smell of blood and the sound of crunching bones was… intoxicating.
Jake found himself in a trance and unconsciously flicked his pronged tongue before shaking his head when he heard the sounds of fighting inside the cave. The other hatchlings had started fighting and eating each other, screeches overlapping into a deafening chorus.
That's when he finally realized,this wasn't just random violence.
It was a brutal system.A survival-of-the-fittest hatchling pit.
Jake's stomach twisted as another wave of sickening hunger hit him, the stench of blood in the air thickening. But he pushed it back.
He had become an animal… but he wasn't about to act like one yet.
He had to get out of here. Because if he stayed any longer, he'd become one of them.
Eat… or be eaten.
And without any more hesitation, he surveyed the gigantic dark cave that seemed to stretch endlessly before him then bolted.
As fast as his two arms or his legs could take him.
Hopefully, he was heading toward the exit.
Otherwise…
He was screwed.
End of Chapter.