Chapter 497: Aris (1/2)

CRK!

The sound of a cracking egg echoed throughout the surroundings. The egg was rather hard, and it proved to be rather difficult to break out of it. Yet, the small lizard did its best.

CRRK!

A tiny black and shiny arm broke out of the egg. The tiny arm aimlessly tried to grab something but didn't find anything.

Bonk!

The egg fell over onto its side as the weight inside the egg shifted. The egg fell onto the arm, giving the small thing its first experience with surprise.

CRR!

The claws on the tiny arm created some scratch marks in the soft earth beneath it as it tried to salvage the situation. After a while, the arm retracted, and a small black snout came out of the egg as it took its first breath of fresh air.

Whoop!

The snout retreated as two tiny hands grabbed the edges of the hole.

CRRRRRK!

The power of the arms was quite surprising as they widened the hole in the egg. After seeing that this approach worked, the tiny black thing did its best to free itself from its prison.

CRK!

Half of the egg got destroyed as the small thing felt light for the first time on its face. It had an elongated black snout with some small teeth poking out of its sides. The tiny thing looked into the sun and quickly closed its eyes due to the blinding light. Out of reflex, it held its small hands in front of its eyes.

After waiting for some seconds, the tiny thing looked around, but it didn't dare to look up again. By now, the tiny being could be fully seen.

It was only around ten-centimeters-tall and had black, glowing scales encasing its entire body. The scales were so black that it looked like they absorbed all the light. Reptilian eyes looked around their surroundings as the small beast took the world in with interest and curiosity.

What was this soft stuff below it? Why did this soft stuff rise further away? Why did it hurt to look up? What was this strange feeling around its own body? Was this earth? Was this temperature? Was this light?

The tiny being knew nothing about these concepts, and all of them felt foreign to it. It had no knowledge of anything and simply tried to make sense of its surroundings.

Sniff, sniff!

Yet, all of this was forgotten as it smelled something enticing. It turned around and looked at the broken eggshells, the pieces of its former prison. For some reason, it had the urge to eat them.

Following its instincts, the tiny being started crunching on the eggshells. It proved rather easy to eat the eggshells, and the tiny being almost couldn't believe that something this fragile and delicious had been able to suppress it until now.

For some reason, the tiny being got angry at the broken eggshells. These eggshells had kept it away from experiencing this world!

BANG! BANG! BANG!

It started to scratch and bite the eggshells. After a while, it also started using its legs and tail to throw the eggshells away. It didn't know why, but it hated the fact that it had been held prisoner by these weak things.

After some minutes, the tiny being felt proud of its accomplishments as small shards of egg were strewn all around its small enclosure.

Grumble!

Yet, the tiny being felt hungry again. It looked at the small pieces of eggshells with regret. They had all become dirty, and many pieces were so small that they couldn't even properly be eaten anymore.

This was the tiny being's first encounter with regret.

It shouldn't have destroyed the shells. Now, it would become much harder to eat. The tiny being did its best to gather the pieces again and proceeded to eat them. It didn't like the taste of earth, but there was nothing it could do. It simply found no solution to this problem.

Sadly, the tiny being wasn't developed enough to realize that it could simply clean the eggshells. To it, it felt like it had to eat the eggshells as they were.