*Chime*

  A bell? Is it time to wake up already?

  Whatever time it was, the sun hadn’t come out yet. It felt like my head was pressed up against a wall. I couldn’t think of anything besides the pressure. It was unbearable, and I pushed out my arms as far as they could go. Desperate for relief, it finally came after a sudden crack sound. Light washed over me, transforming my pitch black world into something brand new.

  There was a small hole above me and I looked through it as best as I could. My eyes squinted from the brightest light I had ever known. After a few moments they adjusted enough to make out what looked like dried branches and grass.

  I moved my head forward to try and get a better look, but another cracking sound startled me. My head smacked against something that then crumbled around me, and I finally realized what was going on.

  As my head poked out, I saw that my body was encased in a golden egg. It crumbled into small pieces around me. The inside was a stark white that looked even paler compared to the shimmering gold of the egg’s outer layer. There was no slime or fluid of any kind, and I found the sudden sensation of the air so cold I wondered how many seconds it would take me to freeze. But after the initial shock, my body soon began to adapt.

  Before I could think anything beyond “what the hell?”, a screen of translucent green light appeared before me. It had text written on it that read:

  Species - N/A

  Type - N/A

  Rank - H

  Level - 0

  Title - “Twiceborn”

  Tamer - Meebur the Magnificent

  Status - Normal

  Skills - N/A

  This doesn’t feel right, I thought. What am I?

  As though to answer me, another box of text appeared atop the first.

  Your Species has yet to be determined.

  What kind of world doesn’t have your species chosen at birth?

  This one.

  Will a text box pop up every time I think of a question?

  No.

  Well, wherever I am, the creator of this place clearly has a sense of humor.

  Thank you.

  Though there seemed to be a million missing pieces from my memory, an ability to read and understand the terms on these screens wasn't amongst them. The fact that I knew the initial box of text was a “status screen” helped a lot, but also confused me. Something in my mind told me this wasn’t normal. A newly born creature wasn’t supposed to know what I knew, or be feeling what I was feeling.

  But regardless of my confusing reality, there was no escaping the present. I had to start figuring things out. The bits of information I found helpful were my lack of levels (implying I had indeed just been born), my title being “Twiceborn” (implying this wasn’t my first birth), and my “tamer” being named Meebur (implying the names in this place were very silly). I focused on the first two things, but if I ever found this “Meebur” I needed to ask about that name.

  And also what a “tamer” is…

  If I had really just been born, then that accounted for one birth. What about the other? I had a feeling the text box could answer that.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Correct.

  Can you tell me what it means?

  That information is not available at this time.

  Great.

  At least I knew one thing: I had the ability to mentally converse with an instruction manual that didn’t want to tell me anything.

  I am much more than that.

  Prove it.

  .

  .

  .

  Nothing.

  So, I’ll have to figure out what information I can and can’t get out of this inner voice.

  But that would have to wait until I was somewhere a little safer. As empty as my head was, something told me freshly hatched animals were extremely vulnerable.

  If I was, in fact, an animal.

  Though it was difficult, I moved my limbs forward, cracking the rest of the egg. After much longer than expected, I was free of the shell and could get a better look at my surroundings. The dried branches and grass around me was in the shape of a nest. But my egg was the only one inside it. There wasn’t anything or anyone else.

  Who built this nest? Shouldn't there be parents or something here to watch over me?

  I walked towards the edge of the nest, only then noticing that I had four limbs. At this time, I couldn’t tell which were arms and which were legs, but through the use of all four I was able to climb across the branches and grass. The nest wasn’t in a tree or atop a mound or in a house. It was at the edge of a river within a forest of dark green trees and beneath a bright blue sky. Just like one I would have seen back home-

  Home.

  I had a home once. I used to live somewhere. There was a time before the egg.

  Where was that? How did I end up here? My mind felt so foggy, I could barely remember a thing. Not my name, not where I was from, nothing. But I could tell there was information somewhere in my mind. Maybe one day it would come back to me.

  But for now, I had to focus.

  My eyes were still pretty weak, so I could make out colors more than anything else around me. The forest was mostly green, with shades of yellows and purples that looked like grasses or fruits. And the more I looked up at the sky, the less familiar it seemed. It was blue, but slightly different than the blue I expected. It was closer to green than blue, and even the clouds felt wrong to me for some reason.

  Everything felt off.

  Which got me thinking about myself. There was something seriously off about me too. Well, there were many things off about me and this situation, but I honed in on one in particular.

  Ummm, mysterious text box? I thought.

  Yes.

  The text box appeared.

  Why don’t I have a species?

  In this world, the species of monsters are chosen when they become Level 1.

  The species is determined based on numerous environmental and experiential factors.

  I clicked away from the text box with the blink of an eye. I could worry about level one when I got there. For now, I had to figure out what to do next. My eyes were getting stronger by the minute, and what was once a blurry river was starting to clear up.

  Immediately I looked down at the water. I saw what I assumed to be my reflection. I was…a black blob with legs. That was the best way to describe it. I couldn’t even tell if I had skin, scales, or if I was just a mound of sludge. The only specific details were two yellow, glowing eyes in what I assumed was my head.

  I didn’t always look like this, was the first thing that came to mind. Although only for a second, an image flashed in my head. It also had two eyes. But it stood on two legs, with two arms, one head, a mouth, two ears…I couldn’t remember everything, but I knew that it was a memory of me. Of who I was before I became this thing. The title “Twiceborn” was starting to become clearer to me.

  How did I get here? I thought and looked up to get a better view at where I was. My eyes were almost fully adjusted to being outside of the egg. However, when I saw what was across the river, I suddenly wished to be blind.

  I was right that there was no one around I could consider my “parents”.

  But I was not alone.

  With my eyes better able to see, I noticed that there were at least a dozen other nests just like mine. But unlike mine, they didn’t have a newly born, formless monster in them.

  They were all empty.

  And in the nest just across the thin river from me, I saw why.

  I saw a massive bird that looked to be made of pure darkness, with black claws for feathers, a beak of knife-like sharpness, and four eyes of the pure white only a predator has when it finally catches its next meal. Its head was tilted back like its neck was broken, and in between its beak was an egg. An egg that was the same golden color as mine. In the time it took me to realize where the eggs of the other nests went, the monstrous bird swallowed what could have just as easily been me.

  And then it turned to look in my direction.

  Right into my tiny, yellow eyes.

  I’m not sure I’m going to be seeing level one.

  That is looking unlikely.