CHAPTER 1: Hatching.

Surrounded by darkness the young creature slightly moved in his trance like dream.

Suddenly the creature awoke. Completely emerged in some fluid the creature begun to panic. Even in this confused state it did not take long for him to find the shell.

After instinctively slamming his horns against the Shell he could see how the first cracks of light appeared. With this new motivation he now tried to tear open the shell with his tiny hands.

Suddenly he felt how the round object he was trapped in rolled over. Yet this did not stop him. He first managed to get one of his arms out, then the other, and then the crack was large enough for him to completely go through.

Completely exhausted he dragged himself out of the grey egg that he had formerly found himself in. he let out a high-pitched squeal whilst catching his first breath.

It took a little while for his eyes to adjust to the light. Even though it was dim, in comparison to the inside of the egg it was extremely bright.

When he looked around, he saw that he was in some sort of large nest stretching out until the point that a large rock wall blocked his view. The entire area was basically shaped like a large bowl.

The nest itself consisted of large black and red veins that had spurted out of the ground at seemingly random places. Along all of these veins were eggs placed as if to protect them from the outside world. One could find some half rotting carcasses scattered around the nest. Since this was seemingly not the first time that this place was used most of the ground probably consisted of a mixture of this rotten flesh and old egg fluid as well.

Now after he had the chance to catch his breath he turned around and ate the remnants of the egg that he just hatched out of.

After he had sated his hunger, he found that his thoughts were a little clearer.

Then he realised something. It was a name, a name that perfectly described the way he was now. He found this odd and tried to translate it to sounds he could make. To his idea that would surely help him to make sense of the mere existence of the name. yet when he realised which sounds belonged to which aspect of the name, there was suddenly another part added to it.

Since this name described his true and entire being it would naturally grow alongside him. And the mere realisation of that he had this name resulted in a small growth in his being and thus his name.

Finding this slightly annoying he just chose a random aspect of his name to call himself. Which was Sirin.

Sirin happily wagged his long thin tail from side to side after successfully making his first decision for himself.

He naturally wanted to meet others to see if they had been able to do so as well. But to his displeasure the other eggs had yet to hatch.

In his impatience he decided to just approach a random egg and open it. After all, what was the worst that could happen?

But when he wanted to walk over to the closest egg, he nearly tripped.

Looking down at his legs he saw that he out of nowhere had become digitigrade. Which was odd since he could have sworn that he was plantigrade when he had just hatched.

Then as simple as if it was just taking a breath, he suddenly managed to change his legs back to how they were before.

Slightly horrified by this ability he wanted to open up one of the other eggs even more. Even if just to see if the other hatchlings could do the same.

Using the sharp claws on his small hand Sirin easily managed to open the egg. He found that it was a little unfair that he had struggled so much to hatch out of his own egg only to easily break the next one open from the outside.

But that was not what mattered right now. Wat mattered now was to see what his supposed sibling looked like. When he had fully opened the egg, he was shocked to see that this creature looked nothing like him.

This one was red with four black horns, and it didn't even have a tail. In contrast to this Sirin was bone white with random black stripes covering his entire body and a long thin tail.

How could it be that he looked so different from the other creature that came from the same nest?

Of course, the creature was furious after being forcefully awakened and hatched. It immediately tried to attack that thing it saw standing in front of it.

But Sirin did not care about the anger of the hatchling and pulled it out of its egg and slammed its head against one of the dark red veins.

He felt justified in his actions. He had only tried to see what his sibling looked like. It was the choice of said sibling to attack him.

At the moment the creature died something seemed to be present inside its body.

Sirin curiously stretched out his hand and tried to grab the floating sphere that seemed to originate from his sibling. Despite the fact that it was glowing the colour of the object itself was dark.

To his surprise Sirin found that even tough the object looked somewhat ethereal he could easily grab it. Here it danced like a dark round flame in his hand.

"A soul?"

This was the first thing that came to his mind.

Partially driven by instinct, but mainly by curiosity. He stuffed into his mouth.

With it being the first thing, he ate in his entire life he naturally thought that it was delicious.

After enjoying the aftertaste, he started to wander over the nest. Eventually the other eggs started to hatch. Therefore, he climbed on the edge of the nest to watch.

But he was only faced with disappointment. None of the new hatchlings looked like him. Tough some had tails and stripes as well he could not find another one that was completely lacking colour like him. And to top it off all of them were needlessly fighting and killing each other. Even if he basically did the same thing, he found that his kill was justified.

Then he suddenly realised something. He should have parents, right? Maybe if he could find them, he would be able to find out why he looked so different from his siblings.

However, when he looked around, he could not find any lifeform that remotely resembled him or his siblings. Even after letting out a high-pitched cry nothing like him appeared.

Incredibly disappointed he climbed out of the nest. In the end it did not really matter what he was he could form his own identity.