Chapter 2

That first lizard lasted me for two days after which I ended up itchy and peeling with shed skin and by the time I was done shedding I had grown to their size and weight with even an increase in the length of my tusks after having swallowed theirs whole like a snake. I did not initially think the tusks were actually edible or even nutritious in any way, but leaving such combustible objects as magnesium blocks lying around my niche of the cove seemed to be the ingredients to a recipe for danger considering how all of us could spit sparks. Unlike myself, however, the other lizards did not eat the heads and tusks of their fellows and with my new size and strength I was one of the largest lizards in the cove that others feared and thus I was left alone to gather up the tusks strewn about the rocky cove.

Most of the smaller tusks I ate because they seemed to satisfy my hunger to some extent, but the largest of the magnesium growths I gathered in a tidal pool where the water would protect them from the sparks of other lizards while I stockpiled my own source of food. After my first full week as a lizard eating parts from other lizards' kills I shed once more, but this time the scales that had grown up from under the previous set were a metallic gray like the tusks I had been eating unlike the same slate color as the other lizards in the area. As well as my new coloring and patterning, I had developed pits and pockets in around my mouth and throat into which I experimentally stored magnesium flakes and powder made by carefully clawing tusks apart and position with my tongue while fearfully avoiding my actual teeth.

The pockets in the roof of my mouth and around my throat were constantly compacted around their contents as my body moved or my jaw was worked in the process of hunting and eating, which constantly created more room for magnesium deposits but after a while just eating the tusks stopped satisfying my hunger which required actual proteins and nutrients. Because I had not shed in several days of constant consumption, I decided it was time to once again kill a member of my new species and set about stalking through the cracks and crevasses of the cove in search of somebody to eat who was even larger than I was. The lizard I finally came across near the back of the cove was over a foot long like a monitor lizard and even taller than I was, making them more of a threat than a meal despite the fact that they were immediately on the defensive at the sight of me approaching their sunning rock.

Putting my previous efforts to the test, I withdraw a wad of compressed magnesium from the roof of my mouth with my prehensile tongue and coil the tongue in my mouth like a snake would coil its body with the magnesium bullet held tightly at the tip. The other lizard never stood a chance against my surprise attack, launching the ball of flammable metal straight forward for over three feet of distance through my teeth that were opened just enough to scrape the surface of the magnesium and cause a cascade of metallic sparks that ignite the bullet with thousands of degrees of white hot fire. My prey was struck broadside in the ribs with enough force to shove them from their rock with a squeal of claws scraping on slate, burning into their body so quickly that the magnesium wad broke apart into a spray of tiny flames that washed over the lizard and surrounding area. From there, it was a simply matter of closing the distance to the wounded reptile where I quickly chewed into the back of their neck to finish the kill.

As much as I hated to admit it, lizard meat was satisfying, whether because of the cannibalistic biology I now possessed or because of my previously strict diet of just magnesium I could not tell and did not want to consider. This lizard only lasted for a full day before it had disappeared into my stomach, and from there it only took another full day of digestion before I began shedding again, but by the time my body had refreshed itself I was now the biggest reptile in the cove from which all of the other lizards ran and hid out of instinctive fear. Because of my new ability to spit fireballs of burning metal, I was not overly worried about hunting for food other than the lizards, but the only other things in the area to eat were the large birds who nested around the top of the slate formation and their ability to fly made them dangerous.

From previous attempts at scouting the nests around the cove I knew that the birds shared large nests in groups for sleeping and egg security so singling out any single bird would be a challenge, but the fact that I was now capable of utilizing fire meant that I could set a nest of kindling twigs and leaves ablaze to scare off the birds and leave their eggs unprotected or just kill the birds in the nest as they were. However, getting close enough to shoot a nest with magnesium was probably going to be as hard as actually fighting a bird on its own because there were always sentries in one nest or in another nest located nearby. Luckily for me, the birds were all diurnal and spent their nights asleep in the relative safety of the cliffs where only we little reptiles- their food- could reach them.

My plans were put to the test two days after my most recent shedding when magnesium once again stopped satisfying my hunger, leading me to scale the inside of the cove where numerous cracks and tunnels in the rock allowed for light or wind to pass through but were still small enough to keep the hawk-like raptors from being able to reach me. The rocky walls of my current hiding place were uncomfortably cold and wet from lack of exposure to sunlight, but I had no choice but to remain hidden after the sun had set until I was sure that the birds in nearby nests were all safely asleep. Even though my vision was now a monochromatic fuzziness because of my reptilian eyes that was almost blind in the dark, I also possessed a subconscious infrared thermography from all the way around my head which allowed me to pick up the heat signatures of my prey sleeping in their group nests.

My claws were noisier on the slate than I would have liked as I slowly crawled toward the closest cluster of heat signatures who rendered one another indistinguishable by proximity, scraping and scuffing here and there as I climbed up and down uneven areas of rock or up sheer faces until I was finally perched above the closest nest with the next grouping of threats over ten yards away. Readying a magnesium bullet in my mouth while adjusting my entire head to aim down into the middle of the press of bodies, I tighten the coil of my tongue and open my mouth to launch the magnesium passed my teeth with a sudden burst of sparks that ignite the bullet into a ball of destabilizing white fire. My prey awoke with the brightness of sparks illuminating the area, blinding my primary vision that was already blinded by the cloudy night sky, but even as they began cawing and crying out in alarm it was too late to avoid the wad of fire that struck down among them and their eggs with a sudden flare of of light and heat as wood and feathers ignited.

Burning bodies flapped into the air only to scatter and fall down about the rocks and even bounce all of the way down to the ground a few hundred feet away, their dying exclamations and light drawing alarmed cries from all about the cove and cliffs as they took to the air to circle about and survey the area. The heat of the burning nest felt warm and welcoming like sunlight on a dry slab of stone as I approached the closest smoldering body, its own heat little more than a bright light to my thermography as I picked an area on its body that was not burning to start chewing on. One of the other birds tried to land nearby and investigate the now dimly burning scene, but a second magnesium bullet to the chest from where I hid behind my current meal was all it took to send the raptor tumbling from the cliffs as well as instill the fear of death in the others.

The eggs of the nest were broken from the inside out after they had cooked and expanded, many of them with partially developed bodies of infantile birds who I vaguely regretted killing until I realized their crunchy texture only increased the flavors of my new meal. Some distant part of my mind that retained its original humanity told me that I had turned into a monster as I finished the first of several hatchlings, filling my stomach almost to the point of bursting after having already eaten my way to the other bird's heart, but the urge to eat was so overwhelmingly strong that I could easily ignore my outrage at committing infanticide. I was almost too fat to squeeze back into the tunnel I had arrived from to reenter the safety of the cove, but my reptilian body easily collapsed inward on itself to squirm into the rock until it widened out into a space large enough to consider a cavern to my body where I curled up to sleep.

The raptors did not seem to have the same appreciation or desire for cannibalism as the other lizards which allowed me to eat from the ruined nest for several days before the food had rotted too much even for my reptilian digestive system to handle, but by then it was once again time to shed and grow which left me several inches too big to continue using the same tunnel and cavern as before. Just as eating made me larger and consuming magnesium has changed the composition of my skin and scales, it seemed that eating the birds also made changes in my physiology such as the growths of small feathers crowning my head and face and shoulders while also sprouting hollow quills from the end of my tail to form a club-like weapon. Now that I had grown too large for the previous tunnel and cavern and my original hunts had spoiled, I was forced to find a new route through the cove to reach the upper cliffs and find a new nest to burn for my next supple of food that died in the same blazing glory as the last.

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