Chapter 1

"Huh?"

My heart thumped in my chest as my entire body ached

"Where the hell am I?"

I questioned myself as I tried to regain my consciousness, my mind was in too much pain to remember anything.

My memory was foggy as I tried to recall everything that happened but as my vision eventually cleared and my five senses returned I started to smell fresh greenery.

I slowly inhaled and exhaled the humid air and heard water falling and birds chirping like I was in the middle of a forest.

As my senses started fully recovering I noticed I was lying down in dirt and grass of the earth and slowly tried to stand as I pushed up from the floor and sat up, my senses heightening holding on to the now moist dirt and emerald-colored grass on the ground as I regain my balance from the ever-spinning world.

I cast the thoughts of how I got here aside as I try to figure out where the hell I am at first, It took me a while to make myself fully stand up, aching with pain all over as I tried, but as soon as I succeeded I smelt a putrid smell that made me instantly want to vomit.

"Ew"

I looked down at my small body and scrunched my nose in disgust, gagging immediately, there was a weird black substance leaking from my every pore, it was falling from my arms, face, chest, and legs, extracting slowly from my body and making a disgusting wretched smell.

Wait what the..

small body?

' when the hell did I become this tiny? '

I thought as I completely disregarded the nasty smell.

My heart beat violently as I wondered what the hell was happening, I looked at my hands that were many times tinier than normal and took a deep breath, one eye open in anticipation to what's to come.

I took a peek and opened my pants to look at my little brother, not knowing whether to laugh or cry as I saw it, all in its tiny glory.

"Have I turned into a dwarf!?"

I cry out loud in indignation to the heavens with outrage, but quickly forget that thought as I spotted a small pond in my peripheral vision to the left of me and smelt the familiar god forbidden smell at the same time.

I needed to clean this disgusting smell off of me as soon as possible,

that was my only thought as the vomit-inducing smell quickly assaulted my nose in an even more pronounced fashion.

I quickly ran to the small pond and jumped in, having a little trouble getting used to this new and tiny body as I slightly and continuously tripped over myself on the way there, but I seemed much faster than usual, crossing several meters each step like I was in a zero-gravity environment, except had more control.

Splash

a small splash sounded out as I chuckled self deprecatingly, putting the thought of why I moved so much quicker to the back of my mind,

a small splash for a small figure

sigh...

some memories eventually returned to my mind as I resurfaced from the water and wiped my small body clean, but the memories were jumbled about in different sequences, A strange young but also old man giving me a vial to drink, a guy barging into a bedroom with a gun, a beautiful girl that sported a terrified expression at the gun, and a dragon necklace, these random glimpses of memories made me even more confused as they seemed to be randomly jumbled about with no specific pattern, I instinctively reached toward my chest and clutched a cold and heavy necklace, I exclaimed in surprise at the unfamiliar feeling and turned the necklace over to look at it, confused

Zero

It was an icy cold Platinum colored rectangular necklace with only the word "Zero" which was surprisingly my name, perfectly and intricately engraved onto the center of it.

"This isn't the Dragon Necklace I remembered from my previous memory..." I thought out-loud before feeling a burning sensation on my chest and arm that seemed to be reminding me or telling me of something, I quickly removed my soaked shirt and looked down towards my bare chest in shock.

There, a beautifully sculpted tattoo that was not there before appeared, a blood-red and dark abyss multi-colored dragon with armored scales and a massively long body and a fierce mouth full of sharp fangs greeted my eyes.

The tattoo looked stunning and the dragon's tail and body went from the back of my left hand up to my left forearm, arm, and finally ending by circling its magnificent scaled body on my chest, it's fierce-some and beautiful scales shining with splendor.

I remembered this was the exact dragon that was on the Dragon Necklace in my memories except it was not a necklace anymore, it engraved itself into my body as a tattoo!

I reached my small fingers curiously toward the newly formed tattoo and felt the outline of it, it felt mystical, and hot like it was alive, every scale felt like real ones like what I would imagine a dragon scale to feel like. I became even more confused at how this was even possible.

Newly 3D Printed Tattoos?

A Dream?

A symptom of some sort of illness that made me hallucinate?

Whatever I came up with seemed further out of reach every single time, I just decided not to think too much at this point.

As I finished cleaning myself from the nasty black substance extracting itself from my body, I get the amazing idea to look at my reflection from the pond that was reflecting the beaming rays of sunlight.