The Unknown

Cold. Bleary consciousness stirred as my physical discomfort grew. I turned over, curling into a tight ball. Still, it was far too cold!

"Someone should turn the AC down." I thought drowsily to myself.

Turning over again I instinctively reached for my fleece blanket. There was no blanket. There was... nothing?! My eyes flew open and were met with empty darkness. My arms and hands flailed in all directions contacting nothing where a bed and blanket should be. But my rapid arm movements were slowed by a heavy viscous fluid.

Fluid?! Strangely thick ooze engulfed and slowed my movements. It felt like fighting against a current or being caught in honey.

"I'm floating?!" I held my breath reflexively as my mind jolted fully awake. A nightmare vision of me being trapped in amber like an ancient mosquito darted through my mind. A moment later I remembered. I had been on a road trip with friends.

"What is this??? Where am I? Am I under water? Have I been thrown from a vehicle?" I flailed around. There was no sign of the car. Normally I wore my seat belt, so how could I end up alone in the water? Also I didn't recall our car careening toward a lake! I tried to remember while feeling around, my arms outstretched in the gooey darkness.

My fingertips brushed a smoothly curving wall. It surrounded me on all sides with just enough space for me to reach my arms out. But this surface had no door or seams. How was that possible? It made no sense. Yet it seemed as if I'd been sealed into a perfectly smooth capsule.

"It's something out of a sci-fi thriller." I thought with a shiver. Abduction, then waking up in a strange trap of unknown origin. Could it be aliens? Or worse... Psychos torturing me for their entertainment?

"What horrible games or deadly labyrinths lay ahead? Will I be tested or dissected? Or am I going to suffocate in this pod?" My thoughts raced while my lungs ached for air.

"How did this happen?" I desperately held my breath while my throat and lungs burned from effort. My heart beat pounded in my ears while I beat my fist on the wall. I tried to calm myself and felt along the surface again. The curved capsule was a made of a strange material.

"It's not metal, or glass, it feels organic like bone or almost like…"

My mouth went dry and I suddenly exhaled in shock then reflexively breathed in. I expected to choke, but the fluid was welcoming. My breathing returned to normal and my heart rate slowed.

"It's almost like an egg?" I shook my head in confusion, the liquid swirled lazily around me. That made even less sense. But it was a curved and elongated space and I floated in a dense fluid which suspended me comfortably and allowed my body to respirate optimally. It was the strangest sensation I had ever experienced, and yet, deep within myself, it felt right. This was home.

"Okay, what do I know?" I tried to focus, shaking my head again trying to clear my thoughts. But my mind still felt oddly dim and jumbled.

My two best friends had insisted on a road trip. We had stopped to get snacks and bottled drinks. I got my favorite snacks (a strawberry popsicle and cheese puffs for later) and sparkling fruit juice. I was walking back to the car when I looked up from my phone to see a big box truck backing toward me--!? No way! Now I'm here?

"Did the truck hit me? Is this a coma? Or is this cutting edge hospital care? Am I dead? If I'm dead, is this heaven or hell? the afterlife? The great collective unconscious? Why am I trapped? In a--" again my brain refused to accept the strange reality. I felt my anxiety growing and a wave of denial rose up in response. It wasn't possible. It couldn't be an egg! Could it? I felt hysterical laughter crawling up my throat and fought it down.

Instead I reached out and rasped one of my nails down the wall's hard surface. No mistaking it. The material was too rough to be glass and too smooth for stone. Something about the texture and an innate sense within informed me it was an egg.

"Why am I stuck in an egg?" It was surreal.

Nothing I've ever heard about myriad afterlives from dozens of religions included being trapped in an egg! Even Isekai began after waking up in a game avatar or a cursed noble or a desperate soul sorely in need of revenge.

"This makes no sense." I thought. So I must be in a coma. This nightmare was from being hit in the head with a large truck.

I paused suddenly. Something about my nail itself seemed odd, now that I thought about it. A chill of frisson crept up my spine and a shudder passed through my shoulders. I felt my nails with the tips of my other fingers. It was a talon, curved and sharp. It wasn't a human nail at all!

"OkayThisIsIsn'tRealJustAVeryBadNightmare." My thoughts jumbled together. That's right. Maybe one of my smartass friends pulled a terrible prank with drugs or something? Not that I've ever taken them on purpose. I'm boring and work too hard according to friends. If this is a prank they're going to get a piece of my mind when I wake up! The jerks! Sealing me up in a mystery fluid in a perfectly smooth elongated sphere...

"Wait! That's right. That's totally impossible. So this has to be a bad dream. I should just relax." I closed my eyes firmly and tried to do a five minute meditation that had made studying less stressful back in college. I floated motionless and started to calm my mind.

[COLD Status Applied.] A voiceless message blurted into my mind interrupting my meditation.

What? Around me alarms started going off. Clearly something catastrophic was happening. All around me the *Eep! Eep! Eep!* of alarms furiously chirped. The beeping almost reminded me of the backing alarm of the last truck I saw. Wait, those aren't alarms...those are voices!

"Hey is someone there?" I meant to say. "Cheep! Eep!" I squealed in shock. Wait, squeak? I snarled. It was a tiny, vicious sound, like an angry kitten. Kittens don't hatch from eggs though!

Duh, Captain Obvious!

But holding onto the obvious was the only thread of reason left as bewilderment overwhelmed me. I felt nearly delirious between my confusion, the alarmed cries, and growing grogginess from the growing chill.

"Okay but what hatches from eggs, has four legs, claws, and squeaks?" I wondered. It sounded like the start of a Dad Joke. "Can a Platypus squeak and snarl? Am I a platypus? Wait do I have a tail? Questions I never thought I'd ask myself…" I focused a moment and behind me a stubby tail swung slowly through the egg ooze.

If only I could see! I wracked my brain. Claws, tail, and egg. Turtle? Lizard? But those don't make any sounds, right? Baby alligators and crocodiles make high pitched sounds. That assumed it was something normal. But why should I assume that? None of this is normal! What if I really have been reborn… I could be in the past or an entirely different reality? What about a dinosaur or–

"Momma where are you?" I recognized the voice. It was my nest mate in the egg beside me. "Mom I'm cold!" Cried another squeaking egg. The cold was becoming agonizing.

[You are slowly taking damage from the cold.] A voiceless message flatly informed me.

We're going to die. I realized. Whatever we are, our mother has been gone too long. The nest is abandoned. The eggs are going cold. The flurry of alarm peeps was slowing.

We're dying!