Memorable Moment: First Breath, First Sight

Suddenly, they needed to breathe. 

They didn't really know what that was, why they were, who they were, or even what they were. They hadn't even really been aware of their existence even just a moment ago...and yet, they were aware of it now. Existence was burning and yet…at the same time, oddly cold. No. Their body was burning. They didn't know what arms, legs, or a chest were. Didn't know anything really, but if they had, then they would have told anyone who could hear that their chest was burning as if it had caught on fire from the inside. At the same time, though, their world was cold. Horribly so. Unnaturally so. That was wrong, they were sure it hadn’t used to be that way. Had it? They were suddenly aware they could move, and the instinct within them was shouting at them to get OUT. 

So they scrambled, and scratched, and scritched. 

They discovered that something was around them. It was a wall, seemingly impregnable, containing them. 

They wiggled, writhed, and wormed. 

The world swayed back and forth, and they felt ill. The burning in their chest was getting worse. It was getting increasingly more difficult to gather the energy to move, and time seemed to lose meaning. What before seemed like single brief moments now stretched forward, feeling like years. Their movements slowed. The burning got worse. They felt the brief spark of comprehension starting to slip away even as they tried desperately to keep hold of that sense of self. They were here. They were HERE. 

THEY WERE HERE. 

A last desperate attempt at escape had them slamming their head forward against the wall, vibrations shaking them to their core even as they felt it…give. Instinctively, they shoved their nose through the small gap in the hole, and they sucked in a desperate, ragged breath. Lying still, now that they had accomplished their goal. 

Their first breath. 

Then their second, their third, their fourth. The burning in their chest faded, yet the cold remained. Slowly, they became aware that they could…smell things. Though again, they didn’t really have a name for the sense. Just instinct. And their instincts were telling them a lot of things. 

That they had a smell. Those other things had smells. 

That there had been other things here. Things like them, here. Others that smelled a lot like them…others that smelled like…more. Only a little bit like them. They weren’t here any longer. They…Jormun, they would call themselves Jormun, didn’t know how they knew this, but they knew that the others had moved on. Why was a mystery. They shouldn’t have moved on…something inside of them, their instinct, or something else was telling Jormun that they should be hearing chirping. Or small growls. They should feel warm instead of cold, and there should be a protector here. Someone, something…big. To show them what to do. 

Right? 

And yet there wasn’t. Those scents were faded, and all that remained was the cold, dry scent of what they would eventually come to recognize as sand. There was a salty tang to the air, and they could sense the dampness. One day, they would come to realize that this was the scent of the coast…the ocean. That wasn’t today, however. For now, these scents were alien and strange, and Jormun could only distinguish one from the other by comparing them to each other. Their differences and their similarities, if they had any. Some seemed to be less present than others, like the scent of “the things that were like them”. Jormun wondered if that meant those other things were gone too. 

It was cold. 

It shouldn’t be cold. 

It was cold. 

They could feel themselves fading again, and though they had accomplished their goal of breaking free, of being able to breathe, the wall of what they would one day realize had been their egg had been holding some of that cold back. Now, it was getting worse. Particularly around their face, which was….wet. They could fade. They could feel it drawing them in, and it was so so difficult to feel motivation in that moment. And yet. Their instincts were screaming at them. The same instincts that had pushed them to try and break from their egg were now sounding the alarm that they needed to break out of it completely. That they needed to find warmth. Find protector….find….mom. Find family. They dithered. They hesitated. And the longer they hesitated, the harder it seemed like it would be to actually do something. It was so much easier to rest. To fade. 

‘CRACK’

A sound, the first one they became aware of, at least. It was loud and startling, and it was CLOSE. It shot adrenaline through Jormun so hard and fast that they became aware of a second sound. 

‘THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP’

Their heart.Suddenly, resting no longer seemed like the easier option. They threw themselves forward, feeling their world rock forward, forward, forward…..before it started to slow and go back, back, back. The ill feeling returned, and yet the adrenaline pumping through Jormun, along with the thudding of their heart, was much stronger. They threw themselves forward again and once again they felt their world tilt on its axis, though this time it kept tilting and tilting. They felt their body move with it, and the wall of their egg gave as the full force of their weight slammed against it. 

They rolled. 

Eggshell clung to their legs, their tail, their head, but the majority of their former home was left behind as they tumbled forward, front over back, down a small incline. Suddenly, the world was loud. The thudding of their heart was drowned out by strange ambient sounds of various insects, the wind rustling through leaves, the scittering of small creatures, and…more distantly, the crash of waves against the shores. Again. Again, Jormun wasn’t actually identifying all of this. Simply recognizing patterns, the differences between one sound and the next, leaning into what their instincts were telling them. Their rolling didn’t actually last that long, though it felt like ages. Sand crunched beneath their body and they shook their head…opening their eyes. 

The first thing they would see would be sand. The second, the tall cliff, their nest rested atop.. The third…the horizon. Foliage stretching far far along the coastline, and the ocean hugging close to the sand lining the edges of the island. And above everything? 

Stars. 

Stars as far as the eye could see. If they made it, if they lived, that would be something Jormun would remember even if they forgot the finer details of hatching. They would remember this view. 

The cliffside jungled coast overlooked by a sea of stars stretching throughout the sky.