Warmth. Darkness. The void sucked me in like a vacuum. I was hypnotized by it, and clung to it fiercely. But the solemn silence was interrupted by the faint chirping of birds, and the howling wind crashing against something nearby as though I sat within a car during a tornado.

I shifted in the black, kicking a foot out to stretch. Tap.

My foot touched… a wall? I slid my foot down the blockade, trying to feel what it was, without opening my sealed eyes. Scraaaaape. My toes trailed down the wall, a muted, yet distorted sound coming back to my ears.

There was something around my bed. But the blanket of warmth surrounding me was so… enticing. I was enraptured by the warm liquid encasing me.

Wait.

Liquid?

Still refusing to open my eyes, I reached my hands out, stretching them beyond my head, reaching into the distance, stretching so far I could… tap.

Once again, I touched a wall. Frantically, I ran my hands along the wall, feeling for whatever was around my nice, warm, enthralling bed. Scraaaaape.

Now my eyes shot open.

But everything was still dark.

Fear coursed through me as I realized that my room was never pitch black. Monitors, consoles, even my soundbar glowed faintly at all times, and provided me with the slightest illumination.

Something was wrong.

Did we lose power? Why were the walls so close? And why did I feel like I was… swimming?

I gasped. And I choked.

Desperately, I flailed, kicking the walls, digging away at the liquid with my hands. Pop!

Cool air rushed into my warm prison, and I inhaled, gasping furiously.

No longer was I comfortable, floating in this container. No. I needed out.

I began to slam on the walls.

“Help!” I screamed, but my voice sounded off. “Help me!”

I pounded my fists against the walls, kicking with my feet, slamming against the prison until… crack!

Yes! I’d done it! Light rushed into my little unfamiliar room, and the wind and birds grew louder. I closed my eyes against the burning light, and pressed a hand out of the cracked hole, grasping its edges and pulling away at them. More light rushed in, and I could only see the yellow brightness, even through my closed eyelids.

The hole grew ever wider as I pulled away at it, and with a resounding crackle, the top half of my room was torn away.

I covered my eyes with a hand, barely squinting as I opened them, letting them adjust to this insane difference.

The first thing I noticed was the scales.

“What?” I tried to say, but instead, merely a squawk echoed out of my mouth. I looked down, to where my normal unhealthy human body should be, but instead, a tiny, frail chest covered in tan scales lead down to thicker legs, and pointed toes tipped with vicious claws. And I was covered in goo.

Suddenly, a blue menu appeared before my eyes, covering my vision, but remaining transparent enough that I could still see.

Congratulations! You have survived as an egg and hatched!

You are now a [Frail Baby Dino].

Many walks of life are open to you now, through [Evolution], so choose wisely.

What?

There were so many things wrong with what the message said that I couldn’t even focus. I’d been born? And a dino?

Then again, as I looked through the message at my thin body, and the box faded away, I could see a thin tail wrapping its way around my leg, and my protruding muzzle only made the situation even clearer.

I was no longer human.

I was, in fact, a dinosaur. Some kind of theropod with a stubby nose and a skinny body.

I should probably explain who I was, before all this happened, before I suddenly awakened inside of what I now realized was an egg, and burst open into the unfamiliar new world, filled with life I probably knew nothing about.

Well, my life was pretty standard, and it shouldn’t come as anything extremely interesting to anybody, since it’s a story of life well traversed, and many would be familiar with the details.

I was a gamer. Yeah, just that sentence itself well describes everything about my life, wouldn’t you say? You can already picture it perfectly, I’m sure. My room, that is.

Three monitors decorated the table I had set up in my small room, though some might not consider the laptop connected to the PC to be a monitor. But it was.

I’d maxxed out the build of my computer, when I ordered parts throughout the seventeen months I worked my job, putting money away as my mother insisted, and spending the rest on parts that I would, eventually, fully assemble.

When I did, boy, did my life straight upgrade.

Instead of just using that hand-me-down laptop for the simple games I could play, or spending all my time on my console, I now had access to the infinite world of the PC gamer.

I’ll never shame a console gamer, of course, since I spent the majority of my life as one. There are pros and cons to both, after all, but being able to run some of the filthiest games imaginable, on the most disgusting graphics settings, and suffer no lag? Wow. These, by the way, are good adjectives, meant to describe my build in a positive way.

When I wasn’t gaming? I guess I was occasionally reading some stories online, or hanging with a couple close friends. Mostly pulled to the computer after school, my free time was usually eaten up by the games.

Dang, some of those games.

After I’d constructed the beast of a machine, I must’ve spent at least a thousand more dollars simply pimping out my characters in various games, and recently I’d seen an ad for a new game that caught my interest.

The artwork was filled with fairies, and I’d never have told anybody at school about it, but when I accidentally clicked it, I ended up reading the description, and being quite entertained by it, so I ordered it.

Well, guess I’ll never get to play that one.

I wriggled out of the egg, trying in vain to rub the goo that must’ve been yolk off of my body. It was disgusting, and creatures ate this stuff? No way.

I glanced around at the immediate vicinity, absorbing the details of the forest since my eyes had fully adjusted to the light, and saw a river.

That’ll get ‘er done! I thought, stumbling towards it as I relearned how to walk with my new build. The tail helped balance me out, since the weight of my head and build of my spine seemed to want me to naturally tilt forwards as I moved.

My eyes shone with fascination and wonder as I watched my body sway as it moved. The tail swung back and forth on its own, while my hands hung limply from my rigid arms.

I swallowed some saliva that had built up in my mouth, and ran my new tongue across my sharp teeth. It was long and thick, and after some experimentation, I found I could almost reach my eye with the pointed end.

I reached the flowing river, which lazed slowly through the windy wood, and stared down into the clear water. Mossy stones sat piled atop one another merely a foot or two down, and small fish darted between the cracks.

Never one to waste any time, I leapt into the water, splashing about with my big flat feet.

“Woohoo!” I cheered, though it sounded like a feeble attempt to roar.

I rolled through the river, cleaning myself off, and watching as the greenish goo washed away into the distance. My stomach growled in protest of my actions, clearly upset that I hadn’t defaulted to the norm.

The growl grew louder, though my stomach stopped vibrating. I frowned, looking up, and directly into the eyes of a massive monster.