After Amity told Staash and Kora a tale of how she encountered a small white dragon and how she raised him until he was a solar dragon was… interesting. There were way more city destruction, nation of orcs slayed and pure chaos than I remember, but the overall story was exactly what happened a week ago. While she was telling the story I was looking around the room.

Jana was in a corner near the entrance, trying too hard to blend in with the wall. I approached her, but she didn’t notice me as she was basically staring at the two giant dragons in the other side of the room that were completely focused on Amity and her story.

“Hey…” I said as I approached. Hearing my sudden voice made her almost jump as she turned her head towards me.

“Sorry, I didn’t want to scare you” I said.

"I-It 's alright. I’m still processing everything that happened until now. The death of the person I thought was a benevolent sage, the truth that we were nothing but a social experiment, her and… three dragons, two of which could level my house to the ground with their weights alone” Jana said as she slowly let her feet slip and sat on the floor.

“My whole life was thrown through the window…” She snapped her fingers. “Like this”

“I know how you feel” I said, sitting next to her. A small part of me thought about how we looked like a person and her ‘dog’.

“Do you? I’m sorry, but do you really know? because even if the story I’m listening from Amity over there is exaggerated a thousand times over, you are only a week old. How could you know what it is like to have your entire life turned upside down, how it is to have everything that you believed shatter like broken glass right in front of you?” Jana confronted me.

I sighed and looked Jana dead in the eyes. My face probably was scary as she looked at me and averted her gaze after a few moments.

“She left an important detail out of the story” I said. “Yes, I’m only a week old… in this body”

Jana looked back at me with a confused look before I continued to speak.

“My name was Marcos, I was a human living in a different world, literally. I was just eighteen years old going to school when my entire class vanished without a trace, leaving only this… this crack in the universe, I don’t know how else to explain” I told her. “I didn’t fall on it immediately as I wasn’t directly on top of it, but it spread and caught my feet. Everything from my ankle below was suddenly missing and I fell on the ground, then the crack spread beneath me and I fell. That was the last thing I remember before waking up inside of an egg”

I looked at Amity, still telling her amazing story of how she fought against a time trap and killed Faroh.

“I lost everything, my friends, my life, my family… heck, I even lost my entire world” I turned back towards Jana. “I know how it is to lose everything, because I lost everything too”

Jana just stared at me silently with her mouth open.

“I-I didn’t…” She spoke after ten long seconds.

“It’s alright, there wasn’t a reason to tell anyone about this, really. Even Amity isn’t telling those two about how I reincarnated in this world” I told her.

She looked at the smooth stone floor of the room, the marks of melting rock were clearly visible across all the room, probably from the red dragon melting this place to open up space.

“How do you…” She asked, but I interrupted her before she could finish.

“Cope with everything? I don't… It’s just… I never had time to really think about this, you know? Since I was born in this world something after something just kept happening. I keep being thrown into these situations where I don’t know what’s happening and have to think how I should act or respond in that instant or else…” I took a deep breath and sighed. “I’m in a different world from mine. Magic is real, monsters are real… I’m a freaking dragon for fucks sake… If you looked up the definition of “lost” and “afraid” I would be the top results you’d have found”

I looked at the floor as well. My mind was drifting about everything I kept pushing back since I woke up in the Dharnas Forest. I didn’t know what happened to my friends that vanished in that light, were they safe? Were they in danger? What about my family? What happened to that crack after I was devoured by it? Did it keep growing and ended up destroying the whole world? The two creatures I killed, I will never forget their dying screams.

My mind went back to the dungeon and the man that I killed. His pleading eyes, his face… They are forever burned in my memory. A thought crossed my mind, I never learned his name… I killed him and I didn’t even know his name. The black lion in that timeless place did say a name, but was it his name?

A cold sensation and the sound of water evaporating brought me back to reality and I saw Jana hugging my neck with her arms covered in a thick layer of water that was rapidly boiling and evaporating.

She smiled sadly as she looked at my face.

“You looked like you needed a hug” She said to me.

“...Thanks. I really needed it” I said as I let some of my worries drift away, carried along with the steam coming from the water on Jana’s arms.

I am in a different world, I can’t be the same person I was back on Earth. But I also can’t abandon all my humanity. Zenshin already told me about killing because I need and killing because I want. I won’t become a killing machine that feels satisfaction from taking a person’s life, no, I will only take another one’s life when there is literally no other way. Zenshin already told me monsters aren’t considered people and that they kill just because they can. I’ll become stronger so I’m not just tossed around like an extra in an action movie that needs to be rescued all the time. I’ll live the life I haven’t been able to live on Earth in this new world. I’ll make new friends and will never forget the ones I’ve left behind

Just as I steeled my will to live in this world, Staash approached me and Jana.

“So, you are a solar dragon, huh? That means you can use a fire breath, right?” He said, stunning Jana as she was not expecting the big red dragon to walk so close to us like that.

“Y-yeah, I guess I can use something like that” I answered as Jana pulled her arms back, freeing me from her hug.

“Amazing! I always wanted to have another fire dragon friend. Those pricks always made fun of me because of my race” He told me.

“What race are you…If you don’t mind me asking” I asked curiously.

“Ha, don’t worry, I don’t mind. I am a Fire Drake and my sister is an Ice Drake” He said with a laugh.

Wingless dragons and their species is “drake”... strangely similar to how we categorize dragons in fictions on Earth, weird.

“So… why do other dragons make fun of you just because of you being a Fire Drake?” I asked again.

“Oh, you really were born a week ago, weren’t you? I thought Amity was exaggerating” He spoke and I answered his question with a nod. “Well, ok. Dragon society is kind of separated into castes. Elemental dragons are on the bottom of it, and as we’re drakes, no wings in draconic language, we are at the bottom of the bottom, just short of wyverns”

I listened to his explanation carefully, trying to see how the dragon society works, but I had too little information to work with. I was about to ask more when he spoke again.

“But enough of speaking about that. Come outside, I want to see how strong is your fire breath” He said as he began walking towards the exit.

I was left there, looking at his figure walking in the low angle ramp we passed to enter this room-like cave. His sister came soon after.

“Don’t worry about him, if you let him burn through his energy and excitement he’ll calm down quickly. Now, let’s not keep him waiting” She said as she also walked towards the outside.

I watched the two of them walk away as I felt Amity’s hand patting me and walking away too. I looked at Jana, but she just shrugged after she got herself together again. With no other choice left, I followed them outside.