-- Let’s move time back a bit --

Tomorrow, tomorrow is the most eventful day in the life of any man. It’s the day most diets start. It’s when you start writing your novel. It’s when you stand up to your friends and tell them you hate them, that life sucks, sell everything and move to bahamas.

But my human tomorrow won’t come. And I don’t want to be the same snake I was. I should do what I can NOW. I mean, if you fail to do anything with yourself two lives in a row, what are the chances the third one will be the charm?! SO MOVE. 

Yes, there is a danger that I might hurt myself. But I want to know what my new body is like! How will I be able to break the shell if I don’t even know how to wag my tail? 

And what if I die again? What if I tear an undeveloped muscle? What if my heart bursts, unable to deal with pumping blood?

That’s stupid. I know that human fetuses move, shouldn’t snakes be tha same? 

I used all my willpower, and tried to feel my body. I seem longer then I thought I would be. My muscles seem formed, I can feel them slightly tensing up as I concentrate on them. The only thing left, is to move.

I caaaaaan’t.

Fear resistance: -0.05

Great. Let’s move to something more acceptable to my hikikomori soul (does it count as being a shut in, if you are inside an egg?).

Normally, being stuck in a dark soundless cell, one would loose sense of time. As always however, Status, to the rescue!

I wonder if there is any variability in time needed to hatch? What happens if someone hatches prematurely because their egg gets damaged? Hopefully I won’t find out!

Warning: Flag has been raised

Nah, kidding. 

Okay, so even ignoring the unwelcome newcomer, I need to prepare. The “curse” of telepathy is most likely going to cause a lot of problems, even kill me in the worst case scenario. I only have 10 days, so If I want to have any hope of getting a single level, it has to be one of the skills from the skill remnant list. Not only do I get bonus to the speed in which I quire them, I actually understand what they do!

The only candidates are “Meditation” and “Influence resistance”. The second one must be a result of living in a consumerist society. A skill you had to train every day, or else you would spend all your money on Ra*d Sha**w Le****s. Yay for marketing! Yay for brands! Please do not taint this fantasy world with your presence.

The only problem is, how do you train it alone? How can you actively try to resist influencing yourself?

“Have you ever had a scale problem? Are your scales getting gray and falling out? Can’t get them up? There are stains that won’t come off? How about buying our special snake oil, Snakegra Instant! Solves all your problems! ”

“No, I won’t buy it”

… yeah no way this will work. And I have else to do it, it’s like trying to get better at reading opponent in poker, while playing with open cards.

Meditation it is then. When the new headmistress decided to introduce meditation as a compulsory part of every day, both students and some stuff joked around she did it just to seem hip and trendy, or maybe she wanted to impress her handsome yoga teacher, but it very quickly became apparent that it did indeed help. The changes were subtle, but it made concentrating on stuff easier, and made many students calm down. It did have to be moved from “before classes” to “before lunch break” though, after too many cases of people just falling asleep. It sometimes happened to the Old Colonel, 80 year old history teacher, whom the students then didn’t wake up, due to the “kindness of their heart” of course.

The method I knew was very simple and kid friendly - you sit down, and imagine a colorless sphere in your abdomen. If any thoughts appear in your head, just imagine them flowing towards it. Nothing else matters but sphere. Sound and noises that annoy you? To the sphere. Emotions? To the sphere. Last minute crammed biology knowledge? To the spher… no wait! Well, you catch the drift.

Okay. Let’s think of the sphere. The sphere. The sphere.

…

…

…

---

 

Tall grass surrounded me, as I swam through it. It is a sunny day, with clear skies, perfect day to be a snake. The only thing I needed was something to eat, and so I searched for prey. 

Grass rattled somewhere on my left. I turned and tried sneaking on whatever was moving in it. I saw a small, tasty mouse. Oh how tasty it looked, and fat how it was! It will be enough to make me full for a month!

But then, from the other side, I’ve heard happy chicken chirps. Certainly, mouse is tasty, but is it better then a chicken? I only have space for one, so should I really waste my time on a small mouse, instead of eating something so much tastier?

While I was wondering what to do, the mouse finally noticed me. It jumped, got spooked and run away. Well, not that I wanted you anyway. I shall go get the chicken instead. And So I moved towards the chicken, and how nice it was. So energetic, so healthy… so fat. Yes, I shall catch and eat it. Except…

Except behind it I could see the mother hen! Why take a chicken when a thick hen is next to him! I sneaked closer and closer. Patiently moving and hiding from stone to stone. And just as I was about to jump on her, I realised there wasn’t just one! There were many! It was a nugget paradise!

Every time I find the perfect chicken, an even better one comes up! So I sneak up on it, only to change my mind again!

Finally, one of them noticed me. It started clucking loudly, spooking all chickens and making them panic. I tried catching them, but I was too hungry, I’ve been stalking them for days now searching for the perfect meal! Too hungry to even move! Suddenly I found myself on the road and then...

---

 

BWAAH! Damn it I feel asleep. And what kind of nightmare is that! I really hope there are no cars in this world.

I remembered what I was doing before, trying to train meditation, and so looked at my status.

Wait, what’s this? Mana core formation? Mana Sense?! Mana MANIPULATION?! The owl finally found me and delivered the letter! Where is the closest railway station, I have a school to slither to! No need for a sorting hat this time though.

It does make me wonder though, if there actually was magic in my old world. It seems there was something akin to God, the thing that judged me seemed to be one. It seemed far more like the creatures of old Mythology, then modern interpretations. Maybe it was just lost over the years? Hm, but then wouldn’t there be some archeological evidence left? Like what, a fossil of a fireball/poison bullet? What a stupid question.

Thinking of my old life made me sad. I liked my friends. I liked my parents. And you know, I even liked my brother, though I would never admit that. At the same time however, I felt this weird… fog going over my mind when I tried to think of the past. It’s as If I could feel them fading away. 

Well, I do know a thing, just for getting rid of negative thoughts, and it needs leveling up.

---

 

The time is coming. Finally, constant meditation for a week is not what I would call my idea of a plan for the week. But I’m ready! Look at my skills!

I’m a bit sad that the magic related skills didn’t grow more.. But I should be grateful that I have them at all. I should be able to grow them more after I see some magic in real life.

Mana sense was interesting, I couldn’t really use it.. Yet, but I did feel something all around me. I suspect that the shell is mana reinforced in some way.

I felt proud of my achievement. I really did my best over the past 10 days. I don’t know If I ever tried so hard in my previous life! Yes, this life will be different! I shall live with a risen snout! I will use my knowledge and status to rise up in the world! This fantasy world might be a dark one, but I will gaze into you, and not flinch!

And the world looked back.

HA! IS THAT ALL YOU’VE GOT! As a wise man said “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they..”

WHAT?! WHERE THE HELL THIS SUDDEN DEATH QUEST COME FROM? Is that the reason I was sometimes awake as an egg? To prepare for hatching?! And I wasted my time meditating and shit?! Fuck fuck fuck. FUCK THIS SHIT waaaah. 

Until now I avoided moving, worried moving my yet undeveloped body could hurt it. Now I was trying to flex  as much as possible. I was coiled inside the egg, with my head on one end, and then body like a corkscrew inside.

“Damn it, damn iiit”. First, I tried just ramming my head into the shell. It was more elastic then expected however, and nothing much seemed to happen to it. “JUST. OPEN. UP. ALREADY”. 

Okay stop stop, don’t panic. DON’T PANIC. Think. If pushing doesn’t work how about pulling? Can you try biting this thing? Damn, I can’t see anything. I started opening and closing my mouth trying to find something, something where I might be able to catch something. There! NOM. NOM. NOM?. SHIT! This feels weird, It feels as if I didn’t have teeth, only hardened gums. NomNomNom. 

Gordon Ramsey, give me strength to eat my way out of this pickle.

This will take too much time, damn. In frustration I started wiggling my body, left and right trying to break the shell, which now seemed more like a rubber bag, it just didn’t want to give.

Wait. Rubber bags. This is like trying to poke a balloon with a finger, it’s hard to just go through, unless you pump up or stretch it, and then push. Fine, let's do it!

I expanded my body as much as I could, to stretch the egg membrane to the limit of what I could, apart from my head. Damn, I can’t grasp this body! It makes no sense to my ex-human brain aaahhh. 

Okay okay, this way. I finally managed to arrive at something that might work, a kind of N shape, with the tip of my tail pointing down, most of my body stretching the center. It made the shell feel firm enough, to be an actual support, letting me move more strength toward my head. PUUSH! PUUSH!

AAAAAAA

Pop.

And that was the last time I would have experienced silence for a very very long time.