After getting hit by the car I lost consciousness. When I came to, I couldn’t see anything, and I was trapped in something hard. I tried kicking it to try and escape. Sure enough, I heard a crack. So, I kicked again, and I heard another crack. I kicked over and over, and eventually started hitting the sides of whatever I was in as well, trying to break my way out.

Finally, after an especially good kick, the walls broke apart and I fell down onto the floor. It seemed like I was in a cave. I looked back at where I had been to see what looked like a big egg. I was slightly confused by that. I then tried to get up, but I couldn’t. I was able to get up on all fours, but I couldn’t stand up. That was a bit scary, so I looked back at my body to see if I could see if anything was broken, but what I saw confused me even more than the egg. Instead of a human body I looked like a stereotypical dragon! I had a long tail. Bright red scales, and even a pair of wings! I tried to pinch myself to see if I was dreaming, but my scales didn’t give me anywhere to pinch.

Just then, the walls of the cave started moving. Or at least I had thought they were walls but as they moved, I realized the walls were actually a dragon that was curled around me. The dragon was great and majestic. A deep scarlet red and many many times larger than me. The dragon’s head turned to look at me. As the dragon peered at me, I realized instinctively that this dragon was my mother.

“Hello little one,” My mother rumbled, “I am glad I could see you before I passed on.”

“Quickly, come to me,”

I did my best to run over to her, where she rested her snout, which was the size of me, on my shoulder.

“Before I pass, I shall bestow upon you a name.”

I wasn’t quite sure what she meant, but one thing was certain. My mother was close to death. Tears welled in my eyes. Despite barely knowing her I could feel the bond between us as her son.

“Now, now… Don’t cry little one, death is nothing but another stage in life. Now,”

My mother moved her head to the top of mine, and then a glow began to emit from the place she touched me. The glow grew in brightness until I couldn’t see.

As the glow grew around me, I heard my mother whisper “Your name shall be Nuriel, little one,”

Slowly the glow dissipated, and as it faded away, my mother slumped to the ground.

I ran to her. But she had already passed. Despite being sad, I did not cry, I knew she would not want me to. So instead, I began to explore.

I left the cave I was born in and found that it was noon, and we were on top of a volcano on an Island. From the mouth of the cave, I could see the entire island. Aside from the volcano, the rest of the island was covered in forests. As I looked over the island, I thought about a lot of things. I didn’t really have any connections to my life on Earth, and from what I had seen, this world seemed like one from the fantasy novels I read. So, I was pretty excited to do experience it.

“In most stories where someone gets reincarnated like this there are usually levels, and a status board. Usually, you just think about the board, and it appears, so maybe… STATUS!”

As I thought the word, a status screen popped up! I was honestly surprised that worked but questions about it would have to wait. I looked down at the screen.

Name: Nuriel

Species: Red Dragon

Level: 1

XP: 0/10

HP: 10/10

MP: 5/5

Str: 5

Agi: 3

Con: 5

Mag: 4

Racial Skills:

Fire Breath

Flight

Language recognition

Primary Skills:

Looking at the screen I wondered about my stats. I had no idea how stats were gauged, or what the average was, so I had no idea if my stats where high for my level, but I guessed they probably would be considering my race. I also noticed the racial skills. Flight and fire breath. Those both sounded really cool. I wondered if I could use them.

With that thought I decided to try breathing fire, since it seemed less dangerous than flying.

I opened my mouth, and blew outward, but all that came out was my breath. I tried again, but again, nothing happened. I continued trying a few more times before giving up.

“I wonder what I’m doing wrong?” I asked myself.

Thinking about it for a little while, I came to a realization. I could walk! That seemed mundane, but I had no clue how my body worked, and I was walking on all fours. That came to me instinctually, so maybe the racial skills were like that?

With that idea in mind, I got up to try again.

Instead of trying to force it I let my instincts take over.

I felt heat buildup in my throat and make its way up towards my mouth. Then I opened my mouth and fire spewed out. The fire kept coming for a few seconds before I cut the flame off, and the heat in my throat vanished.

“YES!” I shouted.

I was buzzing with excitement. I had gotten it, now I had to figure out flight!

Letting the knowledge of flight come to me instinctually, I spread my wings. I gave them a few preliminary flaps before I took a running leap off the ground. I flapped my wings like mad, trying to gain height, but I very quickly fell back down to the ground.

It seemed flying was quite a bit harder than breathing fire.

But I didn’t give up. I kept trying, and with every attempt, I stayed in the air longer. By my fifteenth attempt, I was able to stay in the air while moving forward. That attempt ended with me flying into a wall because I couldn’t turn. By my twenty eighth, I had gotten the hang of turning. And by my thirtieth I was able to hover.

It had taken me the rest of the day, and I was covered in scrapes, but I had gotten it!

I was ecstatic. Now all that was left was to go for an actual flight!

With the setting sun as a backdrop, I exited the cave, spread my wings, and took flight! The warm air felt amazing against my body and being out in the open air gave me way more freedom to fly. I swooped around the air, reveling in the sensations of the air currents.

“YAHOOOO!” I shouted into the air.

I was having the time of my life, but as the adrenaline faded, I realized that I hadn’t eaten all day, and I was starving.

With that realization my instincts took over. I spotted what looked like a seagull below me, and I quickly dove, claws outstretched. Before the bird had any chance to react, I had grabbed it, and cut its throat. I then scarfed it down. Despite the bird being almost as big as me, I had finished it in a matter of seconds.

With that, my instincts calmed down. I felt sick, I had never killed an animal before, much less with my bear hands, but the moment passed, and I realized that killing would be necessary. I had to kill to eat, it was just the circle of life.

After shaking off my sickness I noticed that a board had appeared in front of me, it read:

You have killed level 3 Seaskipper – Gained 4 XP

Apparently, the bird was called a seaskipper, and I gained some XP for killing it.

Anyways, I was full after eating that bird, and I flew back to the top of the volcano. I wasn’t tired yet, so I figured I’d do some exploring, and the volcano seemed more interesting than the rest of the island.

I circled the volcano a few times. The first thing to catch my eye were the multiple lava rivers, flowing around the volcano.

“I wonder if I can swim in them? I mean, I am a fire dragon,”

I dove down to one of the rivers. I knew in my head that this was a stupid idea, I was just asking to burn myself, but I also really wanted to try swimming in lava.

As I got closer to the lava, I noticed that it didn’t feel that hot, it felt like a warm shower at most. That seemed like a good sign, so I decided to risk it. I tentatively dipped one of my claws in the lava and was relieved when it didn’t hurt at all. I had been right. Lava didn’t hurt me! It felt like warm water.

I excitedly jumped in. I was covered in bruises from learning to fly and the lava felt really nice on my sore body. As I relaxed, I noticed that I was really thirsty.

“I guess it has been a while since I last drank anything. I wonder if I can drink lava?”

I may be an idiot, but I had been right the last time, so I dipped my head into the water and drank some of the lava. It tasted like warm milk and did soothe my thirst. It didn’t really make sense, but it was nice, so I didn’t care.

As I laid in the river, relaxing to my hearts content, I felt a soft ripple from upstream. But I was to absorbed in relaxing to pay it much mind. Then I felt a larger ripple closer to me. I still didn’t pay it any attention, after all, I was a dragon! Even as a baby I doubted there was much that could hurt me.

The lava began to ripple again before exploding upwards, as a massive snake looking creature shot out of the lava, before diving towards me, trying to swallow me whole!

I dove to the side, barely evading its jaws. It plunged into the lava, before rearing its head and trying again. I leapt out of the river, once again barely dodging. I hoped that it wouldn’t chase me out of the lava because just one look at the serpent told me that I had no way of beating it.

Unfortunately, my hope was shattered as the snake slithered out of the river. It was massive, as long as two buses combined, and as large as one. Its body was covered in black scales that looked like they were made of rock, and it had lava dripping out of its mouth.

I scrambled to the side as the snake lunged at me. I desperately scanned my surroundings for somewhere to run.

I spotted a cave only about 50 yards away that looked too small for the snake to fit in. I bolted straight for the cave, and the snake gave chase. Unfortunately for me, the serpent was gaining, we were halfway there already, but the snake was already in striking distance, I leapt to the side as the snake struck, sending debris flying. I kept running. The cave was my only chance. Only a few more yards. The snake struck again. I dove forward flying through the mouth of the cave, the snake slammed into it, but it was too big to fit.

I scrambled backwards as the snake made a few more attempts to get me before giving up and slithering back towards the river.

I fell down to the floor as the adrenaline faded. I started shivering. And as I laid on the floor I started crying. I had almost died because I wasn’t paying attention. I had gotten cocky for some reason. I swore I would never make that mistake again.

I stayed like that all night; I don’t know when I fell asleep, but I must have because when I opened my eyes, I could see bright light streaming through the cave entrance.

I wasn’t quite ready to leave the cave yet, so I decided to explore it a little bit. It curved left from the entrance and opened up into a pretty wide area. Strangely there was a waterfall on the right side of the room, with what looked like markings carved into the wall next to it. When I got close to them, I realized that I could read them. Maybe it had to do with the other racial skill I had? Either way they read: “A Portal To Where You Have Been Before” I wondered what that meant.

Turning away from the waterfall I noticed a passage deeper into the cave on the far side of the room. I decided that there was no harm in exploring further, so I left the large room, and followed the passage. It continued for a short time before opening up into… A Grassland!?