One night atop a cliff jutting over a small beach within a cove, there was an egg, a rambunctious egg.

 

The egg’s mother had repeatedly returned the egg to her nest, yet it persisted in rolling around and bumping into the other eggs.  The mother of the egg had not failed in her pursuit to keep all her unhatchedlings away from jeopardy, yet this egg was consistently getting itself into more and more dangerous situations.

 

Unfortunately for the egg, its mother was physically incapable of watching the eggs at all times as she had to do many things, like gathering food, interacting with others, and most importantly, in her opinion at least, sleep.

 

The egg, with its great vigor within, had plans in direct opposition to its mothers. In its childish, undeveloped brain, the egg was tired of doing nothing day in and day out, even if it did not understand those concepts. The egg was looking for something new, and she was going to get exactly that.

 

The little reptile within the egg had noticed that if she pushed and shifted at the walls around her they would make small clicking noises, this clicking was something new and exciting for her, so she kept at it. She pushed and attacked the walls all so she could receive the satisfying clicks that the walls responded with. While she was shifting around she also noticed that the force pulling her helped her to receivee these delightful clicks.

 

That night, the mother of the egg was sleeping. She was having a particularly nice dream where she could calmly watch her eggs for the chosen day where her eggs would hatch, but this dream was extra special because that one egg that was making a constant, extreme effort to escape her grasp, was actually calm, she could watch the eggs happily while feeling the ocean breeze that she was protecting the eggs from. 

 

While experiencing this dream, the egg that she dreamt was sitting calmly, had been particularly active, and had moved around both inside and outside her egg. This movement translated to ever so slowly nudging herself closer and closer to the edge of the cliff that stood a good bit above the ocean shore. As she neared the edge of the cliff and teetered just over it, a gust of wind… 

 

Pushed her back closer to the nest. 

 

Unknowing that the wind had saved her from falling, the little lizard within the egg, excited at the outside movement that pushed at her giving her another satisfying click, rocked back and forth with extra delight. This rocking brought her back to the edge of the overhanging cliff and right down its side into the soft sand below. 

 

This fall into the sand gave the little hatchling the biggest, most satisfying click she had ever heard. Not only that but after the click and the snap she was bathed in the calm light that reflected off of the moon to bless her with its glory.

 

…

 

Around the same time, there was a young turtle, barely a month of age, taking a rest from her woes and struggles over the past month of its life. Her mind returned to her first days.

 

She sat within the oppressive heat of her sisters sitting above her, however, she would not accept the injustice of sitting there waiting for them to step all over her. She bit chomped and gnawed at them, all in pursuit of the light that called out to her from above. After finally, exhaustively escaping and reaching the top of the pile of her sisters…

 

She was met with a lot of sand. An almost vertical wall for her to scale stood before her. 

 

Not yet knowing of the word impossible, she went up to the wall before her and started to ascend. As she climbed the sand would fall beneath her pushing her down, but also giving her purchase to ascend higher, this also pushed sand onto her sisters who started to suffocate under her. Not caring about the future of her sisters she finally was the first to get out of the hole. This gave her the magnificent view of the ocean, which called out to her, promising safety and food. 

 

Lucky for her she safely got to the ocean before the seagulls noticed that there was free food just sitting in a hole wriggling around, and waiting to get eaten.

 

The ocean was full of life, there was so much going on around her that all she wanted to do was curl up and go back to sleep in the comfort of the egg she was in until then, nonetheless, her stomach demanded food, and it demanded it now. Swallowing her fear, along with a small amount of saltwater that she immediately coughed back up, she paddled her way to the nearest thing her instincts told her was food. 

 

The seaweed before her wriggled around with the ocean currents, and when it finally swayed in her general direction she took a bite from the seaweed. It tasted pretty bad, the stomach within her accepted seaweed as edible. 

 

She continued eating seaweed for some time until she came across a little tiny crab which grabbed at her still somewhat soft carapace. In her annoyance with the crab, she maneuvered herself and the crab which had latched onto her around and smashed herself into a rock and, in the process, crushed the crab underneath her. She did this process every time a crab grabbed her. This was until she received a little ping that resounded throughout her consciousness. She gained a level.

 

[Baby turtle:]

[Level 1]

 

She felt herself get larger along with her bones and muscles getting stronger with the notification that she somehow understood despite being so young. This increase in size and strength elated her as she had been enviously watching the larger creatures in the distance battle it out for domination of the reef. If she could compete with them she would not have to fear for her life every time one of the larger creatures got close to her.

 

With a new goal of getting bigger, she set herself the task of committing genocide on all those little crabs who were too small to be of any possible danger to her. This was all so she could get bigger so she would no longer have to fear those who were stronger than her. She came to the brilliant conclusion that you do not need to be afraid of those who are smaller than you. Size is everything.

 

As she came to learn, later on, getting big and strong is an uphill battle against those who have the exact same goal as you.

 

After some exhaustive time spending her energy eating seaweed and massacring little crabs, she finally reached level 10. Yay! She thought to herself, reaching the double-digit milestone. Baby turtle also changed into an infant turtle! She thought, noticing the change in the wording about her level, she noticed that this change gave her an extra boost in size.

 

[Infant Turtle:]

[Level 10]

 

At this point killing crabs to level up was taking way too long compared to when she was lower level. She needed to shift gears, but first, she needed a break, killing crabs just was not as satisfying as it used to be. She turned her eyes back to the beach. Maybe she could find some different scenery beside the weeds and the crabs.

 

Her little paddles ever so slowly pushed her back to the shore as the waves pushed and pulled at her, until eventually…

 

She ungraciously was tossed ashore, not unlike the crabs she had killed earlier. Thankfully she was too big for the seagulls to get to her as she took some time to reorient herself.

 

Then she pushed herself further inland looking out into the cove she found herself in, the cove was surrounded by stone walls encircling it, there was a cropping of sand all around the edges of the cove and the water lapped up and down the sand trying and failing to devour it. She pushed herself up against the walls of the cove content in the knowledge that the water would not be able to inundate her while she tried to get some rest.

 

She closed her eyes and started to enjoy the rhythmic sounds of the water crashing down on the sand, only to get pulled back into itself. The sound was constant and unchanging, she thought she could listen to it for hours under the moon that had started to rise over the ocean opposite her, the sand and the water. That was at least until there was a sound that interrupted rhythm.

 

Plop, Crack

 

She looked over, and no more than a few meters from her was a pearly white egg much bigger than hers had been cracked open right down the middle to reveal a little reptile, like her, just different. The very first thought that came to her mind when she saw the enormous sparkling eyes that perfectly reflected the light of the moon of the little scaly creature only a little smaller than she was, something along the lines of.

 

“Cute!!!”