An evolving dragon

Transmigration

Planet Earth, January 18th, 2024

I, James Augustus, had worked tirelessly into the night at the Institute of Scientific Research and was finally able to return home to some well-deserved rest. The grind of my work had almost drained me dry, and all I wanted was a warm bed. Little did I know that the night was to mark the end of life as I knew it.

I got undressed, slipped beneath the covers, and closed my eyes for the sleep of the damned. When I awoke, everything seemed wrong. Gone were the silk-soft feel of my mattress. My surroundings were damp, enclosed, warm, and unnervingly comforting. Groggily, I reached out an arm to put my alarm clock on snooze. My fingers were not fingers anymore. They were claws—curved, sharp, and alien. Panic filled my whole being as I realized I was an entirely different animal. Shorter limbs with a rough touch on the skin and a heavy mass that pulled on my backside. I kicked and scratched against the binders around me, and it began cracking open like an eggshell around me.

The last push was the most desperate one; I climbed up a little bit farther. Light flooded my vision, and I blinked to adjust to my surroundings. But what I saw chilled me to the marrow.

A massive head loomed over me; its golden eyes skimming the surface of my being. A dragon. A real, living, and breathing dragon. Like the ones from myths and fantasy tales. And it was looking straight at me.

Ten Hours Earlier

As the lead scientist at the Institute for Chemical and Biological Research, known as the C&B Department, I was no stranger to great discoveries. Recently, we had collected a strange crystalline substance from a distant excavation site. It was unlike anything we had ever... 

This was a new experience. Not a single known element or compound matched its properties. It was somehow very heavy but seemed light, like it was charged with some mystical energy.

Days of rigorous testing yielded no results. The crystal was completely inert: no radiation, no reactions, no indications of any hazardous material. The crystal seemed to exist on a plane above the reach of modern science, if I may say so. Roughly annoyed and intrigued, eventually I figured to test the surface with my bare hands.

Nothing happened.

Or so I thought.

Via subtle means I would not yet understand, the crystal, after having sunk into my flesh, had commenced the process of merging itself with me. What was now left in the lab behind me was basically an empty shell, just a meager husk of its past as some interesting research subject.

After a long, grueling day at work, I went back home, flopped onto my bed, and fell into what, I thought, would be regular sleep. But I slept deeper than ever, almost like I was in a drugged unconscious state. When I woke up, I was not in my home anymore, nor was I in my own body; I was no longer human.

It was quite a shocking realization.

I had been reborn; reincarnated.

As a dragon.

I gazed down at my tiny, clawed hands, now spurred into movement by instinct as my new wings began fluttering slightly. The imposing dragon, whose scales shimmered brilliantly in hues of red and gold, was undoubtedly my mother. It rocked my mind back and forth: how? why? and of course, was this somehow linked to the crystal ?My thoughts were interrupted as the mother dragon let out a low rumble, her eyes filled with an emotion I couldn’t yet decipher. For the first time, I wasn’t just James Augustus, the scientist. I was something entirely new, something beyond the realm of human understanding.

I was a dragon, and my new life had just begun.