Reincarnated in a Wyrmhole

Chapter 3: Outside the Wyrmhole

I charged head on towards the small opening, but charged might be the wrong word. Swam is more like it. My new limbs were burning as I propelled myself forward at speeds that I'm pretty sure a newborn shouldn't be doing. It's all or nothing, I guess. And in this case, nothing is literally nothing! And all is just managing to survive my first five minutes of life. Pretty tough. Still, the going was doing well. I had more than halved the distance between my starting point and the tunnel that, as I just realised, might not actually lead anywhere. All or nothing, remember? If you don't have a positive attitude, you'll get nowhere in this life. 

Unfortunately, it was then that my luck changed for the worse. The Wyrm, who I refused to call my mother, had taken notice of one of her children making a break for the exit. Oh no you don't. No-one is getting past without a fight, and only the strongest of my children will survive! She thought. Or something along those lines, but probably more primitive. Deciding to go with the most effective choice, she reared back her head, and plunged towards me. Thankfully, from the angle that I was travelling from, I saw it coming, but still barely managed to get my four scaly clawed feet in order and jump out of the way. How is a hulking brute like that so fast? Unfair! 'What do I do?' Currently your best hope is to avoid the remaining Lesser Scaled Reptilacs in the hopes that she will go for one of them not you, and continue on your path towards the probable exit. 

Deciding that the mysterious voice that had 'Knowledge' in it's name was probably right, I forged ahead, accidentally ending up straight behind another newt. Better take the advice and steer away. But before I could, in a flash the Wyrm had sprung at us. Thankfully she seemed to have forgotten about me and appeared to be after the one in front of me, but I had to skid to a halt (if that's possible in a liquid), barely missing the huge jaws, and watched as the full length of it's colossal body plunged under the lava where my comrade was previously. A wave of lava erupted around the place that the poor little guy had just been. I dipped my head under the lava just in time for me to see the beast that had been so fast above the bubbling pit go even faster under it! My eyes (which I just realised had second eyelids to allow me to se under lava) followed the Wyrm as it suddenly erupted up from the pool, and chomped down on one of her unsuspecting children.

Although this was a terrifying scene to watch, it did give me just enough time to scramble across the surface of the lava and make a final jump up to the tunnel that lead me out of there. I silently left a prayer for my siblings, who I didn't have any attachment to, but it just felt like the right thing to do. Phew! I'm finally out of there! That was stressful to say the least. Looking behind me, there were only 3 newts left, and the Wyrm looked like she was about to eat 2 of them. The third was surprisingly close to the tunnel, but the Wyrm had caught on to it. She abandoned her efforts to devour the others, who were much farther away, then coiled herself into a spring, and straight up launched herself towards the fleeing newt!

As she flew through the air, I quickly back-pedalled further down the tunnel, and then lent my neck forward to see a leg floating aimlessly in the lava. The Wyrm picked it up with two of her enormous fangs, and tossed it into the tunnel, looking directly at me with a look of grudging respect. Is it a trap? The Wyrm then turned, and swam away, no doubt to eat her remaining two children. Am I meant to eat that thing? Wouldn't that be cannibalism? "Gail, was her intention of her throwing that leg for me to eat to eat it?" Probably. 'That's all you got? A probably? What if she poisoned it? Or what if eating my sibling will kill me?'

Think rationally. If eating your sibling will kill you, then what about the Wyrm eating her children didn't kill her, then why would eating your siblings kill you? Also, look around you. 'Why?' Do you see that rock? There is a pile of bones on it, matching the shape of the one right there. She clearly does this to every one of her children that make it past her, and she wouldn't try to poison the strongest ones. Also, if you don't eat it now, you will most likely go into a coma from starvation! Wow, she means it. 'So I eat the leg?' You most definitely eat the leg. As I was stepping forward, my vision started to have black dots floating around in it. You eat the leg now! Hurry! And with my last energy, I stumbled forward and fell onto the decapitated limb, opened my jaws, and bit into the soft flesh.

My first thought as I swallowed was: Thank god! I hadn't realised how bad I felt until I ate some of this! The black dots have gone, and I feel refreshed. Brilliant! My next thought was this: Oh. My. God. That tastes so horrifically disgusting! And I then scraped at my tongue, trying to rid it of the bad taste. Welcome to cannibalism, I guess. Still, at least I have food. Wyrm, you have been upgraded to the title 'mother'. 'How long can I go without eating the rest of it?' I asked. About 4 minutes. 'And if I do eat the rest of it?' About half an hour. Guess I just have to grin and bear it. And I then proceeded to commit cannibalism, wincing every time I took a bite. By the end of it I wanted to wash my mouth out with lava. 'I have a question. Do I need to drink, or what?' Your species doesn't drink water, and you don't even have to drink, as such. 'What do you mean by 'as such'?' 

You don't need to drink in the conventional sense. You don't consume liquid through your mouth, but you still need it to survive. How do you think you survived in the egg? 'Through an umbilical cord?' No! That's only for mammals who's young grow inside them. 'Did I do something like ... absorb it?' Precisely! Baring in mind that your supply of food was incredibly low, so your liquid must have been as well, why do you think you aren't thirsty? What is the only liquid you've been in contact with since your birth? 'I've got it!' Then what is it? 'That was when you were meant to tell me.' Lava, you dolt! It's exasperating having to live inside an uncultured brain. Not everyone can be a literal encyclopaedia! Now that I'm out of the fire, I suppose there's only one way to go, and that's up! In a metaphorical sense of course, since this tunnel could lead everywhere but up. 

So I got my four little legs together and scuttled forwards. As I was walking, I noticed scales dotted along the floor. 'What are those?' I wondered aloud. They appear to be your species' scales. If you look behind you, you will see that you too are shedding them. I looked "Does this mean that there's something wrong with me? Is this a fatal disease that so many before me have died from? I'm doomed!' Nothing so dramatic. It is simply your kind's natural habit to shed baby scales after they have escaped their native Wyrmhole, to make way for the new, tougher scales. 'Phew. Okay. No fatal diseases.' I need to stop overreacting. That sort of made sense, as the one's I had right now didn't feel very sturdy, and I was wondering how my scales would eventually become as rock hard as the ones mother had had. Then a thought accord to me. 'Won't I be very vulnerable without scales? Judging that that place was meant to be the place that introduced me to the world, then the world will be just as, if not more vicious, surely everything will try to eat me?' Yes. But that is why you should be going faster, so that you can rest for a day in shelter whilst shedding your old scales and growing new. 'Gee, that's some great information! Maybe you could've told me that when I started!?' 

After sprinting for a fair while as fast as my legs could take me, I had stopped, out of breath. Getting up, I looked around, and saw a vast cavern, much bigger than the Wyrmhole. The roof was so high that I could barely see the top, and gargantuan stalactites protruding down. Every now and then there were patches of faintly glowing fungi. There was a constant dripping of water, and a faint scuttling and growling of unknown creatures. Suddenly I heard an echoing roar in the distance, from what I presumed to be the other side of the cave, which I couldn't even see.

'So, can I rest for a day or two now and shed some scales? I feel like I need it.' What are you talking about? You can't go to rest until you have enough food to survive  for a few days. More information that would have been useful earlier. 'So what is there in this cave that is edible?' Well, there's some of the fungi, but be sure to pick the right ones, as some will kill you the instant you swallow, small bug monsters, but again be sure to pick the right one's as for some, the rest of their kind will get angry. I guess everything is dangerous here. 'How do I find somewhere to hide? I can't see anywhere that would be good.' You make your own, of course!