I died.
That was certain.
Stop sending sacrifices, saying I’m not an evil dragon!
She’s my daughter…
Please, save her!
I gasped my final breath, and even the sensation of my heart stopping was vivid.
I still clearly remember the unpleasant feeling of sticky liquid spilling from my abdomen, and my consciousness fading.
But then…
‘…Where am I?’
I opened my eyes.
No, did I even have eyelids? It didn’t feel like that.
It was like throwing open a window that had been shut for ages—suddenly, my vision cleared.
It was dark.
Not complete darkness, but a sealed space with faint light seeping in.
A suffocating sense of claustrophobia.
I tried to move my body, but it didn’t work.
I was surrounded by something hard, unable to move an inch.
‘What, am I inside a coffin or something?’
A cliché development—coming back to life only to find myself in a coffin.
But it was too tight to be a coffin, and it clung to my body.
Almost like… being inside an egg.
‘An egg?’
I tried to dismiss the ridiculous thought, but the sensation of the curved, solid surface around me was too vivid.
Anxiety washed over me.
What on earth happened to me? Wasn’t I dead? Or is this the afterlife?
I twisted my body with all my strength.
Then, with a cracking sound, I felt a fracture form in the wall enclosing me.
Through the darkness, I saw faint beams of light slipping through.
There was hope.
I thrashed again, harder this time.
Crack! Snap!
With a loud shattering sound, my vision burst open.
The blinding light made me close my eyes for a moment… no, I didn’t have eyelids.
My vision just blurred, then refocused.
In front of me stretched an unfamiliar landscape.
A massive cave.
The ceiling soared high above, and the walls were filled with strange formations of stalactites and stalagmites.
The remains of what I assumed was the egg I broke free from were scattered around me.
And among those fragments… was me.
‘My… body?’
It was an unbelievable sight.
What I saw before me were not human limbs.
A heavy foreleg, covered in tough scales.
Massive, sharp claws.
I turned my gaze, trying to take in my whole body.
A long, powerful tail, and enormous wings folded along my back.
A long, flexible neck, and a head… a head nothing like a human’s.
‘This… this is me?’
I was confused.
There was no mirror, but I knew this body was mine.
I raised a hand—no, a foreleg.
It moved according to my will.
Thick red-tinged scales shimmered strangely in the light flowing in from the cave entrance.
The claws looked as sharp and solid as metal.
‘A dragon…?’
A being I’d only ever seen in fantasy novels or movies.
A legendary creature.
Are you telling me I’ve become one? Why? How? I was dead—so why did I wake up like this?
A flood of questions swirled in my head.
But one overpowering sensation soon took over my entire body.
‘…I’m sleepy.’
Desperately sleepy.
I’d just hatched, and yet I felt like someone who hadn’t slept in centuries.
I tried to stay awake, but my vision blurred, and I yawned—no, my jaw stretched wide open, revealing massive jaws.
Rows of sharp, powerful teeth.
‘No, I can’t fall asleep now… I don’t even know where I am, or why I became like this…’
I tried desperately to fight off the sleep.
I looked around.
The cave was far larger than I first thought.
From one corner came the sound of water—perhaps an underground stream—and on the other side, a dark tunnel stretched into unknown depths.
The spot where the egg had been was a relatively flat and spacious area inside the cave.
‘First… I need to figure out what’s going on…’
But my body wouldn’t listen.
Even standing on four legs was awkward.
Maintaining balance wasn’t easy.
I tried to take a few steps, but my legs trembled and wobbled.
‘Damn, this body’s too big…’
A body far too massive to compare with my human form.
It would take time to learn how to move it properly.
But right now, that wasn’t the biggest problem.
‘…So sleepy…!’
My eyelids—or rather, my vision—started to close on its own.
My mind fogged over, and my thoughts scattered.
It was like I’d been drugged with a powerful sedative—an overwhelming drowsiness consumed me.
‘No… at least… somewhere safe…’
An instinctive urge told me I needed to find a safe place to sleep.
Where in this vast cave would be the safest and most comfortable?
I looked around, glancing about.
Not far from the cave entrance, a spot where sunlight slanted in and warmed the floor caught my eye.
‘…There.’
A sunny spot.
For some reason, I liked it.
Staggering, I made my way toward it.
Even though I had only taken a few steps, I was out of breath and dizzy.
It seemed moving this gigantic body consumed an enormous amount of energy.
At last, I reached the sunlit spot.
Warmth spread through my entire body through my scales.
Drowsiness swept over me.
I curled my massive body in that spot.
Wrapped my long, thick tail around myself, and buried my huge head between my forelegs.
‘…A thousand years… I want to sleep…’
That thought passed by at the end.
I didn’t know why it was a thousand years.
It was just a strong desire to fall into a deep, long sleep.
Memories of when I was human, the moment of death, the confusion of awakening as a dragon… all of it faded as I sank into the depths of sleep.
Time flowed like a meaningless river.
I was asleep.
Existing, yet as if I didn’t exist.
My consciousness remained beyond a faint mist, and my body seemed to become one with the cold cave floor stones.
I couldn’t even feel whether I was breathing.
Only the vast life force, slowed to an extreme, was taking what felt like eternal rest.
Sometimes, very rarely, faint fragments of sensation brushed across the surface of my consciousness.
I felt the subtle changes in the light entering through the cave entrance.
Warmth and coolness alternated in a very slow cycle.
Perhaps the seasons were changing in the world outside.
But that had nothing to do with me.
My time felt like it wasn’t flowing at all.
Even the air in the cave changed subtly.
Some days, it was cold enough to chill me to the bone, and other days, humid warmth seeped between my scales.
Once in a great while, a sound like distant thunder faintly echoed.
It must have been a stormy day.
At such times, the sound of dripping water deeper in the cave became slightly more frequent.
The silent growth of stalactites felt like a voiceless cry.
External changes were merely background noise; they could not disturb my deep slumber.
My massive body maintained its curled position without the slightest movement.
I used the bare minimum of energy, seeking only rest.
I didn’t know why I had to sleep like this or for how long.
I simply followed what my body wanted, what my instincts led me to do.
Memories of when I was human hardly came to mind anymore.
Like remnants of a faint dream, only meaningless images passed by now and then.
I was now a complete… sleeping dragon.
How much time had passed?
A hundred years? Five hundred? Or was it truly nearing a thousand?
My sense of time was completely numb, impossible to grasp.
It felt as though this state would last forever.
But then, in that seemingly eternal stillness, a very subtle crack appeared.
‘…?’
At first, I thought it was just my imagination.
Something different from the usual cave sounds—something foreign.
But it wasn’t an illusion.
A very small, irregular sound.
And… a smell.
A scent completely different from the familiar cave smells—the cold, damp stone, the faint sulfur, the dust.
A sweet yet somehow unstable scent.
And within that scent… the strong scent of fear was steeped deeply.
‘…Annoying.’
For the first time in centuries, an emotion like irritation rose within me.
The very fact that something was disturbing my slumber was unpleasant.
The consciousness that had been sunken beneath the surface of deep sleep began to rise, very slowly.
Like drifting up toward the surface from the depths of the ocean—very slowly, and with difficulty.
The sound seemed to be getting closer.
Rustling sounds, sniffles, and… a heartbeat.
The rapid, unstable beating of a small heart was caught by my sharpened hearing.
‘…A human?’
From the blurry memories dulled by long sleep, I vaguely recalled who that scent and sound belonged to.
A human.
The same species I once belonged to when I was human.
But to me now, such a being was so small and fragile.
Why is a human here? In the depths of this cave?
The irritation grew along with the question.
I didn’t want to wake up.
I still needed more sleep.
My body was telling me that.
But the uninvited guest was disturbing my rest.
Should I ignore it and sink back into the abyss of sleep, or…
‘…Damn it.’
In the end, I decided to open my eyes.
Very slowly, heavily.
The eyelids—no, the scale membrane that functioned like eyelids—had been closed for hundreds of years, and opening them took tremendous effort.
Like forcing open a rusted iron gate, it was stiff and difficult.
My vision opened.
At first, everything was blurry.
My eyes, having not seen light for so long, needed time to adjust even to the faint glow within the cave.
Gradually, things began to come into focus.
And I saw it.
Not far from my massive body, a small human girl was curled up.
She looked no older than ten at most.
She wore thin, shabby cloth clothing, and her hair was tangled.
Her small body trembled like a leaf, and her face was covered in tears and snot.
The girl was sobbing quietly, covering her face with both hands.