Adam Smith was having what you might call a spectacularly bad day. It had started normally enough: a boring Tuesday, but his day took a sharp turn for the worse when a bullet, fired from a bank robbery three blocks away, decided to take an impromptu tour of the city.
It zipped through an open bus window, bypassed a dozen other commuters with the unerring accuracy of cosmic misfortune, and found a new home in Adam’s chest.
"You’ve got to be kidding me," was his last, profoundly disappointed thought as the world faded to black. "A stray bullet? Seriously? I haven’t even experienced dating yet."
The next thing Adam knew, he was conscious. But it was a strange, compressed, and damp kind of consciousness.
He was surrounded by a soft, leathery shell, floating in a warm, viscous fluid. There was no light, no sound, just a vague feeling of being.
"Okay, this is weird. Is this the afterlife? Feels... eggy."
He soon realized that was because he was in an egg. And he wasn’t human anymore. Fragmented memories of a previous life—of school, of that stupid, fateful bullet—drifted through his new, simpler mind, accompanied by a single, overwhelming instinct: Hatch.
With a strength he didn’t know he had, he pushed. The shell cracked, and a sliver of dim, phosphorescent light from a moss-covered cave wall flooded in.
"Whoa! Light! Okay, new world, here I come!"
He tumbled out, a wriggling, foot-long serpentine form, landing on a cool, damp stone floor. He looked at his new body—pale scales, a forked tongue that flicked out on its own accord—and let out a mental sigh.
"A snake. I got reincarnated as a baby snake in a cave. Could be worse, I guess. Could be a cockroach."
His optimistic musings were cut short by a chorus of similar cracks and pops. All around him, his siblings were hatching. Dozens of them. For a brief moment, Adam felt a spark of camaraderie.
"Hey there, little guys! We’re in this together, huh?"
That spark was immediately extinguished when the closest sibling, a slightly larger hatchling with beady black eyes, turned and lunged at a smaller, weaker one. There was a brief, sickening crunch, and the smaller hatchling was gone.
"WHAT THE—" Adam’s thoughts screeched to a halt. "Did he just... eat Larry? I’m naming him Larry! That was uncalled for!"
Panic, cold and sharp, replaced his initial wonder. This wasn’t a happy family reunion; it was a buffet, and everyone was on the menu. The hatchlings immediately turned on each other, a writhing ball of instinct and hunger.
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me! I escape one ridiculous death just to be served as an appetizer to my brother Steve? Not happening!"
He tried to slither away, but his new body was clumsy. A particularly aggressive hatchling, whom Adam mentally named "Chompers," spotted him and darted forward, jaws wide.
"I curse my luck! Stray bullet to sibling-cannibalism! This is the worst sequel ever!" Adam braced for the end, thinking of his mom and that uneaten burger.
Suddenly, a translucent blue screen materialized in front of his eyes, accompanied by a cheerful ding!
[ Ding! Evolution System Unlocked! ]
[ Welcome, Adam Smith! ]
[ Consume, Defeat, or Kill to earn Evolution Points (EP)! ]
[ Accumulate EP to Evolve and Survive! ]
[ Current Form: Marsh Viper Hatchling ]
[ EP: 0/100 ]
Adam’s mind went blank for a second. "A system? I got a video game system? Okay, that’s cool! Wait... ’Consume, Defeat, or Kill’? I can’t do any of that right now! This is the most useless, tantalizing, cruel tease I’ve ever—"
Chompers was inches away, its maw open wide.
And then, the ground shook.
A shadow fell over them. A creature that looked like a six-legged badger with rock-like protrusions on its back—a Dungeon Crust-badger—had entered the nest. It was a hundred times larger than any hatchling. With a disinterested grunt, it swiped a massive paw through the squabbling brood, scooping up Chompers and a dozen others into its mouth.
CRUNCH.
Adam didn’t need to be told twice. While the monster was busy snacking on his immediate family problems, he poured every ounce of his will into his tiny, muscular body.
He slithered over the rocky floor, ducking behind a large stalagmite just as the Crust-badger finished its grim harvest and lumbered away, looking for a more substantial meal.
Heart pounding—or whatever passed for a heart in his new body—Adam peered out from his hiding spot. The nest was empty, save for a few bits of eggshell.
A cold dread settled in his gut. "I’m fucked."