Here are the first 850 words of the story, in first draft form. I still have to add a title, names, and finish the first chapter. It is narrated from the Original Sharptooth's point of view.
My earliest memories are hazy. Fuzzy. Indistinct. Although I cannot remember exactly when it was that I first gained consciousness, I do remember the days I spent growing in my egg. It was warm. Cozy. Comfortable. I do not think of it as ever being cramped, confining, or crowded. It was more than my home, it was my world. I could hear things from the outside, usually the roars of my parents, and the heartbeat of my mother. I knew nothing of what these sounds meant, nor that I would one day be able to make them myself one day. When my mother finally laid my egg, I took notice. The sounds changed. Her heart was no longer a sound I could hear, the roars became less noticeable, and newer sounds filtered in through the shell. I could hear the screeching of flyers, the lowing of spiketails, even the footfalls of the great longnecks. Of course, my parents continued to be the sounds I heard the most, although I did not know it at the time. All the while, it continued to be warm, safe, quiet. Although I would go on to learn that as an egg, my existence on this world was by no means guaranteed, I could not tell that at the time. As far as I was concerned inside the shell, nothing could harm me.
Inevitably, all that had to come to an end. One day, my shell ceased to be comfortable. I had grown to the point that I was ready to hatch, and cast off the shell. Things started to change for me in ways my primitive mind could not have previously imagined. Feeling confined for the first time in my existence, I pushed against the shell, against what was previously the limits of my known world. After a time of struggling, the shell began to crack, and the voices of my parents began to pick up. A certain sense began to pick up; something I had never had to deal with before. My eyes were still closed, and my tongue was still in my mouth. I had been able to feel the warmth of the amniotic fluid since my earliest moments, and sounds was an early experience for me as well, but something new was registering, something which changed with my surroundings and when the winds shifted. I would later learn that this new sense was smell. I was smelling the air around me, and the scents from the outside world were wafting into my cracked eggshell.
Pushing my head against the shell, I finally managed to get it out, and for the first time, I could experience the world outside. I opened my eyes for the first time, and not long after smell had been taught to me, I experienced sight! I saw things! At first, it was a real shock, having only experienced the warm darkness of the amnion. Everything was blurry and indistinct. And so bright! Having experienced two new senses for the first time was a real shock to me. My sense of hearing was much clearer now that I could hear the world with only the air separating me from it, without the shell in the way. I didn’t know how to handle it. Not realizing what was happening, I let out a feeble scream, a truly pathetic sound for a sharptooth, no matter his age.
“Scrrreeaaaww!”
From there, the rest of my shell quickly began to crumble, what was left of my warm little world literally disintegrated before my eyes. I had hatched, whether I liked it or not. My fate was no longer to be warm or safe, and no longer would I dwell in darkness. For the coming years, my life would be tied to that of my parents… my parents. All they were to me on that day was a pair of blurry colors. My mother was a blurry mess of light green and yellow , while my father was a blur of dark green and white. Still, I had other senses available to me. My nose was keen and my instincts compelled me to smell the air. I soon picked up the scent of my parents. I knew not which was which at first, scent being a new experience for me. Then, my mother approached. I looked up at her with eyes still not clear yet, with a face nowhere near the deadly visage it would one day become. I looked at her, and she looked back, and nuzzled me. I felt a certain kind of warmth that I had not felt in the shell, a warmth that came from inside of me. It was love. My mother loved me and I loved her back. I did not know whether it was instinct, or hormones, or something deeper… or a combination of the three. It was enough for me to know that at last, I was safe, and as long as my family was around, I would be fine in this new, vast world outside of the shell. Everything would be fine. Just fine...
