The Golden Egg

~In a garden with a sweet scent of roses and a bright sun, a little girl chased a tiny rabbit playfully. She ran around a fountain to get closer, but the fluffy bunny was always a way ahead of her. No matter how hard she ran, she failed to catch him every time. Realizing that her effort was for naught, she sat down on the grass with teary eyes. She was about to burst into tears until a boy came close to her and patted her head with a smile.~

Argh…

‘My head hurts!’ Creed was groggy from his 10-hour sleep. “These pills are a crucial lifesaver, but the headache is a pain in the ass!’

‘And why do I keep seeing this dream?’

“Do I know them from somewhere, childhood friends maybe? mhm, I’ll have to ask mom about this, maybe she knows something about this weird dream!”

“Crap! the egg!” Creed missed a heartbeat.

He checked his pockets and felt a bump, which gave him relief.

He picked himself from the ground, stumbled a little before gaining balance. Even the bugs have gone mute in smoky darkness; the moment was suspended in time.

He ripped off his sleeves to cover his nose. The foul stench around his body was making it almost impossible to think. Right now he was 3 km away from his Camp. He wanted to return so he could clean himself as soon as possible.

‘let’s see, I am in the north-east direction of the inner circle from camp but there is ‘Cascade forest’ in-between. If I take that path, though it would only take around 25-min, beasts would probably swallow me in the middle, so let’s not do that!”

Creed gazed at the ominous sky for a while and started running in a specific direction without hesitation, which obviously was a roundabout way back to his camp. He sprinted, stopping nowhere until he reached back to his camp.

He saw people on his way back, but they all kept his distance. The horrible stench couldn’t escape the noses of the nearby people. They all gave him a peculiar look.

“Hahaha!”

“The freak is stinking so bad,” A guy said to his friend. “Did he shat himself or something?”

“How would I know? He probably went inside a tablet!” Another guy said with a mocking smile. “I guess he is still trying his luck.”

“fucking pest… Couldn’t even open his root chakra after an entire year! Not even the rookies are such a disappointment.”

The second guy responded with an envious look. “It really makes me bash my dick into the wall is that our lieutenant favors this loser.”

“Seriously, what does she see in him? I am way taller and muscular. I hit the gym daily just to get a little attention from her,” The first guy snorted dejectedly. “Maybe he’s got some dirt on her.”

“Blackmailing… lieutenant!” The second guy snapped at him. “Stop making absurd assumptions, you IQ less faggot.”

While the others were talking about him and some so-called ‘lieutenant’. Creed reached his camp headquarter to register his time of return and findings from scouting. Next, he went straight to the lieutenant-colonel cabin to report his return.

“Lieutenant-colonel sir! Cadet Creed Gryffon reporting his safe return to the base!” Creed said in a restrained grunt.

“Holy mother of… Creed! you punk!” The Lieutenant’s face contorted into disgust from the lingering stench.

“How many times do I have to tell you? I don’t think of you as my soldier. So you don’t have to act like one and report to me every fucking time. Especially not when you are smelling like nothing but a biochemical weapon!”

Lieutenant gestured him to leave. “You are dismissed, now leave and take a bath.”

“Lieutenant! I don’t appreciate being treated as a free-loader. I am a soldier here either you accept it or not and I will fulfill my duties! I will take my leave now.” Said Creed and left the room, not waiting for her reply.

“Grisha, why do you even keep him here given how weak he is?” An 18-year-old woman beside her bellowed angrily. “Can’t you see how less he respects you even though you have helped him so much?”

“You should just label him as ‘UNFIT’ and release him from his duties!”

This woman was actually the secretary of Lieutenant Grisha as well as her childhood friend. Her name was Alia Barnes.

“Yeah, I definitely can, but I won’t!” Grisha Responded.

“Is it because—”

Grisha interrupted Alia in the middle. “Didn’t you notice the subtle limping? He might have gotten himself injured in the leg, probably his left calf. My point is, he is a fighter. He might not be able to fight alongside us, but he is definitely fighting within himself.”

Grisha added. “And I like his spirit. As for his behavior, it’s not like he does not respect me, he just doesn’t care about buttering his superior.”

“I disagree! And I think he is probably a waste of resources,” Alia insulted him with a grumpy pout. “Stuck on his root chakra for an entire year! Such a waste!”

“Don’t worry, Alia. We are always short of resources. Cut him some slack for me, would you? And you have other matters to focus on, just help him in need sometimes.”

Grisha changed the topic. “Give me the documents on the federation decision on the bar, for the selection of new candidates inside the Bhu-lok.”

While Grisha and Alia were discussing in the cabin, Creed without wasting a second went to his quarter- 0523. He turned on the lights, removed his clothes, and went straight for the bath.

After he cleaned himself, he changed into his spare clothes and gathered his gains from the tablet, and put them on his table along with his personal dagger.

“Now, let’s see what kind of egg is this and why the hell were they worshipping this thing?”

“Is this an egg of some other alpha beast?” Creed was astonished.

He started reminiscing about what happened inside the tablet:

The walls inside an elder’s tablet were releasing corrosive fumes. He went inside the cut he made in the wall, bearing the burning pain all over his body. Then started walking again to search for another squishy wall along the way.

Every cadet who went inside the elder’s tablet knew that the spot where the walls get mushy and tender is where one needs to drill through. Creed had to repeat the same process three more times to reach the core of the tablet.

This was the first time Creed encountered a tablet so desolate. Many powerful creatures live inside the tablet and protect its core. But it was so calm it made his stomach turn in anxiety.

Now he understood why this tablet was restricted for lower-level cadets, but he had no choice this time. The guys outside had snatched his precious ring, which was his last present from his dad before his death.

He desperately needed his ring back also for its high value for money. He had made a tough decision to sell it to a broker as his family needed money urgently. But they had snatched it before he even had the chance to sell it. Thinking this while walking made him even more determined.

He cut through the wall and put his leg inside. Immediately he realized that the floor he was walking on did not exist on the other side of the vertical tear. As a result, he lost his balance and slipped inside the dark hole.

He landed on his buttocks on a hunk of concrete; the pain made him realize he wasn’t dead yet. Though he had reached the core of the tablet, what he saw next made him almost wet his pants.

A large horde of beasts with a body of half-snake and half-woman were all making slithering noises and staring at him with bewilderment all around him. He then realized that the thing he landed on was a large stone altar that had a crucified snake-woman at its center.

The state of the crucified victim did not look good. Several parts of her body had turned dark blue. While she also had a hint of fright in her eyes, a golden light was hovering over the crucified snake-woman. The entire scene looked like some kind of strange sacrificial ceremony.

Before Creed could do anything, all the beasts from the audience got riled up and started running towards the altar with murder in their eyes. There was nowhere he could run. He assumed this was his last breath, but he still pulled the dagger from his bag.

The beast from the horde ganged up on him, scratching him with claws and teeth to wreck him into pieces. In mere seconds, his skin was sliced up from several places and was hanging loosely. Several ribs were shattered as well.

His body was already close to breaking, blood gushed out from the claw marks. Though he stabbed a few beasts with his dagger, it was a pointless struggle. He was losing blood quickly after some time. Even standing became an impossible task for him.

Suddenly, for some strange reason, his body felt light and warm. He observed he was being pulled in front of the golden light. He didn’t know what was going on until he realized he was floating right in front of the crucified snake-woman. They both were facing each other now.

The hung snake-women looked pale and had teary eyes. She was struggling a lot with whatever strength she could muster, but couldn’t break free from the nails that had bounded her body. She also had dried-blood patches on the bounded parts of her body.

Sign of critical asphyxiation hinted they had crucified the snake-woman for more than a day. While Creed was floating close to her, they both looked at each other with dimmed eyes. He didn’t understand what was happening, but his instincts told him that this golden orb was something special and now his final lifeline.

He extended his hand and tried to grab it, but he halted abruptly. Then he bent forward and pulled up his pant-sleeve to the knee. He pushed the dagger inside his left calf and cut-open a wound and pulled out an amulet carefully.

He didn’t feel as much pain since the urgency of saving his life distracted him. This was a spare amulet from another elder’s tablet he saved as his backup, just in case of an emergency.

This time, he grabbed the orb without giving it any more thought. The very next moment he dissolved from the core of the tablet and appeared back in the tunnel. The orb had now lost its golden glow, now looked like an ordinary gold egg. Creed put the egg inside his wound while quickly closing the wound with an ointment from his bag.

Then he started rushing back to the tablet entrance. He ran as fast as possible, limping, staggering, and falling. His blood and sliced skin fell on the ground, leaving a trail. His body released adrenaline like crazy. The strain in his leg was like a thousand needles poked at once. He felt so much pain that his senses went numb.

After dragging himself inside a never-ending tunnel, soon there was a semi-transparent wall visible at the end which looked like a gate to heaven.

‘The Exit!’ bloodied, he gasped.

“Fuck, that was so close!”