Beast Taming: My Beasts Grind, Die, and Respawn

Chapter 12: Birth

Chapter 12: Birth

He had told it, see you tomorrow.

The egg clearly had no idea what time it was.

Jin had managed maybe forty minutes of sleep after dragging himself back to the cot. It was barely sleep at all, just that thin gray state where part of him still listened to every sound in the room.

So when the incubator changed tone, he woke before he had fully decided to.

The gentle heartbeat chime was gone.

A low warning pulsed in its place, urgent and steady.

Tk.

Tk-tk.

Blue light from the monitor washed over the cradle. Another crack had appeared beside the first. A third split away from it, spreading across the shell in thin branches like frost on glass.

His phone lay face-up on the floor nearby. Its screen looked strangely calm compared to everything else.

[Synchronization Complete.]

Nothing more appeared.

No grand banner. No dramatic sound.

The Engine never celebrated the things that mattered. It gave him a plain statement, then left reality to make all the noise.

Jin slipped from the cot and knelt beside the incubator.

The whole room seemed to wait with him.

Tk. Crack.

A piece of black shell lifted away. It was no thicker than a fingernail. The flake dropped onto the incubator floor with a faint click.

Something shifted underneath.

Jin kept his hands to himself.

He had done enough reading between puzzle rounds to know that helping a creature escape its shell could ruin it. The hatchling needed to force its own way out. Otherwise, its body might never learn how to function properly.

So Jin stayed there.

Watching.

Waiting.

The third loud crack woke Arthur.

Jin heard the familiar scrape of his father’s bad leg in the hallway. A second later, Arthur appeared in the doorway, hair messy, face gray with sleep, one hand gripping the frame for support.

His eyes went straight to the cradle.

Then to the splitting shell.

Arthur forgot to breathe.

"Is it—" His voice barely held together. "Jin, is it hatching?"

"Yeah."

He crossed the room faster than his crippled leg should have managed and lowered himself beside Jin. His hands were broad, scarred, and rough from warehouse work.

They shook so hard that he clasped them together to stop them.

Elsa came into the doorway behind him with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Her eyes went wide when she saw the egg.

After that, nobody said anything.

What could they say?

Their entire savings rested inside that cradle. Fifty thousand credits. Everything the family had managed to gather, now either being born or dying in the dark.

All three of them could only kneel on the cold floor and watch.

Arthur’s lips began to move.

At first, Jin heard nothing. Then he understood.

His father was praying.

Maybe to whichever gods still bothered listening to the Outer Ring.

Probably none of them.

Please.

The shape of Arthur’s mouth made the words clear.

Please let it live. I gave him a rock. Don’t let the rock be empty.

Jin glanced at his father.

Then he looked back at the egg.

Tk.

Crack.

The shell gave way.

There was no dramatic explosion. One side simply tipped outward with a soft, damp sound, and a tiny head pushed free of the darkness.

Something about it was wrong.

Not frightening. It wasn’t twisted or glowing with dangerous power.

It was simply not what it should have been.

The hatchling could have fit inside Jin’s cupped hand. It was wet, shivering, and very small.

A Grey Rock Lizard was supposed to look like wet concrete.

This one was black.

A deep, polished black, glossy like wet ink or obsidian.

It blinked.

Then its eyes opened.

Gold.

Bright, molten gold, with narrow pupils that tightened against the incubator light. Those sharp eyes sat in a face that was still round, blank, and newly born.

Jin leaned in slightly.

For one second, the light crossed the hatchling’s side at the right angle.

Faint marks showed beneath its scales.

Violet-blue threads, dim and thin, running below the skin.

They looked almost like veins.

Or circuitry.

Or writing done in some kind of ink that only appeared when the light struck it properly.

Then the hatchling moved, the angle changed, and the lines disappeared.

Once again, it looked like nothing more than a little black lizard.

Its tail was slightly too long. Two soft bumps rose from the top of its skull, barely more than nubs. A depot clerk would have marked both down as harmless mutations and forgotten them before lunch.

The hatchling raised its head.

First it looked left.

Then right.

Its mouth hung open as it studied the huge and mysterious world of one cramped bedroom in the slums.

Then its gaze found Jin.

Everything else fell away.

The gold eyes fixed on him and stayed there.

Something moved between them across that tiny distance. The Tamer Association’s science had no name for it.

Recognition, perhaps.

Or simply, There you are.

His forgotten phone lit beside the incubator. The perception filter hid the words from Arthur and Elsa.

[Bound Asset awakened.]

[Soul-link accepted.]

[Real-world Beast Contract formed.]

[Tamer Combat Rank established: Rank 1, 1-Star.]

The hatchling chirped.

Then it tried to reach him.

One stubby leg climbed over the broken edge of the shell. The rest of its body failed to follow. It tipped forward and landed face-first on the incubator floor with a soft fwump.

Elsa made a tiny, strangled sound behind him.

The hatchling pushed itself upright.

It swayed.

Then it tried again.

This time it made it over the shell and onto the felt lining, where all four legs immediately slid in separate directions.

It fell a second time.

Stood a second time.

And continued forward.

The distance was no more than half a foot, but it took almost a full minute. The hatchling stumbled through the entire journey with stubborn determination and no skill at all.

At last, it reached the edge of the cradle.

It peered down at the terrible drop toward Jin’s knee.

Then it chirped again, louder this time.

The demand was obvious.

Pick me up. I chose you. Hurry.

Jin held out his hand.

The hatchling climbed onto his palm.

It weighed almost nothing. Its body was warm and still a little damp. Tiny claws caught at his skin while it scrambled over his hand as if scaling a mountain.

Part of Jin expected some kind of display.

A roar.

A glow.

Maybe an announcement about destiny.

Nothing happened.

The hatchling crawled past his wrist, dragged itself along his forearm, and reached the space formed by his crossed legs.

Once there, it turned around twice.

Then it lay down, curled its overly long tail across its nose, and fell asleep.

That was it.

It had been alive for two minutes. The world killed almost everything it could reach.

And somehow, this creature had decided the safest place in existence was the lap of a sixteen-year-old who had barely left his cot willingly in the past week.

Jin stared down at it.

He raised one hand, hesitated, then lowered two fingers onto the little black head.

The pat was awkward.

"..."

Its side rose.

Fell.

Rose again.

"...You trust people pretty fast," Jin murmured.

Without opening its eyes, the hatchling gave a sleepy little chirp, as though agreeing with him. Then it pressed itself closer against his stomach.

Something moved inside Jin’s chest.

He made a careful decision not to think about it.

That was when Arthur finally broke.

He didn’t make a scene.

Arthur was never loud.

One shaking hand covered his mouth. Tears spilled down his face, and his shoulders began to jerk in small, silent movements while he stared at the creature sleeping in Jin’s lap.

"It lived," he whispered through his fingers. "Jin. It lived."

"Dad—"

"I thought I..." Arthur’s voice split apart. "I gave you a rock. Everyone laughed at me. They said I spent everything on garbage, and every night this week I lay awake thinking I’d thrown away your only chance, and I..."

The rest would not come out.

He remained on his knees on the cold floor and cried quietly, like a man who had kept too much inside for far too long.

Then Arthur lifted his face toward the cracked ceiling.

His voice came out raw, aimed at nothing and everything.

"Thank you. Thank you."