Hatch

In thirty one cycles, the earth shall be reborn.

I've heard the stories for as long as I can remember. At first they seemed fabricated, of myth and legend.

But about two years ago, signs, little whispers of Egg's existence, began to appear.

Trees died. They would blacken, as if burned, yet they did not crumble. As the branches withered away, the wood of the trunk would crack open, revealing a fresh, green, sapling, a ghost of the tree's flourishing past. The birds stopped singing, their throats stuffed with figurative cotton. Muddy rain would fall, then flatten out into soft, crystalline puddles on concrete.

So it's true. Egg is coming.

I'm not looking forward to dying. I know that Egg believes our memories are what poison us, that they are what cause our hearts to blacken into oozy pools of oil. So when I rise up from the ashes, I will be an empty shell.

Everyone else seems so calm. They don't care. They hate this world, they want it reformed.

I don't. This ugliness is what motivates us. It has shaped our very beings, nurtured our way of thinking.

When Egg comes, the slate will be wiped clean. But among the scribbles and smudges, there are poems, secret messages.

Egg is unavoidable, it is inevitable.

But so is my willingness to fight.