It was peaceful. So peaceful that nothing else could possibly matter. Perhaps not even when he slumbered within the egg had it been this serene.
Countless stray thoughts, all manner of them, had been washed cleanly away, and he savored a true rest, the likes of which he had never once experienced in his life. Among the stray thoughts washed clean from his mind was also his awareness of the flow of time.
How much time had passed, whether he was awake now or still asleep—Jaekyung thought of none of it. He did not wish to think. Then at some moment, just as one’s eyes naturally open after sleeping enough, his consciousness, which had sunk deep below, rose naturally to the surface.
His closed eyes opened, and the sight of a world both familiar and strange entered his field of vision.
"Grrrr."
Jaekyung moved his stiff body. He shook his tail, braced his legs against the ground, and rose, resulting in an endless series of small crumbling and cracking sounds. Wondering what it was, he turned his eyes to see what had once been scales that enveloped his body, now faded white, sloughing off like dust accumulated over many years.
'Right.