Free #8 The Hatching by Annie Graves Page B

blackness reaching out and out and out.

    When I awoke there was an egg on my nightstand again.
    It was almost identical to the previous Egg, except that it was very slightly bigger.

    Every morning I put the new Egg in the fridge, and every evening it returns to the nightstand.
    I am still scared of the Egg, but there’s another feeling there too.
    A sort of a horrid responsibility for its well-being.
    After all, I brought it into this world, in this form anyway.

    I touch the new Egg sometimes, stroke it softly round and round and round—the whorls of my fingertips so rough in comparison.
    They really are a higher life form, eggs. Such simple things, and yet containing worlds. Nourishment and life.
    Meat and venom.
    Best to stay on their good side. Not that eggs have sides.
    But still, you know what I mean.

    I was just about to open my mouth and mock Seamus when he lifted up his T-shirt.
    There it was: a perfect egg-shaped dent sunk into the soft fat of his belly.
    â€œI call it my nest,” he concluded proudly, and everyone went quiet.

    Until John muttered, “I’d probably still eat it. For five dollars.”
    I’D LIKE TO SEE HIM TRY.
    I REALLY,
REALLY
WOULD.
    THE END