Tara found herself in complete and utter darkness.
Trying to yell she found she couldn't even manage a groan.
Was her body that messed up or something? The last thing she remembered was the incoming truck slamming into her body, and then she blacked out before she heard a strange mechanical voice.
Wait, voice? Her memories were jumbled. She was unable to recall the words.
Trying to calm down, she reasoned she blacked out and went into a coma from the collision.
She was likely badly injured, though she had no idea why everything was pitch-black.
The strange thing was she still had control over her limbs, though she could barely move.
It felt as if something was wrapped around her body as if she was bound.
She knew this was not hypothetical either. Tara could tell that she was restrained by something, by a material that's hard but has a little give to it.
Hearing a rustle outside made her feel even more paranoid.
What gives? This wasn't some absurd prank pulled by her devilish little sister, was it?
Instinctively feeling the need to yell out her name only to fail again.
Once again she was reminded of her inability to speak by the strange muffled noise.
Tara was left to ponder again as an absurd thought came to her.
What if she had been kidnapped?
Though she had no exact idea of the reason since her family was poor, she was not going to pretend she understood criminals.
Well, regardless of the situation, she only needed to escape.
After all, she felt no pain and found she could move her body.
Ignoring the strangeness that she could move fine after such a horrific accident, she found the restraints were flimsy at best.
Pushing hard she heard a loud CRACK.
Encouraged by the thing breaking, she pushed even harder against the thing covering her.
That was it she could tell it was on the verge of breaking now.
She just needed to put a bit more oomph into it.
Putting more power into it, she soon burst right through, scrambling out headfirst.
Ahhh! The warm sunlight and fresh air. It looked like summer hadn't left after all.
She was so lost in her reverie that when she finally opened her eyes, she immediately saw a horde of scampering critters making her let out a screech.
However, instead of her usual high-pitched scream the sound that escaped her mouth was a deep hissing sound.
Letting out such an un-ladylike sound would usually make her embarrassed, yet that seemed to attract the attention of the bugs.
She did not take notice of it before, but these bugs were ridiculously huge.
The bugs busily chomped on these large, round balls encased in a thick-jelly like substance.
If Tara were to describe them, she would say they looked like super-sized dragonflies.
Gaining their attention did not seem a good thing either, as the things turned their gaze on her the hunger in their insectoid eyes evident.
It was at that moment there was movement from the jelly-like balls. Strange creatures began to force their way out as the buzzing of the insects increased.
Despite these creatures being smaller than the bugs it was not by much.
Appearance-wise they resembled an odd cross between a lizard and a tad-pole, though they did not appear like vulnerable newborns as she saw sharp claws and teeth.
Inspecting the creature's features further she saw they had a weird blend of traits belonging to both amphibians and lizards.
Instead of running away like she thought the newborns would, these lizard-like creatures began charging at the dragonflies maniacally.
And despite the insectoids' menacing appearance, they were not unbeatable.
It was then she noticed that compared to the insectoids who struggled to eat through the thick-jelly material, the lizard-like creatures had no such problem.
The thick-jelly like material gleamed like metal, despite appearing like a sack of fluid it had a solid, hard quality to it.
With the chaos of the bugs and lizard-like creatures suddenly fighting, she steadily tried to make a getaway from these monstrosities.
Has someone kidnapped me and thrown me in the middle of Australia?
It couldn't be, even Australia doesn't have such large bugs.
Convinced she must be hallucinating, she decided this must all be some elaborate dream.
However, upon moving her front limb forward she was met with an unmistakable, webbed-like foot with sharp lizard-like claws.
Wait... Is that a lizard leg?
No, this can't possibly be hers.
Alright, Tara no panicking. There must surely be a rational explanation for this.
This can't seriously be happening. Yet, despite repeating these words repeatedly, she was perfectly able to move the strange lizard-like appendages perfectly.
It seems she has to face the facts.
Either she has been reborn as a lizard or she's having the most lucid dream of her life.
However, despite almost breaking down the disturbing sounds of crunching took her out of her stupor.
Remembering the insects and other lizards, she realised it wouldn't do her any good to ignore reality.
Turning around she saw the disturbing sight of a group of bugs tearing apart one of the lizards.
Now that's disgusting.
However, she came to the sudden realisation when she saw its beady eyes searching for a new target, wait don't those lizards resemble me?
At that moment one of the bugs had already taken notice of her, flying towards her rapidly its jaws moving threateningly as its legs twitched.
She had only mere moments to think before its jaws were attempting to clamp around her, using its legs to immobilize her.
Noticing the threatening gleam of her claws, she did what any human instinctively does when their life is threatened, she frantically fought back using every means at her disposal.
Tara was never a fighter, the insect on the other hand was an experienced hunter, yet her weapons were better than the insects evening the odds.
So not only was she able to fight back, she was able to tear the thing apart.
Feeling the adrenaline wear off, she saw the scattered goop of what was left of the insect making her feel the urge to barth.
If was then a notification suddenly filled her mind.
[You have defeated Winged Nymph gaining 1 EXP. You are now 1/10 into progressing to Level 2.]
What was that? The sudden mechanical voice filling her mind sounded eerily similar, was it real?
Rationalizing that suspending her disbelief further shouldn't be too difficult with the whole reborn as a lizard thing, she decided to investigate this further, but not before solving her current insect problem.
Speaking of the insects she had caught the attention of another one, as the sounds of the rapid beating of wings grew closer.