Close your eyes for just a second and picture the old oak tree at the end of the garden. The one you always climb. Got it?
That's where Sofia's story begins.
It was a perfectly ordinary Tuesday when Sofia spotted something glowing beneath the roots. Not sunlight. Not a firefly. Something warm and gold and pulsing, like it had a heartbeat of its own.
She reached down. The earth was soft, warmer than it should have been. Her fingers closed around something smooth and round. Oh, this was no rock.
It was an egg. About the size of a football, covered in tiny scales that shimmered between green and blue. And when Sofia held it, it hummed.
She stood there for a long moment, heart hammering, mud on her knees, holding what might have been the most important thing she would ever hold.
Then it moved.