In the gray hush before sunrise, the sand exhaled its last breath of night. A single egg cracked open like a secret finally spoken, and from the dark chamber emerged a creature no bigger than a man's palm. Shell still soft, flippers trembling, the hatchling paused at the crater's edge.
The world above was vast and indifferent: a beach stretching into shadow, waves murmuring like distant promises, and the ocean waiting black, endless, alive. No mother waited to guide him. No siblings remained; the others had scattered or been claimed by crabs under cover of darkness. He was alone, yet not afraid. Instinct hummed in his blood, older than memory: Go to the light. Go to the water.
He took his first step.
The sand clung like wet regret, each grain a small resistance. His flippers dug in, pushed forward, slipped back. Again. Again. The horizon glowed faintly silver now, a thin line where sea met sky. That was the pull the moon's reflection on the waves, brighter than any artificial glow from distant hotels or roads. Artificial lights had tricked so many before him, leading them inland to death under tires or in gutters. But this one listened only to the ancient signal woven into his bones.
A ghost crab scuttled past, eyes glinting. It paused, considering the tiny traveler. The hatchling did not stop. He did not look back. One slow flipper after another, he carved a fragile path through the damp sand.
Halfway down the beach, exhaustion clawed at him. His shell felt heavier than the world itself. A wave rushed in, cold and sudden, lifting him briefly before retreating. For a heartbeat he floated weightless, free then settled again on wet sand. The ocean whispered encouragement: Come. Come home.
He pressed on.
When the first true light touched the horizon, painting the world in shades of charcoal and pearl, he reached the surf line. A final wave curled around him like an embrace. He paddled once, twice awkward, frantic then found rhythm. The water took him gently, turned him, carried him out.
Behind him, the beach faded into a long, empty curve. Ahead lay the deep unknown: currents that would carry him thousands of miles, years of drifting in sargassum forests, predators in the blue dark, and one day perhaps the return to this very shore to lay eggs of his own.
He did not know any of that. He only knew the pull had been answered.
In the monochrome dawn, a tiny shadow vanished beneath the surface. Small steps had carried him through the impossible. The journey was just beginning.