I couldn't remember how to get inside.

I flew around the house and tried opening the doors, but both were locked. I had a vague memory of a key being kept in a flower pot, but I couldn't actually find any flower pots. I didn't see anything outside the house at all, actually. I wondered if the memory might have been of something that had been so commonly done by other people that it had stuck in my head, rather than something I had done myself, or if something had happened to my flower pot. The other houses in the neighborhood had various items surrounding them despite the obvious damage - only mine was bare.

I did another lap around the house just to make sure... then I found a rock and threw it through the window.

A strange instinct caused me to hover in place for a second, with a vague fear telling me that something was about to happen... but when nothing did, I tucked my wings in close and dove through the jagged hole in the window.

The inside of the house was dark. A bit of starlight filtered in through the windows, but the moon had either still not risen yet or wasn't full tonight, and there just wasn't enough light to see much with. None of the lights were on, and given the state of electricity in the rest of the city, I didn't even bother to try and get them working.

But it was still obvious the house was empty. There was nothing but bare rooms - no furniture, no pictures, no personal possessions. It was as empty as if it had just been built.

I drifted through the rooms, feeling a sense of familiarity as I did. That room had been a bedroom... that was a dining room, with a view of the yard that would let me watch squirrels and small birds while I ate... that was an office room, where my computer would be... the living room should have a large blue couch, with extra comfortable cushions...

I landed on the soft carpet of my empty bedroom and looked around. The voice on the recording had said no one would keep memories, but... I remembered this. I remembered ending days here and sinking into a bed to relax. I couldn't remember what I had done during those days, and I couldn't remember much of what had happened in my house, but I was definitely able to remember some things.

The scientist must have been wrong. I wasn't sure what to do with that, even though it was interesting. Maybe somewhere out there the other dragonets had kept their memories, or at least more of them, and were doing something useful with them. If they really were out there. But the fragments of memory didn't do me much good.

I looked around the dark room and tried to remember more details... but other than a vague idea about a dresser that should be in one corner, nothing came to mind.

The lack of furniture and belongings... actually didn't bother me that much, not when I thought about it. Whatever had happened to me must have taken place some time back. My stuff had probably just been sent to a relative when the bank or landlord missed too many payments. That was what happened when someone disappeared, wasn't it? Maybe even auctioned off. I had a vague sense that the loss of all my stuff should upset me... but I couldn't really remember any of it. It probably would have felt more disturbing if I had come back to a familiar place only to find it full of things that I knew must have been important, but which I no longer had any memory of.

I suddenly felt weary on multiple levels. I had flown a bit, and despite how good it felt, my wings still weren't used to too much demand yet. A nap wouldn't hurt. I flew into the bedroom, then yawned and stretched out on the soft carpet covering the floor.

I spent a few minutes sprawled in the middle of the room, feeling a strange draw of memory that told me this was where I came when it was time to sleep... but sleep wouldn't come. I was very tired, but... I was also...

I was scared.

Waking up in that strange lab, hearing those awful things, flying through that empty city, even finding my old house... it had just been one unsettling experience after another. The room was dark, and the noises in the distance were strange and unfamiliar, and... I was alone. Without overwhelming warmth from a heat lamp above me, without an immediate problem to focus on, I could more clearly feel a quiet nervousness deep inside me.

I was all alone. There was no one else here but me.

That made it very hard to sleep. I very, very much wanted somebody else to be there with me right then. I didn't want to be all alone in that house, or that city. Even if it was just somebody who could tell me I didn't have to be afraid of the dark, because they were there too. It was a need in my new body that was just as essential as the need for warmth or the need for food. Whatever I might have been before, I was a social creature now. Being all alone was not something I could comfortably manage.

I tried for a few more minutes, then gave up and flew back to the living room. The moon still hadn't risen... but the stars were shining brightly through the window. They helped a little.

I curled up against one of the walls and tucked my head underneath one of my wings. Starlight twinkled along the dark carpet. The dim light was a little easier to handle than the darkness of the bedroom. It was actually pretty, and if it hadn't been for my headache, I might have been fascinated by the soft patterns flickering across the carpet. As it was, I just hoped that some more sleep might be enough to take away the constant ache in my skull...

The pounding in my head was still there when I woke up some time later. But alongside it there was also a feeling of... anticipation. There was a faint glow filtering through the window, and something about it... I had to go see it. Some instinct had been triggered, some need I had never been aware of was suddenly telling me it could now be met.

I started to jump towards the window to see what was there, but that same feeling told me that wouldn't be enough. I needed to be outside. I needed room to move, I needed nothing between me and the source of that glow, I needed to see it, and be seen in it.

The strange instinct scared me. If just a side glance at it through a window had caused this much of a desire, I wasn't sure I would be able to handle being directly in the glow.

Still, the urge was a strong one... and I wanted to know what was causing it.

I flew back through the empty house and ducked back through the hole in the window. I hovered outside the door, glancing skyward, and saw the glow coloring the sky above me.

It was sunlight.

I stared up at it, feeling drawn to it in a way I couldn't understand. I had seen sunlight before - even my fragmented memories from being a human had some of it, and I had clearly seen sunlight last night, when I was flying through the evening. It hadn't seemed anything special.

But this...

I put more force into my flaps and rose up in the air, spiraling up to land on the roof of my house. I stood on all fours and stared towards the east, watching the sky grow steadily brighter. It was almost magical. Something incredible was about to happen... something I needed to take part in...

The first clear rays of sunlight lit up the sky, and I felt a wave of exuberance wash through me. Each ray of light seemed to strike a note inside me as I watched them dance through the clouds and bring light to the sky.

The need to sing and dance along with them rose up inside of me and urged me to act.

I jumped off the roof with an excited somersault of a loop. I stretched my wings wide and turned the downward arc into flight, falling off the side of the house and looping upwards to rise up into the air. I sang, filling the sad silence of the city around me with lyrical chirps and whistles.

I stretched my wings as far as they could go and rose higher into the air, making sure each one of my silver scales had as much chance of catching the dawn's light as possible. I spun as more rays broke past the horizon, feeling the pulse inside me change as more sunlight appeared, and I wheeled and soared with the changes. I flew with a skill I hadn't known I possessed - my body knew what it needed to do, and I sang and danced out every note perfectly.

I didn't care who might see me - people from the lab that would try and harm me, whatever invaders had been behind all the destruction throughout the city, the potential refugees watching through unknown means. It didn't matter. Let them see. I wanted them to see.

The sun was rising. That was the only thing that mattered now. The sun had once again come back to warm the world. To bring light to what had been dark. To bring joy and happiness to what had just been trapped in silence and gloom. To bring life again, no matter the amount of death and destruction that had gone before.

That had all been yesterday. And yesterday was no more.

Now it was today.

I cast my voice out into the world around me, and reflected the light of the sun with my silver body. I sang out my joy at being alive. I sang my gratitude to the sun, for the warmth and light it had provided to keep me alive in the dark cold of the lab. I danced out the thrill of being able to fly, of having the freedom to move in any direction without fear. I met the energy the sun had cast across an unfathomable distance just to warm my body, and I poured all of my being into announcing its arrival to the world.

I danced and sang with the sun, expressing the dance and song laughing within its light.

I slowed to a hover as the sun finally rose, staring in awe at the horizon.

A sense of euphoria lingered, as if my entire body was a tuning fork that was still ringing out a note. That had been... that was...

There weren't words to describe it. There was only a name. That had been the Morning Song.

I knew that was the name on a level deep, deep inside me. It wasn't a memory. It wasn't an answer from the encyclopedia that occasionally offered useful tidbits. It was the only thing appropriate to call those moments. It was simply wrong to call it anything else. I knew that just as surely as I knew that I would be able to greet the sun the same way tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that... I was a dragonet. It was the sun. I was meant to fly with the coming of the dawn, meant to sing and dance in welcome of it.

I floated in an awed trance for a few more minutes... then the euphoria faded enough for me to think again. My flight had ended over a different house, but my wings were burning from being stretched to their limits in my excitement. I slowed my flaps enough to come to the ground to rest, and stared back up at the orange sky stretching above me as I caught my breath.

It was beautiful.