Dragons by Roger Keyserling (ebook smartphone TXT) 📕

 Wanik was an interesting place to grow up. I used to love to explore the area outside on my free time. I was the type of person who didn't want to live in a small town. I went to the city and loved it there. 

      So I spent most of my time studying so I could find a profession that would allow me to make it out. I really didn't want to be one of those people waitressing at the only bar in town. I had a cousin that did that and all she could do after her shifts is complain her feet hurt and tell me to get an education.

       However, I couldn't study all the time. The books were good and all but I liked the outdoors too. It felt so free there. I could adventure outdoors and forget I was even in the world at all.

      Wanik was a place that had a lot of unexplored wildlife. Thankfully, it was almost hot like a desert so there were no bears. One day I decided to be really brave and explore an area I hadn't before. I was planning on making a map of it.

      So there I was lurking around and I spotted a cave. There was a smell of smoke coming from it. It wasn't a lot of smoke, but it was a little. I went in and jumped.

       I saw this dragon there. It had wings and a long neck. There it was though peacefully napping by a fire. I figured that it must be a fire breathing dragon at this rate.

       I touched the dragon and it startled. I was very tame. I started to pet it. I just felt drawn to it. It was as though it was my pet and it was here in Wanik for me.

       I had summoned this ride in my dreams almost. My dragon could fly just like in the movies. Well, I wanted to do more than just stay in the cave. The next time I went back, I brought some raw meat. This helped to lure the dragon out.

     It turns out that training dragons are just like training dogs. They really like to get treats and they'll do more if you teach them with Pavlov's conditioning. 

       My dragon had to be named. I named him Escape. For me, my dragon was my escape from reality. I didn't have a lot of friends in Wanik because they didn't think like me. They liked to gossip and exclude people. They were rude and pretty much laughed in your face.

       I never clicked with the type of people that I felt were like this. I wanted to be around docile and adventurous people, just like Escape. One day, I got on Escape and he started flying. 

      It was the most fun I'd ever had. When summer hit, I told my Mom that I was going to a friend's house for a few days. Really, I was adventuring with Escape. I wanted Escape to fly me to a large city. I wanted to look around and take pictures, so I brought my camera.

     The escape took me because I trained to Escape how to fly. I was riding the magical waves of adventure in the clouds now on my way to New York.

     When I got there, I did take a lot of pictures. I went to Central Park and even went to a Broadway show. I stayed in a hotel with some money I had saved. Escape waited patiently on the outskirts of the city at a designated location.

      I knew Escape would always help me. Later when I went to college, Escape followed me. We found him a new cave. I went to visit him often. He saved me a lot of money on airfare. 

       I think I also helped Escape get away from Wanik. He was all alone there. He had no interaction. I let Escape in and Escape let me in. We had a bond that was like that between any other owner and pet. It was just a magical connection. Escape helped me realize that the city was nice, but it was nothing without a good friend. 

Mythos stood perfectly still as I gripped her thick mane and boosted myself up using her thick scaly hind leg. Her scales bit into my inner thighs but with a little bit of adjusting, I managed to find a comfortable sitting position. She flicked her wings nervously like a cat sitting in a window does it's tail when it sees a bird outside. I patted her neck and gave her a light kick in her side. Her wings swooped up over my head, strong and fibery throughout except the portion that had been burned in the last battle. It was shrunk in on itself, a sickening shade of black that only denoted death and made me swallow heavily. I knew Mythos would be fine but I worried about her flight pattern, especially with a human flying with her. The sudden drop of her wings and lift off caught me off guard and I griped her mane harder. Three hard pumps and we were above the trees. I looked out above her head and the brilliant blue of the ocean shown brightly on the horizon. The beach would be a good halfway point for today's initial workout. As Mythos climbed, I began to put her through her paces. My eyes began to tear up as she raced upward, my arms straining when she reached near-vertical alignment in her climb. I tucked my head, hair in my face tickling in a maddening fashion as I dared not let go knowing I was not strong enough to hold on at this speed. We reached our peak and I lifted my head to take in the beauty. For several moments we hung above the clouds, floating with the early morning light reflecting off the ocean far below. Turning behind me, I could see the city and the castle. I couldn't make out anyone on the walls, but I knew Ally and Braden were watching our trip.

I grinned and decided to give them something to watch. "Cero!" I whispered and Mythos immediately tucked her wings and began to tunnel toward the beach at a frightening speed. She was easily matching her regular pace and I beamed to myself silently, once again head tucked and body stretched along the length of hers, holding on with all of my strength. As we began to reach our destination, something happened. Mythos' head jerked suddenly and I felt a spasm run through her body. Her wings snapped out as if against her will. The frightening crunch of her injured wing made me gag. Her wing wasn't able to withstand the sudden stop at the speed we had achieved and we fell like a rock. A very large rock with a very breakable pebble on its back. There were no trees to break our fall as we had come very close to the beach. Just large boulders and sand would welcome us. Mythos groaned and cried clawing at the air, flapping her good wing, trying desperately to keep us in the air. Real tears filled my eyes this time as I realized what was about to happen.

The wind whistled as we got closer to the ground. I climbed to my feet on her back and prepared to jump as far as possible from the boulders as I could. There was no way I could stop Mythos from hitting the boulders. However, at second glance, I could see that there was a chance of her surviving if she managed to not smash her head into the rocks when she landed. "Rabo! Rabo!" I shouted. Mythos' ears perked up and she immediately pulled her wings in and raised the upper half of her body. Her tail and lower legs would take the brunt of the impact and would be much easier to heal than her head or wings. I leaned into her. "May we survive this Mythos and live long and see the future." She sighed. I jumped out toward the sand as far as I could as Mythos' crashed into boulders. They split and cracked under the weight of the two-ton dragon. I had jumped far but not as far as I had hoped and landed on a rock large enough to break the fall of only my leg. My leg burned from ripped flesh and a bone sticking out of it. Breath was gone, pain in my leg and chest, I raised my eyes even as they grew dim. Mythos lay crumpled upon the boulders, wings ripped and bleeding, broken limbs in horrible places. My heart seized. Then I heard a low whistle. Mythos calling to me. I sighed and the world went dark.

We could not have imagined that it would it happen. A deadly pestilence has come upon the world. Millions of people have been infected by this scourge and everyone is dying all around us. The plague is bad but something more forbidding looms in this chaos. This thing comes to haunt our city during the nighttime.

I am from the kingdom of Burringham which lies in the realm of Angleland. We are of the Saxon race and I am monk at the Abby of Westburrow. For the past year we have been isolated away from the masses because of the plague. The plague infects people and they don’t know that they have it until they are near death. Once a man becomes infected, they will immediately show symptoms and then die. Some die suddenly and others could die within a few days. Most die with a few hours after getting sick.

Everyone is locked into their homes and afraid to come out. The streets are bare, the buildings are abandoned, and many more people are losing their lives to starvation and other illnesses.