Air Dragons

The Letter

To all of you,

Something very strange happened. Even now I'm wondering what I just saw. But before I go, I must tell you the entire event as descriptively as I can.

My name's Quinpulup. It sounds odd to you because I'm from a different time zone, in the future. Hopefully everything will clear up later on.

I'm only going to record the day up to when I leave. My village should know why I have mysteriously left without a trace.

The sun rode across the dawn sky, waking village 35679. I felt the warm sun fall on my eyes, waking me up. I jumped out of the bed and grabbed my orpple; a hybrid of an orange and apple. I took a few bites of it.

Running out the door, I went straight to the cave I work in, my usual day. I tossed my orpple to the side of the cave and lined up on the wall.

My boss came out if his cavern, I had to stay still. He was very strict, but he says it's for the better. We were born to work. We had to gather crops all day and bring them here for the richer people. That's all we were good for.

"Ah, Quinpulup. Good to see you aren't late today." Boss told me. I gave him a nod. "But it seems too bad," he taunted, "That you didn't get the amount of crops you were supposed to. Follow me. You know the punishment."

I could feel everyones eyes fall on me as I walked into the dusty cavern. Now I was away from anyone's eyes. The boss took out a belt. This had happened to me a lot. I'm used to it because I can hardly keep up with all his demands. And he likes to pick on me.

The ropes began tightnig on my wrists and ankles. "This is to make sure you don't run away." He chuckled, making the ropes dig into my skin. "3 whippings." he sighed. "That's too little. It takes a lot of pain to make your kind know."

Even though he was a human too, I knew he was right. He was richer, so he knew what was better, didn't he?

My fists clenched up and I could see him pulling his hand back, holding the leather belt, the metal part was free. Free to strike me.

It was hard to walk back to my line, but I was still able to get myself to stay straight. "See? You're not even hurt!" he exclaimed to me. "Now get lost you animals!" We had to run out of there and not stop until night. But one strange terrible thing happened.

He grabbed me.

Whenever he grabs someone, he belts them even more. But do we deserve it? "Oh look who we caught!" he taunted. "Oh Quinpulup, do you feel like breaking your back today?"

This shot fear in me. "NO!" I screamed, and tried to squirm away. Talking back to him was worse of a crime, now he had permission to really mess me up and he will. "WHAT!?" he grabbed me by the neck. "How dar-" I elbowed him in the gut, he toppled over, screaming like a baby on the ground.

Then I kicked him in the head and ran away before he can catch me again.

Now he had permission to kill me.

I slowed down in a medow. The flowers were peaceful, but it wouldn't be long before my exectutors would come to scoop me up. He is surely going to beat me to near death, then drown me. He has a plan for everyone to die. If the way I mentioned was him being kind, what worse could it be?

And he isn't kind.

I could only run for now. Surely though, I would be executed before I sleep again. I ran through the forest, all the way to an open medow that I never saw before. But that didn't mean that I was safe. Maybe I should try to relax. I grew very shaky and the pain in my back came again. I realized that it was hopeless to get out from the coming pain that would lead to my death. I laid down in the flowers, which were surprisingly tall. Then I had an idea.