The Dragon God

Chapter One

A note to my readers: The Dragon God  is now being freshly edited by my friend @uvhopespot ! Check her out for all your editing needs! <3 Remaining chapters are being updated for all of your fun dragon-ready needs!

There was so much fire. Bodies littered streets that Ivan didn't recognize. He walked past them, stepping over arms and legs, children's toys, coffee cups, and other debris. They were all charred and black, unrecognizable by whatever visual means there were. Only dental records would ever let someone know who all of these people were.

Fire blazed through the sky, and Ivan looked up, watching as the tail behind it brought in clouds as black as the bodies around him. He turned, watching the mushroom cloud in the distance. There was no sound.

Rain began to fall. He lifted his hand, surprised to see the claws and white scales of his dragon form. When had he changed? He felt the patter against his wings, and shook them, sending droplets of blood flying. Blood? He stepped back, his large foot crushing the ash-body that had been behind him. Looking up at the sky, Ivan could see the source of said blood. It fell from the skies by the bucket.

Then the bodies began to fall, one after another, each with their throat slit, or their limbs ripped off. All of them, human. Terror caught in his throat, but in this form, he could do nothing but back up, trying to keep out of range. It didn't matter. He couldn't avoid them.

A body hit the pavement in front of him. She stared up at Ivan with eyes that still wept. Her lips moved, and he heard the first sound since the nightmare had started:

You.

Sitting up in the middle of the remnants of his couch, Ivan's wings trembled behind him. His tail slapped the wooden floor loudly. When had he shifted back into his natural form? It had to have been the nightmare. His heart was still racing. Snorting lowly, the air in the room chilled.

What was that? It had been a long time since Ivan had experienced nightmares so vivid that he'd changed in his sleep. Head down, he focused on his human body. Smaller. Much smaller. The bones of his dragon form softened. The muscle became dense, and began to compact down as his skin changed, until, finally, Ivan stood there on two feet, naked in the pale morning light that filtered past the heavy curtains in his office. The air felt heavy. The light was muted. It was probably going to rain.

The furniture could be replaced. It wasn't as though he kept any day-help that would question what happened, after all. But it bothered him. That nightmare... It had been so real.

Catching sight of his human form in the mirror over the fireplace, Ivan could see the sun illuminating one side of his body, just barely warming the patch of snowy scales that still covered the place where his heart was beating.

He rubbed his face. Completely naked, and unashamed of it, Ivan headed for his bedroom, striding through the open space of his large home. He walked past paintings of ancestors and scenery and framed, signed posters of bands that he enjoyed.

Opening the door to his bedroom, Ivan strode to his walk-through closet, stepping inside. He pulled out a pair of slacks and a crisp black dress shirt. He blindly grabbed a pair of jockeys from the top drawer beside the hanging rods.

Despite the fact that autumn had finally arrived, washing the trees in the city with some of the most intense reds and golds that it had seen in several seasons, it had been unseasonably warm of late. Ivan looked to the embedded screen on the wall and tapped it with one of his fingers, bringing up an animated icon of a woman with an umbrella over her head.

"Weather." He commanded.

"Weather today will be cool and rainy, with a high of eleven this afternoon, and a low of two tonight, with a twenty percent chance of frost," the feminine, automated voice replied. "Don't forget your umbrella. Showers today will bring as much as—"