Sir Reginald

Chapter 5: Nightmare

 Feirult ran through a forest on fire. He tried to fly, but it was too hot. He heard Daisella screaming for him, burning as she did. No matter how fast he rushed through the walls of flame, his legs were not fast enough, and every time he tried to fly, the rising smoke brought him crashing down.

Entering a clearing, he saw his beloved Daisella engulfed in flames. She screamed at the top of her lungs as fire vomited up from her like a living volcano. Her flesh burned away like ash, and her whole body shook with torturous pain. Her screams warped into inhuman rasps as her lungs melted from the inside. He tried to reach out to her, to take her away, but another dragon came down from the blackened sky and tore her to pieces, roaring out at Feirult, "I love you, daddy!"

A frightened, ghastly look came over Feirult, realizing it was his own child who had torn apart its mother.

Black scales covered the other dragon, and glowing red eyes shone out of its skull. It snarled at Feirult, showing him its horrid teeth. A mess of broken, tusk-like stalactites that dripped with thick drool. Folding both its hands into fists adorned with obsidian claws, it growled and snapped its teeth at Feirult. It wailed with its haunting vocals, like the fire itself spoke for the black dragon, "I love you, daddy!"

Breathing and shaking uncontrollably, nearly tripping over his own feet, Feirult took several steps back as the fire around him got hotter, engulfing his body. It wrapped around him like a blanket of flame. The blaze licked at the trees and swelled over the forest.

Being the proud, noble dragon he was, Feirult tried to fight back. He struggled against the flames like bound chains. The fire tugged at him, keeping him captive so he couldn't make a move against the obsidian dragon. It was all he could do just to stand as the heat and fire encased him.

That's when he felt it. A splash of cool water awakened him from his slumbering inferno.