Tarragon

Chapter Thirteen: Of the Highest Order

-Mantis
-March 15th

I woke up to the sound of shouting. My father had slammed my door open. Dec and Fern were asleep on opposite sides of the room. We had yet to get them back to their homes.

"WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO, MANTIS?" he shouted, "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?" he interrogated me, ripping the covers off my bed. I was completely taken aback, I hadn't done anything bad that I could think of.

"Slow down, calm down- what are you talking about?" I asked him, trying to de-escalate the situation. I put my hands up defensively, and backed up in my bed.

"Rose & Miller Orphaned Dragon Sanctuary. Why?" he asked me, raising his hands up into the air, in confusion, "What's wrong with you?"

I had heard the name of the dragon sanctuary before, and could guess what it was, but didn't know much past it. I told him exactly that.

"So you didn't walk into it in broad daylight- or, nightlight, and commit 139 total murders, one human and 138 dragons?" he asked, "You didn't completely annihilate John Miller's brain, past the possibility of saving him?"

"No! I- what- when did this- when did this happen?" I asked, "I need to know what happened before you accuse me of- of something as awful as that!"

"12:02 AM, right after midnight, you appeared outside of the dragon sanctuary, and walked in. You trespassed into the back, after being warned by the sole employee present on the property- John Miller. He tried to stop you, you killed him, and later killed all 138 present dragons, before teleporting away." he answered, "There is security footage of everything that happened. I can show you."

Dec and Fern had woken up from our argument. I signaled for them to just stay put, as I opened up my computer, and then WeTube. (Writer's note: Yes, it's still WeTube. 12 chapters later, it is finally mentioned again. It's been over 50 thousand words since it was last mentioned, and FINALLY it has returned. Obviously WeTube is the main character of the book.)

My homepage was overwhelmed by videos of exactly what my father had told me about.

"Leaked footage of Mantis Ethwell's horrifying crimes!" accompanied by a thumbnail of a photo of me, with a black square over my face, like it had been redacted. The background was edited to look like a prisoner photo.

"MANTIS ETHWELL IS NOT TO BE TRUSTED" the thumbnail accompanying the video was a photo of me, during my Angelic Possession during the Hellbent Coral game. Specifically, as I learned to teleport. Lightning crackled around my body. The image was edited to have a red glow around the edges.

"The rising star's facade has broken" was the third video. The thumbnail was the same base photo of me as the first video, but with a cracking glass effect over it. If I wasn't me, this would probably convince me that I was a terrible person.

A sinking feeling set in, as I realized just how bad this was. There was security footage of me- or rather- someone posing as me- killing 139 people.

I typed into the search bar, "raw mantis ethwell footage"

The first result was what I was looking for. A video six minutes long, named, "Raw R&M Mantis Ethwell footage"

I clicked it, and began watching. I clicked past the warning for possibly disturbing content, and began viewing the footage. I saw the horizon dragon, the adorable little thing walked up to the fake me.

And the fake me crushed it in one hand. It snapped its neck. Just seeing it made me feel so horrible. A tear welled up in my eye- this was how people saw me, now. A horrible person. I felt bile rise in my throat, as he dropped the corpse to the ground, the panic in the dragons in the back, as they tried to break out through a ventilation shaft. I had a translation spell up the whole time, to hear what the dragons were saying, and it pained me.