Short Stories

May 2014

This was written for YAFF — the Young Authors Fiction Festival —, in the 8th grade section. I thoroughly enjoyed writing this story, whose themes are all subjects that I hold dear — drawing, dragons, magic, the environment. My text came in fifth! :) :)

(Again, no title — It wasn't mandatory ^^)

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Lisa was ready. In front of her, a desk, a blank white sheet of paper, an eraser, and several types of pencils. Now all she was waiting for was inspiration.

What did she want to draw? Every type of subject was possible: people, objects, animals, fantasy... Yes, fantasy seemed an inspiring subject right now. But it's such a broad one; it encompasses fairies, unicorns, elves, dragons...

An image appeared in her mind: a majestic dragon, in flight, powerful wings spread wide, golden scales glistening in the morning sun—

She shook her head. What was she thinking? To create something this elaborate required skill quite beyond her capability. She was no good with colors, for one; ever since she could draw coherently, she had stuck to classic pencil and eraser. So she would keep it to that.

Very concentrated, Lisa visualized the dragon on the paper; then, confidently, started to draw the outline. The proportions needed to be just right; after a few readjustments, she eagerly passed on to the details. It was her favorite part: it is when a drawing starts to look realistic or artistic, when the drawn character takes on an expression, a personality.

Lisa lifted her drawing at arm's length, to get better look. She stared at it pensively as she chewed the end of her pencil-- a bad habit she didn't care to get rid of, actually. All her pencils were in the same sad state, but at least her little brother was too disgusted to steal her drawing material.

She didn't feel quite satisfied about the dragon. Maybe add a few spikes here and there.

She put the drawing down, and traced a few more details: a little more shading in places, and some more spikes along the tail. But before she could finish the third one, a deep voice resonated in the room:

"Hello, Lisa."

Lisa jumped suddenly.

"Who... who spoke?" she asked.

No answer. Lisa looked frantically around the room: there was absolutely no one else present. And she hadn't heard the door open, either; besides, it was still properly closed.

Bewildered, Lisa thought maybe she had hallucinated. Uncertain, she turned back to her unfinished work, and discovered that the voice had made her hand jerk; now a thick ugly line pierced the dragon's tail like a spear. Lisa, furious, muttered very inelegantly to herself. She seized her eraser, frustrated, but was careful not to crumple the paper as she used it. Because of this hallucination, she had traced an unwanted line and had pressed so hard she wasn't sure she could ever erase it completely.

After a few seconds, Lisa decided she had done all she could to make the line disappear and that it would fade no further. She blew away the bits of used eraser from the paper, and instantly the same deep the voice came back:

"Are you done yet?"

This time Lisa was not caught by surprise, and realized two things: first, that the voice seemed slightly annoyed; second, that it had not come from outside, but from inside. Inside her head.

The girl did not comprehend what was happening. Surely this was only her imagination? But it seemed so real, Lisa decided not to ignore it. And then what was she supposed to do? Make conversation? How?

"Can you... hear me?" she tried hesitantly. She felt stupid, speaking in an empty room, not sure who she was talking with, if that person would answer, or if she was just going crazy. But the answer came, on the verge of exasperation:

"Of course I can hear you."

Well, that was a start. Lisa and... the entity... could speak freely to each other. She moved on to the next and most important question:

"Who are you?"

At that there was a pause. Lisa thought the voice was gone again, but it answered after a few pensive seconds:

"My name is Ulawm. To put it simply, I am precisely the dragon you are now drawing."

Lisa looked down at her paper, flabbergasted.

"You're... a dragon? Imprisoned in paper?"

"Well, yes. I am indeed a dragon—and you must never tell anyone of me."

"Ok... So what happened?"

"I'll explain everything to you. To make the story as short as possible, I will start with my death."

" Your death? Do I really want to know?"

"Well, you must. When I died, long ago, I turned into a tree—"

"A tree?"

"Yes," the voice snapped. "Could you please let me finish? You will hear a lot about magic, so prepare to silence your questions."

Lisa's mouth clamped shut.

"So... I turned into a tree, and gave birth to a forest. I protected it for thousands of years until humanity broke the balance of nature, killing animals until extinction, polluting natural areas, and using up natural resources. Humans started to cut trees down, and my forest too. I protected it against them as much as I could, but soon I was also cut down."

Lisa thought she could distinguish a hint of melancholy in Ulawm's otherwise impassive tone.

"My parts were then used to produce paper. I couldn't feel anything," he added at Lisa's horrified look, "but I could see, and my consciousness is still tied to every sheet of paper that came from me.

"Now listen, this is where you are concerned. I can come back to my original dragon form, if someone draws me precisely as I looked like back then—any position is possible­. You have drawn one that resembles me enough so that I can communicate with you; now I can guide you orally in your drawing and save my forest."

Lisa was quite overwhelmed by Ulawm's speech. This was an important decision; could she really do it?

But she had to. She couldn't be shy when a whole forest depended on her.

She nodded, determined.

Then she realized she had missed something essential:

"What forest am I saving?"

Ulawm replied, "Humans call it the Amazon Rainforest."