Dragon Fruit

Chapter 6

I had a strange nightmare that night. I was in a dark and empty field, with grass stained with red. I looked up from the ground and saw my father, with a wound to his chest. I ran towards him in a panic, and held his limp body in my arms. His last, quivering words haunted me even after I woke up.

"This is all your fault." He spoke, then stopped breathing.

Alone and afraid, I mourned his death. I never wanted this to happen. Then, I heard the screams of the people of my village. I turned my head around only to see that the village was bruning to the hands of humans. They loaded my people into these metal boxes, and then sent them away. The ones who didn't want to go with them were charred until they were unrecognizable.

I saw my mother, then. She was burnt until she was only skin and bones, and she was hung by the neck off the side of a branch. Tears flooded my vision, and I tried to wipe them off.

The sound of one of the human caging vehicles rang in my ear. I looked back at the direction my father laid in, and saw the shrine. The humans loaded the dragon fruit into the vehicle, with gloves and strange masks on. I yelled after them, begging and pleading for them to stop. They looked at me with blank, black faces, with white smiles that looked right through me. My eyes widened to the sight of me running after them with nothing but my pocket knife and guts.

One of them pulled out the strange bow from their pocket, and shot me with the miniature arrow. I fell down onto my knees, and laid on the ground. Blood trickled from the area that I was wounded in.

I awoke in a panic, screaming out for help. When i eventually realized it was a dream, I calmed down, but the thought of it still circled through my head. I laid my head back down on the hard stone floor, careful to not hit my head. Ryuu, whom was now far away from me, was glaring and growling at the iron poles that kept us in there.

The man I saw the night before came into view, but he looked more sinister. The iron poles opened the way out, and three more humans came into the room. They grabbed me by the arms, and held Ryuu by his neck. They were practically strangling him as we were dragged into another dark room, with only one light in the center with a chair inside. They set me down on the chair, and disabled my movement by tying me to the chair with ropes. I struggled to get free, but I was too weak.

"We can make this easy," The man began, "or hard. Either way, if you lie..." The man with Ryuu held the bow up to his head. "We'll kill your little dragon friend. I'm sure his scales will sell for a lot of money."

"Leave him out of this!" I yelled, inching the chair forward forcefully.