Wings of Fire: The Forgotten World

chapter 49

Hemlock's POV
By CamsterDragon

Hemlock hadn't been feeling very suspicious about Ash. Not until after Pleiades had warmed up to the Emberwing. At first, he had assumed that Ash had tempered with her emotions again, and he had kept a greater watch over the wounded dragon than usual, waiting for Pleiades to shake herself out of it and attack Ash, but, as the day progressed, he couldn't see any sign of Pleiades changing her mind.

Hemlock was overjoyed when the realization first came to him. Stress oozed from his mind, taking a huge weight off of the stack of burdens he possessed. He did the rest of his chores to heal Ash with a bounce in his step and a smile of satisfaction on his face. 

However, a new emotion filled the hole in which his stress had emptied out. At first, he ignored it, dismissing it as nothing and a result of the ebbing fear in him that Shatteredmoon would find them in the Golden Kingdom. But then, as night arose with no sign of the emotion going away, Hemlock studied himself a little closer and discovered the emotion to be jealousy. 

He couldn't make much sense of it, not really. If anything, this newfound emotion was confusing him. He knew it had something to do with how Pleiades was now hanging out with a new dragon, but he couldn't reason why. She's my friend, but that doesn't mean she can't have other friends. 

It became even more confusing when Hemlock started to doubt his qualities as a dragon as well. Without my animus powers, I'm a weak excuse for a dragon.

By the next morning, he was thankfully able to rid himself of the plague of emotions that seemed to be crawling inside of him. Which was a relief since he almost immediately realized something was off. As he strolled through the city, he perked his ears as no sound entered them. This didn't bother him at first; the sun was already beginning its descent into the sky, and most Viperwings weren't as brave as Pleiades to venture out, even with the new sun covers. As he breathed in the humid morning air, however, a smell reached his nose. The smell of death. Once again, he ignored it, thinking one of the younger Viperwings had foolishly ventured outside without any protection and had perished. He felt a brief jolt of sadness, but it soon vanished. Then, both the smell and the quiet became more intense, so intense he felt as though he were dropped into a graveyard where all the bodies hadn't yet been buried.  

He stopped quickly. Something's wrong. He backed away from the exit where he had been venturing towards to gather more supplies for Ash. He glanced up and noticed with dread the Viperwing guards. Or lack thereof. Then, his gaze trailed to the gate which, or was it just his imagination, was faintly glowing. 

His legs were starting to shake. The gate was definitely glowing now and was being slowly pushed open by some invisible force. Hemlock wanted to move... He really did. But, it was as though he was slowly being sucked into quicksand on the floor. Fear erupted inside of him. I have to warn my friends or at least run and hide. Yet, all he could do was stand there. Petrified. And then the gate opened. And there was Shatteredmoon, standing there in all of his glory. Hemlock couldn't do anything. He tried and failed. 

"Stuck?" asked the horrible dragon, smirking. "I'll have you know, I was recently made an animus and now have the means to take over the world." He raised a claw. "So, I can finally get rid of you." He flicked up his paws and a vortex appeared. Out flew Pleiades, Ash, and Velocity. "First, say goodbye to your friends." And in a flash, they all died.

"NO!!!" screamed Hemlock. He couldn't believe what was happening. This couldn't be real, it couldn't.

"And now, your turn." Shatteredmoon snapped his fingers and Hemlock was actually sinking into quicksand. And he slowly and painfully choked on it until...