dragon rebirth

Chapter 3. a human hatchling

After a week I woke up in almost complete darkness. I began to pry the eggshell open to the now blinding sunlight before my eyes adjusted

"Nathan? You OK?" a new face said to me looking concerned. 

"Who are you?" I asked him.

"Name's Michael and I guess this dragon is planning to grow her family," he replied.

"Not exactly Michael she's got you and Lily for some friends of hers," he replied.

"Nathan can get us home, can't you?" Lily asked me.

"How do you know what I've done?" I asked her.

"Word gets around these days at astronomical rates," she replied.

"Not from here, I'm afraid. If we were on Earth I might be able to, but here we can only let their will go on," I replied. I then went over to the spring in the cave and drank some water and ate 3-4 fish in my dragon form before turning to my partly human form to let it digest.

"You're giving up this soon?" Michael asked me.

"Well, this doesn't mean we can't have a little fun if you know what I mean," I replied.

When night fell I woke Michael and whispered to him: "Ready for an adventure?"

As we headed out if the cave and into the woods we saw many unusual creatures, most of which were asleep. The ones that were up, however, seemed to be spirit-like; their dark purple and almost vanta black colors being quite ominous. The moonlight didn't even make the black parts visible. When one came to us from behind we bolted from it. I was trying to hold onto Lily who was still asleep. 

"You think we made it far enough?" Said Michael as we took shelter in another cave. 

I look outside to find no sight of the creature. "Yeah, I think we lost it" I replied. 

"Maybe we should rest here? I don't know about you, but I've only slept maybe for 4 hours." He said to me. 

"Yeah, you do that I'll keep a watch" I replied. After half an hour the creature came behind me and put it purple hands over my eyes and mouth and lowered me to the cave floor. In my dream, I was having to constantly fly and dodge what looked like mines. What I didn't realize is that the creature was levitating me and my wings were flapping in my sleep.

When daylight broke I was suddenly woken up after hitting the cave floor.

"Nathan I think that creature found us," Michael said to me.

"Let's worry about that later. It doesn't seem hostile," I replied as we left the cave

After 20 minutes of walking, we heard an unusual noise. I looked around to see where the sound was coming from. That's when I saw a nearby cave. "it's probably coming from the cave. We should keep going, no telling what its actually from." I said to them.

As we kept going I could spot a building in the distance. 

"Is that supposed to be a lab?" Michael said to me. The building looked abandoned, but something felt off about it that made my hair stand up. 

"I wonder what's inside?" Said Lily.

"Yeah, I'm kinda curious myself," I replied.

We headed inside to find it in shambles, but something was sticking out from the ceiling.

"Is that what I think it is?" Lily asked me.

"Yup, Xenomorphs in dimension X who would have guessed," I replied. Suddenly I let out a toot.

"Nathan, What did you eat?" Lily asked me fanning her face

After that, I heard a buzzing sound and a voice that said: "yeah that smells bad even for me human."

 I knew exactly what said that from the last word. 

"OK run!" I said to them as we bolted down a hall. When we made it into what looked like a chemistry lab; we jammed the door handles with a graduated cylinder. 

"That should hold the door, and there are no holes in the roof either," I said to them. As we looked around the room we saw some vines growing on the walls, and they smelled appetizing for me. As I took a nibble out of them I said "hey, these are edible. Grab some we will need some food along the way."

That's when I heard something in the ceiling. We saw a ceiling tile move and then bolted out of the room. 

"OK maybe this wasn't a good idea," I said to them. We decided to head back out but something was guarding the door. "This way!" I said as we ran deeper into the hall. We went deeper into the building looking for a way out, but when we headed into a computer lab I knew we hit pay dirt.

"What are these?" Michael asked me.

I popped one open to find what looked like an optical processor. "Imagine bringing these home, we'd be rich," I told them.

"careful what you say, Nathan. There's always a Machiavellian of the group when it comes to this," he replied.

"Ok, what are we going to do about our sleeping arrangement? We can't have them impregnating us in our sleep," I told them. 

"use the desks to make a tent. that might help," Michael replied.

After we did that we hunkered down for the night. With us covering every hole we could in the makeshift tent we figured we were safe, but as we slept I could only worry about what was in the building. I always tended to factor in everything,  and I wondered. How did they evolve? Is there anything setting them apart from the ones I've heard of, which is probably not what you expect. Because no species is exempt from natural evolution. And nothing intelligent from a cultural shift.