ESCAPE! Fire and Flames (English Version)

Chapter one: Dragons breath

Fiery seeming, he rises to found or destroy our world: The breath of the dragons. When I first saw it, I had just turned 14. But his indescribable power still impresses me today, as it did on the first day.

"Well? do you like it?", the words of the old bookseller rip you out of the story. "It sounds very good," you reply with a smile and avoid his gaze. "Then it's yours now," says the bookseller in a good-natured way. "Really?", the glow of joyful surprise enters your eyes. "For my little Nele. See it as a kind of payment for your help," he winks at you and you look guilty to the ground. Actually, you should have helped him move the bookstore from the big mall to a store outside the city.

But when you saw the book with the dragon cover, you couldn't resist opening it and reading it. One last time sitting on the sofa in the cosy little shop and sinking into a story before the new trend shop would move in here on the second floor of the shopping centre. You would have liked to read on right away.

The old bookseller seems to guess your thoughts: "That's all right! I wouldn't have become a bookseller if I didn't know the magic of these books. You can read on. It's about time for lunch anyway. See you later!" The good old man leaves you alone with these words. You can hardly believe your luck. Instantly you turn around  towards the book with the dragon cover again.

As indispensable and powerful as his breath, so dangerous is the dragon. Especially in his young years he eats sheep and children and burns down whole villages. When the female dragon had built her nest in the immediate vicinity of our homeland, we knew: If we wanted to live, we had to remove or destroy the nest before the young dragons could hatch. I knew it would be difficult and dangerous. But I was not aware of the whole truth: it was a suicide mission.

It is almost impossible to destroy a dragon egg. The shimmering red shell is as hard as steel. None of our axes would have been able to penetrate it. So we had to take them away if the mother had flown away to hunt. When we left it was clear to us that we didn't have much time, because the mother could return any moment. We were all terribly nervous as we dragged the nest to the river in the hope that it would wash it far away from our village. Everything went according to plan, until halfway through the trip a mighty thunder made the earth tremble.

A loud bang in your ears tears up the silence. You think you can even feel the quake on your sofa. This book is really amazing!

A biting smell rose into my nose as I turned around in fear.

Even in the small shop on the second floor of the shopping mall where you are, you suddenly notice an unbearable stench.

I heard the cries of pain of my comrades before I even saw them.

Only when you too hear cries of fear and pain near you, you do look up in horror from your book.