Runaway Dragon

My new... Dragon?

This was it.

Two years of training, studying, working all lead to this. Sleepless nights studying, terrifying hours of testing, gut wrenching anticipation.  But I had made it, I had climbed my way up the mountain and I was finally here, I reminded myself as I dug my fingernails into the palms of my hands to try to keep them from shaking. I stared blankly at my instructor, my brain struggling to focus as adrenaline pumped through my veins.

“You must be the first thing the hatchling sees..” yes, yes I already knew that. I hadn’t spent years learning about this very moment for no reason! “After the initial hatching, you must give it over for its injections immediately to the nurses. After the vitals are checked, you are free to take the hatchling home, and to give it the proper care you have surely been taught in the DT programs.”

“Yes ma’am,” I said, my voice barely a whisper so I repeated it, trying to look like the top notch scholar that I was. I had graduated top of my class, I knew everything from how a dragon can breathe fire to the approximate feeding times a day a hatchling should have. My house was completely hatchling proof, ready for the teething baby dragon, and quite possibly a little puff of flame. No wires in sight, the floor spotlessly clean. Heck, I could basically see my own reflection on the tile that created tribal designs on my kitchen floor.

“Are you ready?” she asked, and for the first time she actually sounded a bit human, her exotic blue green eyes looking me over.

I inhaled slow and counted to five. When I felt like my lungs would explode, I slowly exhaled with a nod. “Yes.”

The white door opened with a hissing noise. And I stepped in.

I was in a painfully white room that domed overhead. With the purity of heaven and the stifling silence of a horror movie. I stood there like a frightened deer in the headlights, my hands rubbing the small collar between my fingers as if it were a good luck charm.

A cackling voice boomed from all around me from the speakers. “Kara Demory, you may approach the egg.” I jumped slightly at the voice before regaining my composure, inhaling slowly once more then releasing me as I walked closer to the prized object which was set on something which looked like a porcelain bird bath.

The egg. My prize. It was a beautiful dark indigo, but as I stared at it I swore I could see whisps of silver twirling just under the shell, like the strokes of wind on a painting. I extended my skinny hand, the freckles on them seeming to shiver as my hand shook slightly. The silver gathered directly under my hand, taking the shape of my handprint. That wasn’t in the handbook.

I stared, starting to hyperventilate. I read about it, I heard the stories firsthand from Rothais. This part was incredibly painful. The second I touched that egg, my skin brushed the hard shell, pain would overwhelm me. My soul was going to be ripped in half, then fused with the dragon’s, my whole being would change, become more than human. Was I ready for this? My pounding heart told me no.

“Miss Demory, are you alright?” a feminine voice called in the loudspeaker.

“Perfectly fine,” I called in a strained voice after jumping from the startling sound of the speakers bursting to life. Then I took the jump. And touched the egg.

A scream cut through the air.

It took me a moment before I realized it was my own.

Pain doesn’t seem to describe the feeling I was experiencing. I watched in horror as my legs locked into place, stiff like a lego, both hands latched on the egg. The terrible, pulsing burning feeling crawled up my hands to my arms and I could visibly watch it as my veins lit up in a brilliant gold. Gold ribbons lacing inside my body, the bone a dim, darker shape inside. It’s killing me. I thought dully, and my locked legs stumbled back. The gold crawled up my arms to my shoulders and I screamed in terror as it latched onto my rib cage, my frenzied heart pumping in defiance of this new enemy.